Tonight was a beautiful night for grave robbing.

The sky was clear. The gentle breeze was nice and relaxing. The moonlight was bright with the star-showered constellation framing the sky, while the cicadas sang a midsummer symphony in the background. It was a picture-perfect evening to do anything but nefarious deeds.

Susan “Sookie” Alkin grabbed a shovel from the trunk of her car and hefted it over her shoulder, all while cursing her younger brother in silence. This is the last time I do something this crazy. No more. I’ve had it. I won’t bail out his antics after this. He has to grow up and he needs to start taking some responsibilities.

But when her gaze collided with her younger brother, Jesse, her anger evaporated in an instant. He always had that effect on her. Jesse was her soft spot. Her weakness. Their mother’s dying wish echoed inside her head, “People come and go, Sookie, but bloods are forever. Watch out for your brothers for me.”

As her mom whispered those last words, she had no idea that Dad and John had already passed. Her parents had taken John, Jesse’s twin, to the ER for a sprained ankle and on the way there, an eighteen-wheeler T-boned their sedan in a practically deserted intersection. The impact killed Dad and John instantly. Mom was in critical condition when Sookie and Jesse arrived frantically in the hospital. Mom was conscious for a short time before she slipped into a coma. Three days later, Mom died, leaving her and Jesse orphaned. Sookie was seventeen years old at that time, Jesse only seven. For the past nine years, Sookie had practically raised her brother on her own.

And it hadn’t been easy.

Jesse was too mischievous for his own good.

He kept getting into problems one after another. Even if he was trying to be a good boy. As his older sister, Sookie was obligated to keep him out of trouble. After all, Jesse was the only one she had left in the world.

Why can’t he be a good kid and hold a normal job? Sookie often lamented. Her brother Jesse had just celebrated his sixteenth birthday last month and he had an incredibly short attention span. He was a bright kid but got easily bored. When he got bored he stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and so far, nothing good had ever come from that.

Jesse gusted a long-suffered teen-age sigh. “I know, I know. You’re thinking I’m incredibly stupid for doing this. I’m an irresponsible kid, yada yada yada,” he drawled. His voice dripped with regrets that never lasted. “Trust me, if I knew somebody else I could ask for help, I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do this. You’re my only hope, sis. Plus, I know you’re the only person who’d never rat me out. You think Steve and Matt would keep this to themselves if I ask for their help? They’d brag about this on Snapchat.”

Jesse’s best friends, Steve and Matt, were equally as airheaded as he was. Steve was worse because he seemed to be stoned most of the time. Luckily, Jesse stayed away from pot. He hated smoke and the taste of alcohol. Sookie often thanked God for small miracles.

Without saying a word, Sookie skewered Jesse with her famous death glare. Her brother was only sixteen but he was already a foot taller than her. His body was fit and toned because he played football at school. He was a running back. But despite his brawny build he possessed an angelic face. He was the reflection of their late father when their dad was young. From the light, golden, straw color of his hair, to his baby-blue eyes and Patrician nose. Even his easy smile.

Jesse appeared to be immune to her scowl. He grinned boyishly because he knew she couldn’t stay mad at him, no matter how big of a mess he got her into.

Sookie cursed silently again.

I should have been more firm with him. I should have spanked him more often when he was young. I shouldn’t be helping him to dig a grave in the middle of the night. What if we get caught? Who’s going to post bail? We don’t have anybody else. It just me and him against the world.

“I’m sorry, sis. I swear I won’t do this anymore,” he whined.

“Talk is cheap, Jesse.”

“I mean it.”

She sighed.

They were poor, basically living from paycheck to paycheck. She worked as inventory loader in a home improvement store, and lately, her employer had been cutting hours due to the recession. She couldn’t afford any surprise expenses. Money was tight as it was.

“Tell me why we’re doing this again?” she asked.

“I need to retrieve a package that Zeke hid in the coffin. You know Zeke, right?”

She nodded. “Your boss’s son.”

“Then you know I can’t say no to him. After all, he’s the one who got me this job. Zeke had a fight with Mr. Burke all day yesterday. Mr. Burke confiscated Zeke’s stuff and even seriously did a pat-down before Zeke left so he can’t carry his goods out—“

“Wait a minute, slow down. Goods? What do you mean by goods?”

He made face. “I don’t know.”

“Jesse!”

“I seriously don’t know. I heard Zeke did some dealing on the side. My guess is he’s moving some pot.”

Sookie went ramrod straight. “Are you telling me we’re about to desecrate a grave to dig up a package of marijuana?”

“Sssh. Lower your voice.” Jesse looked around. “I swear to you, I don’t know what’s in the package but Zeke told me it worth five grand.”

“Forget it. Possession of marijuana of that amount is a freaking felony, on top of desecrating a grave. We’re not going to do this. We could go to jail for a long time.”

“But sis, if I don’t get that package, I’ll owe Zeke five grand.”

“Tell Zeke to dig up the grave himself. How is it your fault in the first place?”

Her brother looked sheepish under the bright ray of moonlight. “It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to think. Zeke gave me the package to hide it somewhere. I didn’t want to bring it home because you’d have a fit about it—”

“You’re damn right, I would!”

“See? I can’t bring it to school either ‘cause they frequently do locker checkups. So I decided to hide it in the funeral house.”

“Inside a casket? Did you forget to pay your brain bill this month?”

“I thought this was safe.” Jesse widened his puppy-dog eyes. “This casket is worth twenty-five grand. We rarely move a casket that expensive. When I found out Mr. Burke had moved the Savon—”

“The what?”

“The casket. Savon casket. It’s the Rolls Royce of the casket world. By the time I found out Mr. Burke had moved the Savon from the showroom, I was too late. It was a quick burial. The family didn’t even hold a wake or a funeral service. I was told the deceased has connections with the mob and the family wanted to hush the whole thing up.”

Great. Just fucking great. Oh Jesse, what am I going to do with you? Sookie swallowed hard. She had a bad feeling about this. Why wouldn’t she? They were about to become the grave robbers of a gangster family in this bones orchard. Desperation settled in. There was no easy way to get this one. “Can you talk to Zeke about this? Can Zeke recover this package himself?” Sookie tried to reason.

Jesse let out a deep consternation. “Don’t you think I haven’t already tried? He said either I dig it up or I pay him five grand.”

“You’re sixteen. How are you supposed to come up with five grand?”

Jesse’s shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry, sis. I had no other choice.”

Damn, damn, damn.

“Oh, Jesse.” Sookie counted to ten before she made her decision. “Fine. If we don’t get arrested when this is over, swear to me that you’ll stay away from Zeke.”

Her brother’s face lit up. “I swear. This is the last time I do something this stupid.”

“You’d better. ‘Cause I’m done bailing out your sorry ass. No more, Jesse. No more.” Sookie knew her threat was like a Chihuahua’s bark. Big noise, but no bite. She’d still bail him out no matter what kind of trouble he got himself into. To hell and back.

Bloods are forever.

She grabbed a gaslight lantern and a plastic bag that contained bottled water from the trunk and slammed the lid down. “Let’s go.”

Jesse eyed the plastic bag. “Do we really need those?”

“Have you seen Supernatural? Grave digging is a hard work. I’ll be lucky if I don’t break my back after this is over.”

“I’ll do all the house chores for a month to make it up to you,” Jesse offered. “I’ll even do the cooking.”

“No thanks. You can do the chores but there’s no reason for you to poison me.”

“Well, sor-ry. You never taught me how to cook.”

“I’ll teach you how to cook when you learn how to distinguish between cooking and science projects.”

“It’s called modernist gastronomy. Every young chef is doing it on Youtube. It’s cool.”

“Uh-huh. Turning a three-pound fish filet into something that looks like cat food isn’t cool. Let’s find this grave and get this over with.”

Jesse smashed his lips into a thin line and stalked toward the cemetery fence. The Sacred Heart Cemetery sprawled over a few acres of land on the outskirts of town. It was an old cemetery owned by a Catholic church. It used to have a small chapel right by the entrance, but the building was levelled two years ago. The city claimed that small chunk of property as eminent domain to build an overpass. The dispute was still going on between the city and the church.

The fence wasn’t properly secured and judging from the look of it, there was no security camera present anywhere. Sookie and Jesse got in easily. They spent a good twenty minutes navigating among the tombstones before Jesse located the grave that they were looking for. A lonesome funeral bouquet perched sadly on top of the plot. Fresh sod was installed over the previously dug area. The grave was marked with a simple marble plaque that read: Here lies our beloved son and brother, Marcus Eddie James. Engraved below it was Marcus’s date of birth and date of his passing, which was only two days previous.

Sookie read it and found it a bit odd. The deceased was only twenty-five years old. One would think someone that young who had met an untimely demise would spend more time in the morgue, waiting for an autopsy. From the time of death to be buried in the grave in two days seemed fast, as if his family couldn’t wait to deliver dear Marcus into his final resting place as soon as possible.

“Does Marcus Eddie James sound like a gangster name to you?” asked Sookie.

“What do you expect? Don Vito Corelone?”

“Who?”

“The Godfather, geez. Watch a movie once in a while.”

“Don’t you take that tone with me, boy.” Sookie put down her stuff and lit the lantern with a match and turned it on dimly. The moonlight and the lantern gave them enough illumination to work. “Let’s dig. I only help you up until we reach the casket. You’ll deal with the rest. I don’t want to touch any corpses.”

“You don’t have to.”

They started working by removing the flower arrangement and the layer of sod. Jesse used a flat blade shovel to chisel away the outline of the grave. It had been a hot and dry summer, the dirt was easily crumbling and breaking down. They dug four inches down and Sookie’s shovel hit a solid surface.

“What is this? Don’t tell me we hit the coffin already. I thought they buried people six feet under,” said Sookie. She cleared the area with her hands.

“That’s must be a plywood the diggers use to reinforce the grass. Otherwise, the ground might collapse and create a sinkhole.” Jesse shoveled away the dirt until he found the seam where he could lift the plywood. “And actually, they don’t dig six feet deep anymore these days. The average depth for a grave is approximately four feet. That’s because the casket itself is placed inside a concrete box with a flat lid.”

Sookie stopped digging. “How are we supposed to open the concrete box?”

“A crowbar would do nicely.” Jesse threw a nod over his shoulder. He had a flat tool on the side of the mound that Sookie didn’t see he was carrying. “I’ll make it work somehow.”

“Great. This night just keeps bearing gifts.” Sookie resumed the back-breaking work. She bit her tongue, refraining from chiding her brother for the ten thousand things that could go wrong with their night excursion. She saved that anger and directed it toward digging the never-ending layers of dirt.

After they removed the plywood, Sookie vehemently attacked the soil with her shovel and soon the mound around them grew. Even though she was blessed with generous curves, she was physically fit, thanks to her day job. She moved pallets of merchandise like tiles, concrete bags and grass seeds to the display floor, often without a forklift, running around the store all day to keep up with the schedule, cranky customers and an equally cantankerous manager.

They moved two feet of soil and Sookie was already exhausted.

“Why don’t you take a break, sis?” Jesse noticed she was out of breath.

Sookie drank some water and continued digging. “I want this over with. The sooner the better.”

“It won’t do you any good if you collapse.”

“You can just bury me in here, then.”

Her brother didn’t squeak a word at her being snappish. They worked in silence. Sookie thought she was going to faint but her fear of being caught prompted her to pour her energy into moving more earth from a stranger’s final resting place. Just when she thought she couldn’t do it anymore, her shovel hit another hard surface. The excitement alone was enough to wash off her exhaustion. She felt as if she had found a pirate’s treasure instead of desecrating a grave.

“Finally,” Sookie hissed sharply. "I thought I was going to die."

“I’ll take it from here.” Her brother was bathed in perspiration but he oddly didn't look as winded as she was.

Sookie had to take a breather. Sweat soaked her shirt. Earth found its way into her clothes and it felt like she was coated with grit and mud. Her legs were shaky and her lungs burned. She trudged toward her water bottle and climbed out of the hole. She drained the bottle while watching her brother shovel the remaining soil off the top of the casket liner.

Once the dirt was cleared, Jesse tapped along the edge tentatively. Sookie put the lantern down for better lighting. Her brother took the crowbar and shimmed it on the liner edge, seeking traction to push the lid up. Jesse grunted and fiddled with what he was doing for a few minutes.

"Problem?" Sookie asked.

"Nothing. It just—" Jesse grunted again. "The lid is sealed. With some. Ugh. Sticky tar. Ugh. Almost..."

She heard the metal graze against something made from wood and stone, then a loud creak. At this point Jesse was hacking the concrete lid as if it was his number one enemy. She inwardly sighed. They were beyond making their presence inconspicuous. She just wanted to get this over with. Jesse wanted to recover Zeke's package.

At long last, Jesse was able to open the concrete lid. It had been with sheer determination that he accomplished it.

Sookie helped him to push the lid up, propping it against the mound.

A beautiful mahogany casket lay inside the yawning earth. The polished hardware gleamed under the anemic light. Sookie let out a whistle. She could see the great craftsmanship of the casket. Jesse was right. This was the Rolls Royce of caskets. What a freaking waste. Throwing twenty-five grand away on something that was going to be buried in the ground. It wasn't like the resident of the casket was going to know it anyway. Twenty-five grand was her total earnings last year. It had put her and Jesse under a roof. Paid their utility bills. Put food on the table. Sometimes the way rich people spent their money disgusted her.

"I'm going to open it," Jesse announced.

"Do you know how?"

Her brother cast her a dark look. "Hello? Who’s the handsome devil working in a funeral home?”

Sookie sniffed. She snatched the lantern and climbed out of the hole. Digging it was her limit. Ogling a corpse was out of the question. She took another breather, watching the sky.

From the pit, Jesse grunted again before he said something that sounded like, "Eureka!"

It seemed he was able to open the casket.

Sookie averted her gaze from the hole, bracing for any smell of decomposition. How did Dean and Sam Winchester manage to do this kind of stuff in the show? All she was missing right now was rock salt and lighter fluid to assist the malevolent spirit passing into the next life. Sookie bit the inside of her cheek so she wouldn't grin. Despite how bone-tired she was, doing this kind of stuff was kind of cool.

"Umm, sis?" Jesse called from the hole.

"Did you find the package?" Sookie half-expected to smell something awful by now.

"Ah, yeah, but, sis..." Jesse faltered. "Take a look."

"No thanks. I’m not fancy to see Mr. Corpsey. Just get your stuff and fill this hole."

"I think you really should take a look.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. Please?”

Sookie rolled her eyes. She lifted the lantern and peered down. A waft of formaldehyde and something sweetly rotten assaulted her nostril.

Then, she saw it.

For long minute, she couldn't make heads or tails of it. Slumbering inside the final resting place was a body of misshapen man. Grotesque was an understatement. Every inch of his skin covered in black matted fur. He was unclothed and face down. From where she was kneeling, she could see the back of his head bore a hole. His brain matter glistened in the light. Pink and grayish in color. There were also multiple bullet holes visible on his back torso and...hind legs.

Oh, God, what the hell is this?

Sookie tore her eyes from the sight. She fought a nasty urge to barf. That's not a man. That's...a monster. It's not possible. I'm hallucinating...

"Jesse..." she finally mustered an effort to speak. Her voice came out like a wheeze. Her stomach twisted.

She didn't hear a reply.

"Jesse!"

"Yeah." Her brother's voice was as weak as hers was.

"Grab the damn package and let's get the hell out of here. I have a bad feeling about this."

"Aren't you, at least, a bit curious? I mean, this man was a total freak, dude."

Sookie temporarily had forgotten that Jesse was a teenager. A boy of sixteen. Kids his age would find something this abhorrent fascinating. Especially for a kid like Jesse.

"We should, like, take pictures or something, or maybe collect some samples. I really should make a video out of it and post it on YouTube," Jesse drawled on. "This is an internet sensation waiting to happen. It's going to be bigger than alien autopsy or even—"

"Jesse! Are you fucking stupid? I thought you were smarter than your airheaded friends," Sookie barked. "Forget filling in this hole. Let's just leave..."

Her words trailed away when she realized they were no longer alone. Their bickering had attracted some attention. There were four men in billowing trench coats closing in on them from two different directions. They shone their bright flashlights into her face and the hole.

Sookie squinted.

Crap, crap, this isn't happening. We got caught.

Inside the grave, Jesse was still rambling on and on, totally unaware that they had been discovered.

"Jesse, shut up!" Sookie barked again. Oh God. How are we going to get out of this one?

The men stopped a few feet from them.

A thousand excuses ran inside her head and none of them was good enough to offer as a plausible explanation without implicating what she and her brother had done. She had a feeling what they had witnessed somehow was worse than desecrating the grave itself. Those men didn't look like cops or the employees of the cemetery. No, sir, they weren’t. The men were built like Mack trucks with menacing gaits and hardened faces. At this distance, Sookie noticed that they were packing. Flashlights weren't the only things they were holding. Sookie never would have guessed this was the day she would look into the barrels of guns. Her blood ran cold. Her heart froze in her chest.

Sookie was choked with fear. "Jesse!"

Her brother stopped dawdling. "What is it?"

"Put your hands behind your head and get up slowly," a burly man with a shaved head and sunglasses commanded her with a steely voice.

Sookie did what he asked. "I don't want any trouble."

Shaved Head seemed to be their leader. "Move away from the hole."

The other men barked an order to Jesse. Her brother startled at first, then grumpily climbed out of the hole, cursing under his breath. He saw the shaved head and murmured conspiratorially at her, "Geez, what kind of asshole wears sunglasses at night?"

Sookie stomped on his foot so Jesse would shut up. She drew a deep breath before she spoke to the shaved head, "Sir, we have a perfectly good explanation for this. My brother here accidentally stowed something in the expensive casket and we have to—"

"Shut it." The shaved head tilted his head and talked to one of his henchmen, who wore a long ponytail. "Is it open?"

"Yeah, they saw it."

"Nope, nope. We didn't see anything, hear anything or do anything. We aren’t even here," Sookie said quickly, hoping that these men would let them go.

Jesse seemed to realize that their situation was, indeed, dire and decided to be a good boy by keeping his mouth shut.

Shave Head narrowed his eyes. They were yellow. The fuck? Sookie shivered inwardly. Who the hell are these people?

Shave Head gestured with his gun. "Walk that way."

"But, sir—"

Sookie screamed when she heard a loud bang. Shave Head had fired a warning shot and the bullet had missed her by an inch. She pulled Jesse against her, shaking. But her brother’s body tensed, he was bristling. Jesse was rather attached to her. Once he outgrew her by a foot, he thought he was her protector. "No, Jesse," she hissed sharply. "Don't do anything stupid. Just do what he said."

"Like hell."

"Please, Jesse. Listen to me for once." Sookie turned to shave head. "We're cooperating. Don't shoot, please."

Shave Head gestured again, rather irritably. He seemed to be a man of few words.

Sookie tugged Jesse to start moving. Her brother didn’t budge until she pinched his arm. He cursed under his breath, trudging along grudgingly.

Behind them, the ponytailed man ordered the other two to fill the grave hole. He then joined Shave Head. The men herded Sookie and Jesse for a long walk to where they’d parked their car. A white van and a black Escalade flanked Sookie’s old Saturn. Sookie wondered how these men found out that the grave had been disturbed? Did they install security cameras or something? But I didn’t see anything resembling a camera when we were digging.

Jesse caught her eyes as a panic was settling on them.

She quickly shook her head. "Don't worry, everything will be all right," she whispered. "And please, don't do anything stupid."

Sookie knew her brother all too well. Jesse was toying with the idea of outrunning the men to their car. Just because he was fast, it didn’t mean he could outrun bullets.

When they got to their car, Shave Head ordered them to empty their pockets. He crushed their cellphones with his steel-toed boots. Ponytail took away their shoes, bound their ankles and then bound their wrists behind their backs with zip ties. Their mouths were covered with duct tape when Sookie started asking questions. She and her brother were then crammed into the back of the van.

Ponytail sat with them. Shave Head made a quick phone call before he entered then van, sitting shotgun. They waited quite a long time before the two other men returned. One slipped behind the van’s steering wheel and the other went to the Escalade. Sookie assumed they must have filled in the hole that she and Jesse had dug. Her feet and hands felt numb from the ties that restricted her blood circulation. Her legs cramped and her nose was itchy just because she couldn't scratch it. The men were no longer pointing their guns at them, but she felt even more terrified than before. Jesse was too. She could see it in his eyes.

They drove for what seemed an eternity.

Sookie gazed outside the windows. The dark night danced beyond the glass. The men didn’t talk, didn’t offer any explanations. She couldn’t speak a word through her taped mouth. It seemed they were headed away from the city from the lack of buildings and inhabitants. Shadows of trees replaced the urban scenery and the road became uneven and bumpy. They travelled on the gravely dirt for a while before they finally stopped.

Shave Head barked some orders. Ponytail grabbed them by their collars and yanked them out of the van. Sookie wildly scanned her surroundings. These men had taken her and Jesse to some kind of dilapidated factory in bum-fuck nowhere. He cut the ties on their ankles so they could walk. Shave Head marched them inside an old warehouse.

The sharp smell of chemicals assaulted her nostrils. It seemed the offense came from the pails of farming fertilizer stacked tall in narrow rows. Shave Head urged her to keep up by shoving the barrel of his gun on her kidney. Sookie yelped. It fucking hurt. She cursed under her tape.

A pair of heavily-armed men greeted them with death stares as they rounded the corner. A few words exchanged between Shave Head and the guards before one of them opened another door deep into the recessed area of the building.

As soon as they passed, the surroundings changed drastically: the corridors and labyrinth of rooms looked new and high-tech. The walls were plastered with metallic chrome. Gone were the dingy and noxious environments. It was clear to her that the old decrepit warehouse was only a front for some kind of sophisticated operation. Dark thoughts spun in her head. Did Jesse and I stumble into an organized crime affair? Or a meth lab? Human trafficking? She glanced at Jesse, fervently praying that they would be spared from whatever fate awaited them.

People swathed in lab coats bustled through the corridors, consumed with their own thoughts and barely gave them a glance. Sookie stole a glimpse into a room when a man exited a door; chimps’ screechings reverberated, rattling in their cages. It alarmed her. What kind of place is this? She had no doubt that these people conducted illegal experiments on those poor animals. What the hell did we get ourselves into?

They were herded into an expansive room where a group of men seemed to be waiting for their arrival. The room itself was only furnished with a table with two folding chairs facing a plush office chair on the opposing side. A twenty-something man dressed in a sleek business suit occupied the comfy one. Shave Head seated her and her brother on the folding chairs. Ponytail replaced Jesse’s ziptie with a pair of handcuffs. He also put a manacle on his neck with the chain bolted into the concrete. Jesse protested behind the duct tape.

For some reason, Shave Head released her ties. He then tore the tape from her mouth.

“Fuck!” Sookie cursed. She was pissed by their treatment of Jesse. “Is that really necessary? He isn't going anywhere. We're cooperating."

Ponytail jabbed her side with the butt of his gun. Sookie flinched in pain. Jesse struggled against his ties and Ponytail moved to discipline him as well.

“Stop it!” Sookie begged him desperately. “Don’t hurt him. Please.”

The Suit observed her in silence. She didn't like the look in his eyes. The man was calculating her worth. “What’s your name?” he asked. His tone was indifferent.

“Susan. Susan Alkin. And this is my brother, Jesse. Sir, this is all a misunderstanding—“

The Suit held up a hand.

Sookie quieted.

“What were you doing in Marcus’s grave?” he asked.

Sookie gulped nervously. “You see, sir, my brother works at Burke’s Funeral Home. He accidentally left an important package inside the expensive casket, so regrettably, we had to retrieve it. We didn’t mean disrespect in any way toward your family, sir.”

“A package?”

Sookie traded a gaze with Jesse. “The package doesn’t belong to my brother. Jesse’s only holding it for the boss’s son.”

“What’s in the package?”

Sookie hesitated to answer. “It might be marijuana.”

Laughter exploded unexpectedly. “You dug up Marcus’s grave because your brother stowed some weed in his coffin?” He looked amused. His scary henchmen let out obligatory grins.

“Yes, sir, please let us—”

Suit cut her plea short with a wave of his hand. His Rolex watch glimmered under the bright fluorescent light. “Did you open Marcus’s coffin?”

“Well, my brother did.”

“Did you see Marcus’s body?”

“We didn’t know what we saw and we didn’t want to know. We don’t want any trouble.”

Suit made a sound of disbelief. “But you two saw what’s in it.”

“But, sir—”

“Ms. Alkin, the two of you have put me in a difficult position. Therefore, I am compelled to offer you a proposition.”

“Excuse me?”

“Now, now, you can’t expect me to let you and your brother go after everything you’ve seen, can you? You will work for me if you want your brother to be spared.”

Sookie opened and closed her mouth. This asshole was using Jesse as leverage. She thought for a second. “Is it something illegal?”

“Does it matter? You and brother had a possession of controlled substance. You vandalized a grave and on top of that, you saw something you shouldn’t have. You’re hardly in any position to put yourself on a high pedestal.”

Damn it. Sookie swallowed hard. “I-I understand.”

Suit snapped his fingers. His men brought a suitcase to the table. Suit opened it and plucked out an ampoule containing red liquid. He tore open a package of syringes and assembled a sterile needle. With one smooth motion, Suit filled the syringe from the ampoule. Shaved Head took the syringe from Suit and walked toward Jesse.

Her inner alarm blared loudly. “No, no, no. You can’t do that. What are you doing to my brother?” Ponytail and an Asian-looking man restrained her in her chair. “Stop it!”

Her plea met deaf ears. Shave Head locked Jesse’s head with one arm and emptied the content into her brother’s jugular.

“What did you do to Jesse?” Sookie screeched. “I said I’d cooperate! Why did you drug him?”

Suit waved dismissively. “It’s leverage, Miss Alkin. Now, your brother had been infected with an Alpha strain. It will render him strong, fast and allow him to possess the attributes of a superhuman. Sadly, the virus also shortens his lifespan. He has few weeks to live without an antidote.”

“A-antidote?”

He nodded. “After the final incubation period, the antidote needs to be administered every ten days to prolong his life. Without it your brother will fall into a state of suspended animation and die.”

No, no, no…

Jesse started shuddering in his chair, then thrashed wildly. He was writhing, screaming against his bonds, eyes rolling and his mouth foaming under the duct tape. His body underwent a transformation so drastic it was like a scene from science fiction movie. There were sickening crunching sounds as his bones rearranged beneath his skin. And there was white coarse fur covering his skin. He started snapping his jaws. The chain was the only thing that kept him from attacking the person nearest to him.

Sookie was frozen in her chair, her brain still refusing to process that this was really happening to her Jesse. Her dear Jesse who Mom had entrusted to her care.

They turned him into a monster.

A fucking crazy, snarling, untamed werewolf.