Chapter 100 100

Chapter 100 100
ADELINE

"Scarlett, you don't have to do this." I forced through the pain, my eyes blurred with the hot water work just trying to force its way through. I was close to begging her, but that meant accepting she was a sane person, what were the chances she would listen to me anyway.

"Oh, but I do. I gave you a chance to get the hell out of our lives, gave you a warning too, and still you insisted on hanging around." She fumed, toying with the whip like it was her new buddy.

"I couldn't. I'm pregnant for him, my child need a father."

"Well isn't that just perfect. Guess I'm doing both of us a favour then." She smiled wide, but it was anything but kind.

"Scarlett..." The leather slapped against my skin angrily, hard and worse than the last one. "Scarlett please!" My voice broke in agony, grating against my own ears, but if she cared, she did the opposite of what a sane person would.

Lash after lash, she kept going, cackling like a witch. Each swing of her whip was worse than the last, almost like the more I pleaded and begged, the harder she went with her next attack.

So I stopped. Tears had formed at the corner of my eyes, rolled down my cheeks non-stop, but I wasn't going to get out of it by weeping and wailing, that was exactly what she wanted.

"You might as well kill me now because pregnant or not, Grayson loves me." Her eyes flared in anger so intense, I second guessed my choice.

She licked her teeth, her lips curled in anger. "Let us." She tossed at the wall of muscles by the door.

"Okay, you were saying something stupid. I dare you to repeat it." She crouched down till she was face to face with me. "Go on." She urged.

I gulped. She glared at me, trying to intimidate me, but my skin was still sore from all her efforts, what else could she do?

"Grayson loves me. You never had a fighting chance to begin with." I straightened my spine.

"Well, isn't that sweet." She plastered that sickly sweet smile on her face again, got up to her full height and dug into her purse.

I sighed in relief. I didn't believe that was actually going to work, but surprise surprise.

My moment of reprieve didn't last however. The sound of a cocking gun had me straining to look in her direction.

"What the hell?!" There was no time to react. She clicked the safety out of place, a dark hole faced me square in the eyes.

Grayson ran over, like a bullet, shooting into the room without warning.

"Oh my God, Grayson!" But it was too late. The shot rang like an echo, ringing over and over. My blood ran cold. I wasn't sure if I was the victim or he was, but I was sure Scarlett wasn't. Heels clicked just as quick as it had all gone from my being threatened with a gun to being shot. She dumped her weapon on her way out, not even bothering to check who she hurt.

His eyes shifted to mine, wide and stuck. That was when I saw it. Crimson red, bright and impossible to ignore. He was bleeding!

"Shit!" I chanted over and over because it was all my brain could process. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before reopening.

"Why did you have to do that?!" I couldn't stop the tears this time, they flowed freely, without a check.

"Why not? You were in trouble." He managed to say, his voice too low to hear if I wasn't so close to him.

"Well, I'd be in trouble if you don't fight it." His eyes began to slide close, like he was about to take a nap, but we both knew it wouldn't end there, "Grayson, stay with me!" I grabbed his face in my hands, "Baby, look at me, look at me, okay? I'm right here, just stay with me." I was trying not to panic, I was really trying, but the bleeding hadn't stop, it wouldn't stop and my phone was nowhere close.

His mouth began to move but no words were coming out.

"Hey, hey, no need to speak okay, I'm here. You'd be fine. You'd tell me everything you want to tell me. You would be here to tell me everything." It sounded more like I was trying to convince myself than I was him.

"Is your phone here? Did you take it with you." His eyes were so narrow, I couldn't tell if they were opened or closed anymore.

I searched his body, his round neck and then his jeans. I saw a phone and with shaky hands dialed 911.

Footsteps rushed through the entryway and his friend Damian dipped into a kneel before him. I almost gave up until another set of unknown faces rushed in, some with a stretcher.

"How?"

"He texted on his way here, I had a feeling he might be planning to do something stupid." He shrugged like he was unbothered but the tension in his shoulders gave him off. He was just as uncertain as I was. I would be so confused if he wasn't. "Go on, I'd sort things here."

There was no time to ask anything else because the paramedics had begun to move the stretcher to the outer hall. I followed right beside the stretcher, not even an inch away from the stretcher.

"Relationship?" The male paramedic asked just before letting me on the ambulance.

"I'm his wife." He cocked a brow at me and I glared at him, just begging him to fuck with me at that moment.

"Alright." The beeps of the machine greeted me. "We'd need some space to work though."

I gave them all the space. They worked for atleast thirty minutes non-stop and the worst was no one was speaking to me, no one was saying anything, there was no sign of Grayson waking up yet. I just sat there, heart thumping like a ball in my chest non-stop with nothing to hold on to but a prayer for his life.

After fifteen more torturous moments of injections, some shock machine and what had to be a painful surgery, his eyes fluttered open.

"Grayson!" I rushed to his side, my chest tight with how it's been put through all sorts of confusing emotions all in one day.

"Calm down." He chuckled, but it was weak, worn out like it was taking all the energy he could muster to speak.

I wanted to smack him upside the head or at least smack his shoulder, but from the looks of it, he was already in enough pain.

"You're worried." It wasn't a question. It was a straight statement.

"Well, you took a freaking bullet from a crazed witch and I didn't know if you were going to survive or not, I was already thinking the worst possible things and I know I should be strong and what not, but I was worried because I couldn't stomach that I was about to lose you just when we were getting better an-" He kissed me. Not a cute gentle one, but the fierce, desperate kind that you wouldn't expect from a man who was just seconds from death moments ago. Worries for another day.

I returned the kiss like my very life depended on it, grabbing onto his shoulders because the paramedics had ripped his shirt.

He pulled back, but not fully, "I love you." He whispered against my lips, his eyes shut like he was trying to savor the moment.

"I love you." And I actually meant it, every single word. Our story may have been far from the typical, or expected, but it was our story. He wasn't perfect, neither was I, but we were perfect together.