after unlocked: a sokeefe fanfic

Chapter 77-Keefe

Grady frowned. "She's not here?"

Keefe shook his head, hope well and truly crushed. "I haven't seen her since," he faltered. "It's been a while."

Four weeks, six days, and twelve hours.

That was how long it had been.

God, he missed her.

So much.

Edaline sighed. Her eyes held the shadows  that Keefe recognized. Worry, pain. He saw it every morning in his eyes, when he happened to glance at the mirrors set up in the hygiene rooms. He'd seen it for the past four weeks, the tiny hopeful light slowly dying every night when he realized she was still gone.

He didn't like seeing the light swallowed in Edaline's eyes. He reached out and gave her hand a brief squeeze. "She'll be here," he told them, with more conviction than he felt. He motioned for them to follow him to where the Dizznees had settled down with Keefe's friends in clumps around them.

All the while, he tried to convince himself of the same.

She'll be here.

***

"What does he look like?" He asked, pulling the pencil from behind his ear. He held one of his journals, repurposed to track missing children.

Over three hundred names in his journal alone, and some parents hadn't even bothered to come to the stations.

He'd made a system. There were three columns across a page, one for their full name, one for their description, and a final tiny column to mark whether they'd been found.

That column was empty.

"Black hair," the father said. He inhaled deeply. The dirty bandage around his chest expanded as he breathed. "His eyes look like mine."

Keefe looked up, meeting sorrowful navy blue eyes. He glanced down back at his notepad, noting how many children had been marked with dark blue eyes. He wished he had his pencils, and time, so he could draw the eyes.

He nodded though, telling the father quietly, "We'll notify you if we find him."

He had used to say when. He'd started saying if about two weeks in, when they had found no children.

The father nodded, slowly turning and limping away.

Tiredly, Keefe set the journal on the table he'd been assigned to. Across the cave, he saw Tam idly twirling his own pencil as he stared at the wall. Another of Keefe's journals sat open on the table in front of him, smaller because of the missing pages Keefe had hurriedly ripped from it to tuck under his cot's mattress.

And then there was Fitz, at the next table further away than all the tables from Keefe, where he had an old sketchbook Keefe had found in his bag.

The only sketchbooks Keefe had hidden away were the gold and the brown ones. 

He couldn't bring himself to rip the pages he had of happy memories with her. Besides, there was enough paper. For now.

Rising from his seat, he dropped the pencil onto the table with a clatter and slammed the journal shut. Jensi, Keefe thought he remembered from the volunteer list, was due to relieve him soon.

Keefe slipped through the crowd, heading towards where he had left his belongings next to the others'. Their cots had been set up in a semicircle, and Keefe's was pressed against the wall. Cots were one of the few things they had an abundance of.

There were too many empty ones.

In their group, there were four empty cots. Biana's, Marella's, Maruca's, and Sophie's.
Almost every night, when everyone else was asleep, Keefe would lean against the wall and stare at those cots, in particular, the one closest to his. He almost imagined he could see her tossing and turning, rumpling the blankets that were not there.