Page 55 of Tell Me Why
“Don’t speak about my father like that,” she said.
“Oh, no,” Tell said.
Isabella snorted.
“Oh,” Tell said.
Isabella grinned, going to lean against the tree, and Tell shook his head.
“That man,” he said. “This hadbetterclear my slate with him.”
“He’s worried,” Isabella said. “I never expected he would send you, but he made me swear that anyone who found me and claimed to be there on my side, I would test them. Aggressively.”
“As though he needed to make you promise it,” Tell said, going to lean against the tree and tipping his head back to look at the mottled sky.
“I’m sorry,” Isabella said.
“I came running,” Tell said. “He knew that I would.”
“Therewassomething between you,” Tina said, and Isabella snorted, tucking her fingertips into her pockets.
“Not in the slightest,” she said. “And the Tell of old was certainly not unwilling to use violence to move his agenda along.But if you want to find him acting against his better interests, tell him that an ally is up against overwhelming force, and he’s very reliable.”
Tell sighed, rolling his head to the side to look at Isabella.
“I’ve tried so hard to outgrow that instinct, too,” he said. “How many times will I regret it before I finally do?”
“At least one more,” Isabella said.
“So…” Tina said, pointing from Tell to Isabella and back. “You’re still in league with Keon the monster in Italy, we’ve been conned, and you put us in a vampire prison and then pretended to let us out to test whether or not… what? Whether Tell was willing to betray you?”
“Sure,” Isabella said.
“But now that he’s figured out that you’re not actually running away, and that Keon lied to him, what’s to keep us from just going back where we came from and leaving all of you to this mess you’ve made?”
Isabella turned her eyes to Tell.
“Insubordinate as she is, she makes a valid point. I believe that you are for me and not against me, but are you willing to adopt my problems?”
Tell yawned and looked away, then sighed.
“As far as I see it, this is all still part of the same twisted job,” he said. “He wanted me to deliver a message. And I did. And maybe I’d be right to say that I did what he sent me to do and leave, but maybe he comes out of this owingme, and I want there to be no ambiguity between us. Afterthis, he does not contact me looking for a favor ever again unless he’s willing to pay market rate for it.”
He looked at Isabella again, and she nodded.
“I’ll make sure that that’s how he sees it,” she said, and Tell nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Tell me. Why am I here?”
They should have broughta picnic blanket.
There was no place to sit, so after some fidgeting with just standing and facing each other while they spoke or getting mud conspicuously on their party clothes, Tell joked that Tina had been right in the first place, and then Isabellawasn’tjoking when she said that he was right, and then they were climbing the tree.
It was funny.
It really was.
Three vampires in a tree.
