Page 68 of Tell Me Why
He laughed.
“It’s beenkillingyou,” he said.
“Seriously, though,” she said. “What are youdoing? Handing a weapon like that over to a madman who is going torememberhow to do all of this, andwilldo it again? Justtellinghim that this willwork…”
“Tina,” Tell said, almost patronizing. “I know that you aren’t used to it, butI lied. Anyone who is remotely interested in upgraded vampire flesh has been experimenting with it for decades. And as far as I’m aware, no one has found anything that remotely justifies the cost of it. Isabellaknowsthat. But Daryll doesn’t. He has a mysterious view of all of the elite, which means I could tell him anything I wanted to, and he’d probably believe me.”
“So what progress are you going to show him?” Tina asked. “This is all just…fake?”
“I think you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of research,” he said with humor. “He gives me what I want, I keep telling him that the results are very promising, but that we don’t have anything concrete yet. We could do this for decades, and the longer it goes, the more he’s willing to pay to support it.”
Tina blinked at him, and he laughed again.
“Meanwhile, I go through the bits and pieces of his organization and figure out who is playing for what team, and maybe you go on a few field trips to get some addresses for me, and we wrap this up and hand it off to Keon to nuke from orbit.”
“You’re going to… fix it?” Tina asked. “Actuallyfix it?”
He sighed.
“It’s not my goal,” he said. “I don’t want Isabella carrying back to Keon that I’mgratefulfor what he did and trying to worm out of the agreement, or using it against me. I want them toknowthat I am out of the big politics, and I have no intention of letting him draft me into a lieutenantship to try to run things out of fear that he’s going to bring in inept people who are going to let this happen again.”
“So everyone here is your enemy,” Tina said, and he shrugged.
“Except you,” he said easily. “I know you aren’t used to the next level of vampire politics, but this is normal. It’s… Well, even Hunter and Ginger always have their own agendas, and you have to take it into account, even just planning a night out.”
“He might kidnap you and take you to Singapore,” Tina said.
“He told you about that,” Tell said.
She frowned at him.
He didn’t elaborate.
“I don’t like not being able to trust anyone,” she said. “Especially someone that youtoldme was the one you trusted.”
He nodded.
“I know. Less foreign to me than to you, but this is just our normal. Isabella will work with me against Keon to a point, but not beyond that. I don’t want to find it by mistake.”
“She tried to get me to leave,” Tina said. “Told me that if I wasn’t prepared to live here for the next decade, I should go home and forget about you.”
“Did she,” Tell said. “Do you want to go up to the pool?”
“How are you treating all of this socasually?” she asked. “Isawthe size of the warehouse.”
“Mostly for the supplies necessary to do the preservation work,” Tell said, and she frowned at him. He shrugged.
“I hate Daryll,” he said. “More than I thought I did. I like Isabella. She’s clever and she’s going to be there, on the other side of plays that I’m making up as I go along. You’re mad, so the world is exactly as it’s supposed to be. I’m going to get Daryll killed, clear my debt with Keon, and then I’m going to go home a free man. Meanwhile, I get to dig through an organization that thinks I’m an ignorant elite. It’s like a wolf hunting domestic bunnies. Let’s go up to the pool.”
“You’re serious,” she said, and he shrugged.
“Why not?” he asked.
“You have exactly the clothes on your back, and I’ve literally never seen you shirtless.”
He tipped his head slightly to the side.
“Is that true?” he asked.
