I Died In His Sick Game novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Visiting Hours

A reporter pushed a microphone at the wheelchair.

Kendra bent down to Tilly's level and smiled into it.

"Tilly's going to be just fine. She's a fighter. We're all she has now."

Tilly didn't smile.

She wasn't looking at the cameras.

She was looking past them, toward the end of the street, where the water was.

I pulled the tape off the back of my hand.

"Whoa," Eli said. "Whoa, whoa."

"I'm going."

"You can't stand up."

"Then carry me."

Nan looked at her brother. Her brother looked at the ceiling.

"Well, don't look at me," Nan said. "I'd carry her."

It took the next morning to get out.

A doctor told me I'd had water in my lungs four days ago and I was not well enough to leave.

I signed a form that said I knew that.

Nan had brought me a pair of her flip-flops and a pair of drawstring shorts.

Eli handed me a gray sweatshirt off the back seat of his truck.

It said EVERGLADES CITY SEAFOOD FESTIVAL across the front, and the sleeves came down past my hands.

"It's clean," he said. "Mostly."

"You don't do laundry, do you?"

"I do laundry. I just don't finish it."

I pulled it over my head.

It smelled like sunscreen and diesel and somebody else's life, and I liked it more than anything I'd worn in a year.

The children's hospital was across town.

Eli drove with one hand and kept glancing over at me.

"What's the plan?"

"I walk in."

"And then?"

"I don't know yet. I'll know when I see her."

He parked by the doors and came around and opened mine before I could.

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