Read Dead to the World for Free Online

possibly read their thoughts—just someone else’s. God knows, I try to act and talk like I’m not receiving an unwanted spate of ideas and emotions and regrets and accusations, but sometimes it just seeps through.
    “She’s not your kind,” I said, looking into the fire.
    “She surely ain’t a vamp,” he protested.
    “No, not a vamp.”
    “Well, then.” He glared at me belligerently.
    “Jason, when the vampires came out—when we found out they were real after all those decades of thinking they were just a scary legend—didn’t you ever wonder if there were other tall tales that were real?”
    My brother struggled with that concept for a minute. I knew (because I could “hear” him) that Jason wanted to deny any such idea absolutely and call me a crazy woman—but he just couldn’t. “You know for a fact,” he said. It wasn’t quite a question.
    I made sure he was looking me in the eyes, and I nodded emphatically.
    “Well, shit,” he said, disgusted. “I really liked that girl, and she was a tiger in the sack.”
    “Really?” I asked, absolutely stunned that she had changed in front of him when it wasn’t the full moon. “Are you okay?” The next second, I was chastising myself for my stupidity. Of course she hadn’t.
    He gaped at me for a second, before busting out laughing. “Sookie, you are one weird woman! You looked just like you thought she really could—” And his face froze. I could feel the idea bore a hole through the protective bubble most people inflate around their brain, the bubble that repels sights and ideas that don’t jibe with their expectation of the everyday. Jason sat down heavily in Gran’s recliner. “I wish I didn’t know that,” he said in a small voice.
    “That may not be specifically what happens to her—the tiger thing—but believe me, something happens.”
    It took a minute for his face to settle back into more familiar lines, but it did. Typical Jason behavior: There was nothing he could do about his new knowledge, so he pushed it to the back of his mind. “Listen, did you see Hoyt’s date last night? After they left the bar, Hoyt got stuck in a ditch over to Arcadia, and they had to walk two miles to get to a phone because he’d let his cell run down.”
    “He did not!” I exclaimed, in a comforting and gossipy way. “And her in those heels.” Jason’s equilibrium was restored. He told me the town gossip for a few minutes, he accepted my offer of a Coke, and he asked me if I needed anything from town.
    “Yes, I do.” I’d been thinking while he was talking. Most of his news I’d heard from other brains the nights before, in unguarded moments.
    “Ah-oh,” he said, looking mock-frightened. “What am I in for now?”
    “I need ten bottles of synthetic blood and clothes for a big man,” I said, and I’d startled him again. Poor Jason, he deserved a silly vixen of a sister who bore nieces and nephews who called him Uncle Jase and held on to his legs. Instead, he got me.
    “How big is the man, and where is he?”
    “He’s about six foot four or five, and he’s asleep,” I said. “I’d guess a thirty-four waist, and he’s got long legs and broad shoulders.” I reminded myself to check the size label on Eric’s jeans, which were still in the dryer out on the back porch.
    “What kind of clothes?”
    “Work clothes.”
    “Anybody I know?”
    “Me,” said a much deeper voice.
    Jason whipped around as if he was expecting an attack, which shows his instincts aren’t so bad, after all. But Eric looked as unthreatening as a vampire his size can look. And he’d obligingly put on the brown velour bathrobe that I’d left in the second bedroom. It was one I’d kept here for Bill, and it gave me a pang to see it on someone else. But I had to be practical; Eric couldn’t wander around in red bikini underwear—at least, not with Jason in the house.
    Jason goggled at Eric and cast a shocked glance at me. “This is your newest man,