Hello lovelies! Something new, something borrowed and something AU. Sookie/ Eric centered. It will get MA after the first few chapters. I hope you enjoy this ride. Characters aren't mine just like playing in other peoples sand box. Reviews are appreciated and help me tune my tempo. They will fuel my advancement of this story.

I should have read the contract, I skimmed it over, but I should have read the damn thing. What they were asking me to do was monstrous. How do you destroy a monster without becoming one yourself? I knew when they recruited me fresh out of nursing school that I'd be assisting with lab subjects. I was to care for them. See to the daily requirements for them. What I didn't know was that the subjects were vampires. Horribly incapacitated vampires. In my defense the contract was damn vague. The were referred to as animals. I was thinking bunnies, monkeys and the like. I thought I could ease their suffering and show them some compassion, give them love and hope despite their circumstances.

I walked into this nightmare blind. Mariette lead me down this bleak corridor filled with concrete box cells with glass walls facing the staff hallway. In each of the cells a vampire was strapped to a steel and silver alloy table. Thick leather wrapped silver bands held each one in place at the neck, chest, wrists, hips and ankles. Not that the sad looking creatures could have moved if they wanted to. They were extremely emaciated, with sunken eyes that looked at nothing and their skin was an odd yellowish color, like a fading bruise.

I'd met a handful of vampires working at the local dive, but I didn't know any personally. They were far and few between these days. They were highly secretive, and they did a good job of blending in. I could tell the difference though it seemed no one else could outside my family anyways. I'm not an exactly normal human, no one in my family is. We have "gifts" that would scare the Jesus right out of people if they knew. I'd been told since I was small to keep very quiet about my oddities. People in our town just think us a bunch of eccentric crazies, better crazy than under the dome. Anyone out of the norm disappeared and was never heard from again. Taken by force to the Silver Domes.

Vampires had this luminosity to them, like moonlight on the water that I could clearly see but for reasons unknown no one else I knew could. I kept quiet after I pointed out the first. When the Human Securities Squads showed up after my boss reported him I felt terrible. They took all Vampires to the Silver Domes. There where 13 across the United States. They were reservations for Vampires and other oddities to keep them away from society. We'd all been told that they lived their immortal lives there. We were told they were provided for and amongst their own where they lived peacefully and contentedly where they were no threat to humans.

Once a long time ago they walked around freely like the rest of us but that was before the Culling. People, as they tend to be, are a panicky herd of skittish beasts. The longer the vampires were out and being themselves, groups of zealots started banding together. Their rhetoric and propaganda shouted from every social and media outlet that the vamps were out to destroy us eventually came to head and the loudest proponent the Reverend Steve Newlin took charge of the movement. With a seemingly endless stream of money from the church and the hoards of scared people willing to do any number of atrocious things The Light of Day Institute was created. LODI's sole purpose was to eradicate the vampires. As time passed and the endless stream of vamp on human violence was broadcast, more and more humans began to believe all the hype and all that lead to a mass panic, which lead to the Culling.

The scientists working for the anti-vamp group created a hemolytic virus that only affected vampire physiology. The began inoculating everyone who would consent, creating an army of carriers. LODI sent it infected carriers into vampire bars, brothels and any other circuits where vamps were sure to feed from the infected. The virus was devastating. It caused all red blood cells in a vampire system to go into lysis. With all the vampires blood cells rupturing in minutes, death was fast and horrifically painfully. Thousands died in weeks, hundreds of thousands in months. Like all viruses there where some who were immune that survived the months of biological attacks. Those vampires who were immune to the virus went into hiding. They all just disappeared back into the darkness like before the Great Revelation. They still walked among us pretty regularly, but they took great efforts to avoid crowded places and made damn sure they were as human looking as possible. Far as I could tell it was working since me and my family were the only ones who could see the difference in them. We all made sure to not notice that difference, for our and their safety.

I looked in at the pitiful immortals strapped to tables looking half dead and I felt ill. This was not a Silver Dome, it was a research facility in the middle of Shreveport. This was not supposed to be! Yet here I stood tasked with caring for these test subjects. There were unbelievable wounds on some of them. Doctors and nurses conducting procedures on conscious subjects. I wanted to puke. I could feel the pain and despair rolling out of each cell. This was part of the oddity I was born with. From humans I could hear and see their thoughts and with vampires I could feel emotion, and of course see the otherness about them. Sometimes I got flashes from them and those were usually terrifying, like an angry pit of vipers curling around each other, cold and dark.

"Susanna! Are you listening?" Mariette snapped her fingers in front of my face and I snapped out of my thoughts and their pain.

'Yes, sorry I got distracted." I said quickly.

"Are you sure your prepared to be care taker to the damned?" She asked pinning me with an uncertain look.

I looked into the cell next to me at the blond man laying their suffering acutely and nodded. His eye, he currently only had one, rolled to me and held me captivated in his pained gaze. I felt his presence like an icy chill behind my eyes. Words whispered like a prayer slithered beneath my skin and broke chills all over my skin." Save me, take me home." pleaded in the deep places of my mind. A violent shiver ripped through me, it always did when the dead spoke. I'd try to do for them what I planned to do for the poor animals I thought I was going to care for.

"Very well then. You will be responsible for subjects C4 through C11. I'll take you to Lena and she will go over your list of duties, security precautions and nondisclosure policies." With that she spun on her heel and headed back towards the pod control center.

I followed her, haunted by the sad pained gaze of the blond man in C11. I couldn't get the feel of his icy thought out of my head. I rubbed my arms trying to get the chill off me, but it hung on like a barnacle on a boat. There was something about him. Something about the way he watched me. His voice in my head brought on memories of dark rooms and broken bones.

I walked into the pod control center and Mariette led me to a severe looking dark-haired girl and introduced her as Lena. She looked me over like I was trash and indicated a stack of forms.

"In here you will find a list of your duties, safety procedures and the nondisclosures statements you are to follow. See to it you follow all of them to the letter." She said nastily.

I hated her immediately. I hated everyone I'd met here to this point but the pain I'd felt in those damn cells compelled me to keep going. Everything in me told me to walk away from the awful place. This place was clearly run by LODI and they were keeping it quiet. The Vampire Rights Advocates had lobbied for the protection of vampires during the Culling. They'd only been partially successful. From their efforts the Silver Domes were created to keep humans and vampire segregated from each other without ending their kind. I'd do my best to show them some compassion in anyway I could manage. I doubted they'd seen an ounce of it since they'd landed in this wretched place. I had no reason to love any of them but all I could feel was their raw pain and utter despair.

I spent the next two hours going through the never-ending pile of paperwork Lena had heaped into my hands. After carefully reading and filling out paper work I had finally completed the introductory package. I could have got it done much faster, but I'd already learned my lesson about not reading through things all the way hence my presence here working for LODI. I carried the huge pile back to Lena and informed her that I was done. She looked over all the documents and nodded from time to time.

"Alright I will take you on your rounds now. You have 7 vampires which you will look after. They get 15 CC's of rat blood every 8 hours. It's enough to keep them alive but not enough to make them a threat to us." She told me like these weren't living beings. Dead or undead or whatever they were that just sounded wrong to me.

I'd heard that vampires could survive on the blood of animals but that it was like living on bread and water for humans. It would keep you going but just so. I felt a stab in my gut at the idea of anything suffering. Just being kept alive for the sole purpose of finding a way to destroy them. I pushed down the sick feeling inside me, so Lena wouldn't see my distaste. I was determined now more than ever to be the light in the darkness for these poor souls.

She took me past each cell explaining the age, tests and chores I'd be tasked with, with each vampire starting at C11. My god, I had never seen anything alive or dead in such bad shape. All of them were heavily experimented on. Wounds in various stages of healing, some were being experimented on as we stood in front of their cells. They were in varying levels of consciousness. Some muttered to themselves in various languages, some just stared at the walls or ceilings with unseeing eyes and some were completely unconscious, and others were screaming in pain. One more cell to go and I didn't know how I was going to stand through staring at another badly abused vampire while Lena relayed all the pertinent information about them.

When we reached C4, I got an icy chill all over me. It prickled across my skin and through my mind. He could feel me here. I knew it like I knew where I was. He only had one good eye and that eye was half open and looking towards us but not at us.

"This subject is C4 he is the oldest specimen on your section and one of the oldest in the center." Lena said with great pride.

I shivered all over when his frosted gaze lolled over to meet mine. I heard the strange whispers of his pleas in my mind again. A shot of realization slipped into his eyes as he stared at me. Jesus Christ Sheppard of Judea did he know I could feel and hear him. I got the distinct feeling he knew I was different. Shit! Our eyes locked for a moment before I studiously stared into Lena's eyes to see if she noticed what passed between us. She was looking over her notes and clearly hadn't seen it.

"This one will be your priority. He's our most used subject as his age gives him advantages over the other younger damned." She said flatly.

"Very well how often shall I tend him?" I asked as the journal of care indicated that I only see to the subjects every 3 hours.

"On the hour, every hour, even if that means being past due on the others." Lena explained. "He is critical to the doctor's research, he must be in the best condition within limits."

She spun around to me and shoved a stack of orders into my hands and told me to start with C11, the youngest. She was 150 and badly abused according to the charts. Daily dissection of different body systems, UV tests, new viral loads to see if it took and its effects. I felt ill all over again. If this is what they did to the young, my heart bled for C4. I nodded and headed for the cell at the start of my section.

"They will try to sway you Susanna. Don't be fooled by the words of the damned." She warned.

"I won't." I assured her as I keyed in the code on the key pad and walked in to see my first patient. I quickly surveyed the room figuring out where all the supplies were located and pulled the cart from the corner of the room. She looked awful. Her hair was matted with dried blood, she had dried blood all over her gown and skin. Her throat and wrists were raw from where she'd fought against her restraints. I'd hope had I found myself in this position that someone would see after my hygiene and not just my wounds. I filled a basin with hot water and grabbed a wash cloth and soap off the shelf and pulled a clean gown out of the cabinet under the sink and got to work cleaning her up.

I spoke to her softly as I started my work. I washed her hair and careful cleaned her body avoiding her wounds, I'd get to those soon. I told her my name and that I was her new caretaker.

"Don't you worry C11, you've nothing to fear from me. I won't hurt you." I told her softly.

Now that I had her clean and looking much better than when I walked in. I pulled out stitches and bandages to close her weeping wounds. I closed the several small punctures on her thighs and calves and wrapped them in clean bandages. She had deep burns on her right arm. I hunted through my cart and found some salve and non-stick dressings. I hated that I was going to have to scrub away the ruined flesh before I could apply the dressings.

"I'm sorry C11. I know this is going to hurt and I'll be as delicate as possible, but I have to remove the ruined skin, so you'll heal." I explained.

I got down to business and got her all patched up in 40 minutes. Watching her face twist in pain and her muscles jerk while I tended her burns was horrible. How was I going to get through the rest?

"I'm finished. You're all patched up and clean. Now let's get you some blood." I said cheerfully as I could muster.

She half growled, half grunted, and I took that as her agreeing with my plan. I pulled out a syringe and drew up her 15 CC's of blood from the bag in the little refrigerated compartment on my cart. I watched her as her system absorbed the rat blood I'd shot into her vein. After a few minutes she looked the slightest bit less haggard. She still had that sick looking yellow tint to her skin, but it wasn't as pronounced now. I still had to do this with six other patients, it was going to be a long damn night.

I worked hard with all my next five patients, cleaning them up, feeding them and patching up their various wounds as best as I was able. I made sure and took the time to talk to all of them. I wondered when the last time someone had, when the last time was that they heard any kind of gentleness or compassion in the voice of their captors.

I referred to them all as my patients. I refused to call them subjects. Dead or undead they were still alive and deserved respect. I spent no more than 45 minutes with each since I had to make C4 by the hour each hour. In each cell I felt their frail consciousness push against my psyche, as I fed them their ration of rat's blood. I watched as they assimilated the muted sustenance. I felt like I died a little each time. I hoped they could hear me and know that I wasn't there to hurt them as the others did but I got no response other than their deep-seated pain that washed over me. They were essentially comatose by the time I got to each of them. The doctors and scientists did their work during the daytime since the vampires were at their weakest then.

I walked up to the keypad for C4 and expected nothing different. I keyed in the code and stepped into his cell. His entire person shifted pushing against the restraints that held him in place as I walked up to him. He certainly knew I was there. His eye rolled open and he looked at me with drug fogged eyes as I approached. He had six different bags of fluids running into his veins through PICC lines in his arms.

"I'm Susanna. I'm here to look after you." I told him. "I won't hurt you."

I grabbed supplies from my cart and explained what I was going to do to him. "I'm going to clean you up, dress your wounds and feed you."

He grunted in response to what I'd told him, his pleas to be set free by any means battered my mind. I had no idea how the hell he was able to project his thoughts into my mind, even if it wasn't clear like the thoughts from a human mind, the sentiment was clear. No other vampire I'd ever encountered had ever been able do such a thing. It was as unsettling as it was fascinating. I wished there was more I could do for him. Looking at him I could tell that once this man was a warrior. He had scars from when he'd been alive, the kind you saw in historical movies. I also knew he was old and that vampires got stronger and more powerful the older they got. It was absolutely undignified for someone that had lived so long to be reduced to nothing more than a lab rat. However, the thought of ending up in a place like this shut those thoughts down immediately.

I began my survey of his wounds and checked his charts to see what procedures he'd had done. I felt a wave of nausea as I read over his chart. Organ tissue had been removed and brain tissue samples had been removed as well as he'd had liquid silver put into his eye socket to keep it from healing. He was missing several chucks of flesh from the procedures they'd done to get samples from his organs. I closed and dressed those wounds first since they had just been left open and were still seeping blood.

The right side of his skull was uneven and when I looked it as clear that part of his head had been tampered with to get the brain tissue. The skull had been replaced and the skin just taped down with surgical tape. I felt the bile rise in my throat. I stitched his scalp back together and wrapped the large incision.

I got a basin of warm soapy water, a few wash clothes and towels and a fresh gown. I gently washed the blood from his face and neck. I smoothed his hair back from his sweat soaked face. I didn't know vampires could even sweat!

"I wish I knew what to call you besides C4, it seems so wrong to call you by numbers." I spoke soothingly.

I cupped his cheek as I washed the blood from the other side of his face careful to avoid the bandages I'd just wrapped his head in and a single fang ran down. I jumped at the sudden appearance and sound. I felt his pain and sadness creep across my skin.

"Its ok. Don't you worry about it. I know you're hurting." I whispered to him.

I finished cleaning him up and patching his wounds the best I could. I pulled out the prepared rats' blood and slipped it into his arm. I injected the animals' blood into him and watched as it slightly improved his condition, his glow got just slightly brighter and I wondered if they could see it like me.

His one unruined eye looked right at me and I felt that pit of cold viper's rip across my skin. "Save me." He whispered into my mind. I grit my teeth and steeled my mind against the slithery cold that raced down my back

"Release me, save me." Echoed behind my eyes and I felt the sting of the tears that I was fighting back. Pain and sadness tinted with anger rolled of him and filled the room making it hard to breath.

"I'm so sorry C4. I can't." I murmured as tears burnt the backs of my eyes.

He stared at me with his one good eye, utter shock unmistakable in his eye and I felt him push against my mind. It was like the beginning of a head ache, a prickling sensation followed by a dull heavy feeling.

"You hear me?" slithered into my mind.

Shivers screamed through my veins as he focused into me. I shuddered violently as I felt the dark ice of his thoughts in my mind.

I was worried that the surveillance would see my reaction, so I slammed my shields down around my mind and schooled my face into false serenity. If they even thought me able to communicate with him I'd probably be sent to a Silver Dome or worse end up a subject here. I tried carefully released the holds I had on my shields and did my best to send my thought back on the thread I felt from him and outwardly act as if nothing at all had passed between us.

"I can." I thought as hard as I could. When he didn't respond I nodded.

His one good pupil blew to the max and I was worried that he was dying. Following protocol, I injected him with a second vile of rat's blood. The reaction to that second dose of blood was immediate and he looked a lot more there than he'd been.

"Susanna." He stuttered on the mental thread we were connected by.

My eyes shot to his good one. I felt the panic building in my chest, I was really risking a lot poking around in here. I wanted to run, and I pulled away from him immediately.

"Please don't!" He shouted to me mentally. "Just stay with me until you have to go."

I nearly died. My heart was beating in my chest like a trapped bird. My head reeling from the force of his thoughts, I had an instant headache. I grabbed some gauze and began wrapping the still open incisions on his left arm, while trying to shake off the cold ache in my head. I was totally running on auto pilot at this point.

"Breath Susanna." He panted. Holy freaking shit! He'd just said that out loud.

I stared at him as I finished bandaging his arm. What the hell. None of the others could communicate with me, no matter the care I lavished on them.

I began looking over him to see what other wounds needed tending to. His right side was open and looked angry. Blood was slowly trickling from the incision there. I knew vampires didn't need stitches, but that wound was gaping open and I needed to do something with it. I found a surgical super glue in the drawer of the cart and got to work closing it.

"How? "I murmured softly looking him in his eye.

'Old." He spoke in my head.

"Jesus Christ on a hot butter biscuit!" I hissed to him lowly. I swear I saw the corner of his mouth twitch.

I was about to ask him to just whisper to spare me the deep ache his thoughts caused me when four doctors walked into the room with Lena. They began circling C4 and prepping him for a procedure.

"Thank you, Susanna, you've done a sufficient job of patching him up." Lena said. "we'll be taking him back for further testing now."

I felt C4 slam into my mind trying to hold on as they wheeled him from the room. "Save me." He screamed in my head.

The force of his thought damn near dropped me to my knees. I took a deep breath and focused on his one good eye as they wheeled him away. "Be strong C4." I whispered down our fragile mental link. I hoped that this time he heard me.

"Back to your rounds Susanna." Lena hissed at me as she followed the doctors leading C4 away.

I turned back to my other patients all of which were agitated. I rechecked all the wounds I had dressed earlier. All were starting to heal at different rates. I cleaned and redressed all their incisions and fed them their next round of rat blood. I could feel C4 quietly in the back of my head the entire time and he was in horrible pain. I didn't see him again before my shift ended.

I drove home thinking of the feel of him in my head and under my hands. I pulled up to my condo in lower Shreveport still thinking of the blond man from C4. I mindlessly cooked myself a dinner of chicken, potatoes and beans. I sat at my table set for one and ate my meal as a free woman. I felt the strange feeling of injustice as I thought of his one blue eye staring at me.

I drug myself sluggishly to the shower to wash off the horrors of my new job. I should have read that damn contract closer I thought the whole time the hot water and soap slide down my person. I wondered when the last time it he was that he'd had a good meal and a hot shower. I dried and dressed myself in my favorite nightgown. A blue and silver slip that hit my mid-thigh. It was hotter than hell this morning and the fan wasn't helping at all.

As I slipped into a fitful sleep I dreamt of crooked grins, sly hands and one dangerous voice. I dreamt of C4. His silky blond hair, his azure blue eyes with mischievous crinkles at their corners and rough yet gentle hands.

I jolted awake in a hot sweat at 4pm panting and wanting. What I wanted was just out of reach. No, no I was not going to think of him that way. I flipped the covers off and made for the coffee pot. I had 2 hours til I had to be back at the compound, silent Silver Dome as I had begun to call it.

This is how my days and nights had gone for the last two months. Taking care of my vampires at night and dreaming of C4 during the days. I was only thinking about C4 and how he was doing which was insane since he was my patient with whom I'd only spent such a short amount of time. During that short amount of time though I'd spent a lot of time talking to him. He'd also spent a lot of time talking to me too. Mostly in my head which I'd become accustomed to, though it still gave me headaches and sometimes he'd speak to me in a barely audible whisper.

My dream of him today had been more intense than usual and I'd overslept. I ran through my afternoon routine getting myself ready. I slicked my hair back into a smart pony tail and slid into my plain grey scrubs, no time to add any makeup today. I packed a lite lunch since I knew I'd be ill seeing the condition of my patients I hadn't gotten used to the savagery I tried to repair nightly. I grabbed my purse, jacket and keys and headed out to my night at the compound.

I scanned through the 3 check points it took to get to the pod control center and checked in with Lena. She looked pissed and angry just like yesterday, and the day before and the day before that. I swear that woman has a stick permanently lodged in her ass.

"You'll start with C4." She commanded. 'He requires immediate attention."

I nodded to her and took my charts. I felt a thick lump building in my throat. What the hell had they done to him that I had to bypass the younger vampires to go directly to him. I reviewed the previous night shifts notes on his condition and the steps they had taken towards his care and I felt the lump get thicker.

I sped down the halls as casually as possible towards C4. When I arrived at the glass wall to his cell I stopped breathing. He was covered in a sheet bloodied in several places. His head was lolled to the right and his skin was the sallowest I had seen on any vampire in the facility.

I punched in the code that would let me into his cell and nearly died when his hollow eyes rolled around as they tried to focus on me. His eye that had been missing was healed for the most part, it was red and raw looking but all there.

"Please, no more." I heard him whisper as I approached him

Something inside me tore hearing him beg for mercy. Not in all the time I'd been caring for him had I ever heard him plead. I pulled the cart from the corner with all the medical supplies on it. I felt for him with my mind and found the thread between us weak and flickering. I wrapped that fragile line with tenderness as I approached him.

"It's Susanna C4, I won't hurt you. I promise." I said and pushed tenderness toward him.

I watched as he felt me, he shivered and blinked rapidly as he tried to find me. Something was seriously wrong with him tonight. I could feel his confusion and fear, neither of which had I ever felt from him before. He opened his hand and began feeling around for me. I took his hand in mine and caressed the back of his hand with my thumb while I smoothed his hair out of his face.

"God, I have to be careful or they will notice what's happening in here. I don't want to go to the Silver Dome." I told him just shy of a whisper since I knew he could hear stuff the audio recorders couldn't. He squeezed my fingers in his palm and nodded before releasing me.

The fact that he wasn't speaking in my head was worrying me even more. He always had some cheeky comment for me.

"I'm going to help you the best I can. I'm going to see what they've done to you last night." I said with a heavy sadness as I pulled back the sheet to see the damage they'd done to him.

I sucked in a sharp breath. I was absolutely horrified at what I saw. Four large incisions on his chest and abdomen. Several small incisions on the left side of his neck and shoulder. And bruises everywhere. They'd drained him. His chart said they'd taken 4 pints of blood from him. My heart bled for this vampire, this man. No one should be subjected to such poor treatment.

'Eric." He rasped, his voice thready and raw. I must have looked confused because a few seconds later I felt him weakly push into my mind "I'm Eric." He whispered into my mind.

I smiled. I'd ask him a few times for his name so I could call him something other than C4 but he'd declined and I'd stopped asking. He trusted me. I knew that's what it meant for him to give me his name. I looked into his healing eyes and stroked the hair back from his sweat soaked face.

"Alright Eric. Let's see what we can do to get you feeling better." I whispered into his ear as I cleaned the blood from his neck and shoulder. I knew he needed blood and a lot more than what they allotted the patients here. He received much less than the other vampires under my care. Only 7 CC's every 8 hours.

"Am I hurting you?" I asked quietly. The rooms were recorded, and video monitored, always, so I had to be discreet. I couldn't have them thinking I was a sympathizer. The members of the VRA were blacklisted from damn near everything in society.

He shook his head slightly. "Always gentlest treatment, I receive here." He said quietly.

I bit my lip and felt my heart sink. I felt so much sadness at what he'd said. I was pulling and clipping his wounds trying to close them and stem the blood leaking from his wounds and this was the kindest treatment he'd been shown here.

I had no doubt that him at full strength was a terrifying thing to behold but he had a gentleness about him that was heartbreaking. There was good in this Vampire. I was certain anyone including myself was insane even thinking such a thing, but I knew. I felt it wash over me when he got inside my head. Under the cold slithery feel of a vampire mind was something more.

"Well Eric I've done all I can. It's time for your blood." I told him as I prepped the dose of blood he was to get. I added a few extra CC's of human blood that I'd squirreled away that would hopefully help him heal a little more.

I injected the blood into his vein and watched as his system metabolized it. His skin looked slightly less yellow. The corner of his mouth quirked up into a smile.

"Thank you for the extras Susanna." He spoke in my head. When he spoke aloud it was stinted and barely understandable but in my head the words were much clearer.

"You glow different when you're doing better." I told him softly.

His eyes shot to mine and I could see the questions burning there. He'd trusted me with his name, so I felt it only fair that I trusted him with a little secret of my own.

"Sookie." He breathed.

I nearly swallowed my tongue. No one called me that except my family. How the hell did he know my nickname?

I pulled the thin blanket the facility provided to its patients over him as my mind screamed danger! I squeezed his hand as his eyes started to flutter closed.

"See you in an hour."

I moved through my next five patients binding broken bones, sealing open wounds and administering their doses of blood. All comatose as usual.

When I got to my last patient she was staring at the ceiling. A muscle in her cheek twitching furiously.

"Well you are certainly looking a mess tonight." I told her as I began dressing her wounds.

Her eyes locked on to mine and glared at me. I injected her dose of blood into the one good vein I could find. I could see the change as her body used the blood to repair the damages on her person. I dampened a rag and started cleaning her up. I washed and brushed out her matted hair as carefully as possible.

"There you go, looking much better." I told her silent staring form.

"Tha…nk you." She hissed her lip curling up to reveal the tips of fangs.

I was shocked out of my mind! She was the youngest on my circuit and I couldn't believe she was conscious. Two months and not a word.

"Uh, you're welcome." I said

"For… him." She lifted her head and groaned.

It was apparent that she was struggling to speak to me. I was confused. What the hell? Was she delirious?

Her eyes struggled to focus in my direction. "Eric." She gasped.

I could tell that every word she uttered was painful. She was thanking me for Eric? How'd she even know that I knew Eric?

"Maker." She hissed out before falling back onto her slab exhausted.

Holy freaking hell! This woman was Eric's childe. I knew a few limited facts about vampires. I knew that vampires linked by blood could communicate in ways we couldn't understand. I needed to know more about vampires. I needed first, second or third hand knowledge. I knew we'd all been kept in the dark about vampires and anything about them. How long had it been since we were all aware of them? How long had these atrocities been going on?

"You're welcome. I'll do my best to see after him." I told her reassuringly.

Her fangs retracted, and she bobbed her head in understanding before she fell back into the comatose state all my patients were in except Eric.

I made the rest of my rounds including Eric. He was completely out for the rest of my shift but considering his state I wasn't terribly shocked. Even thought his eyes were closed and unresponsive I could feel him feel me each time I entered his cell.

I was sitting in the pod control center charting all my efforts for the night when I saw Lena approach.

"Susanna, I need to speak with you." She said in an annoyed tone.

"Of course, what can I help you with? I asked.

She looked at me with a measured stare. I felt uncomfortable as she evaluated me.

"You've spoken often with C4 recently. He seems to be willing to communicate with you. He speaks to no other here. Has he told you anything we should know about?" Her gaze cut into me.

"No, nothing. I answered. "He only mentioned that I had given him the gentlest treatment since he's been here." I told her truthfully. "and his name." I wanted to slap myself for letting that little bit of information go.

"Interesting." She muttered as she mulled over the information I'd given her. "What is his name?

I was feeling suddenly like Judas. At the risk of them knowing other wise and not wanting to betray him further "Eryn." I told her as calmly as possible.

"Should he relay anything else to you I'll expect to be informed immediately."

"Of course, Lena." I responded. I'd already decided that she could go to hell. I'd give her nothing. I felt unexpectedly protective of Eric.

"Thank you for giving us his name. We didn't know before now." She said gleefully a wicked smile curling her lips. "5 years of silence and now you get the answers we've tried to bleed from him."

I felt sick, I'd almost betrayed a secret trust. Poor Eric he'd been so strong, and I'd nearly sold him out.

I left the dome angry and sad. I had to educate myself before I did any irreparable damage to my patients, especially Eric. 5 years! He'd been here 5 freaking years.

When I got home that morning I pulled out my laptop and Googled everything I could find on vampires. I searched shit that would probably land me on some secret government list, but I didn't care. I needed to know who I was working with. The ins and outs of their physiology, their capabilities, relationships with their and our kind and all the research humankind had on them.

What I really needed was to talk to a free vampire. No one would give me better intel. I knew where to get it. I just had to pull up my big girl panties and go after it.