Page 119 of Tell Me Why
Both times, in point of fact.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Green and tiger,” Tina answered.
“Is that metaphor or psychosis?”
“You pick,” she said.
“You aren’t healing,” he said. “Your organs, a lot of them weren’t functional anymore. Ginger took them out. She said they’d… jellied.”
“I was here,” Tina said.
“So you have to regrow a lot of stuff,” he said. “And your incision isn’t healing yet.”
“You want me to think harder?” Tina asked, and she heard him laugh.
“I need you to pull it together,” he said. “I’ve called Tony. If anyone is going to let you feed as you are, it’s him. But you need to walk and talk like a person, at least. Better if you feel more like a vampire.”
Eyes.
Room.
It wasn’t purple.
She had IV drips going into both arms, and a big tube going into her stomach that Ginger had sewn into place. There were drain tubes with pink-red-brown fluid going out.
She desperately needed to feed.
That washerblood, effectively, dead and dying, thinned from the liquid chemicals Ginger had been filling her with to try to counteract some of the more potent things Tina had had in her flesh when she’d first gotten here.
It was going to take time to repair everything, to flush everything.
But she needed blood.
She looked at Tell.
“I can’t promise,” she said.
“You look more like a zombie than a vampire,” he said. “She says you can’t digest dead blood, not even if it’s still warm. That’s what we’ll try next if this doesn’t work, but theychangedyou. You need the strongest energy you can get.”
Tina closed her eyes.
Sat up.
“Then I’ll have to be me,” she said.
The room swam and spun.
Tell took the IVs out, then offered her his arm to steady her.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She scrunched her face, trying to force life to course through flesh that she hadn’t even considered her own, until recently.
“I’m not getting any more or less ready,” she said. “Is he coming here?”
Tell laughed.
