Keeper of the Lost Cities OneShots

Betrayal of Three

Not Dex. 

Not Dex. 

Anyone but Dex. 

It was the only thought in Sophie's head as she stumbled through the trees. 

Please not Dex. 

They could have taken anyone, everyone else. 

Just not Dex. 

Her friend had brought her back when she was half-dead, when she had lost her will to live. 

Not Dex. 

And now it might be too late. 

Not Dex. 

She almost tripped over him. Hidden in shadows, he was virtually invisible. 

Not Dex. 

Sophie struggled to flip over the body. Periwinkle-blue eyes stared blankly up at her, empty of the life they once held. 

Dex. 

A strangled cry escaped her lips. She cursed the Black Swan, the Neverseen, the Council, the whole world. What had Dex done to them?

Why Dex?

 She felt them before she saw them. Felt their presence, their scars, their minds. 

Why Dex? 

Then the first figure spoke, and her trance was broken. 

"You mourn him," said the familiar voice. "You believe he was your friend."

Sophie couldn't speak. 

"He knew things he shouldn't," the second figure told her, their speech lilted with a accent she knew too well. 

"He wanted you dead," added the third, and Sophie's heart broke for the second time that night. 

For a moment, doubt flickered in her mind. Then it was gone, replaced by guilt that she had mistrusted Dex, even for an instant. 

"No," she whispered. "He would never."

Her confidence swelled. She could beat them. She would never succumb to their lies. 

Then, one by one, the figures removed their hoods, crushing her hope a little more with every face they revealed. 

Mr. Forkle. 

Alden. 

And Keefe. 

She broke. 

She lashed out with her inflicting, reducing the three people she had once trusted most to tortured, ruined corpses. Somewhere in her consciousness, she knew she had killed everyone she had left in the world. But her heart didn't care. 

It was like she was watching herself, unaware of anything but her hatred, her pain. 

Sophie Elizabeth Foster changed that night. Anyone who saw her swore that she flicked red, an aura of blood shrouding her. 

And her eyes. 

No longer the warm brown, so full of emotion, that had touched the hearts of those around her. 

Now they were an empty white, the colour of the scars she hid. 

Paper. 

Ceramic. 

Bone.