Criminal

IV.

Chapter 4

Selena's POV

I don't know what happened.

One minute Justin was kissing me and then next he was gone.

After what felt like hours, everything fell silent.

The shooting, the screaming and shouting...

It was all gone.

I held my breath as the door remained shut.

And then, in slow motion, I heard them.

Frantic yells.

But yet the door remained shut.

Justin hadn't come to get me because he had been shot.

I didn't know what was happening.

I just know I heard the words penetrate through the confusion in my brain before it all went dark.

He couldn't have been shot.

I needed him.

Our baby needed him.

He didn't deserve to be hurt.

It was a few hours before I came around. At least that's what they told me.

I had overexerted myself and passed out so they had brought me here along with Justin.

I had never felt true relief until the moment I heard that he was still alive.

He was in critical condition and currently undergoing surgery but he was still here.

He wasn't dead.

And as I sat in that hospital bed, praying for the first time in years for him to be okay, I realized something important.

It was a feeling I had been trying to suppress for the past few months but now I couldn't.

Somehow I had fallen in love with Justin Bieber.

The entire concept was laughable.

I barely knew the man.

I knew that he was a criminal.

I knew that to everyone else he had a heart of stone.

But yet, some part of me - namely my heart - decided it was okay to fall for him.

Because he had been the one to get me out of Marco's hands. 

He had been the one to offer me a safe place to stay.

He had been the one to hold me when I needed him.

He was the one tending to my needs and making sure I was comfortable here.

He was the only one that even bothered to care about me.

Maybe it was because of the baby. Maybe it wasn't.

All I knew was that he had cared about me more than anyone else had. 

He had made me feel safe and loved.

And in return I loved him. 

I wanted to make him feel the way he made me because he deserved it.

Because under that ruthless mask was a little boy deprived of love and compassion.

His heart was still full of it despite the torment he went through. 

And I wanted to be the one by his side when it decided to come out.