Look Before You Leap [True Blood]

23: Last Line Of Defense

RPOV

Alcide was preparing to leave for the packmaster challenge. I was sitting on the couch not really watching TV and holding a barely touched bowl of pasta. Alcide ran down stairs and stopped next to me. "You need to eat," he told me.

"It's pretty hard to do that when you might die today," I said sitting the bowl on the coffee table. I stood up and took a step towards him.

"I'm going to be fine, I promise." He touched my cheek and then leaned down and kissed me softly. "I'll be back in a few hours. In the meantime you just stay here." He sat me down on the couch and grabbed a blanket to pull around me.

I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him closer to me and kissed him more forcefully than we he'd kissed me. "I love you."

"I love you too." He kissed me again and then turned and went out the front door. As soon as he was gone I grabbed the clothes I had stashed under the couch and changed out of my pajamas. I ran out to my car and in a few seconds I was pulling out of the garage and on my way to the old barn that belonged to the pack.

When I arrived everyone was already inside and I slipped in the door without anyone noticing. A man in the front of the room was introducing JD and Alcide. I walked up to join the pack. No one seemed to realize I didn't belong; they must have been too focused on the presentation. I looked for Rikki and found her in the front row. I thought about going up to join her but I knew Alcide would notice me so I hung back. I was almost trampled by a couple of wolves dragging a teenage guy up to the front of the room.

JD had taken over the center of attention and was ranting out going back to their root and some bullshit like that. I stepped around a few people and stood behind Rikki. Alcide was so busy staring at JD he didn't even see me. "What's going on?" I hissed in her ear. She started but quickly realized who I was.

She didn't draw attention to me by facing me and spoke under her breath. "When two people are up for Packmaster we have them hunt an animal. JD has picked that kid."

"That's a person! You can't hunt a person!" I said shocked. She shushed me as my voice was rising.

"In case you were thinking this isn't much of a challenge, this kid is a track star at the university," JD said. I felt nauseous. JD wanted to kill this college student who had his entire life ahead of him. The more upset I got the more threads of emotion I could see but it was impossible to find JD's. The room looked like a spider web and I thought I was going to have a panic attack. Alcide was speaking but I couldn't hear. It felt like someone was stuffing cotton in my ears. Alcide was close and I could see him now over Rikki's shoulder and things got a little clearer, though this also meant he could see me. His eyes widened but he kept talking to Rikki. I tried to focus on what he was saying but it was still hard. "You can't drop out!" Rikki said. I understood that well enough. I stepped forward and grabbed Alcide's arm.

"You can't let him win, Alcide! He's insane!" I said.

"You shouldn't be here, Rachel," Alcide told me. He tried to push me back into the crowd but JD had already seen me.

"And look who we have here, the pretty human girl that Alcide is dating. What sort of Packmaster dates a human? It's not natural," JD said. He yanked me to the front of the room. Now that I was so close to JD and spaced out from everyone else I could find JD's thread easier. I snagged it and injected it with pain, lots of it and he feel down to his knees.

"I'm not human, you worthless piece of shit," I told him.

"Witch," he managed to get out through clenched teeth.

"Nope, try again."

Alcide grabbed me, making me lose focus. JD gasped in relief. "Stop, Rachel."