ISABELLA’S POV
I didn’t dream.
There was only heat—blistering, overwhelming, and punishing heat. Like sothing inside had cracked open, and fire had spilled into my bloodstream. My heart beat too fast, too hard, like it was trying to outrun sothing. My body ached in places I couldn’t na. My throat was dry and raw. Every part of was begging to shut down.
I wanted to scream, but my throat was raw, and I couldn’t seem to open my eyes, no matter how hard I tried. It felt like there were voices around , faint and far away, but I couldn’t make sense of them. The pain... it was suffocating.
"Bella?"
That voice. Adrien.
The na wrapped around like a lifeline, but I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t do anything but shudder beneath the weight of my own body, as if every muscle was rebelling against .
His touch—there. Pressing against my forehead, warm, comforting, but it didn’t make the fire inside go away.
Why was I like this? What happened?
I felt his fingers brush my cheek, and my body jerked with another tremor. My teeth were clenched, my breath shallow, but I couldn’t seem to break the cycle of the fever tearing through .
"Stay with , Bella."
God, his voice. It didn’t sound like it usually did—controlled and cold. It was breaking. Like he was breaking.
I wanted to answer. I wanted to say, I’m trying. But my mouth didn’t move. My body wouldn’t obey. There was nothing to do but fall deeper into the dark. But even there, I chased that voice. Because it was the only thing keeping tethered.
The last thing I could make out before the darkness took again was the sound of the door slamming open. Another voice—louder now. The panic in it was thick, raw.
The only thing I could do was hold on. Hold on for him. Hold on for...
Then nothing.
ADRIEN’S POV
The door to the room slamd open. Dr. Kassel entered, her expression imdiately alert as she took in the situation. Isabella’s flushed face. The rapid beeping of the monitor. The sweat dripping down her body, soaking through the hospital gown.
"What happened?" Dr. Kassel demanded, moving quickly to the bed.
I could barely breathe. My gaze was fixed on Isabella—her shivering body, her pained expression, the desperate rasp of her breath.
Dr. Kassel was already reaching for her wrist, his fingers finding her pulse, then moving swiftly to check her forehead. His brow furrowed. "Her fever spiked. How long has she been like this?"
"Seconds ago she was asleep," I said, forcing calm through my throat. "Now she’s burning, shivering, saying she’s cold. What caused it?"
"BP’s dropping," a nurse murmured, her eyes on the digital display on the monitor, quickly adjusting a cuff around Isabella’s arm. "Heart rate’s too high."
Another nurse quickly unwrapped a thermoter, sliding it gently into Isabella’s ear. The device beeped almost instantly.
"104.7," she announced, her voice tight with professional urgency.
My blood ran cold. 104.7. That was... dangerously high.
"Has she been given anything recently?" she asked quickly, already moving to check Isabella’s IV drip.
She leaned over to inspect the IV line. I could see her gaze falter, just for a second, before she reached for the IV bag. Her fingers stopped mid-motion.
A pause.
Then a sharp intake of breath.
She yanked the bag from the pole and flipped it.
"What is it?" I asked.
She turned, her face suddenly tight. "The drip... it’s expired," she said, her voice edged with frustration.
I froze.
The words echoed in my head, a terrifying, impossible accusation. Expired. My gaze snapped from Dr. Kassel to the IV bag, then back to Isabella’s pallid, sweating face. My world narrowed to a single, burning point of rage.
"Expired?" I asked. "Are you telling ... you’re telling that soone gave my woman expired dication?"
Dr. Kassel’s face, usually so composed, was a mask of professional alarm mixed with sothing like dawning horror. She didn’t et my eyes for more than a second, her attention already focused on giving rapid-fire instructions.
"Who the fuck did this?" I asked, sighing.
Dr. Kassel raised her hands in a calming gesture. "I’ll handle it, Adrien. We’ll get her stabilized."
The nurse beside her—young, maybe mid-twenties—sank to her knees.
"I didn’t know," she breathed. "I didn’t—please—I just grabbed the next bag from the supply. I didn’t check. I didn’t think—"
I flexed my hand once, then twice, and the wood of the chair arm groaned beneath my grip. I couldn’t afford to explode. Not here. Not with her burning beside . But God help the woman if Isabella didn’t pull through.
"I don’t want excuses. Get this out of her now." Kassel turned to the on-call doctor entering behind her. "Start her on clean fluids. Blood cultures. Broad-spectrum antibiotics. Draw labs—we need her CRP, WBC count, and lactate."
The room spun slightly. I caught the back of the chair, fingers gripping tight.
"What the hell does this an?" I asked quietly.
Dr. Kassel didn’t look up from Isabella. "If the fluid was contaminated or chemically degraded, her body’s reacting to it. Fever. Chills. Shivering. Worst case, early sepsis. Best case, a systemic inflammatory response."
Sepsis.
The word hung in the air, a venomous cloud that settled in my lungs and choked . I watched, paralyzed, as the dical team sward around her like a well-oiled machine. They ripped open sterile packages, slapped a cooling blanket over her trembling form, and plunged a needle into her arm to draw the blood that would tell them just how bad this was.
My world, once vast and full of possibilities, had shrunk to the four walls of this room. To the rhythmic, panicked beeping of the monitor. To the sight of Isabella’s body, fighting a war I couldn’t help her win.
Worst case. Best case. It didn’t matter. Both sounded like hell.
My gaze drifted to the young nurse, still on her knees, her face a ss of tears and stark terror. She was looking at , her eyes pleading. "I’m so sorry," she whispered, the words swallowed by the clinical chaos. "I didn’t realize the bag had expired."
"You gave her expired dication," I said calmly. "Do you know what that could’ve done? What it’s doing?"
She began to sob, hands clasped in front of her as she rubbed them together. "Please, sir. I’m sorry. I swear, I didn’t an to—"
"You’re sorry?" I asked. "Sorry won’t fix this. Sorry won’t bring her temperaturee down. Sorry won’t stop her heart from beating out of her chest."
"Stand." My tone never rose above conversational. It froze her harder than a shout. She staggered upright.
I was starting to have a headache.
"Na."
" ...S‑Sophie Carson."
"Good, Miss Carson. Rember it. You’ll be repeating it to a board of inquiry by morning."
She swallowed a sob; the bag quivered in her grip.
A doctor glanced up, color draining from his face as our eyes t. The room slled of alcohol swabs—and fear.
"We’ll handle this," Dr. Kassel said. But I could tell her calm deanor didn’t reflect what she was truly feeling. She was as furious as I was.
I didn’t say anything. I just watched.
The nurse’s trembling hands lifted, as if to explain herself in a panicked attempt. "I’ll... I’ll report it, I swear. I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I—I..."
"Enough." I cut her off. "I wouldn’t hurt you. Only, if she doesn’t make it through this... I will find you. And you will spend the rest of your very short life learning the true aning of the word sorry."
The air in the room had turned cold. One nurse was crying quietly behind her mask. The young doctor beside Kassel kept his eyes on the floor.
I smoothed damp hair from Isabella’s temple, my touch gentle, and my words glacial. "Report her. Strip her of her license. But understand this: if anyone hides so much as a misplaced comma in tonight’s chart, I will purchase this hospital, brick by brick, and bury the truth inside its foundation."
Kassel’s nod was curt. "Understood."
I just sat down again beside Isabella, taking her hand back into mine. My grip was gentle. My rage wasn’t.
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