chapter one
not a psychic!
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Rory Stackhouse wasn't one to run late to things... but this time she was running late to work. It wasn't necessarily her fault, if you asked her, she was so deep in sleep after her night shift the night before that she forgot to set her alarm for the evening shift she had at Merlotte's. Normally, Sookie would wake her up so they could both head over there but the youngest Stackhouse took up the morning shift as well that day.
Rory cussed every curse word imaginable as she hurriedly threw the white top over her head and tucked it into her tiny black shorts. Sense she was running behind schedule she left her blond locks down in their soft curls from the day before and took her makeup bag with her into her car.
Both Jason and Sookie had scolded the girl many times about her habit of doing her makeup whilst she was driving, claiming one day she would end up in an accident because of it. Luckily, the girl hadn't, yet, and she kept on doing it, saving her a bunch of time in the morning for her to sleep in.
Sleep was her escape, her only escape. After hearing voices in her head all day and keeping up the facade of normalcy, it sucked the energy out of her body. It wasn't easy to act like you shouldn't be put into a mental institution, act like everyone else around her when she wasn't.
The normal whispers flared up last night after her shift, some words she was able to make up others not. She didn't know what caused it, all she felt was the familiar feeling of dread, like something very bad was going to happen. She had the same feeling when her Mom and Dad died in a flood. She felt like she was drowning two nights before the incident, clawing at her throat for air but she wasn't even under water, she was in her room.
Because of these whispers Rory had stayed up way too late while Sookie slept in the room next to hers with ease. That's why she slept through her alarm and was currently applying her mascara to her eyelashes in a rush as she sat at a red light.
By the time she got to Merlotte's and parked her car, she had applied the finishing touches to her caked face with just some pink lip gloss, quickly getting out of the car and hurrying into the bar and grill that was bustling with people.
Rory spotted Sam behind the bar as he noticed her walking in, lips parted as if to claim she was late and scold her but she beat him to the bunch.
"Yes, I know, I know I'm late!" Rory apologized in a rush as she walked around the bar to where Sam began to lean over it. "It was another migraine, sorry."
"Just get to work." Sam rolled his eyes playfully as he waved her off with his hand. She sent him a smile before running to the back room to get her apron and set her bag into her cubby. She heard Sam call out form behind her but she was already in the back. "Don't make this an everyday thing, Rory!"
Sam loved the girl like his sister, but lately, her late attendance was beginning to become consistent. Her migraines have never acted up as much as they are now, and Rory used that as the excuse to why she was late, which wasn't entirely wrong. He can't just keep letting her off the hook because they were close, he was her boss, he had to show his other employees she would receive the same punishments as them.
As Rory tired her apron around her waist and shoved her notepad and pencil into the pocket, she almost ran into her little sister that was carrying a plate fresh out from the kitchen.
Sookie appeared surprise she was seeing Rory, but a smile graced her lips. "There you are! I thought you'd never show up to work, you were out like a light all day!"
Rory scrambled as Sookie followed her out of the back and back into the bar. "My alarm never went off."
"Never went off, or you just didn't hear it?" Most would think Sookie was trying to make her sister laugh, but her eyebrows were pinched together in worry. When Rory remained silent, she was given her answer and Sookie sighed out. "I'm starting to get worried, Rors, your migraines have never gotten this bad before."
"I'm fine, Sookie. At least they block people's thoughts from my head."
"I don't wanna say it, but, you're lucky in that department, you don't need to hear the vile things people are saying today." Sookie exclaimed, eyes wide in disbelief at the dirty things going through people's minds. Seeing the sour look she was given from Rory, she rushed to elaborate. "I mean, not that you're getting off easy, because you definitely are not, I'm just saying..."
"I gotta get to work before Sam busts my ass again." Rory laughed at her sister's rambling that made the girl blush when she was cut off. Rory grabbed her notepad and pencil and headed to a booth that people just sat down in, she put on her best poker face and welcoming smile. It was three men. "Hiya folks, what can I get for ya?"
She clicked on that southern belle charm everyone said she did best at. Her walls came down and instead of the usual whispers, it was the inner voices of the men's thoughts as one in a red cap glanced her up and down with hunger lingering into his eyes.
If you're on the menu, I'll have you. Damn, look at those tits, I'd love to just rub my face in them honkers...
Rory bit her lip to push her power of reading minds away and not to snap at the inappropriate things the man was thinking. Another man at the table looked up at her after reading the menu.
"Can we get a load of onion rings for the table?"
"Sure can." Rory plastered a fake smile through her burning anger as she scribbled that down on the notepad before she stuffed it into the pocket of her apron. "I'll go get that for you."
Rory left that table as fast as she could, picking up one of the men's thoughts, probably the same guy from before.
Oh, and look at that ass! My, oh my, Tina could never compare to that one!
As Rory passed the bar she picked up on Sookie apologizing to Sam that Tara knew better than to call her at work as she took the phone from him and answered the girl. Rory approached her sister as she hung up the phone at the same time Dawn came by to tell Sookie who sat in her section.
"Mack and Denise Rattray are just about to sit down in your section." Dawn told the girl who spun around on her feet to see before spinning back around as Sam joined them from the other side of the bar.
"Don't let 'em get to you, chere." Sam advised the girl he was hopelessly in love with, which everyone noticed besides Sookie herself. "They're not worth it."
As Sookie went over to take their orders Rory went to the window in the back that opened to the kitchen, leaning against it as she put the ticket up for the onion rings.
"Onion rings, Lafayette?" Rory called to her friend that cooked the food, placing her arms on the metal still, feeling the heat from all the frying waft her face and make her flinch. "And if you happen to drop a few on the floor that's fine with me."
"Got it." The dark skinned male responded before he looked up at the girl mindlessly leaning over the counter, a smirk lifting his lips. "Oh, Aurora. Chicka-chicka-bow-wow. You're lookin' like a porn stare with that tan. And pink lip gloss. You got a date?" Lafayette leaned across the opposite side of the counter curiously as he eyed the girl who looked all dolled up.
"No. When I wear makeup, I get bigger tips." Rory shrugged calmly, before flipping her hair over her shoulder. "It's also a gift for you, me looking this hot." She teased the gay man who was probably her best friend, no, was definitely her best friend.
Lafayette laughed as he turned back to the fryer. "Yes, girl, that's it. These damn rednecks are suckers for packaging." Sookie strolled up to them to put in an order.
"And you get even bigger tips when you act like you don't have a brain in your head." Sookie commented with a slightly eye roll. "But, if you don't, they're all scared of you."
"They ain't scared of you, honey child." Lafayette smirked at the clear virgin in their midst. "They scared of what's between your legs."
"Lafayette. That's nasty talk." Sookie scolded with a disgusted tone. Arlene, who arrived to put an order in laughed in disbelief and also amusement. "I won't listen to that."
"Do you even know what's between a woman's legs, Lafayette?" Arlene mused.
The man turned to the three women on the opposite side of the counter. "I know every man, whether straight, gay, or George ma-fuckin' Bush is terrified of the pussy."
"Lafayette!" Sookie shouted in disgust.
Dawn approached from behind them, joking their sides. "Oh, what are we talking about?"
"Pussy." Rory informed her amusingly, receiving a disgusted nudge and loud scold from her virgin sister beside her, disbelief Rory would say those things. Rory almost laughed at her cluelessness. Sookie was twenty-five and had never had sex, and she always used to ask Rory when she was younger how it was and what happened, sense Rory was the second eldest Stackhouse sibling. Rory had had some kinky experiences in the sex department before but never, had she went to vampires unlike her friend Dawn beside her who was kind of a sex fanatic.
Dawn was what one called a fangbanger, someone who took pleasure in having sex with vampires as they glamour you and drain the blood from you. She still had two bites marks from their teeth on her neck if you looked closely. Almost everyone knew Dawn hung out at vampire bars, Rory wasn't the only one. But, Rory found out from her older brother, Jason who has a little fling with Dawn going on.
"Hey, not everybody is gay, okay?" Arlene said in disbelief although her laughs opposed her. "Not everybody wants to have sex with you."
"Oh, you would be surprised, Arlene." Lafayette rose his eyebrows seductively at the red head. "People you know." Arlene scoffed. "That's all I'm saying."
"Well, I don't wanna have sex with you." Dawn stated with a little smirk as she waved her chocolate hair around. Arlene nodded, chiming in, "Uh-nuh. Me neither."
"Shit. Ya'll bitches don't know what you're missin'. I got six gears on these hips." He thrusted his pelvis against the fryer as it shook and Sookie watched the three women around her imitate moaning and scoffing sounds, in shock.
"Uh. No, baby. You don't know what you're missing." Dawn strutted as she turned her back to them, slapping her ass as she walked away. "You can watch her walk away. Make you wanna slap it? Huh, you wanna slap it?"
"Everybody know that." Lafayette said as her voice echoed from deep in the bar. "Everybody been there. Ain't that right? John's been there." He pointed to the other chef in the kitchen with him.
Arlene smirked as she walked away, not before jiggling her breast towards them. "I'm slappin it. Take these, baby. Peaches and cream."
"I'll give you a little cocoa. Little cocoa."
As Arlene took her leave, Rory took her turn as she wiggled her hips that shook her jiggly bum. "You forgettin' these rocken hips, baby. They more than just birthing." She laughed as she walked away to take more orders, some onlookers that were men who sat at the bar watching her backside as she did.
Lafayette's laugh rang through the air, waving his spatula in the air. "You know it, bitch! Shit."
Sookie, in horror at everything that just went down, scurried away.
"Well, why can't I keep a job?" Rory picked up Tara and Sookie's conversation as she approached the bar, going behind it to make a drink a customer asked for as Tara sat with a margarita in front of her, sulking.
Rory smirked lightly as she leant over the counter. "Maybe because you can't keep your mouth shut."
"Bitch, who asked you?" Tara said before sending her a wink to tell her she was just playing. Rory chuckled as she went back to making the alcoholic drink. She didn't pay attention as Sam came over to Sookie on Rory's side of the bar and started to flirt with her.
All of sudden, a ringing filled Rory's ears and her movements stopped. Everything other sound around was of in the distant, and then the ringing was replaced with the eerie sound of wind blowing through trees, creating soft incoherent whispers arise. She let the feeling guide her eyes around the bar until she found herself staring at a booth where a pale man with brown shaggy hair and a trench coat sat down. Her skin turned cold and the hairs on her arm stood up. She had never felt like this more, like she was a decaying dead body.
Apparently Sookie had a different reaction when spotting the mysterious man with no sun on his skin as she flipped around to face her friends and coworkers stood near her, a bright giddy grin on her face.
"Oh, my God. I think Merlotte's just got its first vampire."
Sam stare was hard and cold as he looked at the vampire that drew Sookie's attention off of him. "I think you're right."
"Can you believe it? Right here, in Bon Temps?" Sookie exclaimed in excited disbelief, her reaction quite different from the other three. "I've been waiting for this to happen ever since they came out of the coffin two years ago." Sookie was off to take the vampire's order before Sam could stop her.
Tara, now on edge with an alarmed look, spotted how Rory had frozen up, her complexion pale as she stared at the vampire that was now conversing with Sookie. "Rory, you okay? You...You look like you've seen a ghost."
Sam, turning and seeing this as well, laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You look pale, you feeling okay?"
Rory forced her entranced state to go away as she removed her eyes from the vamp and put them on Sam and Tara's worried ones. The cold and dead feeling never left her and it made a shudder crawl down her spine. "Yeah, yeah, I'm... Fine. It was just a draft, I think."
Rory stayed in that spot as Sookie rejoined them and leant against the bar beside Tara as they watched Denise and Mack Rattray sit in the vamp's booth, trying to talk to him with smirks and laughs.
"What a bitch." Sookie appeared bothered as her eyes never left the booth. "You really think that she's gonna let him bite her?" She gestured to Denise who was inching closer and closer to the Vampire with desire.
"You know how many people are having sex with vampires these days?" Tara questioned with distaste. "And sometimes those people disappear."
"No." Sookie shook her head in denial. "He's not like that."
"Okay, okay. You spoke to him for, like, a minute. You don't know how many people he sucked the blood out of over the last however many centuries he's been alive."
"But he's so not scary."
"Sweet Jesus in heaven, Sookie, he is a vampire."
"Yeah, but the synthetic blood has everything —"
Sam leaned over the bar, staring at the defiant blond. "Are you willing to pass up all your favorite foods and spend the rest of your life drinking Slim-Fast?"
Sookie looked down before she went back off towards the booth she couldn't stop staring at.
When Rory saw Sookie a few minutes later it was to grab Rory by her wrist and drag her back out into the bar in a hurry. "Rory. Rory, we have to stop them."
Rory drew her eyebrows together as Sookie dragged her. "Stop who? Why?"
"The Rattrays. They're gonna drain him and sell his blood. We have to stop them."
Tara walked up to them when when she spotted the two, now with her purse ready to go home. Her stare was hard and in disbelief that Sookie would want to get involved in that. "No, you don't. We don't have to get anywhere near that vampire."
"Tara, I am very disappointed in you and your small-mindedness."
Rory's eyes widened at her sister.
"Sookie." Sam said as he approached the three. "The vampire can take care of himself. I promise you."
Sookie turned to her sister with an eager look, hoping of all people she would understand sense she has a soft spot for vampire's like herself. "Rory?"
Sookie found herself frowning when Rory wouldn't meet her eyes until when she finally did, they held an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Sook, I got a bad a feeling."
"You and your feelings always getting in the way." Sookie rolled her eyes, not caring that her words were insulting people as she turned back towards the booth only to see it empty. "Shit!" Sookie ripped her apron off and raced out the front doors of the bar to go and try to save the vampire.
Sam cursed as he untied his own apron, looking at Tara. "Tara, you know how to tend a bar?"
"Uh, No, no."
"Fake it." Sam pushed his apron into her arms before running into the back doing god knows what.
"Shit." Tara muttered in anger as she dropped her purse on a stool and tied the apron around her waist. She placed a reassuring hand on Rory's shoulder, sensing Sookie's words hit her a little too hard. "Hey, she didn't mean it, you can't help that your Psychic."
"I'm not a fucking Psychic." Rory quickly denied, hating when people called her that.
Tara raised an unconvinced eyebrow as she placed a hand on her hip. "Then how is it you just know things?" When all she got was silence, she sent Rory a knowing look.
"Ugh, I don't know, okay? I just do!" Rory groaned in annoyance, beginning to get worked up. Tara felt a smile twitch the corners of her lips as Rory's frustration built, saying to her, "We got vampires, Psychic isn't the craziest idea to throw on the table, Rory."
Tara watched as Rory rolled her eyes, groaning once again like a child before retreating into the back and wait for Sookie, who she thought Sam left Tara to handle the bar to save.