Dry Your Tears

One

Elias looked up at the sky, blinking lethargically as his eyes adjusted to the bright sky in front of him. There was silence, his mind blank and free from worry. He wondered if he was in heaven, whether he had died and finally found peace. The thought made him want to laugh because if he had died, then heaven was surely not where he would have ended up, not after the things he's done. A shooting pain went through his chest, bringing him back to reality and he groaned, sitting up slowly as his hand travelled to where he had been shot. Although his clothes were soaked with blood, and he could feel the discomfort of being shot, to his surprise he found no gun wound. Confused, he patted his chest and felt the penny Olivia had given him days ago in his front pocket. He took it out and saw that the bullet had lodged through the penny and got stuck, saving him from immediate death. Only then did everything finally come catching up with him; the death of his little sister, Olivia being taken away and Luca fucking Barletta once again stealing everything he had ever loved from him. Elias felt tears run down his cheeks, the sorrow and anguish of everything he had just experienced being too much for him. Minutes passed and Elias was in shambles, hyperventilating as he tried to pull himself together. Eventually, he managed to calm himself down, he sat down for a bit longer before he struggled to get up, glancing around his surrounding with tired eyes. He was still in the abandoned airplane hanger, dried blood staining the floor and he wondered what had happened to his men, where they all dead?

He put a hand on his chest, where he had gotten hurt, stumbling in his stance as his blank eyes searched the vicinity one last time. Only then did he see the body that lay unmoving on the floor, the familiar set of dark curls causing his eyes to widen as he limped as he quickly as he could to the body. 

"Adam? Adam!" He cried, falling to his knees as he desperately shook the body. "Adam." He called again but the man didn't move. Elias couldn't handle it, he physically couldn't handle another loss, not of his best friend, perhaps the last person he still had. "Adam! Fucking wake up!" Elias cried desperately, slapping his friend across the face before grabbing his shirt vigorously. Adam's eyes shot open and he latched on to Elias' wrists, confusion written all over his face. His eyes were red and swollen as if he had been crying but other than that, Elias saw no other visible sign of injury. 

"Eli? Elias?" Adam spoke, touching Elias' face and arms as if he wasn't real as if there was no way that he could be standing in front of him, alive. "Elias!" He finally exclaimed, throwing his arms around his friend. "I thought you were dead. I saw them shoot you and I thought-Thank God you're ok." Adam sobbed as continued to hold Elias as if letting him go would mean that he would disappear. Never, never had the two of them ever been so vulnerable as to cry in front of each other, displaying true signs of worry and despair, the last time being almost ten years, with the death of Elias' parents. The pair sat there for awhile, too stunned by everything they had been through to speak. Sure, they had gone on dangerous missions before, they had been shot before, they had almost died before but this time was different. The missions weren't personal to them, it was work, they had a job to. But this, this was everything and everyone they cared for, gone, taken away from them without a care for their lives or their humanity. 

"Where is everyone? " Elias croaked out eventually, fearful of the answer. Adam looked at him with sad eyes and Elias felt his heart drop, suddenly not wanting to hear the answer. He hadn't taken all his men with him to get Olivia and Aaliyah back and that was perhaps his first mistake. No, he was in such a state of panic and desperation to get his sister and lover back that he had grabbed a handful of his most trusted men, his friends and rushed to fight for the people he loved. A fight that he had lost. 

"James, Sander and I, we rushed here as soon as we could and we had just stepped out here when we saw you get shot and Olivia get dragged into the plane. I didn't know what his next move was, whether there were orders to kill the rest of us, so I told James and Sander to find Alexia and the others and get the hell out of here. I don't know how many of our men they managed to find, but they're safe." Elias sighed a sigh of relief. He didn't know what he would have done if he had woken up to find the hangar filled with his dead men. He looked back at the vacant tarmac, where Olivia was standing just a few hours ago, eyes begging him to save her. His hands trembled as he stood up, panic shooting through him like the bullet that almost pierced his chest.