Spellbound [COMPLETED]

Chapter 28 Shots Fired

"I'm still mad at you," Ana said, her arms crossed at her chest.

"I know," Ben said. "But that doesn't change anything, right?"

"If by that, you mean you're afraid that I'm gonna break up with you, then no. I'm not that mad."

Her eyes scanned his body, taking in his ash-covered face and his tattered t-shirt. She could see parts of his sculpted torso through the holes and she could see him glisten in sweat. She bit her lip.

"What are you staring at?" He asked her.

"Nothing," she quickly changed the subject. "Haven't you ever thought about how fast we've jumped into things?"

"Yeah, but we've talked about it already."

"No, we talked about how things would be in the long run. But we never talked about what's between us now. I mean isn't it a big weird that our relationship started literally two hours into our first date?"

He sighed, gripping his steering wheel and tightening his jaw.

"You really expect us to have a normal relationship Annabel? After all you've seen, all we've been through, you think we could go back and start over?"

"That's not what I'm saying! I'm just a little overwhelmed with everything moving so quickly, our relationship included. I mean we literally bypassed the whole 'nice-to-meet-you' stage and how did we go from 'let's date' to 'let's take on the world together' in like a month?

"I mean I get that you've lived like a million years and died more times than I can count on my hand, but that doesn't mean I'm as ready to love you as you've been for me all these years. I'm not saying we should stop, just-can we slow down?"

"Am I suffocating you this much?" Ben asked, looking torn by everything Ana just said.

Ana looked at him, concern painted on her face. Then she looked down and asked herself, Am I suffocating? Is he suffocating me?

She thought back to all the time they've spent together. He made her happy, better. If anything, what really scared her was the threats that posed against them, like Alec and the Exaudi.

"No," she finally said. "I guess-I don't know. I'm just scared, okay!"

"Of what? What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid of losing you! Losing this, what we have!"

They both kept silent.

Wow, out of all the things I could've said, I had to go there, she thought to herself.

After a long silence, Ben finally spoke.

"I'm scared too."

"You should be," Ana answered, "I'm broken, Ben. Unfixable. See all this chaos that's happened ever since I walked into your life?"

"It's nothing like that for me! Do you have any idea what it feels like for you to walk into our lives? I didn't know what it meant to live until I met you!"

"And you almost died trying to save that! I. Am. Destruction. I gave Alec a reason to stay, to keep harassing us, to endanger this whole town. You can make this about Cam's family feud with him, but the root of your problems all boils down to me."

"You can't keep-" Ben began to argue.

They came to a stop at a yellow caution-taped restaurant that was surrounded by cop cars.

"Is that the Brew?" Ana asked.

Ben stopped the car and stepped out, Ana following him. As they made their way towards the entrance, they saw Carly being dragged out and handcuffed by two police men.