Page 12 of One Adult, Please

"It's fine," she says, stepping over it. "The ground and I have a whole thing. Shared custody. It gets me every other step and most holidays."

I hold the door to the corridor and wait for her to pass through and then I watch her navigate a flat, obstacle-free hallway like it's an active minefield and I think: this woman is a catastrophe in a hoodie.

She's going to die in four hours. Maybe three.

Not if I can help it.

I follow her into the corridor and I close the door behind us.

5

WORST FISH EVER

GRACE

The glass hallway is the most beautiful place I've ever been. The glass is seamless, a continuous wall that wraps from floor to waist height on both sides and then over the top like a bubble. On the other side of that glass, the ocean lives. The WonderSphere version, which is bluer and cleaner and has better lighting than anything nature ever produced. The fish don't know they're fake-ocean fish. They're just swimming. Doing their thing.

The floor of the tunnel is that rubberized pathway stuff, same as the rest of the fish part. There are benches built into the walls every twenty feet, curved to match the tunnel. The lighting is all blue, coming from the tank itself. It makes everything look like a mood ring that's stuck on contemplative.

Joel walks ahead of me, checking corners that don't exist because the tunnel's a tube and there are no corners to check. His shoulders look load-bearing, which is extremely unfair because I'm already emotionally susceptible to walls. The WonderSphere polo is stretched across his back in a way that suggests Human Resources has never met him from behind. He should be listed under emergency resources. Flashlight. Water. First-aid kit. Joel.

"Public entrance," he says, pointing at the door behind us. "Locked. Nothing's gotten through it."

A heavy door, steel frame, with a lock. He locked it. I watched his hands do it, because my eyes have developed an independent interest in Joel's hands that I didn't authorize and am not supervising.

"What about the other end?"

"Maintenance access, also locked. I have the key."

"So we're in a locked tube. Under millions of gallons of water. And that's... the safe option."

His face does something that I think wants to be patient. "You're safer in this tunnel than in any room in this building."

"You say that, but I once broke a window by leaning on it. There were witnesses."

He stares at me for a few blinks. Then he turns and keeps walking. The stare itself is the problem because Joel has dark eyes and when he aims them at you with that much focus it feels like being looked at by a searchlight with judgment issues. Possibly flirting. Possibly just cheekbones. I don't have enough data and this is a terrible time to collect it.

We walk to roughly the middle of the tunnel. Joel informs me it's the optimal position because it gives us maximum reaction time from either entrance. He says "maximum reaction time" like a person who's thought about this and also like a person who says things like "maximum reaction time" in casual conversation.

"Okay," I say, dropping my tote bag on a bench and sitting down so hard the bench shakes. My legs are done. My feet have filed a formal complaint. "So we just... stay in the fish tube?"

"It's a viewing tunnel."

"It's a fish tube, Joel. We're in a tube and there are fish. I'm not wrong."

He cocks his head. "You're not wrong."

"Thank you." I pull my tote bag onto my lap and start taking inventory. "Okay. I started with four water bottles. One's in the stingray tank and one died saving me from the wrong man. Two water bottles, a bag of trail mix, chocolate pretzels, dolphin shortbread, gummy sharks, two rain ponchos, six glow sticks, a snow globe, a sweatshirt for my mom, and a stabby fork." I hold it up. "For protection."

"That's a toy trident."

"It's a stabby fork and it's already saved my life once."

"How?"

"Emotionally."

He does the stare. I'm getting used to the stare.