Sapphire: Chapter 2

-10-

CHRIS

"What do you think it's about?" Jill asks before taking a sip of her tea.

"No idea, hopefully, it's not too bad. Already have a lot going on" I tell her. It's Saturday morning and it's my day off, and Jill's too. We were waiting for Leon to come, there's still ten minutes left before our meet uptime. We sat at the very back of the cafe, near a wall, giving us a full view of the cafe.

"He's here early too," Jill says, her eyes glued to the glass window. I see Leon walking towards the door with his a hand in his pocket, the other was holding a laptop case. He was in his usual get-up of a blue polo shirt and jeans. He steps in the shop and spots us.

"I'm sorry for calling you guys on such short notice," Leon says as he sits at the seat in front of us.

"It's fine." I say, "What were you going to tell us? It sounded urgent?"

"It is," Leon says as he takes out his laptop and opens it. "It's about Jake and Sherry."

"What about them? Have you guys gotten a lead on where they are?" I asked, feeling worried and anxious.

"Yeah, but it was cut off, it stopped at this ghost town in Rome." He says as he types something on his laptop. He turns it to us. It was on google maps, and it was showing a rundown town. "We think they could be here. A team was sent there two days ago, but we still haven't got anything back. They've been missing for three days."

"We also had reports of 'unknown creatures' roaming around the neighboring area. Take a look at this—" He turns the laptop to himself momentarily before turning it back to us. "That's the thing that the people were seeing. It was sent to their police by a local civilian."

The 'thing' is not normal that's for sure. It looked like it was skinned alive and it had, long, visible fangs, it was hunched but at the same time, it looked like a form of a dog.

"My team's positive there's another illegal selling of B.O.W.'s there. Intel also told us there were serial killings in the area, victims looked like they were eaten alive." Leon adds, "Sound familiar?"

"God, don't tell me we're gonna go through another Tatchi incident again?" I sigh, getting frustrated with what was being told.

I don't want to go through that shit again.

"If we can stop it now, then we won't have to," Jill speaks up. "We need to move now, I'll file a report on this once I get back to the office."

"What about Sapphire? Have you guys found her?" Leon asks.

"Unfortunately, no. We still have no idea where she is." I reply. "We can't trace her cell. We don't know where to start looking."

"Everything was tampered in the Uni. I'm starting to think this was set up, this wasn't any ordinary terror attack."

"What do you mean, Chris?" Jill turns to me.

"I mean—" I look back at Jill, "They weren't planning to attack the Uni. They were there for Sapphire."

SAPPHIRE

My whole body was aching. I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty... I don't know what to think anymore.

This may be the end for me.

Someone walks in the room, I couldn't tell who it was because my eyes were swollen to the point that I couldn't see clearly.

I don't want to die like this... not like this... but I'm not going to beg, I'd rather die than beg from this monster.

"Don't worry, Sapphire, it'll all be over soon," Andrew spoke in a soft, yet mocking tone.

"Just get it over with" I managed to speak up. I looked up at his blurry image.

"Oh, I will, soon. But right now, you look like on the verge of dying and I can't let that happen. I want you to suffer—live, live a little longer in this hellhole. Untie her." I heard multiple steps in the room, and seconds later the ropes were off my wrist and someone pulls me from the chair. My legs ached. I felt someone lift me from the ground and carry me.

"If you just tell him what he wants to know maybe he'll be a little easier on you." ...Dylan. It was Dylan who was carrying me.

I chuckled, "Do you really... think that anything good would come out of that?"

"No, I'm not stupid, but then again, there's a chance he'll be a little easier on you."

I wanted to say something back but I ended up in a coughing fit. We were both quiet after that. I had no idea how long he had been carrying me. Everything was hurting, no matter how much I tried to ignore it.

Sometime later I felt something soft on my back.

A bed.

I felt my body relax against the mattress as I sighed. It helped a little bit.

I felt a dip next to me and something cold being pressed on my lip. It stung. A lot.

"Ah!" I jerked away from it and I immediately regret what I did. My shoulder hurt because I jerked my head all of a sudden.

"Stop moving so much." He tells me before pressing it back to my face again. It stung less.

"Easy for you to say!" I snapped, groaning a bit.