Page 62 of Tell Me Why
Tina couldn’t fight Isabella. Even if the woman was sheltered, Tina had the common sense to know that that wasn’t a fight she was going to win. Shewouldif it came down to life or death, but she wasn’t going to anticipate fighting her way out of anything.
“Tell asked me to get you when you were ready,” Isabella said. “He’s working, right now, but he asked me to take you into town and find a place for the two of you to stay.”
“We’re leaving?” Tina asked, and Isabella gave her a small smile.
“You will have guards watching over you at all times,” she said. “But, yes, you won’t behere.”
Oh.
Well, if Tell was happier, Tina was happier.
Was shesurethis wasn’t a lure to get her away from Tell without a fuss?
“I’d rather hear it directly from him,” Tina said, and Isabella nodded.
“I’d tell you to gather your things, but you really don’t have any.”
This was true.
“What happened to our bags?” she asked.
“I believe they were incinerated, but I’ll check,” Isabella said.
Tina had had some cute shoes in her bag, actually.
Tell trusted Isabella.
Tina thought.
Not Keon, clearly, and maybe the fact that Isabella hadn’t been more forthcoming with him was going to make things different, but…
Tina nodded.
“I’m ready,” she said.
“This way,” Isabella said, rising and leading the way down the hallway, the stairs, and through an expanse of house that was just about impossible to believe, going through a door into a drafting studio of sorts, where Tell was describing to an interior designer person what equipment and furniture he wanted there.
“You’re going to go find us a flat,” he said when he saw Tina.
“Do you need anything?” Tina asked, and he shook his head.
“I’m fine, for now,” he said, then stepped across with his back to the designer, a motion that looked like he was measuring thespace, but that actually put him out of everyone’s eye-line but Tina’s.
Patience, he mouthed.
Good enough.
“The last desk here,” he said. “Under the window.”
“Good enough?” Isabella asked Tina, and Tina nodded.
“Let’s go find an apartment,” she said.
She followed Isabella back through the house and down the cement stairs into the warehouse underneath the house, and for the first time Tina realized thescopeof what had been happening just here at the house, that little prison room that Isabella had put them into.
“What else do you do with… parts?” Tina asked. “There aren’tthismanyvampiresin the world, are there?”
Isabella looked around the space.
