Page 74 of Tell Me Why
She didn’t want to get into a fist fight with him, much less one involving weapons, and she had no doubt that he would be willing to cheat if that would give him an advantage - that was what was going on with the knife-threat, wasn’t it? more red-dawn type shenanigans - but she didn’t see anythingabouthim that suggested that he was more of a mortal threat than just about any of the otherreallybig-bads they’d been up against.
Werewolves weredesignedto go against vampires, weren’t they?
And she’d foughtthose.
Not as new-vampire Tina, but as old-vampire Tina.
Not for the first time, she wished she’d gotten to be old-vampire Tina instead of what she was. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop from thinking it, every once in a while.
“Black SUV,” the bearded man said, and Tell nodded.
“You aren’t going to try tohidewhere we’re going, are you?” he asked, half-wheedling, half-mocking. Patronizing. “If this really isn’t anything aboutyou, your boss has a sense of the dramatic that really isn’t conducive for good business.”
“Get in,” the bearded man said, and Tell shrugged, opening the door for Tina and letting her past, then getting in after her and closing the door without consideration for the fact that the bearded man had intended to get in after them.
The passenger door opened and closed, but there was a thick mesh in between the front and back, and Tina could only just feel the air move as it happened, then smell the scent of the bearded man as the closed-in space sent it back to her.
No heartbeat.
She was reasonably sure he was a vampire, but she’d made that guess incorrectly, before, and she kept ‘other’ on the list of options. Lots of things running around without heartbeats that she didn’t know about.
Hedidn’tsmell like a werewolf, at least.
They really did smell like dogs.
Tell settled comfortably, putting on his seatbelt and looking at the blacked-out window without a trace of irony while Tina looked around the space of the SUV, just evaluating what would make a useful weapon and where her good cover was.
She was lithe, now, in a way she’d never been as a human, and she was still working through the best ways to use it; she often forgot and overlooked things that Tell casually utilized on the way past, putting her to shame.
If she could figure it out in advance, she might be able to use it when she needed it, so she took her moment.
Perhaps thirty minutes later - she had an instinct that Tell was measuring time, distance, and turns the whole way - the car engine turned off and the bearded man got out of the passenger seat once more and opened the door that Tell had been staring at.
Tina got out to find them at an abandoned strip mall.
“Well,” she said.
“Not what you were expecting?” Tell asked with humor, and she shook her head.
“With how the lot of younormallyoperate, I was expecting the Taj Mahal.”
Anything to try to top Daryll and make it look like Tell was coming over to the winning, moreprosperousside.
Tell smiled, then turned to follow beard-man into one of the shops. The glass was missing out of two of the expansive windows and the glassless metal frame of the door was propped open with a folding chair.
“Sit,” beard-man said, and Tina looked around for a surface that didn’t look like it had survived a recent flood.
Tell heaved a put-upon sigh and folded to the floor.
Tina remained standing.
She wasn’t in anicedress, but Isabella had good taste, and Tinalikedthis one.
The man went to stand at a doorway to a back room, and Tina anticipated someone emerging from it, but nothing happened.
“Have we been kidnapped so they can bore us to death?” Tina asked, and Tell laughed, looking at the floor.
“I was getting bored, the other way,” he answered. “I’m still up for the change.”
