Page 4 of Tell Me Why
The one behind the couch hissed, barely audible, and Tina heard -heard- Harold go stiff.
“I don’t know what went wrong in your life that you think that this is what entertaining looks like, but it’s not going tostayentertaining. The longer you keep it up, the more I have to do to make sure you never come back. Justleavealready and we can all go back to life like it never happened.”
Another hiss.
They weren’tafraidof light.
They didn’t like to beseen, if they could help it, but the way they’d moved at the school, that had been more about tactics and less about like or dislike.
There hadn’t been any particular tactics that Tell had used. They’d been there for Harold, for one, and for two, the bennaxes weren’t really that dangerous. Strong enough to drag a large-build human man into a boiler and bend the metal back in place to keep him there, but not so big or so strong that they were really a physical threat to Tina or Tell without weapons or something similarly escalating.
Their teeth.
Their teeth were like crystal shards, and immediately went for bone, so if she sat still andletthem, they could do a lot ofdamage, but even just based on reflex, she wasn’t concerned for her flesh.
Ellen and Harold were another story, but it was similarly clear that the bennaxes weren’t here with a bloodlust. They were looking for entertainment, to cause fear, and Tina didn’t think they were actually looking for a fight.
But what options did that leave her for getting rid of them?
They were fast. They were strong enough to tear up a lot of stuff, if she got them going atthat. And unless she did something permanent, they had very little keeping them from just coming back, when she left.
Therapy was creeping up onto her list of options again when she asked herself what Tell would have done.
Tell would have made an example of one of them.
Nothing gruesome or elaborate, he would have caught one of them and broken it, then informed the others that he was of no mood to play their games.
Would he?
It was so easy to look at them as literal children, and she didn’t know whether she was attributing innocence to them and trying to avoid hurting them, or if she was right in thinking that death was disproportionate and an unfair characterization of what Tell wouldstartwith.
They’d left Harold in the boiler.
For days.
Even as a prank, that was enough that it might have killed someone.
She needed to get them away from him and ensure that theynevercame back.
Not therapy.
Negotiation.
They weren’t children.
They were smarter than children.
“Listen up,” she said. “I’m going to go get into my car and I’m going to drive back to the school. I expect all of you to be in the back seat when I get there, and to get out when we get to the school. You’ll spread the word with all of your friends who are still there, and so help me, this is true. If I catch awhiffof any one of youeveragain, I’m going to buy a metal case, padlock you inside of it, and ship it to middle Australia. If there’s more than one of you, you get to share the space. Don’t think that I can’t. Don’t think that I won’t. Here, there, anywhere else. I will hunt you, and if you even survive the transit, you will spend the rest of your miserable life in the middle of the desert. Alone.”
A boiler was a pretty sturdy thing, when you tried to pry it open, but they’d had tools to do it, and it had been old and rusting. Tina was pretty sure that this was a valid threat. She could find a box that would hold them and a service that would transport them.
She waited.
“I’m going to my car,” she said. “Last and only chance. Be there or fry.”
She turned, finding Harold standing behind her, just a fraction too close.
“I’m not crazy,” he said, and she frowned.
