Dry Your Tears

Three

The strong smell of the freshly dug, fertile black soil took over his nostrils as his right hand loosely held on to a bouquet of Dahlias, her favourite flowers. Elias stared at the grave stone with heavy eyes and an even heavier heart, the dates and the name engraved on the stone looking back at him, taunting him, reminding of just how young she was. Tears slipped down his cheeks as he felt his knees buckle beneath him and he fell to the floor, not caring that he was staining the expensive black suite he was wearing, what did material things matter if the people he wanted to share them with were no longer around.

Aaliyah Evi Hind Van Dyke, February 29 2004 - May 10 2020 

He closed his eyes, shaking his head profusely as he dropped the floor and held his hands to his ears. "Make it stop." He begged, the words, her name and the dates constantly swirling through his brain. He could hear her laugh, the sweet innocent laugh she had, the one that could always be heard, even when nothing remotely funny was going on. 

She was only sixteen.

You killed her.

If it wasn't for you, she'd still be alive.

You killed her, your parents are dead because of you, Olivia is gone because of you, her grandparents killed, all because of you, you, you.

It's all your fault.

Your fault.

"My fault." Elias whispered, but then he shook his head, letting out a heart-wrenching cry as he stared up at the sky, a sky that had darkened to match his mood perfectly, rain falling down his face, mixing up with his tears. "No." He sobbed, hunching over as he dug his hands into the soil, wishing he could reach for his sister, hold her one last time and tell her how much he loved her. His shoulders moved up and down as he sobbed, vision blurred and clothes soaked from the rain. But Elias didn't care, he didn't care about anything anymore.  He might have stayed in that position for hours but he didn't care, he couldn't bring himself to care and if it wasn't for James who had approached him, wearing a black suit and carrying an umbrella overhead, Elias would have stayed in that position until he too, was a part of the wet, back, soil.

His mind was in disorder, one thought after the other, one emotion after the other, fighting for dominance. He was filled with rage, so much of it but at the same time he was rendered paralyzed by grief and sorrow, unable to move, to think, to understand. His mind was no longer a part of his body but a separate entity, looking down at his grievous self, unable to change the past.

Elias had been lying curled up in his sister's bedroom for days, crying himself to sleep and refusing any form of food or hydration. His throat was dry, begging to be quenched of its thirst and there was a dull, painful ache in his stomach, begging to be satisfied with food. But he didn't care, he needed the pain, he deserved the pain. Aaliyah had suffered and died, he deserved to suffer more, Olivia was taken and was probably already dead and living just seemed futile, like there was no point to it all, he had failed the most important people in his life. They were all dead because of him. It was ironic, he had dedicated most of time and effort into saving girls, boys, anyone, from people like Luca Barletta and yet he wasn't able to save his own fucking sister and girlfriend. Elias laughed bitterly at the thought, snuggling further into the duvet that occupied Aliyah's empty bed. Empty, never to be filled again, and it hurt, it hurt so fucking much and it wouldn't fucking stop hurting, it didn't seem like it ever would. 

James and Sander stood at the door frame, hopelessly and helplessly watching their closest friend, their brother suffer in silence and it was torture not knowing what they could do to help him. Well, there was something they could do, for starters, try and save Olivia, James had tried to bring this up, but,  Elias, too lost in his state of grief, refused to even grasp the possibility of Olivia being alive. It was impossible, he had already decided that she was dead, to him there was no point believing otherwise. However, James and Sander were more optimistic, Luca went to through too much trouble to get her back, he wouldn't just kill her, at least not so soon. And, Adam refused to believe she was dead as well, at least until he saw her body in front of him. Adam, that was another problem, though he believed Olivia to still be alive, he was in such a state of shock after seeing Olivia's burnt down house, wallowing in guilt and sorrow, he hadn't left his apartment in weeks despite all of James and Sander's efforts. They felt hopeless, like they'd just gone from background, secondary characters to suddenly becoming pivotal to the plot, ensuring that Elias and Adam got back on their feet, back in to action, ready to take on Barletta headstrong and put an end to his madness and all the suffering he had inflicted and continued to inflict. As James and Sander returned to base that evening, they knew that there was only one way to grab Elias' and Adam's attention, they needed physical evidence of the fact that Olivia was still out there, they needed to find the last person who was with her before Luca took her, they needed to find Alexia.

A/N: Oh shit, short chapter but I hope you're liking it so far, so, as you've probably gathered from now, the sequel will focus more on Olivia trying to survive Luca and Elias' struggle to save her. So yeah, please vote and comment, comment, comment! I want to talk, argue and engage with all of you! To stay up to date with update feel free to give me a follow!