Sophie was going to kill Forkle.
And no, she was not kidding.
Okay, maybe not kill him, but she wanted to.
Ro and Bo had both been silent on the walk to their little designating training center. She could practically see the tension in the air, but she had made no move to lessen it. Inflicting had lessened that growing knot in her gut, the one that had been building up even after she and Keefe had... confessed.
It had been a lot of raw emotions though. She was surprised it hadn't given them worse than the sucky migraines Ro had started complaining about three minutes into their training session.
Walking back to their camp, in silence, alone for once, she sighed.
The sky was a pale blue, the weak rays of the sun barely warming her back. To her right, the few shrub like bushes Keefe insisted on calling trees. Behind her, the looming stone structures they'd been using as a training ground.
Ro and Bo were still there, probably bickering as they cleaned up the mess of weaponry they'd made.
Faint sounds of arguing reached her as she drew closer tot heir campsite. The fire still crackled in the mid afternoon daylight, a stream of smoke drifting into the sky. The tent flaps stirred in the light breeze that brought even more raised voices to her.
She entered the camp, greeted by possibly the strangest sight she'd seen in the past three weeks.
A furious Forkle stood extremely close to the fire, so close that Sophie wondered if a spark was going to light the seat of his breeches on fire. Cadence stood next to him, her expression almost amused. And Keefe and Dex stood in front of them, both looking a bit... unkempt. Dex's shirt had gross looking stains on it, and one of Keefe's boots were missing.
And Elwin lay curled up in a ball in front of them, groaning and making other noises that reminded Sophie of a dying bear.
"You two will be confined to your tent together for the next three years!" Forkle raged. "And when those three years are up, you'll be forced to spend time with the people who annoy you the most for the following seven years!"
Both boys looked liked toddlers being scolded by their mother, though Dex elbowed Keefe and mumbled, "I get to be locked up with you for ten years. Seems unfair."
Keefe elbowed him back. "Seems like a reward for you to me. It's not like you'll have to look at Bangs Boy's bangs for seven years. At least you'll have something pleasant to look at."
"Uhhhhh."
They all swung around to her—the boys giving her sheepish looks.
"What is going on?" Sophie asked, wondering whether she actually wanted to know.
"Um." Dex and Keefe looked at each other. "Not it!" Dex said instantly, finger going to his nose.
Keefe winced. "Well, you see, Foster..." he cleared his throat. "We may or may not have kidnapped Elwin."
Sophie stared at them in disbelief, switching from Elwin to them to Elwin to them—and to Elwin to them again.
Then she started laughing: delirious, wild laughter that made tears stream from her eyes and made it hard to breath.
Forkle threw his hands up in the air as he watched her crack up and walked off. "Teenagers," he muttered.
Cadence let out a snort. "I counted seven new wrinkles." She disappeared into her tent, and Keefe and Dex stared at Sophie, a little bit of fear in their eyes as she continued laughing.
"You guys," she giggled, "have five seconds to run." She registered a flurry of motion, and all that was left was a groaning and half conscious Elwin.
Sophie leaned down, her hands on her knees as she tried to breathe while cry-laughing. She gasped for air, wiping away the the tears. She finally stopped laughing, but a snort escaped her as she walked to Elwin.
"Need some help?" She asked, grinning.
Elwin groaned. "I have never felt more sick."
He'd probably never been sick since he was a kid, Sophie mused, as she helped him stand and limp over to the boys' tent. He crawled into the space, and pulled the blanket up to his chin.
"Call me if you need something, alright?"
"I'm sorry I ever made fun of Keefe when he came in sick to school," he muttered.
Sophie smiled. "Sleep tight."
She stepped outside, surveying the now empty camp. Well. She thought.
She jumped as a tentative voice said. "I'm sorry."
Sophie turned to Keefe, who stood with his hands clasped in front him, a sheepish expression still on his face.
"You're sorry?" She repeated. She made sure to keep her tone clear of any emotion.
He stepped forward, closer to her, and a small smile starting on his face. "I know we should have told you what we were doing, but..." he shrugged. "You were kind of busy."
Sophie shrugged.
"But..." he slipped his hand into his pocket holding out one of the rings. Sophie held out her hand, and he slipped it onto her ring finger on her right hand. "I promised."
"You promised what?" She asked, voice soft.
Keefe looked at her, face serious. "I promised, Foster, that your parents would be fine. You know those extra rings I know you've seen me tucking into my pockets? Dex gave them to your parents?"
Sophie gaped at him. "You saw my parents?"
"And Alina. And Foxfire. And the Foster Center, though I'm sure you guessed that."
She decided to ignore the Alina part. She'd... get to that later.
Sophie arched an eyebrow. "How long have you two been planning to leave me here—as soon as I disappear—while you off and save the world?"
Keefe let out a nervous laugh. "It was kinda a spur of the moment plan."
"Yeah?" She glanced down at his feet. "Well I guess your one boot makes sense then."
"Yeah, Elwin stole it."
"Your boot?"
He nodded solemnly.
"Was it not tied?" It would be hard to pull off a boot that was laced up and tied tightly, and even if Elwin had managed that, he would have pulled off Keefe's foot with it.
Keefe rubbed the back of his neck. "Weeeeeeell. I may or may not have pulled the lace out to unlock a cell."
Sophie stared at him. She decided to ignore the cell part, and focus on why her kinda dumb boyfriend thought he'd be able to unlock a cell with a shoelace. But then again, he was here so... "Well. I guess if it worked..."
"Oh it didn't," Keefe said. "The cell was kind of unlocked..." he trailed off as he said it, voice getting quieter with each word.
Sophie stared at him again, and hastily, he said, "That's not really important though! What is important—"
"You didn't check to see if it was unlocked in the first place?" She asked, a smile beginning to crop up.
"I didn't think they'd be stupid enough to leave it unlocked!" Keefe protested.
Sophie shook her head slowly, the grin full. "Keefe, I love you, but sometimes you're an idiot."
He snorted, lips curving in the corner. He curved his arm around her waist and pulled her into him. "I'm going to ignore the idiot part," he said softly, eyes trained on her lips.
"I think it's a very astute observation," Sophie murmured just before he pressed his lips to her. She leaned up on her tiptoes, eyes closing as his free hand cupped her cheek.
They pulled apart, and she gave him a shy smile. "You're my idiot though."
He kissed the tip of her nose. "I love you too by the way."
Updated: 3-16-2022
A/N: look. I have to address this every time I stay off of Wattpad for a while, and I hate doing this. I'm busy. I don't update for months at a time sometimes, okay? So stop telling me to update. Asking is fine, but I'm not going to write more because some readers are pressuring me to, and I hate getting notifications that are telling me something that I'm already trying to do. So please stop, because I don't want to lose all love for writing and posting it on her because so many are putting pressure on me.
I know a ton of you have been super understanding on the other hand, and thank you for understanding. I'll try to have the next chapter up on this Sunday, but my birthday is tomorrow, so I'm not sure if I'll have time to write. Spring break is next week for me, so maybe I'll write some then, but I'm going to focus on resting mostly, so then, maybe not.