Page 94 of Sucker For You

“Yes. Brianne named the company during her conversation.BioPulse,” she repeated. No emotion. “It’s the same corporation that pays Chase to endorse its products. One is a medication called Hydromotinzate. It reverses the effects of ataxia—lost voluntary muscle control. The drug is due to start human trials next year.”

Wes’s bare feet hit asphalt with a slap. “That’s why they want octopuses as test subjects? That’s fuckinghorrible—”

“Yes, a-and. . .” But here, her breath caught. Isabel’s swallow was audible. “It’s worse. BioPulse Pharmaceuticals doesn’t just test ataxia drugs. It makes my Ceretobicin.”

16

The parking-lot asphalt pitched under Isabel’s feet. Her stomach knotted with nausea. Her heartbeat rattled in her skull and static misted her vision; she clenched her chipped nails into her palms. But the pain wasn’t enough to steady her, to quell her tremors as she shook her head at Sabrina’s concerned calling of her name, then walked to meet Wes by his Jeep.

Not a migraine. Not this time.

Rage.

“Isabel—”

Again, she shook her head. She buckled her seat belt with hands that didn’t belong to her. She stared down at her wet-speckled jeans while he loaded his photography gear into the rear seats and spun out onto the highway. They passed the dilapidated fishery buildings on Sandholdt Road with their fences and tire tracks—where right now an octopus might be under a needle or a scalpel. But she didn’t scream. She bit her lips. She kept silent.

“Buttercup?”

She didn’t trust herself to answer or even glance away from her knees. Not when she knew he’d ram his fender straight through BioPulse’s Private Property signs if she asked him to, would stride right into whatever half-cocked lab the corporation had running behind its chain-link, would—

No.

That approach wasn’t logical. If she spoke, her words wouldn’t be, either.

Breathe. Be calm. Not reckless. Not angry.

Not out loud.

This ragewasa reckless thing, however, explosive and writhing at the edges of her tongue and her control. She couldn’t fold it away.Not this. She couldn’t rationalize it into something small and mute that she could stuff down her throat. Not when the fury was boiling in her mouth. She needed to submerge herself in water, to slow her racing heart and thoughts with cold. Instead, she was sitting here, dry and hot in the sun-warmed Jeep through their thirty-minute drive to the bungalow, shaking and so,so—

“Isabel,” a second time.

Her name wasn’t a question now. Wes unfastened her seat belt at the curb. His callused palm was almost cool against the skin of her forearm when he drew her through the living room to the tank. He dropped his equipment duffel. Dive weights scattered. He plunged her hand into the aquarium. She gasped, shocked into stillness.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “Thalassa’s here. She’s safe. With you. Right?”

Was she?

Focus on what you can see, smell, touch. . .

Yes: despite everything she’d learned today at MORI, when her knuckles brushed through halimeda sprouts and coral, the intelligent, custard-like softness of a cephalopod arm brushed back.

“With us,” he said.

A sucker folded around the end of her thumb. Stirred from a doze in her cradle of calcium carbonate, the octopus releaseda shrimp tail and drifted out into the center of the aquarium. Her mantle flushed a dusty, patchy pink. A clouded eye tilted up at Isabel’s face. Another sucker followed, prying with gentle but persistent curiosity at her fist, vaguely interested about what she might be concealing inside it.

Anger.

Grief.

The two-spot teased open her hand and tasted the ugly indentions of her nails—then funneled a blast of cleansing bubbles at her palm. They tickled. Isabel choked. A second effervescent stream followed, and another row of suckers. Her swallow was thick and hot and rough, but she managed to struggle through an exhale as the flexible cups continued to pluck at her. They forbade her to retreat into another fist.Breathe. Instead, the juvenile’s touch leached up dainty little bruises across the back of her hand. So Isabel concentrated on the suction, the texture, thenow.Just breathe. . . Slowly, very slowly, within the chill submersion of the tank, her heat began to leach away, too.

One minute of octopus time, then five.

Ten.

Only breathing, until the warmth was gone.