Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1)(92)

My brother came in. He stood by my bed for a long time, staring at my face. He said finally, heavily, “I talked to the doctor for a minute before she left for the cafeteria with JB. She told me what-all was wrong with you.” He walked away from me, took a turn around the room, came back. More staring. “You look like hell.”

“Thanks,” I whispered.

“Oh, yeah, your throat. I forgot.”

He started to pat me, thought the better of it.

“Listen, Sis, I gotta say thank you, but it’s got me down that you stood in for me when it came time to fight.”

If I could have, I’d have kicked him.

Stood in for him, hell.

“I owe you big, Sis. I was so dumb, thinking Rene was a good friend.”

Betrayed. He felt betrayed.

Then Arlene came in, to make things just peachy keen.

She was a mess. Her hair was in a red tangle, she had no makeup, and her clothes were chosen at random. I’d never seen Arlene without her hair curled and her makeup loud and bright.

She looked down at me—boy, would I be glad when I could stand up again—and for a second her face was hard as granite, but when she really took in my face, she began to crumble.

“I was so mad at you, I didn’t believe it, but now that I’m seeing you and what he did. . . oh, Sookie, can you ever forgive me?”

Geez, I wanted her out of here. I tried to telegraph this to Jason, and for once I got through, because he put an arm around her shoulders and led her out. Arlene was sobbing before she reached the door. “I didn’t know . . .” she said, barely coherent. “I just didn’t know!”

“Hell, neither did I,” Jason said heavily.

I took a nap after trying to ingest some delicious green gelatin.

My big excitement of the afternoon was walking to the bathroom, more or less by myself. I sat in the chair for ten minutes, after which I was more than ready to get back in bed. I looked in the mirror concealed in the rolling table and was very sorry I had.

I was running a little temperature, just enough to make me shivery and tender-skinned. My face was blue and gray and my nose was swollen double. My right eye was puffy and almost closed. I shuddered, and even that hurt. My legs . . . oh, hell, I didn’t even want to check. I lay back very carefully and wanted this day to be over. Probably four days from now I’d feel just great. Work! When could I go back to work?

A little knock at the door distracted me. Another damn visitor. Well, this was someone I didn’t know. An older lady with blue hair and red-framed glasses wheeled in a cart. She was wearing the yellow smock the hospital volunteers called Sunshine Ladies had to don when they were working.

The cart was covered with flowers for the patients in this wing.

“I’m delivering you a load of best wishes!” the lady said cheerfully.

I smiled, but the effect must have been ghastly because her own cheer wavered a little.

“These are for you,” she said, lifting a potted plant decorated with a red ribbon. “Here’s the card, honey. Let’s see, these are for you, too . . .” This was an arrangement of cut flowers, featuring pink rosebuds and pink carnations and white baby’s breath. She plucked the card from that bowl, too. Surveying the cart, she said, “Now, aren’t you the lucky one! Here are some more for you!!”

The focus of the third floral tribute was a bizarre red flower I’d never seen before, surrounded by a host of other, more familiar blooms. I looked at this one doubtfully. The Sunshine Lady dutifully presented me with the card from the plastic prongs.

After she’d smiled her way out of the room, I opened the little envelopes. It was easier to move when I was in a better mood, I noticed wryly.

The potted plant was from Sam and “all your coworkers at Merlotte’s” read the card, but it was written in Sam’s handwriting. I touched the glossy leaves and wondered where I’d put it when I took it home. The cut flowers were from Sid Matt Lancaster and Elva Deene Lancaster—pooey. The arrangement centered with the peculiar red blossom (I decided that somehow the flower looked almost obscene, like a lady’s private part) was definitely the most interesting of the three. I opened the card with some curiosity. It bore only a signature, “Eric.”

That was all I needed. How the hell had he heard I was in the hospital? Why hadn’t I heard from Bill?

After some delicious red gelatin for supper, I focused on the television for a couple of hours, since I hadn’t anything to read, even if my eyes had been up to it. My bruises grew more charming every hour, and I felt weary to my bones, despite the fact that I’d only walked once to the bathroom and twice around my room. I switched off the television and turned onto my side. I fell asleep, and in my dreams the pain from my body seeped in and made me have nightmares. I ran in my dreams, ran through the cemetery, afraid for my life, falling over stones, into open graves, encountering all the people I knew who lay there: my father and mother, my grandmother, Maudette Pickens, Dawn Green, even a childhood friend who’d been killed in a hunting accident. I was looking for a particular headstone; if I found it, I was home free. They would all go back into their graves and leave me alone. I ran from this one to that one, putting my hand on each one, hoping it would be the right stone. I whimpered.

“Sweetheart, you’re safe,” came a familiar cool voice.

“Bill,” I muttered. I turned to face a stone I hadn’t yet touched. When I lay my fingers on it, they traced the letters “William Erasmus Compton.” As if I’d been dashed with cold water, my eyes flew open, I drew in a breath to scream, and my throat gave a great throb of pain. I choked on the extra air, and the pain of the coughing, which pretty much hurt every single thing I’d broken, completed my awakening. A hand slipped under my cheek, the cool fingers feeling wonderfully good against my hot skin. I tried not to whimper, but a little noise made its way through my teeth.