Page 86 of Tell Me Why
And she was only worth it insofar as Tell was.
Having removed it from the immediacy of her own needs and her own insecurities, she felt like she was on much better footing, much calmer, though she tried not to let that show.
“With the right person guiding you…” He shrugged. “I’m not saying that you’re ever going to bespecial, but it gives you a lot better chance at surviving, at least.”
“Oscar has survived pretty well,” Tina said, the argument too obvious to not use it.
“But how many of his acolytes have?” Leonard asked. “You’re by yourself. You ever ask how well the vampires who came before you have done?”
Oh, that was… beautiful. To suggest that there were people she didn’t evenknowabout who were dead because Tell was too inconsiderate to take care of her? It would put a rift between her and Tell, if she let that take seed and started asking questions, drive her to Leonard.
“I don’t know,” Tina said again, and Leonard nodded.
“It’s a big decision,” he said. “And you shouldn’t make it carelessly. You’d be leaving everything you know. But you may not have a lot of time. He could decide to send you away and then we couldn’t get you out, if you changed your mind.”
A time limit and a penalty for missing out.
If there was a textbook for this kind of thing, Leonard was using it.
“Why do you care?” Tina finally asked. “You don’t like me.”
He shook his head, reaching across to touch her knee.
“It’s all posturing,” he said. “It’s not like this, other places. Not completely. And I just… I think it’s wrong for you to keep falling further behind where you could be. You could be so much more.”
Oh, the backhandin the same statementas the promise.
She wasn’t special. It wasright there, unsaid. But she could bemore.
It gave her a sense of distance, almost an emotionlessness, pulling apart what he was saying to her, and yet there wasstilla small part of her listening, asking whether or not it might be true, whether she might just be soignorantthat she didn’t know better.
Even knowing that he was trying to use her, it was effective.
“You don’t care about me,” Tina said. “You just want to know about Oscar.”
Make him earn it.
He snorted.
“You’re hanging out with damaged goods,” he said. “You’re smart. I think. Maybe smart enough. He hears that you’re eventhinkingabout leaving him, he’s going to wrap you up tight and send you off where you came from in hopes that you can’t do it on your own. Whether or not you actuallyintendto consider it, I wouldn’t tell him. He’s possessive. You’ve seen how he is withideas. What do you think he’s going to do when it comes toyou, trying to make sure no one else ends up with you?”
She nodded.
“I know.”
Hope. She had to give himhope. But he still needed to earn it. If he wanted her to leave Tell, betray him, he had to give her a good reason.
He lifted his chin.
“When you got here,” he said. “They kept you downstairs. Oscar let them do that.”
“He didn’t have any choice,” Tina said.
“I come and go through the front door,” he said. “You’re too young, but in a hundred years… I could see you by my side, going through doors just like that.”
She blinked.
Was that the best he could do?
