UNLOCKED, kotlc

Chapter 54

"Wait! Keefe!"

Sophie had no idea what to do.  She obviously couldn't hurt Keefe- but again, it looked like he had every intention to do that to her.  She supposed her friends could take on Adela and Lady Gisela but....

Somebody crashed on top of her and they started rolling down the cobblestone streets, the rocks digging into her head.  Sophie pulled free her arm and stopped the tumbling, quickly extracted herself from her attacker and....

"Ugh, Keefe!" she shouted, recognizing his expression.  "Hello! I'm Sophie, remember? Not-"

She ducked down, narrowly avoiding some sort of punch. 

"Keefe! Snap out of it." Sophie pinned his wrists together and looked him straight in the eye. For a second, their gazes met and his ice blue eyes cleared, but the moment later, he pulled himself free and started attacking her again.

"You, Keefe Sencen, are the most stubborn, insensible person I've ever had the misfortune to meet!" Sophie grumbled as they both struggled to get the upper hand.

She could inflict- but not that quickly.  She needed to be angry, and scared, and mad- which she was. But not at Keefe- at his mom. And that.. wouldn't work the same way, would it?

"Keefe! Listen. To. Me," Sophie told him, as he began gathering up shadows from the darkest corners of the streets.  "Don't do this. Remember? Don't you remember my voice?"

Keefe kept his leg pinning her down on the floor.

"Remember?" Sophie pleaded, her own eyes watering as she added, "Team Foster-Keefe for the win, right?"

Keefe stopped.  He opened his mouth to speak, but Lady Gisela called from somewhere beneath her friend's attacks, and his eyes turned glazed again.

Sophie's rage turned towards Lady Gisela, but her mind was darkening, and she was pleading, begging with herself, please don't make me go to that horrible, endless abyss of blackness that just went down and down and down...

And maybe it was just her.

But she made something of her own. It was her anger at Keefe's mom, her love for her parents, her friends, even Keefe, for every bad thing he'd done to her that he'd had no control over. Even her fury with Oralie.

It was all there.

And it all blasted free, clearing her head, sweeping past everything in its surroundings and...

Keefe?

He lay sprawled on the street, unmoving.  There was no blood, no signs of anything but his eyes were empty and his chest wasn't moving.

Sophie's mind was going into overtime- or was it undertime? All she could think was no- did I do that? Because he couldn't- Keefe couldn't- that wasn't...

"Foster?" Keefe coughed.  Sophie's eyes were watering so much she looked like an elvin water park.

"Yes?" Sophie said softly.

"I'm.. I'm scared," Keefe admitted quietly.

"I know you are- look, we can get you to-"

"It's too late. We all knew this was going to happen."

"No- it can't- please-"

"Sophie?"

She froze. Keefe had used her real name.  She wiped away the tears falling down her cheeks but more replaced them and she gave up. She forced herself to look into Keefe's eyes.

"Yes?"

"I- I can't see the stars anymore," Keefe told her, so quietly that Sophie could barely hear it.

"Don't go!" Sophie sobbed, clenching his hand in hers.

"Sophie," Keefe repeated.

And she watched, with regret and fury and a hundred other emotions as she held Keefe's hand- the hand that had guided her to the place she called home, trusted her with everything, with his life, slapped her when she said something stupid, held in hers when she was crying, as the life slowly drained from his perfect ice blue eyes.