Always & Forever

Chapter 24

          The next day I headed back to the Matchmaking Center to turn in my packet. Keefe met me there and turned them in together. The lady at the front desk said that it would take a couple of weeks for our first lists to arrive. So Keefe and I headed to Atlantis to spend some quality time together.

          We walk around the town and look around the shops. We ended up in a hair store somehow. Don't know why Keefe dragged me into the store but he seemed intent to buy about a dozen hair products.

          "Why do you need so many products?" I ask him when he finished paying.

          "Hey! I need a lot of products to keep 'The Hair' this amazing," he said gesturing to his head.

          "Whateve-" I was interrupted by both mine and Keefe's Imparters went off.

          I grabbed mine and walked away from Keefe so he could answer his call. I look down at my Imparter and see that Forkle is calling me.

          "Hello?" I say when Forkle's face appears.

          "Sophie, I need you and Keefe to come to my office immediately. My office. Not the one at Foxfire." Then Forkle hangs up.

          I run back over to Keefe the same time Keefe runs over to me. I can by the look in his eye that he got the same message. Our fingers interlock as we go back to Havenfield and to a cliff. Right before we jump Keefe looks me in the eye and says,

          "Whatever has happened, we'll get through it together."

          I nod and jump. I picture Forkle's egg-shaped office as we enter the void. The next thing I know is that we are standing right in front of his office with a grief-stricken Mr. Forkle.

          "What happened?" I ask as soon as I get my balance back. 

          "Well, to begin, we need you to do an immediate search of Fitz's mind. Keefe, you're a Telepath, and about as good as Sophie. I've tested your mind multiple times so I believe that you'll be able to assist Ms. Foster in this search." Mr. Forkle pauses as he waits for Keefe and I to nod. "I'll tell you the rest after you have conducted the search."

          We follow him into his office and I begin to wonder how the heck he has room for the prisoners. Keefe must have been wondering the exact same thing because he asked.

          "How in the world did you fit four prisoners in this small apartment type office?"

          "Oh, they're not in my office." Forkle knocks on a wall and a door appears. "They're below it."

          The trip down was a long one and I may or may not have tripped a couple of times. If I didn't have Keefe by my side I would have already been at the bottom. But that would have been because of rolling down the stairs.

          "Why is it this far down?" I asked to fill the silence.

          "It actually isn't as far as you think. It is an illusion. Tricking your mind to think that the stairs are never going to end," Mr. Forkle replied. "Truly we are almost at the bottom."

          But the trip seemed even longer than Mr. Forkle said it would take. But eventually, we made it to the bottom and I could hear the prisoners waiting.

          "It going to be okay Foster," Keefe said taking my hand. "We'll get through this together." He turns back to Mr. Forkle. "So what are we looking for?"

          "I know you aren't going to believe me. But we are looking for the location of my twin brother. Now Sophie before you freak out, I just found out about this, I wasn't hiding it from you."

          "What do you mean by just found out, because I'm pretty sure there have been times when just found out means that you found out a couple of weeks ago," I replied putting my hands on my hips.

          "I found out right before I hailed you. I thought we needed to look up these new facts and make sure that Mr. Vacker is not lying to us. Now, shall we?" Mr. Forkle gestures toward the hallway.

          As we round the corner I see four separate cells. One for Fitz. One for Lady Gisela. One for Alvar... and one for Gethen. Mr. Forkle clapped his hands and all the cell doors were covered by another layer of metal.

          "That is just a precaution. They block out noise, so none of the other prisoners should be able to hear us as we speak with Mr. Vacker," Mr. Forkle explained. 

          He walks up to the farthest cell and knocks on the door. A panel slides to the side revealing a handle. Mr. Forkle twists the handle and pushes on the door. He takes a cord from the wall next to the handle and slides it through a tiny hole in the wall.

          "When we are ready to leave we just need to pull this string and it will open the door to let us out," Mr. Forkle explained punching in a code on a keypad that just appeared. "Here we go."

          We enter the room to find Fitz chained to the wall. He has one free arm and only enough chain to reach where food is given to him. I take a closer look at him and see bruises covering his face and cuts all over his arms.

          "Well hello, Sophie." He looks over at Keefe. "I see you brought the... hm... what's the word? Oh yes, disappointment along." Keefe tenses up and I transmit.

          You're not a disappointment. Fitz is just trying to get into your head.

          Keefe looks at me and nods.

          "I can't wait to see you try to breach my mind with the old man helping you," Fitz said, studying his nails.

          "I can't wait for you to realize that you, Mr. Forkle and I aren't the only Telepaths in this room," I replied, smirking at Fitz's stunned face as he registered what that meant. "And Keefe is almost as good as I am when it comes to Telepathy."

          "I don't believe you," Fitz says trying, and failing, to pretend he doesn't believe me.

          I turn and face Keefe, giving Fitz a disapproving side glance, as I say, "When will people learn that you can't lie to an Empath? Even I caught that lie." Fitz freezes. "What, your little group of friends didn't tell you? What a shame."

          Keefe chuckles. "Shall we get this over with?" He holds out his hand.

          I place my hand in his, "We shall."

          We slam into Fitz's head without his permission and what we find is not what we wanted to find.