Page 132 of Monsters in Love

I shook my head and whimpered. Ihadn’t been able to hold a damn thing down all week. And when I thought of food…my stomach cramped and my head spun. Lia was right, I was sick…but I just needed a good sleep, that’s all.

“I think I…” I licked my lips and pushed to stand, but my knees buckled and gave way.

“Whoa.” Corden stepped forward, catching me. “You can’t leave…the scheduling.”

“Fuck your scheduling,” Lia muttered from her cubicle across from mine.

He shot a glare her way. “You want to lose your job, Lia? Keep being mouthy.”

She just bared her teeth at him, then glanced my way. Concern raged in her eyes. She was worried. Hell, I was worried. I nodded and sank back to my seat. “I’ll g-get it d-done, C-Corden.” My teeth chattered and gnashed as I spoke.

“Good.Thank you for being a team player, Arden,”he said, his voice a little too damn loud just to make a point.

But he didn’t need to make a point. I'd dragged myself here, and I was determined to get this done. This damn job was all I had. No goddamn bug was going to compromise it.

I winced, let out a moan, and tried to focus on the computer screen. He wanted the scheduling done, but the problem was…I couldn’t see a damn thing.The numbers were badly blurred. I clicked, changed the formula, and added different time slots for the twenty plumbers that needed schedules for the coming week.

But the formula wasn’t right. I gritted my teeth and trembled. A shudder tore through my body, making my hands shake on the desk. Lia shoved upwards, her eyes widening as she lifted her hands into the air. “Whoa…did you feel that?”

But I didn’t feel anything as the office blurred and, in the blink of an eye, darkness descended. I caught the faint sound of my best friend screaming…before I knew no more.

“I fucking told you!”

The darkness shifted and the panickedboom…boom…boom…of my pulse was out of control.

“I fucking told you to send her home!”

I blinked, seeing Lia standing over me, holding something cold to my face. “W-what happened?”

“You passed the fuck out, that’s what happened,” Lia muttered. “Right in the middle of a damn earthquake.”

“Jesus,” Corden muttered.

I blinked, following his riveted gaze to the TV mounted on the wall.

“I’m taking you home.” Lia grabbed my arm and hauled me up. “Say one word, Corden, and I’ll kick you in the balls.”

But he didn't say a word as I lurched to my feet, holding on to the desk as Lia grabbed my things and then helped me toward the door. As we left the office, the faint voice of a panicked reporter reached me.“Some type of destructive force is tearing through the city…destroying buildings in its wake.”

“Come on.” Lia dragged me into the nearly empty parking lot outside the hole-in-the-wall workforce management company we worked for. “I’m getting you the hell out of here.”

Didn’t she just hear the news? I tried to slow my steps, but I didn’t have the strength to fight her. I just slid into the passenger seat of her old Corolla and curled myself into a ball. She was inside the car in an instant, cutting a concerned look my way before she started the engine and backed out.

We were driving before I knew it, cutting through the busy streets as Lia drove me home. “Just n-need-d to sle-eep.”

“Honey, you need a hospital. You’re fucking gray.”

I shook my head carefully. “No. No hospital, no insurance.”

She gave a sigh and turned the wheel, pulling onto back streets. “Fine, you want to go home, then I’ll take you. But I’m texting you every goddamn hour and, so help me God, A, you’d better reply.”

I nodded as the midday sun was smothered, plunging the car into gloom.

“What the fuck?” Lia leaned forward, staring up through the windshield as she pulled out from the back street not a block away from my small townhouse. “Is that a damn hurricane?”

Cars tore past us, tires screeching as they raced away.

“The world is going to Hell, I swear,” she muttered, pulling up in front of my house. I grabbed my purse and stabbed the seatbelt release. “Thanks, L.”

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