Moonlark Turned Evil

40: Free

Hello again!

So I just realized that a lot of people have probably been pronouncing Ales like the word 'ales' 😭

I didn't realize it until my friend pointed it out and I'm SNORTING

Anyway the correct pronunciation is A (like the a in Alice) lez

Lol😭

Keefe drew a shaky breath, digging his heel into the soft sand.

Ro watched him, but said nothing. Every so often, she glanced towards the house—perhaps expecting to see Cassius descending the stone steps that were carved into the cliff face that led down to the beach. If she was waiting for him to do so, then she'd be sorely disappointed.

Keefe had, when he was younger, done exactly the same thing.

He doubted the outcome would change.

"Are . . ." Ro asked hesitantly. "Are you alright?"

It was probably something she'd never said. As an ogre, as the princess of the ogres, she'd probably never dreamed of letting those words slip from her lips.

"I'm fine," Keefe muttered, kicking up a cloud of sand.

"You don't look fine. Should I get your father—"

"That man is not my father," Keefe snarled.

"Right." Ro clicked her hot pink nails against each other, making sure the paint on them wasn't chipped. "Right."

It wasn't like her to get awkward. She was usually headstrong and confident in whatever she did. He'd never seen her worry, or fumble for words. Yet here she was, picking at her nails in complete and utter silence.

Unsure.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of someone descending the staircase. Keefe wheeled around, some part of him filling with hope, thinking that the black cloaked figure might be—

Not . . . Lord Cassius.

And he hated himself for thinking, even for just a second, that it cold be that man. Hated the feeling that welled up inside of him

"Yo, Blondie!" Ro called, snapping out of her awkwardness now that the two of them weren't alone. "You wanna join the Great Hunkyhair Depression Fest?"

"Did something happen?" Foster was dressed simply in long black pants and a loose white shirt. Her hair was flowing freely down her back, shining in the sunlight, almost like the golden sand they were standing on.

"Nothing," Keefe lied through his teeth as Ro piped up, "Cassius happened."

Foster cocked her head. "Cassius . . . oh."

She didn't say anything else, but her smile dimmed.

Keefe glanced away from her steady brown gaze. She had no way of knowing what his parents were like, no way of knowing what they put him through—unless she'd broken into his mind. And yet . . . she was staring at him like she could see right into the depths of his soul.

Sandor walked off to search the cove for threats, barely making a sound.

"Ro," Foster said quietly. "Could you leave us alone for a moment?"

The ogre smirked, saying, "Tell me if anything happens," and stalked off to join Sandor.

"So." Foster turned to him. "Is there anything you want to dump you me."

Keefe eyed her. "Detention," he mumbled. "I got in trouble again. With him."

"Cassius?" she questioned, and he almost smiled at the way she said the name without the 'lord'. It would have irked Cassius so much—his title and reputation was the most important thing to him.

"Yeah. Cassius."

"Why do you cut class and pull pranks?"

Keefe shrugged.

Foster sat down on a rock, propping up one foot on the base of it. "Your . . . parents." She hesitated before saying the word, as if she was unsure whether she should use it.

He smiled bitterly, sitting beside her. "Know something? When I stared Foxfire, my father cleared out a room and told me he'd put all my achievements and medals in there. Because he got all the awards when he went to Foxfire, and he expected me to be just like him. The only thing in there right now is a pile of detention records. And it makes him so, so angry."

"Which is why you keep getting detention," Foster guessed.

Keefe nodded. "Might as well disappoint him a little more if all he can see in me is a failure."

"You're not a failure, Keefe."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know what a failure looks like." She clenched her fist, relaxed it. "I know what a disappointment looks like. And you're not one."

"Foster, do you think you're a . . . ?" The sentence trailed off.

She laughed—convincing enough that it would fool anyone.

Except him.

"I don't," she assured him, and though the emotions that were flying through the air agreed with her words, he knew she was lying.

Foster jumped to her feet, stretched. She turned around to face him, holding out her hands. Without questioning her, he accepted, let her pull him to his feet.

"I started doing this a few years ago," she said. "Hold tight."

"What?" He barely had time to twine their fingers together before they were shooting into the sky, straight up, soaring through the clouds. Keefe risked a glance down—and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get as close to Foster as he could.

He heard her laughing as they changed course slightly, moving what seemed to be parallel to the ground. The wind rushed through his hair.

"Open your eyes," she said. "Trust me. I won't let you fall."

Keefe cracked an eye open, looked down. He blinked a few times. The blue ocean was far below them, waves glistening in the sunlight. They were moving fast enough that the wind was tearing at his cloak.

Without thinking, he let go of Foster's right hand and stretched it out to the side, like it was the wing of one of those human planes. He heard her laugh over the wind.

"You do this often?" he asked, as she copied the gesture with her free hand.

"Whenever it gets overwhelming," she admitted. "It's not easy, living up to expectations. Sometimes I need a break—from being Ales, from being the Moonlark, even from being just Sophie Foster. When I'm flying, I feel . . . free."

Keefe glanced sideways at her, at the girl who'd told him almost everything there was to know about her and still managed to be a mystery. The first person to look at him and see past the masks and jokes. To see him, not the smirk, not The Hair, not the prankster—but the boy who just wanted  break.

They were so different, yet so similar.

Foster opened her mouth—and screamed.

Shouted over the wind, letting out everything she'd been keeping inside of her, as if she wanted to tear the sky down.

Maybe Keefe was the first person to see this side of her.

The vulnerable and completely powerless Sophie Foster.

The wind roared past them, and possibly for the first time in his life, Keefe felt free.

Unburdened.

Like a bird who'd been let out of its cage for the first time, spreading its wings and taking off into the sky.

He felt the memories of his parents, all those times he'd been yelled at and hit and thrown around, fade—torn away by the wind, flung to some corner of the world where he might one day retrieve them.

But today was not that day.

"Scream," Foster told him. "Scream as loud as you can."

And so he did.