I Died In His Sick Game novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Australia
"Take it," I said.
I said it on Christmas night, at the end of the dock, before I'd even thought.
I said it again on New Year's Day.
I said it every day for two weeks, until it stopped sounding like something I meant and started sounding like something I was daring him to do.
He never argued.
He just said, "Mm," and went back to whatever he was fixing.
On the second Saturday in January I went down to the lab after closing.
Tilly was asleep upstairs with Nan's old dog across her feet.
The lab was dark except for the blue lights in the tanks.
Eli was at his desk with his reading glasses on, doing paperwork.
Actual paperwork, in neat piles. I'd taught him that.
"You're doing your grant report," I said. "In January. Early."
"I'm a changed man."
"When do you have to tell Australia?"
He took his glasses off.
"I told them on the twenty-sixth."
"Told them what?"
"No."
The pumps hummed.
The nurse shark turned over on the bottom of her tank.
"You said no," I said. "Two weeks ago. And you let me stand on that dock every night telling you to go."
"You seemed like you needed to say it."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Be kind about it!"
It came out much louder than I meant.
He sat back in his chair.
"Abby."
"No. Listen to me."
I was shaking, and I didn't know why.
"I lived eight years with a man who made me small. I quit my job because he asked. I stopped seeing my friends because he didn't like them. I let my whole life shrink to fit inside his house, and I called it love."
"I know."
"So I'm not going to be the reason you don't go to Australia. I'm not going to be anybody's island."
He was quiet for a long moment.
"Is that what you think this is?" he said. "Me shrinking?"
"Isn't it? The best shark people in the world. You said it yourself."
"I did."
He got up.
He went to the big map pinned on the wall above the tanks, the one of the Ten Thousand Islands, covered in his little red dots.
He put his finger on Pelican Key.
"You know what's in that bay right now?"
"Water."
"Pups."
I stared at him.
"Bull shark pups. Dozens. I've been tagging them since November. The fins kept them out for ten months. The minute the fins came out, the mamas came in. It's shallow and warm, and nobody's fishing it. It's turning into a nursery while I watch."
He turned around.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of I Died In His Sick Game are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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