“Thank you for saving our lives, Tanzanite.” Sapphire says with a pure smile on her face which makes Elio pause with his eyes widened a little bit.
Don’t know how many times for today that Elio lets the wind keep circling around them and making the scene just like in movies.
The sky slowly loses the orange color since the sun is almost fully set which makes it now become a dark purple yet not that dark, still just a perfect scenery.
“We probably joined Adam right now if you were not there so… we owe you a life.” She continues and puts her hand back on Elio’s shoulder, physical contact just her way to show affection and comfort to others.
Not only pausing his movement, it seems like Elio is also holding his breath without knowing it, not expecting Sapphire would say such a thing to him.
Things that he never got and expected from anyone ever before which makes him get used to and not wanting it anymore.
An appreciation, a proper appreciation.
Elio always gets the blame, fault, framed, and similar things that are just the opposite of appreciation.
In fact, he only gets appreciation from Lucas who always knows what Elio has been doing and working on.
That moment is already a long way in the past which makes Elio start to get used to and the thoughts of receiving one fading away, even the smallest or the simplest one.
But right now, while the other two tigers, who are already with him since day one in this company, still give him the same treat as the others, suddenly there is one person that he just met last year who gives him this.
This must be not the first time that this person moves or changes something inside Elio, either it’s his brain or heart that he still thinks it ridiculous of how someone can give this many effects toward him.
Elio's eyes are still on the cross, not wanting to have eye contact with the person beside him, and finally realizes that he needs to take a breath.
If he suddenly inhales a lot of air out of nowhere, Sapphire is going to notice it so he tries to take it slow and natural.
“You know that night when our connection got lost again..” Now Sapphire starts telling him the truth of what is going on that night.
**Last night flashback**
“Sapphire! We gotta move!” Aquamarine shouts while shooting the guards in front of them since the gates start closing behind them.
Since Howl is badly injured from the storage area, Sapphire is the one who is helping her to get up and walk the whole time as Aquamarine tries to protect them.
Sapphire scans their room right now and finds they are still in CCTV’s camera.
She already called Elio many times but no response came from it so she takes another conclusion that their connection must be cut off again.
At this point they already run out of options like standing on the edge of a cliff which only has two options, jump forward or standing still while the people try to get them.
Jumping forward while the guards are still facing them with their weapons is too risky and with Howl’s current condition it makes things more difficult.
“Don’t! Spec is already on his way here! He will be here any second!” Sapphire replies while letting Howl lay down on the floor and telling her to press her worst wound.
“But the gates! We are going to get locked!” Aquamarine says while reloading his gun.
“No. He won’t close the last gate.” Sapphire replies firmly and takes out her gun, joining Aquamarine in the shootout.
“He will…” Howl weakly says behind the two of them which makes Aquamarine twitch his eyebrow and glance at her while Sapphire is still shooting the guards.
“What do you mean?” Aquamarine asks as his gun is totally reloaded.
“I have worked with him… for… months in Onyx…” Howl answers, still breathing heavily.
Sapphire needs to reload her gun which makes her and Aquamarine switch their position quickly.
At the same time, Sapphire wants to ask about what Howl just said but she thinks that she needs to focus more on defending them while waiting for Spec to come.
“He is the type of person if the goals are already achieved… he doesn’t care about any other things…” Howl continues.
“Are you saying we are just pions of his or something? Even all of the things we have been through?” Aquamarine replies and switches position with Sapphire once again because she is done reloading hers.
“Nothing changed after all once we got promoted…” Howl replies and grunts in pain, probably the wound is kicking in.
“Not only the lions but by our own blood, huh? Great.” Aquamarine says sarcastically and scoffs as he switches with Sapphire once again.
Even though Sapphire hears everything about what Howl just told them, there is her instinct that says she shouldn’t believe any of that without actually talking with him later.
Right now Sapphire wants to stop Howl to say anything more but here comes the last gate slowly starts closing.
But her choice is correct, her instinct is telling her something, the gate stops closing and at the same time suddenly there is a huge blow in front of them.
The blow is not hitting them, a bit far yet not that far, just right at where the guards are, it’s Spec.
“Over here!” He shows up from the destroyed wall and throws some grenades toward the guards' space.
Taking this as a big chance to escape, Sapphire quickly helps Howl to get up while Aquamarine rushes forward to get close with Spec.
“Nice one, little cub!” Aquamarine says and takes out some weapons from Spec’s duffle bag.
“Not anymore!” He replies and chuckles as they are now in sync fighting together, giving space for Sapphire and Howl to walk first since they are not in the right condition to join in.
“Let’s go!” Sapphire shouts once they get into the tunnel, one hand is around Howl’s waist as support for her to walk while the other one is still holding her gun.
Both of them hear the order and move out right away to join them running through the tunnel until they get away, the hole that they have set up as an emergency.
“Let me help.” Spec says and holds Howl’s arm that is around Sapphire’s shoulder.
Sapphire nods and slowly switches her place with Spec since she also knows that she almost reached her limit and it might get worse if she is pushing herself.
“Are you alright?” Aquamarine says and holds Sapphire’s arm.
“Yep.” She replies but somehow her wound, at her left side, kicks in which almost makes her groan in pain, fortunately she manages to hold it.
Since the three of them got inside the storage room where the unexpected explosion came, they all must be hurt by it with different amounts of pain.
Even though Sapphire probably gets the least of it, she is almost out of energy from all of the things that happened.
When she thinks about it, she doesn’t see any sign of explosion at that time which is so weird because they also didn’t see the lions in there, the room is darker than she thought.
The explosion also happened right after a few seconds they see Howl who is rummaging the boxes inside the storage room.
Sapphire is too busy with her mind to think about what went wrong with this auction and makes her not notice that some guards show up out of nowhere from one of the ways in the tunnel.
Thankfully they are on the other side with cells on it which makes them can’t get through right away but can see and shoot them through it.
“Over here!” one of the guards shouts which wakes her up but the time to react to it is just too short.
Spec, who is helping Howl, rushes forward to make their position unable to get shot while Aquamarine, who notices Sapphire is spacing out, quickly pushes her with his body covering hers.
Even though Aquamarine already reacts as fast as he can, one bullet gets through between the cells and directly hits him.
When they fall to the floor, Sapphire finally totally snaps out of it and quickly gets up as Aquamarine groans in pain while holding his stomach right side.
“Aquamarine!” Sapphire says with a panicked voice, horror starts covering her face as she looks at his wound that got shot.
It’s deep and probably hits his fatal part on his body because there is a lot of blood coming out from there as Aquamarine also can’t stop groaning in pain.
Hearing this, it makes the other two, who just successfully manage to dodge it, turn around to look at the ground and approach them.
“Come on, Aquamarine! Stay strong!” Sapphire says desperately and helps him to get up but Aquamarine’s body is just not on his side.
It doesn’t support him to get up and probably already runs out of energy to just get up with Sapphire's help.
Seeing how Aquamarine’s face is getting paler and his eyes start closing, she grabs his face and slightly slaps on it.
“No! Don’t you dare to give up! Wake up, Aquamarine! Wake up!” She starts shouting desperately right now with tears running down on her cheeks, the feeling of not wanting the worst thing to happen.
With his half closed eyes, almost feeling numb anywhere on his body, Aquamarine somehow still has the energy to slowly raise his hand and caress Sapphire’s cheek, wiping the tears away.
“Don’t cry… Please… smile…” he says weakly, his breath starts getting slower and slower than before.
Getting that sudden contact and hearing what he just said, Sapphire can’t hold her tears anymore as there are much more coming out from it.
“Please stay strong, Aquamarine. We are going to leave this place.” she replies and tries to pull his body to get up once again.
“Spec, help me here.” Sapphire demands the other tiger and he quickly obeys it by putting down Howl first slowly and gently leaning against the wall.
“There won’t be enough time…” Aquamarine manages to say between his heavy and slow breaths.
“More than enough than your thoughts.” Sapphire replies immediately, refusing and not wanting to lose against desperation.
With Spec's help, they manage to put Aquamarine’s arm around Sapphire’s shoulder and finally they can go back on track.
But it won’t be as easy and smooth as Sapphire wanted it to be as her wounds once again kick in and make her kneel down, holding her pain.
Not only her wounds but once she is kneeling down, her legs are giving up to gain her wish to get up and continue walking.
“Agghh!” Sapphire groans in pain and her legs start shaking “Come on, you weakling!” she says to herself, can’t feel more disappointed at this moment to her current condition.
Hearing her groan, it makes the other two once again look back at her and get back to them.
“Come on! We are close already!” Spec says impatiently and tries to give courage to Sapphire who is now giving up, her body not herself.
Sapphire tries to push herself once again but her body is just giving up which makes her fall on the ground again.
Because of the sudden contact, Aquamarine coughs and this time there is blood coming out from his mouth.
“Aquamarine!” Sapphire grabs his face once again and looks at it, it becomes a lot paler than before, almost looking like there is no blood running on it anymore.
Rumbling footsteps slowly can be heard again which means the guards found their way to get them and most probably get closer to them at any time.
“Come on, Aquamarine. Just a few more steps then we are out.” Sapphire says and tries to pull his body once again but this time is a lot heavier than before.
“Go…” Aquamarine manages to say weakly with his eyes closed.
“No, I won’t leave you here.” Sapphire says firmly and grabs his face once again, shaking it to make him stay awake.
Slowly Aquamarine opens his eyes weakly and probably with blurry vision but enough to see Sapphire’s face as he smiles and caresses her cheek once again.
“Promise me to always stay happy…” He says weakly.
From this moment, once again, tears start rolling down her cheek, and can't stand watching how Aquamarine’s eyes slowly lose his light.
Only a miracle that can help him to survive right now.
“No… please don’t say that…” Sapphire says with her cracked voice, no longer can hold her emotions together.
“You are always doing great on everything, heh…” he chuckles “you deserved everything…”
“Don’t leave me…” Sapphire says desperately.
“I’m so lucky and proud to have you as my sister…” his eyes start closing once again and his touch on her cheek is losing as well.
That’s the last words from him as his hand drops down from her face and now his body weight is totally pressing on her arms.
**Back to present**
“In the end, I didn’t manage to say anything back to him because I was so desperate and got too emotional of not wanting to let him go.” Sapphire says, done telling the story on that night where they got their biggest losses.
Hearing the whole story of it, Elio still can’t accept the fact that he failed to save all of them, too late to make a decision and lost against Heliodor in that moment.
What makes it even worse is that he already paid and gave everything he had to Heliodor yet one of them still didn’t manage to surpass it.
The anger and disappointment feelings come together making into a perfect combination to make Elio feel something he never had before, something that is much worse than revenge.
Sapphire also notices that Elio’s face becomes darker at the moment and it’s not because of the light that starts dimming since the sun is still setting down, almost completely, which slowly becomes a full night without any other color on the sky.
“That’s not the first time I watched and felt someone that I loved slowly dying in my arms.” Sapphire says, breaking the silence.
“But it’s my first time that I can let them go much easier than this.” she continues, trying to find the right words and action for him “I’m truly lucky to have you.”
Elio’s emotion starts to get overwhelmed with guilt and the feeling of not deserved to get what she just told as he slowly lowering her eyes to look at his feet.
“You’re being disingenuous.” Elio says, using a rare word to express it directly.
“Say the one who just comforted me out of nowhere?” Sapphire replies jokingly and chuckles at the end of it, ready to play words with him “Right… I think that’s one of my misfortunes as a leader.”
Hearing her reply, it somehow makes Elio twitch his eyebrow of getting mocked by his own leader sarcastically or she is just getting irritated.
Elio doesn’t have a slight clue of it, besides he never gets this close with someone else other than Lucas in such a long time, and confused of what he needs to say.
“And I think it is one of my misfortunes to have someone that is so dense, ignorant, and always putting his own goals first rather than others.” Sapphire continues and somehow it hits directly into Elio’s chest which causes him an ache around it.
“Yet how sucks it is that I still believe that person also hides and keeps everything from the others as he faces all of them alone.” She says and this time Elio’s eyes widened a little bit as he glanced over his shoulder.
“Neither because he hates to communicate nor it’s hard to explain but I always think that this person has a soft spot where he doesn’t want to bother others with his own problems.” She turns her head to look at Elio with her softest smile on.
“He is such a strong and gentle person, isn’t it?” Sapphire says and puts her hand on Elio’s back, slowly and gently caresses it.
Hearing such a cringe speech yet weirdly warms his chest, only makes Elio furrow his eyebrows and hold his chest from the incredible pain from it, he hates it.
“He is just a coward and greedy.” Elio says, somehow the words just come out without his own conscious
Sapphire chuckles once again and slowly puts her other hand on Elio’s shoulder, half way of getting her previous position where they just arrived in front of the cross.
“Yea… he is always at his own controlling station while the others get in.” She replies jokingly “Also so greedy with his wants hahaha”
Elio doesn’t find it amusing in his ears as he looks away from her even though he knows that she must be just joking around and mocking him.
“But if he is that kind of person, the gate would be closed, I suppose?” Sapphire continues and this time, in just an instant, Elio finally meets her eyes again as she looks like already waiting for him to turn around.
“He also must have sacrificed something, don’t you think?” She finishes it at the same time where the wind blows on them again, making their skins brush against the cold wind as Sapphire shivers from the sudden atmosphere.
While Elio just stays there, eyes open widened where he doesn’t know there is such a spark on it, staring at her and there is a slight gap between his lips as his body refuses to look away from the woman.
Somehow and how it can change drastically in just a snap of fingers, the way Elio is looking at Sapphire and what he sees in his eyes is that she is
Eternal.
Sapphire brushes some of the hair stains away from her face and looks back at Elio who is staring at him with a face that she never witnessed before.
“What?” She says and chuckles, not wanting to sound nervous right now “Is there something in my face?”
“Why?” Elio says, just like before, it slips out from his lips without thinking at all.
“Hmm..” Sapphire tilts her head to the side and looks at the night sky that is rounding them “A leader’s instinct? Heheh.”
That kind of answer is just trying to avoid the question’s point and obviously not making sense at all but Elio doesn’t protest any of it
“This must be weird for both of us but” she pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing “I feel like I already know you for such a long time already.”
As always, no response at all as Elio just wants to anticipate what comes next.
“You barely say anything yet I somehow get the idea of what you want. Then I came to the conclusion that silence has a lot of meaning in your life. Can be comfort, pleasure, or other similar things which I found unique as well.” She exclaims proudly.
Suddenly a water drops and hits Elio’s face as it runs down on his right cheek, probably it starts to rain.
“That is why in this accident,” she pauses again and looks back at Elio’s face “I also can conclude that you must have faced something worse than us.”
Elio hates everything that is happening right now starting from how his brain is not working as how he wants it to be and his heart being dominant just not his type of person.
Even worse is how some words from her give him such a painful ache in his chest as if it’s going to be ripped apart and his throat feels like someone is strangling him.
But what Elio hates the most right now is that he just realizes it’s not a raindrop, it’s just his tears rolling down without him knowing how to hold it.
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