Page 50 of Tell Me Why
Her left side went numb.
All the way up through her jaw, where the back corner of her tongue lost track of her teeth.
She spun away from him, finding the hypodermic vanishing into his pocket and a smug look on his great, blockish face.
“Just a taste, darling,” he said. “I’ve got stronger than that, and more tools besides.”
The numbness went all the way down to her foot, then a slow, searing pain spread from the spot on her back where he’d hit her.
Tell sniffed sharply, then straightened, his eyes very, very pointed on Tina’s self-styled escort.
“That had better be a joke, because if Daryll thinks that I am going to playthatgame, he’s going to find that Iwin,” Tell said, almost a hiss.
The smug look froze as Tina’s escort had expected to find a new compliance and instead unmasked a predator.
The blistering pain was spreading and Tina pressed her hand to it.
“Tell?” she asked.
“It’s passing,” Tell said. “And he thinks that it’s going to make me malleable. I suspect that he didn’t run this specific tactic past Daryll for approval before he pulled it.”
“Need your own dose,” the other man said. He appeared to have the wisdom to say itafterhe’d jabbed Tell, but even that was a wisdom of dubious quality.
Tell was very, very still. Tina wanted to go lean against something as the intense pain started down the back of her leg and up toward her shoulder.
“You’ll behave, or you’ll suffer,” Tell’s unfortunate guard muttered to him.
“Tina, dear,” Tell said. “I need you to walk very quietly and very quickly to find the lady of the party and inform her that one of her guests is tripping red dawn. Those words, if you don’t mind.”
“Running to Crissy isn’t going to change anything,” the second man said. “She’s not in charge here.”
“Tripping red dawn,” Tell said again, very clearly and slowly. Tina nodded.
“Okay,” she said, just as slowly.
“Don’t let her do it,” Tell’s guard said to Tina’s. “Running off to tattle isn’t going to change what our job is.”
Tell looked almost strangled. Tina wondered if they’d done something worse to him than they had to her.
She was in an awful lot of pain, no question, but she’d also been shot a lot of times. This wasn’t as bad as that. And just at the injection site, it appeared to be fading away again.
“The last time someone attempted to hit me with red dawn, I killed everyone in the building,” Tell said. “I’m giving her an opportunity to make this right before I act.”
Tina straightened, ignoring the man at her side, now, and went to walk across the main floor, watching for Isabella. The guard had a hard time keeping up with her, but he didn’t try to touch her again and he certainly didn’t try to inject her again.
She didn’t think she would let it happen. There was a snick that the cap made coming off of the syringe that she’d heard twice, now, and… no. Not again.
She wouldn’t let him do it again.
Isabella-Crissy was near the front doors, speaking to people as they came in, and Tina went to stand next to her, lifting her chin to draw Isabella’s attention as she finished a conversation with a woman in a pink skirt and white spaghetti-strap top and cowboy boots.
“I assumed that you would be entertaining yourself this evening,” Isabella said, glancing over. “Where is Oscar?”
“Someone is tripping red dawn here at the party,” Tina said. “Thought you ought to know.”
Isabella’s eyes went, sharp, to the guard’s face, then she turned away.
“Come,” she said. “Quickly.”
