KotLC Unlocked

Chapter 12- Sophie's POV

It had been 3 days before Mr. Forkle decided to do anything about the situation. Three whole days.

The first one, Sophie spent a mess. She sobbed, and screamed, and transmitted to Keefe. But she couldn't reach him. She couldn't accept that he had technically been kidnapped, just like she had. Fitz must have told all of her friends she was acting this way, because it felt like the rest of them went out of their way to ignore her.

Maybe she should've felt at least a little better, considering she could still have hope. But she just couldn't. Grady and Edaline tried calming her, telling her things would be okay, and that Keefe would come back, and be fine. While the words should've been encouraging, Sophie couldn't quite grasp them, and that idea.

The night of the first day, she reached out to Silveny. Though she didn't tell her anything, Sophie knew that the alicorn knew something was up. She didn't bother Sophie though, just helped her with her nightmares. Her sleep was mostly peaceful, with the occasional bad thought.

The second day, Sophie felt a bit more determined. She met up with Biana, Fitz, Dex, Linh and Tam. Although Tam and Keefe weren't necessarily friends, he knew more about the Neverseen than anyone else, since he had been with them for a while.

When they met, Tam seemed a bit... off. He acted more distant than usual. He claimed it was just stress, within coming back home, and getting used to normal life. Sophie wasn't quite convinced, but the excuse didn't matter at that time. Their issue was getting Keefe back home.

They tried devising a plan multiple times. None of them seemed to work. After a while, Edaline came up and gave everyone mallomelt, so the visit wasn't a total waste.

That night though, Sophie had awful nightmares, and woke up screaming at least twice. Edaline came and sat with her for a while, telling her things would be okay. After that, she once again had peaceful dreams.

The third day, Sophie did nothing. She obviously cares about Keefe, she just couldn't make herself do anything.

That night she slept for about an hour, before giving up and staying up the rest of the night.

Finally, after three endless, agonizing days, Forkle showed up. It was still pretty early in the morning when he came, but Sophie stopped eating breakfast and ran to meet him.

"What took you so long?" she asked in a sarcastic voice.

"Well if you really wanted to know, we were searching for him," he responded.

Sophie hadn't realized this, hadn't known this, and now she felt bad. She shouldn't be harsh on the Black Swan, after all, they were on her side. They were fighting the same fight as her.

"Sorry," she told him.

"It's okay, and I know you would be wondering, but no. We have no leads on where he is. The Neverseen have been surprisingly quiet the past few weeks,"

That was right. There hadn't been any attacks since Keefe had gone into his coma. She hadn't realized, but her hands had started shaking. She was worried for Keefe. She had been kidnapped before, the awful memories still shaking her to the core. Sophie sighed and put her hands in her pockets.

Pockets brought up a few funny memories. Like when Fitz showed her ankle pockets, or when she was stuck in the healing center and started rambling about pockets. (Cough* sopockets cough*)

She brought herself back to the present, and the awful reality.

"So what are we going to do then?" she asked Mr. Forkle.

"Well.... I- we as in the Collective and myself, were thinking we could try to lure them," he told her. "It won't get him back, but it could cause enough trouble to get them riled up."

Sophie nodded, taking this information in. It wasn't a terrible idea. She just didn't know how they were going to do it.

Within the next two hours, her friends came over. They devised a simple plan. They would leave a note, much like the Black Swan, and tell how they would give over the secret of one of the caches. They came up with a believable lie. It wasn't the best idea, but it was good enough, even if the Neverseen didn't believe it.

The following day, Sophie wrote a note, and left it at one of the Neverseen's old abandoned hideouts. She hoped this plan could at least help Keefe's situation.