Keefe didn't consider chasing a group down a dark tunnel that was definitely haunted his idea of fun.
And yeah, maybe he was currently boiling with rage and desire for revenge, but still, revenge was only fun if it consisted of dumping Gulon po—actually, he decided not to follow that thought.
"Fan out and search for the kids," a member in with an orange patch on the edge of his cloak snarled at the rest of the group. "I'll take the traitor here to Vespera. She'll want to participate in the fun."
Okay, so maybe he would follow the Gulon thought.
And the darker thoughts clouding around it.
"Come on," the man they'd met earlier—Ilic, Keefe recalled—muttered under his breath. "Orangey's getting itchy."
It was clearly an inside joke, as several other elves snickered. Orangey scowled at them. "Get out of here, Ilic."
"You're not my commander, Orangey," Ilic growled, "I could get you demoted pretty quickly."
He glared at Ilic. "Vespera likes me better. Fintan's gone, and Gisela's about to be." he smiled—the smile of a wolf—and shoved Gisela, making her stumble and let out a muffled cry through her gag. Ilic yanked her back upright. Orangey leaned over. "You've got no reinforcements."
"That's doesn't mean she won't listen to me." Ilic growled, but he stalked off, voice growing faint as he and the group with him disappeared down an adjoining tunnel.
Orangey watched them walk away, expression clearly displeased. "Move out," he growled.
Keefe waited a few moments then crept towards the tunnel, pausing before the junction to commit it to his photographic memory.
It was slow going. Every time he'd think they were about to stop, they'd veer into a different tunnel. Then another. Until Keefe was a little worried he wouldn't have time to get his mom and get back to Sophie.
Keefe glanced up, jolted out of his thoughts by a soft scuffle. He glanced ahead, but Orangey and his merry men had disappeared down a tunnel. There wasn't anyone behind him.
...at least, he thought so.
"Vespera was right. You are predictable."
Keefe whipped around, nearly hitting his head on a horizontal column he'd previously ducked under and forgotten about.
Ilic frowned. "I thought more of you. Really, I do hate proving Vespera right, and..." he shook his head, drawing his sword.
Keefe reached into his pocket and withdrew the Melder. He pointed it at Ilic.
"Did she predict this?" He pulled the trigger.
An empty click.
His eyes snapped down to the Melder, where the sight flashed red.
Programmed for finger print access.
Of course it was.
That seemed to be about his luck.
Ilic clicked his tongue. "She did. It's why the armory wasn't guarded. It's why it was so easy for Gisela to help you two."
"You knew?"
A slight look of irritation passed over his face. "I didn't know that Vespera was trying to get Gisela to betray us, but I knew that we'd let you escape somehow."
So he wasn't happy about that.
"You don't hate my mom?" Keefe asked cautiously, with a touch of disbelief in his voice.
"She recruited me, mate. She was my mentor. Plus, I owe her for promoting me."
"So you're loyal to her?" Maybe he could reason with him, get him to help them.
Ilic smiled. "Nah. She's great and all, but I'm loyal to the Neverseen. It's every man for himself here." Welp. Never mind.
"Look, I won't hurt you if you let me go."
Ilic arched an eyebrow, obviously amused. "You wouldn't be bargaining with me if you could just knock me out here and now."
"How do you know I can't? Maybe my friends brought us some Umbruna Extract and now I can use my powers?"
"Your friends. You mean the Vanisher and the Telepath?" He laughed at Keefe's expression. "We aren't stupid. How do you think those friends of yours got past our outposts? By outsmarting us? We have protocols set in place in case something like that happened. They were supposed to make it through. The Moonlark was supposed to attempt an escape, then we'd have an excuse to kill 'er."
Keefe glared at him. He drew his sword. Good thing something didn't need print programming, he thought bitterly.
Ilic smiled. "This'll be fun."
He advanced, pausing, "Sorry, mate. Job's a job. No hard feelings, right?" And thrusted.
"None whatsoever," Keefe grunted, deflecting the thrust.
He gave an overhand swing, and Ilic blocked it with a CLANG. "Nice cut," he said appreciatively.
"Thanks," he muttered, stepping behind the rock formations.
Ilic feinted and swung for his legs.
Keefe dodged back, his back colliding with another rock formation. He barely a managed to roll away from the horizontal swing that was about to cleave him in two mini-Keefe size pieces and hit off a swing of his own.
He stopped back out of reach of Ilic's sword.
"You don't think we could just settle this with like, an arm wrestle?" He asked tiredly. "It's not really a fair fight when I've been tortured for the past three days."
Ilic shrugged. "You don't seem too weak."
"Looks can be deceiving," Keefe muttered and lunged forward.
Ilic easily batted the blade to the side, and in a fluid motion, spun quickly away, coming out of the turn with the sword in his left hand, delicately slashing the blade at Keefe.
Pain exploded just above his eyebrows, and Keefe staggered, desperately wiping the blood falling into his eyes away. A hand grasped his shoulder and shoved him to the ground.
"Oldest trick in the book, Mate," Ilic said. "Besides your little feint there. It was a good try though."
An explosion of rage and pride flashed through him, so strong that he could almost see the sneer on Ilic's face.
"Get off." He puffed out.
Ilic laughed. "Yeah, and let you go? I'm debating whether to kill you now, or to wait for Vespera. She wouldn't be too happy if her fun was taken away, eh? But then, it's so much fun making her mad."
Keefe's hand bumped against cold metal. He grasped it, a slight smirk flashing across his face at the feel of the solidly built Melder. Maybe it would shoot, but there were other uses.
He could still barely see, but he knew that Ilic was struggling to draw his knife from his pocket. "I'll just choke you to death," he decided, his voice growing near. "Then when Vespe—"
CLANG!
Ilic slumped over.
"It was a good try though," Keefe mimicked, pushing the other man off of him.
He stood, wiping his eyes and forehead, and grimacing as his hand came away sticky with blood.
"Every time." He muttered. He glared at his dirty shirt, and surveyed the column filled cavern. His gaze landed on Ilic.
On his nice, clean black shirt.
"Thank you very much for your contribution," Keefe said, crouching and tearing a long strip of fabric away. "Well, your second one." He touched his forehead again. "The first one was not appreciated."
After wrapping the makeshift bandage around his forehead in the best way he could manage with dirty hands and no mirrors or reflective surfaces, he straightened and surveyed the cavern again.
Luckily, there weren't any more tunnels branching off of the one he was currently on. Just a long, straight shot towards where his mom hopefully was.
He nearly slipped in the darkness.
Well, really, he did, but he caught himself.
...kinda.
He landed in the awkward half split position with an "Oof!" And sat there for a long moment, groaning.
"I hate this place," he muttered.
He gathered himself, waiting for the pounding in his head at the sudden movement to fade, and reached out for a handhold.
His left hand closed over cold metal.
His right in a liquid.
"What the—" Keefe pulled his hand back. In the darkness he could barely see the outline of it, and the faint outline of some liquid. He sniffed it.
The metallic scent of blood filled his nostrils, and he touched his bandage to reassure himself that it wasn't him.
But then—
He pulled the metal thing towards him, barely able to see the dim initials on the handle of the dagger.
GMS.
"Mom," he breathed, yanking himself up.
He was running now.
The end of the tunnel dawned on him quickly, and he barely managed to control himself before he came out of the shadows.
Faintly, by the massive wooden doors built into the wall, he saw a flicker of orange. The doors unlocked with a THUD and swung open smoothly. Orangey nodded to the guards and stepped through.
Keefe prepared himself. Three breaths, inhale slowly, exhale slowly. Stay calm.
"Three, two," He whispered, "one—"
He heard a voice.
He straightened from, shaking his head discreetly.
A wisp of a voice.
The voice spoke again, louder yet still faint.
And finally he could hear it.
His heart sank.
Not a voice.
Her voice.
"Keefe," a tremulous whisper in his brain, "I'm in too deep."
He glanced up, cursing under his breath as the doors began to move inward.
As they began to shut.
His mom was in there.
But Sophie was out there.
The doors closed—three, two—
He ran.
***
Sophie was having a bad day.
Sure. She was part of an organization that was actively battling evil super elves who experimented on their sons and lied about it, but that didn't mean she had to suffer for it, did it?
Right?
First, she was deprived of food for three days, along with only being allowed eight ounces of water a day. So, basically, she was slightly weak from dehydration and lack of food.
Fun.
Second, her crush had turned bad, then good, then bad, then iffy, and she currently didn't know if he was alive because he'd gone to save his slightly psycho mom who'd had done the earlier said experimenting/lying.
Perfect.
Third, she'd decided to take a drug that made her head buzz, her eyes wonky, her mind go strange places, oh, and an ogre had decided to take her head and shove it into the ground.
Just peachy.
Oh, the ogre.
Yeah...
She crashed into the wall, releasing a yelp as he body collided with one of the softer columns—parts of the stone tumbling down around her.
"Keefe." Her voice rasped. "I—"
I'm in too deep.
The ogre advanced, a wicked smile on his face.
"The Moonlark." He grabbed her by the neck, choking her, and looked at her critically.
"You don't look like much. Gisela and Vespera overestimated you. Still a puny little elf. Practically a child. Once we stun you enough, you're useless."
"We could say the same for you," she wheezed, "you know that diaper doesn't make you look cool, right?"
He smashed her onto the ground. Sophie's eye sight blurred, the edges growing black, but she blinked away the nausea.
Okay, so maybeeeee he hadn't appreciated the diaper comment.
But hey, how else was she supposed to stay awake with that smell and the slight idea that she had a major concussion?
Might as well have some entertainment before she died.
Died.
She couldn't die.
Not without apologizing to—
She heard a rustle, and immediately forced herself to wake up more.
"I'm sorry," she managed.
The ogre chuckled. "You're apologizing? That won't save you."
"I'm not saying it to you."
A sword tip appeared in his chest.
"She's saying it to me," Keefe snarled in his ear. He withdrew the sword, and let the ogre fall to the ground. The sword clattered to the ground, and he rushed over to Sophie.
He cleared the rubble around her, kneeling next to her and placing her head in his lap. He cradled her gently and brushed her hair from her face.
Sophie found herself hyper aware of him—the calluses on his fingertips, the way his eyes were glittering, how his voice was catching at every word he said. "Didn't know you could transmit, Foster."
She mock pouted. "Me neither. It took awhile and gave me a hell of a headache though."
His familiar smirk, though weak, made an appearance. "Aw, is Foster grumpy about needing to be rescued?"
She laughed, then coughed. It was a rasping sound, rattling her chest.
Wow, were her ribs supposed to stick out like that?
The smirk disappeared, replaced by a worried frown. "We need to get you to Elwin." She tried to protest, but he scooped her up, placing one hand on her back and the other under her knees.
Despite the gentleness in his hands, Sophie couldn't stop the yelp from escaping her mouth—both at the movement her ribs made as she breathed, and the knives pounding into her head and neck from the probable concussion and bruises.
"Shi—sorry! Sorry, sorry," he adjusted his fingers so they were splayed out against her back, supporting her more fully, and Sophie let her head loll against his chest.
"It's fine," she murmured, her eyes drooping.
"No, don't close your eyes. Foster, you can't close your eyes. Come on, please."
She tried to force them open.
"Sorry," she muttered. "I'm sorry."
"Stay awake, Foster. Please, stay awake for me."
Stay awake.
Updated: 7-4-2021
A/N: Happy Independence Day to all y'all American readers! And happy random Sunday in July for my non-American readers!