Through the Shadows (A Keeper of the Lost Cities Fanfiction)

Chapter One

"What do they do?"

"They're both vets. I hear they have their own horse," he said, trying to make the situation seem less awkward, but Sophie simply ducked her head and buried her face in the top of the stuffed elephant she was hugging.

Several footsteps got their attention and Tiergan, Della, and Alden came out from the kitchen. Alden, bags under his eyes, gave Sophie a smile. The same kind of smile he used to give them as a kid when something went wrong, but he didn't want them to worry.

"Sophie," he said and she nodded for him to continue, "you're going to stay with us for a few days while the social services work out a few things, okay?"

"You won't let them send me away, right? I'm not going into the system. I can't go into the system, Officer Vacker. That–it's not–I can't do that. You won't let that happen, right?"

The words came out so fast that Fitz wasn't even sure she had breathed at all. Her eyes were wide, pleading. Della hurried over to take her hand. She didn't try to hug Sophie. There was no way to tell if that would be comforting or panic-inducing.

Alden's brows pinched together and he glanced at Tiergan, who said, "We aren't going to let them take you away. We've made a deal with them. They're checking out a home and as soon as it's accepted we'll move you in. You can continue to go to school with Fitz and Biana, and you can visit Officer Vacker whenever you need to."

"I want to know what's happening on the case, too," said Sophie. "I need to know. I need to know who did this to my family."

Fitz noticed the small tears form in her eyes, but she blinked several times and they were gone. He wasn't sure if he could have had that much control if he were in her situation.

"We'll tell you what we can, Sophie," Alden promised. "Anything we can."

*

Monday morning was chaos. Alden had disappeared to the office early in the morning, leaving Della to monitor everything. Not only did Fitz wake up late, but his sister had taken charge in dressing Sophie and chatting nonstop. Sophie, of course, remained quiet and a little uneasy about the whole thing. And now that there were two teenage girls, Fitz had the wonderful pleasure of waiting for an ungodly amount of time to use the bathroom. Why Biana needed to do her hair in front of the bathroom mirror and not her full-body one in the bedroom was beyond him.

A little more hectic than usual, Della spent a lot of her morning prepping Sophie and making sure she had everything she needed, including lunch money and their cell numbers, just in case. Fitz struggled to shift around them to get a bowl for his cereal, which Biana had decidedly finished off only a few minutes before.

He really needed to start getting up earlier.

Needless to say, it was quite surprising that they made it out of the house in time. As they wandered down the street to Foxfire Academy, Fitz couldn't help but keep his eyes from flicking to Sophie. After almost six months of captivity where she was tortured for whoever knew how much, she was being forced back into the real world, and she was taking it in stride. While she didn't say much, she went along with all the motions. She took the lunch money Della had offered, had let Biana sift through her clothes–though they decided on an oversized sweater and jeans in the end thanks to Della–and was now walking with them to school. A place surely everyone would know her name and what had happened. To her and her family.

Fitz wanted to help, to say the right things, but he wasn't sure how. Anything he came up with just seemed to sound wrong and the last thing he wanted to do was upset her. When he looked over again, she was staring back. She ducked her head and kept quiet while Biana talked her ear off. Perhaps Biana had the best idea: to pretend like everything was normal.