Going into her room, Sophie Foster saw the letter perched on her nightstand and finally broke. She could handle being tortured by the Neverseen, but she could not handle this. After Keefe told her it would be best if they spent some time apart, she realized she couldn't bear to stand in Elwin's office anymore because she liked him. Sophie had a crush on Keefe and she was too oblivious to see he had the same.
To The Mysterious Miss F!
Ugh- I'm already regretting starting this letter that way. But I don't have any extra paper, and crossing it out would look worse, so....... I guess we'll just have to add it to my list of mistakes. And I know you're going to think that everything I'm about to say should also be on that long list of Keefe fails. But I swear- that's NOT what this is. I'm not trying to fix everything or save everyone this time. I'm just trying to make sure I don't hurt anyone.
I can't tell you more than that without putting you in danger, so just........ trust me when I say that the powers my mom gave me are super bad.
There seriously aren't strong enough words to explain how horrible they are. AND I CAN'T control them- just like I can't stop my mom from forcing me to use them.
So..........this is the only way. I don't want to do it. But I have to.
And I'm not going to ask you not to hate me. In fact, it might be better if you do, because I need you to PROMISE that you won't try to find me. My mom will be waiting for you to track me down- and since I know how stubborn you are, I want to make sure you understand who you'd be putting in danger.
I'm going to be hiding the same way the Black Swan hid you. That's why you have to stay away.
Well, there are lots of reasons. So again, please, just........ trust me, okay? And since this is the last time I'll ever talk to you, I just...... I want to say that I'm really going to miss you. You mean a lot to me, Foster. More than you'll ever know.
Please be careful. Please be happy. And PLEASE forget all about me.
It'll be better for everyone that way.
You'll see.
Love,
Keefe
Time had frozen when reading the letter, minutes or hours could have passed and she wouldn't have noticed. Tears had streamed down her face, there was someone shaking and talking to her, but she couldn't see clearly. The person gave up and moved somewhere else, there were loud crashes and bangs, suddenly someone was cradling her in their arms.
・・・
Heading up the stairs to Sophie's room, Grady Ruewen didn't know what to expect, but this was pretty bad. Sophie was crying on her knees on the fluffy carpet in the middle of the room by her nightstand. Standing there for a little while unsure of what to do he watched her read the letter over and over, not understanding what Keefe wrote to her.
Feeling guilty for both letting Keefe go and just standing and watching as she cried over it, he walked over to her and shook her shoulders. "Sophie, it's going to be okay. This will get better from here on out." He kept trying to shake his adoptive daughter out of this trance, it didn't work.
He left her there to get Edaline, she'd know what to do. It's never easy to lose somebody you care about and Sophie just lost the boy she'd liked, he knew this was going to happen. He tried so hard to push them away, but it didn't work, and now, only know did Sophie have to realize her feelings.
"Eda," he calls out, her head turns to him and she sees the disdain on his face, "It's Sophie." He doesn't get to say more before she rushes past him up the stairs her dreaded walking up because he let this happen. Walking back into his daughters room he sees Edaline smoothing out Sophie's and rubbing her back saying things will get better.
But he knew that distant look in Sophie's eyes, that's the same look Edaline and he had for sixteen years until Sophie came into their lives. He walked over to his wife and daughter and crushed them into a tighter hug. Sensing movement, he looked up at Edaline's teary gaze, even she was broken from Keefe's departure.
She didn't talk, she just rested her back down on Sophie's. They all fell asleep there, as he drifted off to sleep, Grady couldn't help but wonder if things would ever be the same again.
・・・
A throat cleared from the doorway and Edaline Ruewen was the first to wake up. In the doorway stood the Council, Collective, team Valiant, Vacker's, Dizznee's, Song twins, Cassius, the bodyguards, and the rest of her friends. Looking back to her family Sophie's eyes were swollen shut, she nudged Grady in the arm and he instantly woke up.
"What brings everyone to Havenfield?" Grady asks going for nonchalance, obviously annoyed from being woken up and not being able to help Sophie. "When Sophie failed to show up for the party we were going to have for victory at the Neverseen base, I got suspicious. It turns out Mr. Sencen is also missing, and this was the first place he'd go so. But seeing as he is not here do you have any idea?" Mr. Forkle says.
The room is quiet for too long, but it's interrupted by Cassius. "If you have any idea where my son is, you will tell us." Grady snorts and murmurs under his breath, "Starting to care now, Cassius?" I give him a death glare, "Lord Ruewen, we only care for everyone's safety, Keefe is unstable and Lord Cassius is the only one who can control him." Emery says, proving why we all hate him.
It gets silent again, but this time there is a small squeaky voice that speaks up. "He's gone." All eyes go to Sophie who is sitting up and laughing uncontrollably for something that's not funny. "What do you mean 'he's gone'." Alina snobs, Sophie sobers up and gives a dead look. "He. Is. Gone. What about that do you not understand?"
Nobody does or says anything as Sophie gets up and pulls something from her desk. "Is this what you're looking for? Proof? Well here it is. He said he's going away, that his power is super dangerous." Alina makes a move to grab it, but Edaline conjures it away before she could grab it. She then snaps at Alina, "That belongs to my daughter, for her eyes only."
Alina's about to snap back, but starts breathing hard, "There's too many people here." She snaps her fingers and teleports away with Ella and Iggy in hand. Her friends run out and Juline snaps at the Council, "Get out."
・・・
Sophie Foster teleported to the top of Calla's panakes tree and stained out into the setting sun.
The next months of her life came by in a flash and she was seventeen. The number meant nothing as she could not spend it with anyone, she cut herself off from the world. Not letting anyone in meant not having anyone leave her, ever again. That was the best choice I made in my short life, she thought.
During the first month of Keefe's departure, she was a ghost haunting the halls of everywhere she went. Though she had to deal with the Vacker siblings annoying the hell out of her. Fitz was trying so very hard to make her forgive him, though he never once apologized for being a self absorbed douche.
Biana keeps telling her about Glimmer and Tam, all Sophie wants to shout is, You're jealous so what! Leave me alone. Biana wants her to help her with her boy problems when Sophie has so much more than she could ever. Acting dead to the world did have some points thought, nobody expected anything of you.
Dex tried, a lot more than the others, but it didn't work. No matter if Dex was her best friend or not she would not communicate, would not eat, would not think, would not do anything. He also had to deal with the whole 'Rex is talentless' thing. If she could she'd blame her whole life's mess on Keefe, but she couldn't deal with the guilt.
How good of the Black Swan to at least give her this one freedom, she can grieve and not break like all the other fragile elves. Grady and Edalime were always there for her, but she didn't have the strength to do anything but watch at the coddled her. The only person she sort of let in was Wylie, he knew what she was going through and that was good enough for her. Plus he knew when to stop and just be there, the others did not.
Oralie wasn't helping either, trying to shove herself into Sophie's life. Like Keefe, Sophie could blame a great deal of things on the pretty blonde councillor, not that she would say that out loud. If anything Sophie was just using her birth mother, Oralie had a lot of great books in the library beneath her tower.
During that first time through the library she spent the month reading 'The Land of Stories'. The next month she read 'Carve the Mark' and 'The Cruel Prince'. Then in the third 'Red Queen'. Passing through the library in the fourth month she found something fishy, she passed all these halls multiple times seeing all the books, but this one is new.
The title was 'The Assassin's Blade', the book that was arranged to happen before the series. After checking all the books out with Oralie, she went straight home and read. She read and read and read. It was her get away world, she got out her iPod and played her playlist. She changed it up for the last time, it was now all the songs by Alec Benjamin, all his songs were sad and she liked that.
Her favorite song was 'Must Have Been the Wind'.
・・・
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