Perfectly Toxic (Sterling Shore 9)

“It’s her day off,” the girl says, swallowing nervously.

“Who? Bella’s?” another woman asks.

“Yeah.”

“Nah, they called her in to cover for one of the girls who went home sick. I think she’s on the fifth floor. She’s checking in on a friend right now because her shift just ended.”

I just nod before ducking into the elevator. A hospital as big as this shouldn’t know a girl by name. But I bet everyone here knows Bella. There’s like a gravitational force around her that just draws people in. Could be the blunt way she usually speaks.

Last night really didn’t work out in my favor. I’m hoping she’s calmed down. Considering she’s at work, maybe she won’t be as likely to yell at me. Hopefully.

When I step out onto the floor, my feet cement themselves to the ground. Children are walking around, pushing their IV stands from place to place. I really feel like a bastard now.

Kids are fighting for their lives, hidden away like they don’t exist, and I’m the selfish asshole who hurt one of their heroes. Bella is seriously prideful, but she put aside her pride that night at the charity ball when she was trying to save a boy’s chance to walk again by begging strangers for donations.

My eyes flit over to see her inside a room that has the door wide open. She’s grinning at some kid who is wide-eyed and in love with some kind of magazine that she’s handing him.

Bella laughs at whatever he says, and she speaks to a woman who is wiping tears away from her eyes. It takes me a second to realize that must be Daniel. He’s having surgery in two days, and Bella is here checking in on him.

And I’m the dickhead stalking her at the wrong time to make up for an idiotic move.

Deciding not to be a bigger bastard and interrupt this moment, I back toward the elevator, but Bella decides to walk out at that exact moment. Panicking, I grab a kid who is running by—he’s running, so apparently he’s healthy—and I hold him over my face like that will somehow keep her from seeing me.

“Stranger danger! Stranger danger!” some kid yells very close by. Then I realize it’s the kid I’m holding… and his belly

is right in front of my face…

Oh shit. This looks bad. Bad. Bad… Really fucking bad.

“Stranger danger!” the kid yells again.

“Shhh!!” I hiss, trying to put him down, but he kicks at that same moment, clocking me right under the chin.

The taste of blood taints my mouth, and I groan while dropping him to the floor. Fortunately, the agile little asshole lands on his feet, still pointing at me. Unfortunately, he’s still yelling.

“Stranger danger! Stranger danger!”

I look up in time to see a large woman barreling toward me like hell’s linebacker, and she tackles me—fucking tackles me!

Her arms wrap around my waist, and she takes me down like I’m a little bitch instead of a 6’4, grown-ass man. I slam into the cold floor, and she pins me down, thoroughly crushing me in the process.

“Someone call the cops!” the woman harps, clutching me in a death grip while suffocating me.

“Help,” I wheeze.

“Ethan?” Bella’s voice is just the icing on the humiliating cake.

I manage to look around the wad of wild, dark hair in my face to see Bella staring down in horrified shock.

“Help,” I repeat, losing every ounce of fucking dignity I’ve ever had with that one word.

“You know this perverted fool?” the evil, freakishly strong woman on top of me asks Bella.

Bella rolls her eyes. “Yeah, Berta. I know this perverted fool,” she says, sounding exasperated as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “What the hell, Ethan?” she asks me.

“Can’t. Breathe,” I manage to say with strain.

Freakishly strong linebacker woman lifts off me just a little, and I gasp in the air my lungs are starved of. When she climbs off me, I start to raise up, but she shoves me back down with a hand on my chest.