If she dies, it's not my responsibility.

I didn't want to bring her along, what if something happens to her? I won't be able to forgive myself.

But she managed to convince everyone to let her go and I hardly talked to her for the whole week because I was angry at myself for taking her somewhere I know it will be dangerous and secondly I was angry at her for being stubborn.

Why does she never listen to me?

I took a deep breath as the elevator opened at the top of a skyscraper, in Queensland where a helicopter was waiting for us, and right before it stood Carl with a smile on his lips which widened on seeing us.

Leona and I carried our respective bags, loaded with all the things we would be needing along with our guns.

I was dressed in a comfortable pair of jeans and a pale blue t shirt while Leona wore leggings and a t shirt too.

I took her hand in mine and we walked towards him.

"Welcome! Welcome!" He exclaimed as we reached him and I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

In his hand was a roll of paper which he extended towards us and I took it from him to see that it was the map, indicating the location where the pendrive was.

Fortunately, I used to love geography and for the past one week, I learnt all I could about how to read a map correctly.

My eyes scanned the map once before I folded it and placed it inside my pocket securely.

"Let's go, shall we?" He asked, his eyes fixed on Leona.

I grabbed her arm again and walking past him, helped Leona get inside the helicopter and got in after her as he followed behind us.

I grabbed the headphones and made her wear it myself, adjusting it on her head and then wore mine, sitting beside her and Carl sat opposite to us just as the helicopter started.

I leaned back in the seat, my hand still holding hers.

Carl's gaze lingered on our joined hands, a smirk forming on his lips. "Hold her as long as you want now, in the end, she will be mine."

My jaw clenched and before I could open my mouth to curse at him, Leona beat me to it. "Listen here, you motherfucker! I am not marrying you, I won't be yours, ever! I would rather stay married to him for the rest of my life than being near you for even a second."

Damn.

I did a mental victory dance on hearing her say that she would rather stay married to me than being near him.

Carl's eyes widened on hearing her curse but he soon covered his shock and sat back quietly.

Leona scoffed and turned her head away from him and gazed outside and my thumb started to rub circles on the back of her palm involuntarily.

And she turned to look at me, her eyes locking with mine and I looked at her with admiration.

I lifted my hand and gently brushed away a strand of hair from her face so that I could see her more clearly, her mouth slightly parting, a certain softness settling in her eyes and slowly a tint of pink coated her cheeks.

Someone cleared their throat. "If you continue looking at each other like that, I might throw up."

Leona instantly snapped her head to Carl, giving him a deadly glare which made him lift up his hands in surrender. "Geez, I am just kidding."

"Just be silent." She ordered him.

"God, you are feisty. I like it." And he winked at her.

"You speak another word and I will throw you off this helicopter!" She threatened.

"Okay okay." He once again lifted his hands in surrender and looked away, mumbling underneath his breath. "Jesus, she's scary."

I bit my lips to stop myself from laughing.

We soon reached our destination and the helicopter started to descend in a clearing right outside the forest.

As the helicopter landed, Carl got out first and I followed him and waited for Leona to get out but as she was about to climb out, her knees buckled and she fell forward but fortunately, I caught her in time, wrapping my arms around her body and making her stand.

"You okay?" I asked her.

She nodded. "Yeah...just a little dizzy because of the ride."

"Okay..." I mumbled.

"Guys, you sure you had an arranged marriage because it's looking more like a love marriage to me." Carl decided to speak up once again and I glared at him.

"Can't you shut your mouth for two minutes?"

He looked offended. "I was silent throughout the whole ride! Can't I speak now?"

"No!" I snapped and grabbing Leona's arm, started to drag her towards the forest.

"I'll see you guys in a week!" He shouted behind us, waving his hand and looking at him over my shoulder, I showed him my middle finger before turning back.

Fucking asshole.

We soon entered the forest. According to all the research I did about it in the last few days, it doesn't have any dangerous animals or such things. But then, it's Australia, you never know what you might encounter here.

When I studied the map, I realised that he purposely left us on the opposite end of where the pendrive was supposed to be.

Fine! Let's do this.

I started to lead the way and she followed behind me silently. I kept my gun ready and tucked in my pocket in case something happens and instructed Leona to do the same.

After having walked for an hour or so, I heard her scream behind me. "Aaah!"

I whipped around and couldn't find her there. Where did she go?

Then my eyes looked down, to see that she had fallen in a huge hole which was not that deep but still...

She laid there in the mud on her back rubbing the side of her neck in pain, her hair now covered in mud and leaves and so was her face which made me laugh at her.

"We hardly started and you are already falling down." I laughed.

"You idiot! Stop laughing and pull me out!"

Only when I was done laughing, I extended my hand towards her to help her out.

Pulling her up, I chuckled at her state and she pouted angrily. I pulled out my handkerchief, and started to wipe her face with it. "You look like a mess."

"A cute mess." I added underneath my breath making sure she doesn't hear it.

"Huh? You said something?"

I shook my head. "Nope." And I continued to wipe her face and remove the leaves that were stuck in her ponytail.

"Are you hurt anywhere though?"

Her father told us to take care of each other no matter what. As if I was going to murder her if he didn't tell us that.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "I'm not that weak..."

"Good. Now let's go. We have two hours before the sun sets and we will be setting up our tent for the night."

She started to walk past me. "Yeah, yeah. I know."

Sighing, I followed her.

.

.

.

"How can you forget to pack it?!" I yelled at her and she took a step back.

She smiled sheepishly. "I forgot...I was going to pack the sleeping bag but..."

"But what? I gave you the responsibility to pack it and you forgot! You had one job, just the one!"

"Stop shouting at me."

I ran my hand down my face in frustration. "How can you forget to pack the sleeping bag? All you packed is single, huge yet a thin blanket."

"So, atleast we have that and we have this...tent to sleep in." She gestured towards the tent that we set up a few minutes ago.

"But it's cold here and we have a single blanket!"

"We can share!"

"Definitely not! You have to tell me, how did you forget to pack it?"

She groaned loudly. "Oh God! I packed this blanket and was going to pack the sleeping bags too when I remembered something and I went to do that and when I came back I thought I have already packed them so I closed the bag."

"And when I asked you to recheck everything this morning, what did you do then?"

"Um..." A sheepish look fell over her face as she refused to look at me, roaming her eyes all around. "I...was sure that I had packed everything...so...I didn't recheck it."

I looked at her in disbelief, my mouth falling open, and I blinked a couple of times. "Please tell me you are joking."

"It's not a big deal, we still have a blanket, look at the positive--"

"Shut up!" I snapped and went inside the tent and sat in a corner thinking what to do.

We can't do anything. We have to share. At such times, I really hate her.

A minute later, she stepped inside the tent. "Can you please go out so I could change my clothes?"

Glaring at her, I got up and left the tent to give her privacy.

"Don't you dare peak inside!" She shouted from inside.

"I'm not interested!" I shouted back.

I was fuming with anger and frustration. I shouldn't have trusted her with that.

After she was changed, she called me in and going inside, I started to unzip my jeans making her turn around immediately. "What do you think you are doing?!"

"Changing my clothes. Do I need your permission to do that?"

"You could have told me to leave atleast!" And she started to walk away.

"Wait! I'm done."

She turned around, confused. "Already?"

I rolled my eyes. "Just had to change into these sweatpants."

"Okay..." And she went over to the corner where are bags were and pulled out two pillows, throwing one at me which I caught.

"I'm still angry at you." I reminded her as I placed my pillow on the ground and laid down.

"Yeah, yeah. I know."

She opened the blanket and spreading it out, gave one end to me and I yanked it from her and pulled it over myself and she took the other end as we tried to sleep as far as away from each other.

.

.

.

In the middle of the night, I started to feel cold, I turned around to see that while sleeping, Leona had taken away the whole blanket for herself and was sleeping peacefully which I couldn't stand so, I pulled away the whole blanket from her hold and draped it over myself leaving her bare to the cold.

That's mean. My conscience chirped in.

Shut up.

I closed my eyes to sleep but a few seconds later, I heard her whimper softly. I opened my eyes to see her curling up in a ball due to the cold.

Fine!

I shifted a little closer and extending one end of the blanket, pulled it over her.

But that didn't stop her from whimpering.

I contemplated on what to do and my brain gave a stupid idea which I quickly discarded.

It's not my problem. I did share the blanket with her.

But hearing her whimper made my heart clench and I sighed. I am going to regret this later.

I took a deep breath and shifted even more closer to her, and wrapping my arm around her waist, pulled her into my chest, her back pressing against my front and I draped the blanket over us both.

Just for tonight.

Suddenly she started to move making my breath hitch. Please don't wake up or else I will die of embarrassment.

But instead of waking up, she turned around in my hold, and wrapping her arm around my body, buried her face in my chest and I swear my heart almost bursted out of my chest.

A soft, contended smile formed on her lips and I couldn't help but admire her. And before I could comprehend what I was doing, I pressed my lips to her forehead.

Pulling back, I stared down at her. My wife. And I couldn't help myself as I leaned closer to kiss her cheek lingering.

Guys, I think I am in lo--

No, no, no.

I am going crazy. That's much better.

And pressing one last kiss to her forehead, I closed my eyes falling into a deep, peaceful sleep.

Just for tonight.