Chosen

Chapter Eighteen

~Arabella's POV~
We've been walking for hours, we are in the middle of no where and I have no idea where we are going. He's never taken the gun from my side. I don't know what he thinks I'm going to do if he takes it away, but there's really no where for me to go.
"Where are we going?" I ask, looking around to see if he has some secret hideout or something. He sighs, aggravated. This isn't the first time I've asked.
"If I tell you, will you shut up?" I nod. "Fine, we're going to your death bed." He smirks, looking over at me. My heart drops, because I know he's being serious. I'm going to die. I take a deep breath, trying to keep my eyes from filling with tears.
"Yeah, that's right, you're going to die, and there's nothing little lover boy can do about it." I can't help it when my eyes fill with tears.
"Are you so sure about that?" The voice comes from behind us. I immediately know who it is. Adrian. Calum whirls around, taking me with him, and removes the gun from my side, pointing it at my head instead. I close my eyes when I feel the barrel against my temple and a tear slides down my cheek.
"You shouldn't have come, Adrian. Now both of us are going to die." My voice comes out shaky and uneven.
"Don't say that. No one is going to die." He pauses. "Well, except for Calum over there. He's definitely going to die. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, Arabella." I just shake my head as more tears run down my face.
"How touching." Calum says sarcastically. "You get to spend your final moments together. Well, not really, I'm going to make Adrian watch as I kill his one true love, then I'll kill him. What a happy way to end the story, don't you think?" He whistles a high pitched noise and 10 men come out of the trees, pointing the weapons at Adrian. I force the tears to stop coming out of my eyes, and anger fills me. I know I'm not going to be able to do anything, but I don't want my last moments to be crying. I want them to be glaring, not scared. Although, that's definitely not going to be true, I'm terrified. Now I'm even more terrified because Adrian is going to die, and it's all my fault. I don't even know how he found out about this. Monica. Of course she'd see through my lie, and of course she'd tell Adrian.
Five of the men attack Adrian, tying his hands together and forcing him to his knees. They really are going to force him to watch my death. Calum pulls me to the center of the circle that was formed by the 10 mysterious men. I stand alone in the circle, with a gun pointed at my head. I hear him cock the gun and look over at Adrian. He's looking at the ground.
"Adrian?" He looks up, meeting my eyes, his eyes glistening with tears. I smile sadly at him. "I love you." The tears fall down his cheeks.
"I love you, Arabella."
~Adrian's POV~
I can't look at her, I just can't watch her die. So I look at the ground.
"Adrian?" Her angelic voice makes me look up. She looks so beautiful. She's scared, I can tell, but she won't let it show. Tears are in her eyes as she looks at me, but she smiles. "I love you." That just makes the tears fall down my face. The one thing I've been waiting for her to say, and she says it right before she dies.
     "I love you, Arabella." I watch as Calum starts to squeeze the trigger of the gun and look back down at the ground. I just can't watch her die. The loud gunshot rings through the air, shortly followed by the sound of a body dropping. A sob wrenches its way out of me. She's gone. She's actually gone. I can hear people yelling and don't know what it's about, but I'm too lost in my own sadness to pay attention. I can hear someone yelling my name, quietly at first, but know the sound is the only thing I can hear. I look up to see Luke standing in front of me, yelling for me to focus.
     "Adrian! You need to focus! We have to get you out of here alive." I look around and see Arabella laying on the ground, blood seeping out of her wound. And then I see Calum, on the ground, dead, a hole going through his forehead. I get up from my position on the ground and motion for Luke to untie my hands. He quickly unties my hands and I run to her, kneeling on the ground beside her. I quickly put my hands to her throat and check for her pulse. I wait for a few agonizing seconds, slowly losing hope, when I feel it, a faint beat. She's alive. Relief floods through me, then panic, when I realize that she was shot. I quickly scan her body and find the wound on her shoulder. I look at Luke behind me.
     "I need help over here! She's still alive! But she's hurt!" He quickly runs over to me and finds her wound, quickly covering it and putting pressure on it to stop the bleeding.
     "She'll be find. The bullet went right through by the look of it. She'll just need stitches and will be in pain for a while." I nod, relief flooding my body. She's ok. She's ok. I can't help the tears of relief and happiness that flow down my cheeks. Gosh, I'm such a crybaby. I force myself to stop crying and pick Arabella up, looking around at where we are and which way is home. I look back at Luke, when a thought hits me.
"How did you know we were here?" He gives me a small smile.
"We've been keeping tabs on you since you left the castle. So we followed you when you ran out of town, finally caught up to you and saw the situation you were in. We saw what was about to happen to Arabella, and shot Calum, but he still got the shot off, luckily not where he was aiming." I nod, shaking my head.
"That was too close for my liking. It's a good thing you were here." He narrows his eyes at me.
"So you're not mad that we were following you?" I shake my head and laugh.
"No, I expected it, really. I just didn't think you'd know I was out here." He laughs.
"Not to sound creepy or stalkerish, but, we always know where you are." I laugh, nodding.
"Yeah, I expected that, too." He laughs. He chuckles and motions to Ara.
"We should probably get going. There's a truck coming, should be here any minute." As if on cue, the truck turns the corner and comes to a stop next to us. "And we need to get her to the castle hospital." I nod and walk to the truck, getting in the back with Arabella laying on the seat, head in my lap. I stroke her hair and lean down the whisper in her ear.
"I'm here, Arabella. And I'll never let you go again. I love you." I then close my eyes and try to get to sleep.
~Arabella's POV~
I wake up in a bright, white room, with a deep, throbbing pain in my right shoulder. I look around and see that I'm in an unfamiliar room, it looks like a hospital room. I look down to find myself in a hospital gown. I am in a hospital. I look down at my shoulder to find it bandages and a small amount of blood seeping through. I start to panic and try to remember what happened for me to end up here. I think hard for a minute, then it all comes rushing in. Calum, the walk, the woods, the gun, Adrian. I was shot. I guess Calum didn't hit his mark. Thank goodness for that. I take a deep breath and try to get rid of the small sliver of panic that's still rooted in my gut. It starts to fade after a few minutes. Nobody has been in the room since I woke up, I wonder where they are. If anybody actually is here. As if on cue, the door opens, and the person I've been wanting to see since I woke up walks in. Adrian. He looks shocked to see me awake and immediately rushes to my side.
"Are you ok? Does anything hurt? Should I go get the doctors?" He says this all in one breath.
"Adrian. Calm down. Breath." He takes a deep breath, regaining his air supply lines. I smile. "Better?" He smiles and nods. "Good. And I'm fine. My shoulders a little sore, but it's fine, I was shot, so this is expected." He frowns.
"You shouldn't have been shot in the first place. I'm so sorry, Ara. I should've stopped him, I was supposed to. But I got both of us caught, and you almost died. It's all my fault and I'm so sorry." I shake my head, and give him a small smile.
"None of that was your fault. He's the one that showed up at the diner and threatened me to get me to leave. It was all his doing, not yours. And you did save me, I'm alive, aren't I?" He smiles a small smile and nods his head.
"You are alive, thankfully, but it wasn't me that saved you. It was Luke and some other guards." I smile.
"Luke's here?" I say, excitedly. He frowns a little, and I smile, knowing what's going through his head. "It's not like that, Adrian, Luke is like a brother to me." His eyes show relief and I laugh, shaking my head. "Jealous, are we?" He laughs and playfully glares at me.
"No. Because I already know that you're mine, I don't need to worry about Luke." I smile, happiness evident on my face.
"I'm yours, huh?" He doesn't realize I'm teasing and frowns, worry flooding his face as he looks down. I grab his hand and force him to look at me. "I'm yours, Adrian. Only yours." He smiles, and leans in, our lips meeting in a sweet, loving kiss.
"I've wanted to do that ever since I saw you in that diner the first day I showed up here." He whispers, looking into my eyes.
"So have I." He raises a teasing eyebrow.
"Then why did you make me wait for weeks?" I laugh quietly.
"Because I was mad at you." Guilt shows on his face.
"I'm so sorry, Arabella." He says, quietly.
"It's already forgiven and forgotten." I pull him in towards me and kiss him with every ounce of love in my body, all directed toward him. He kisses me back with the same amount of passion and I smile against his lips.
"Can we go home now? I'd really like to get out of this town." He pulls make and laughs.
"Of course we can, princess. Let's go home."

Yay! They're back together! I hope you liked it! Comment what your favorite part was! And please vote/comment, I'd love the support! And if you wouldn't mind recommending Chosen to some friends/readers, that'd be great! And check out my newest story The End is Near, it's not at all like Chosen, but I think it's a good story. It'd mean the world to me if you would read it and tell me what you think!