UNLOCKED, kotlc

Chapter 38

Why was Keefe there?

Sophie had to keep asking that to herself, probably just to keep herself sane. Elwin had been keeping an eye on him- and he'd been on a super strong sedative too.  Had the Neverseen broken him out of Foxfire somehow? What did they want with him?  Was he still being reprogrammed and controlled or had he willingly turned to the Neverseen's side?

"Oh Sophie," Lady Gisela scolded her. "Don't look so surprised.  Keefe is here to say hi, aren't you Keefe?"

Keefe's eyes remained glazed over as he nodded stiffly.  Yeah- he was definitely being controlled by them.  Sophie thought about a dozen jokes Keefe would not be able to resist cracking at that moment, but he didn't say anything.

Sophie looked at her mental To-Do list: Grab Keefe, inflict on Adela and Lady Gisela, take them all to Havenfield, lock up the two villains, get Keefe back to normal, live happily ever after. The chances of that going smoothly was about a one in four billion chance, which Sophie figured were not very good odds.

"Let him go," Sophie growled.  "And stop doing this to him!"

"We will," Adela cut in. "But we have just one little favor that we need you to do."

"What?" Sophie spat.

"Fight him."

And then Keefe lunged for her.

Sophie instinctively dodged. What were they making her do?  She couldn't bring herself to physically hurt Keefe, seeing as none of this was his fault.  But since Keefe had no control over what he was doing, Sophie suspected he wouldn't even hesitate to deftly end her life.

"Keefe stop!" Sophie yelled. Great. Now she had three villains that she needed to beat, by herself, and one of them she had to defeat without doing any permanent damage.  Part of Sophie was regretting coming down there in the first place.

Even if she managed to gather enough mental energy, she'd only have enough to take out one of the Neverseen members- and then she'd be too mentally exhausted to do anymore.  She could grab Keefe, and teleport away but then she wouldn't be able to get any information on how to get him out of the weird daze he was already in.

Keefe didn't say anything.  Sophie was glad that he hadn't fully mastered his Shade-y powers yet, otherwise she would be in big trouble.  Sophie let her mental energy boil- wow, she was getting good at that- and focused it all on a single target.

Which Neverseen member would hurt Keefe emotionally the most?

Sophie barely had to think about it. Energy shot out from her forehead in a burst of red light. Across the cave, Lady Gisela crumpled to the floor.  Keefe whirled around, and Sophie managed to knock him to the side.  He slumped against the wall.

Panting and exhausted, she turned to face Adela who had...

Disappeared?

"Stop hiding!" Sophie shouted. "You can accuse me of hiding all you want but in the end, you're the one that's always cowering behind your puny organization."

"Don't insult me," Adela said. "That's my job."

She reappeared behind Sophie and she felt her breath warm on her neck.  "Get away from me!" Sophie yelled shrilly, waving behind her blindly.

"We lured you here for one reason," Adela told her.  "Without their little moonlark, the rest of your friends can barely hold their own."

And that was when Sophie realized that the reason why Sandor hadn't come after her was because he hadn't been there at all.  

He'd been....

"You didn't," Sophie snarled.

"I did," Adela said smugly.

And then somebody screamed.