Amanda didn't dream anymore. She slept like stone and woke like glass. Every sound was too sharp. Every shadow too deep. Her skin no longer told her what was touching it. She just knew.
The coffee pot clicked off at 6:00 AM, like it always did. She didn't even remember turning it on.
Outside, Bon Temps was trying. Trying to forget. Trying to scrub paint off porches, fix windows, rebury whatever had risen when Maryann cracked the surface of the world.
Amanda walked to Merlotte's just to prove she could. She wasn't sure if anyone would look her in the eye. They didn't. Inside, Sam glanced up and froze, but then gave her a quiet nod.
No welcome.
No questions.
Just recognition.
Lafayette avoided her entirely. Tara gave her one hug and said nothing. Everyone treated her like a soldier who came back with blood on her hands but wouldn't say whose.
Amanda didn't blame them. She didn't know either.
Later that night, she found herself sitting in the parking lot.
She wasn't waiting for Lucan. She told herself that twice. Didn't make it true.
He'd left without warning. No word. No call. No trace of his power.
The one being in her life who had made her feel seen, truly seen, was now gone like fog off the water.
She hated herself for missing that feeling. And she hated herself more for wanting it back.
Inside, the jukebox played a slow blues track. Amanda watched the sky. No stars tonight. Just clouds.
-----
Shreveport, Fangtasia. Two nights later.
Pam sat at the end of the bar, ankles crossed, fingers flipping lazily through a leather-bound tablet. She wasn't reading. She was watching the room. The humans had returned too quickly. Like animals who forgot the storm that scattered them. But the tension hadn't left. It was just hiding beneath the mascara and martinis.
She tapped once, slid the screen across to Eric.
"Problem," she said.
Eric leaned over, glanced once, and frowned. Not at the content. At the seal.
Black wax, gold thread, old-school and royal.
'Russell.'
"Mississippi's moving," Pam said. "Faster than usual. Private blood shipments increased. Security doubled around Jackson's old vault systems. And guess who's sniffing around old Authority protocol again?"
Eric sighed.
"Russell's not stupid."
Pam smiled. "No. But he's nostalgic. That's worse."
Eric sat back. His gaze drifted up to the ceiling like he could see through it, to wherever Lucan was.
"He's going to feel this."
Pam raised an eyebrow. "You think he'll care?"
"He'll care," Eric said. "Not about Russell. About the ones Russell will use."
Pam gave a soft hum. "Like Amanda."
Eric didn't reply. But his silence was agreement.
Pam turned, pulled a new file from a drawer beneath the bar. Tossed it onto the counter.
"Also got a hit from New Orleans. Someone's been asking about you."
Eric picked it up. Read the first few lines, then paused.
Pam tilted her head. "Should I be worried?"
Eric's expression was unreadable.
"Not about me," he said. "About what happens when Lucan reads it."
Across the city, a courier left a sealed envelope at a neutral drop point.
No name.
Just a symbol drawn in blood.
Three curved lines.
Lucan's mark.
-----
Amanda hadn't left her house since the bonfire. Not because she was afraid. Because the air outside felt too thin, like her presence bent it just by stepping through it.
Tonight, it bent anyway.
It started with pressure. Low. Steady. In her jaw, behind her eyes. Like altitude sickness, except it wasn't her altitude. It was someone else's.
She blinked and the world shifted.
She wasn't in Bon Temps anymore, she was underground. Stone walls. Lantern light. The smell of sweat and something wet.
A man was kneeling in front of her. He was dying, but not fast or noble. Something had pierced his back and hooked through his ribs, meant to hurt, not kill.
And behind him someone watching.
Not a vampire.
A handler.
Amanda felt herself pulled closer mentally. Like her spirit was moving without permission. She screamed. But only on the inside.
The man was sobbing. Begging. Not for life. For memory.
He was afraid he'd be erased.
Then a name spilled out of his mouth.
Lucan.
Amanda collapsed back into her own body, sobbing, skin ice-cold, chest heaving like she'd drowned and barely clawed back. Outside, the wind died. The trees shifted. And Lucan opened his eyes.
Wherever he was, whatever distance, he felt it.
Not the death.
The call.
Across the city, across the country, a second tether was pulling.