Choosing Love

Chapter Thirty Nine

Someone was screaming. Well actually there were dozens of people screaming. The unconscious body of their King seemed to get the Auradonians into an understandable panic.

"Mal! Mal, calm down!"

Someone was saying her name. They shouldn't be telling me to calm down, they should be telling whoever's letting loose that soul shattering scream to calm down. Gods I know people love Ben but...I mean...no, he...he's not gone! He can't be gone! I...he doesn't know how much I love him!

But it took Mal a minute to realize that one of the people screaming, the person who was screaming Ben's name, who was almost sinking to her knees in fear and panic...it was her.

"No...Gods, no," Mal muttered, shaking her head. Her eyes remained locked on Ben, as if staring at him would somehow cause him to get up and resume the fight.

"Well, well, well," Freddy smirked and Mal's eyes latched onto him, narrowing in anger and disgust. "He put up a good fight, I must admit. But only one of us had the grace of God on his side and it certainly wasn't Beastie Jr. here."

It was then that Mal realized something else, as Freddy moved to close the distance between himself and Ben as if he was going to finish him off. When she had sank to her knees, she had gotten out of Akiho's grip. Her arms were free.

And she had a dagger.

Springing to her feet, she pulled the dagger out of the hidden pocket and made it fly true. It hit her mark though she was a little disappointed to have caused a hole in Ben's suit. That was the suit Ben had been wearing when he offered to sign Mal up for art class.

Though after tonight, the only thing that suit would be good for would be kindling.

"Karma's a tricky mistress, don't you know?" Mal growled as Freddy grunted in pain, the dagger sticking out of his shoulder. The same shoulder that very dagger had hit when Freddy had fired it at Mal all those months ago.

Mal didn't care that Freddy was in pain, she didn't care that she'd given him another weapon. All she cared about was Ben.

Rushing to his side, Mal knelt down to check to make sure there was no lasting damage. That Ben would be able to walk away from this. That Belle and Beast wouldn't lose another child before their time.

"Please...don't leave me..." Mal whispered as she bent her head down to hear if Ben was breathing.

Oh thank dad! Mal thought as she could feel the faint rising and fall of Ben's chest. Ben was alive. By the grace of Apollo, of Hera, of all the Gods on Olympus, Ben was alive.

Now then...

"I'mma kill him! Give me that sword and let me run him through!" Mal heard Harry exclaim and turned to see the pirate struggling against Jay's grasp. Jay was really lucky he was wearing a jacket or else his arm would probably be severely scarred by Harry's hook as he fought to escape like a ravenous badger.

The last time Harry had fought to escape someone's grasp like that, Freddy had made a rather lewd comment about CJ, Harry's little sister. Let's just say Freddy was lucky that the Rats had been able to restrain Harry then.

It had still taken three Rats to do so—and this time there was only Jay.

"Harry—."

"No Jay! Bad enough Freddy crashed Mal's event. Bad enough he escaped the Isle. But he had the nerve to use one of our smoke bombs to attack Ben?!"

"Really? After everything he's done, that's where you draw the line? Especially after what happened with Ryan?"

Mal couldn't help but agree with Jay but at the same time, seeing Ben still lying there unconscious as if he was dead...rage filled Mal's body. Ben had been innocent in all of this, had only been trying to protect his citizens.