Page 49 of Tell Me Why
She wouldn’t have thought she had the skin for it, but she had pretty shoulders and her hair fell over them in a way that it would have taken a professional stylist three hours to make it happen.
Tell was dressed when she came out of the bathroom, looking like he was about to go walking on cobblestone streets through some coastal European city. He shrugged.
“Should probably work on not routinely underestimating them,” he said. “They’ve both been alive long enough to know what they’re doing.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You think Isabella actually chose these for us herself?” Tina asked, and Tell drew a breath, then sighed.
“I think she ordered these days ago, when she first figured out what she intended to do next,” he said. “And I think that you undervalue the significance of what you wear in communicating things to people around you.”
“What doesthissay?” Tina asked, indicating her dress.
“That you aren’t hiding any weapons of real significance, outside of the cleverly designed tactical ones, that you aren’t here for a fight, anyway, because you can’tsitcarelessly, much less engage in real combat, that you aren’t afraid to be seen, but you aren’t craving attention, and to everyone who knows what they are looking at, that you are a vampire.”
“And you?” she asked, not ready to cede the point. He smiled.
“That I am very attractive,” he said. “Are you ready?”
She sighed and nodded, letting him offer her his elbow again as he went to get the door.
There were a pair of men waiting for them outside, two heartbeats.
“We’ll be your escorts for the night,” one of them said, sliding in next to Tina as they walked.
“Job’s taken,” Tina said. “But thanks for the application.”
“Daryll says that if we need to separate the two of you to keep you under control, that’s what we should do,” the other one said. “So if you want to see each other again before dawn, you’ll play nice.”
“I play lots of ways, but very few of them are considerednice,” Tell answered evenly, looking over at the other man who was attempting to walk next to him as Tell angled too close to the wall to allow the space. “This is a party, and we intend to go downstairs and enjoy it. Having the two of you… looming like cheap set props will be… an unacceptable handicap to that.”
“You think we don’t know how to deal with your kind, you’re wrong,” the man said. Tell laughed, watching as they came down into view of the lower floor and the party.
“If you think I don’t know how to deal withyourkind, and have been doing it since before your grandmother spilled into this world, you’re very wrong,” Tell answered. “You run back to your master and tell him that if he doesn’t want to have conflict in open view of his guests, he’ll have you keep your distance, rather than being right there where my friend’s elbow is going to be so quick to find a gut.”
Oh, that did sound like fun, actually. Hesmelledhuman, the one pressed right up against Tina’s shoulder, and while it was likely there was more going on than that, Tina was suddenly desperate to see how far she could make him double over using just one strike from her elbow.
She thought she could get his shoulders down to his knees, if she really went after it.
It would take a lot, and it would take hitting him just right…
The other man was threatening Tell back. Tina had missed the beginning of it.
“… aren’t going to scare so easy.”
That probably summed up all of the important parts.
“He said to remind you that this is a gift, and we can stuff you back up in your room again, if we need to.”
“What, exactly, is he afraid of?” Tell asked. “Our escape? I hardly think anyone has gone to any considerable effort to prevent that since we arrived in the house. He wants you to be there to listen in on all of the conversations we have with his guests because he’s afraid of what I might have to say.”
“He says you’re not to cause problems,” the man still managingnotto stand next to Tell as Tell shifted around as effortlessly as a dancer, looking like he was just scanning the room rather than dodging.
The heavy-footed man looked every bit like he was chasing.
The one next to Tina stuck her in the back with something.
“Aich,” Tina said, arching away from it. “What do you think you’re doing?”
