It was a struggle but Tina managed not to visibly wince at the noticeable change of color where skin met rope. “Stop, you’re only stressing the rope and cutting off circulation.”

“Release me and we won’t have to worry about my circulation”

Tina continued to watch Bette as she shifted carefully and tried to find a comfortable position without pulling against the rope, evidently she had learned her lesson.

Once she was settled on the center of the bed, the brunette looked up and frowned. “Why are you doing this?”

Tina laughed, how could she not when Bette genuinely appeared to be baffled by what she herself had initiated. “You did this Bette. You broke our carefully laid out agreement when you refused to return my daughter to me. You brought me here, tied me up, very poorly I might add, and now you are accusing me?”

“YOU accused me of kidnapping our daughter Tina, OUR daughter!”

“So you decided to come back and kidnap me too?”

“I did not kidnap Angelica, she’s with …”

“Kit, I know. She called while you were sleeping” Tina craned her neck to the small coffee table on the other side of the room where she’d left Bette’s phone. “She said you dropped Angelica off with her so you could come and clear things up with me. Is this your idea of clearing things up?”

“No.”

Tina closed her eyes against the anguished face before her. She did not want to feel sorry for Bette, the brunette did not deserve her sympathy, not after giving her the scare of her life. However, she couldn’t deny that the fear of almost losing her daughter had instilled a sense of appreciation for how Bette might have felt after she’d threatened to take Angelica away earlier that day. She was not proud of her empty threats but it didn’t excuse Bette’s actions. “Why?” she asked sounding almost defeated.

“I panicked. After our call I wasn’t sure what to do so I took Angie over to Kit’s and decided to come see you. The moment you saw me at the door without her you fainted and …”

Tina opened her eyes and studied Bette’s tear streaked face. “You kidnapped me.” She offered when Bette failed to complete her sentence.

“I – I wanted to talk. We need to talk, we seem to do everything but talk. I wanted to talk Tina.”

“You want to talk” Tina stood from her chair and trudged over to the bed. “So let’s talk” she said as she began to until the double –blood knot.