MISSION MOONLARK, kotlc

15

Sophie woke up to an all too familiar pair of ice blue eyes and somehow professionally styled hair leaning over her- along with an infuriating smirk.

"Well at least I wasn't lying when I said we'd meet again, Foster," the figure said, winking.

Sophie wished she could will her heart to stop fluttering as her brain slowly morphed the blurry blob into a person and matched the teasing voice...

"You again," Sophie sighed, giving a half-hearted cough and trying to get her bearings. They were in.... Wait. Was that a subway?

All around her, businessmen and women bustled through the stuffy, claustrophobic underground walkways, while tourists crowded around map guides and locals bustled up and down the narrow staircases. And it took her yet another humiliating moment to realize she was sprawled across four seats in the middle of the platform, which she assumed made her look really stupid- and Keefe's smirk definetely confirmed that.

"Hmm... the Adorable Queen of Obliviousness is also somehow oblivious to the awesomeness of Lord Hunkyhair?" Keefe wondered, his smirk still not wavering.

"Awesomeness isn't a word," Sophie snapped, sitting up and trying to to focus on the fact that he'd just called her adorable... anything else...

All she could remember from the fire was the match exploding... the interrogation room covered in flames... screams...

"Well maybe we should make it one!" Keefe suggested brightly, as if they were merely two dating teenagers discussing an English class.

Wait. Dating? Where had that thought come from-?

"Yeah, and then I can teach it to my fellow Black Swan prisoners?" Sophie shot back loudly.

A couple passing pedestrians gave her strange looks, shrugged, and continued walking.

Keefe's smile disintegrated. "Prisoner?"

Sophie stared at him in exasperation. "Don't play dumb with me, Funkyhair. You're a-" she dropped her voice "-Neverseen agent. I'm from the Black Swan. We're mutual enemies, and we hate each other. That's just how it-"

"Works," Keefe finished. For the slightest second, he looked a tiny bit disappointed- but his smirk appeared again as chipper as ever.

Sophie let herself stare for ten more seconds before scooting a a seat away from him and turning pointedly in the other direction.

"Go ahead," Sophie found herself saying. "Take me away. Interrogate me. Recruit me. I don't care."

And now... the awkwardness could've powered the entire underground station for a week.

"Foster, I don't want to-"

"I said, go ahead!" Sophie practically shouted. "And Don't. Call. Me. Foster."

"Okay. Foster," Keefe added, giving her yet another frustrating wink.

Sophie waited for him to pull out a melder and drag her to the nearest subway. He didn't.

Painful silence passed.

"I saw you. Did you know that?" Keefe asked abruptly. Sophie glanced at him in surprise, but he didn't take his eyes off the pillar in front of them.

"You... you saw me?"

Keefe nodded, and even though he'd angels his face away from her, Sophie could still see his embarrassment.

"Before you were recruited. At your school. The Neverseen wanted to recruit you at the same time as the Black Swan and I was.. I was in charge of watching you."

It appalled Sophie that spies from two different agencies were sitting side by side, despite how much their respective organizations despised each other.

"Go on," Sophie said softly.

"The Black Swan got there first, obviously," Keefe continued, barely mumbling. "Specifically, Fitz got to you first."

Something about the bitterness in his tone- and her own furious blush -made the words seem a tiny bit deeper...

Sophie was about to make some hollow response- and brace for a record amount of teasing- when somebody screamed out-

"THERE!"

She whipped around so quickly that she almost elbowed Keefe in the shoulder- which might've been humiliating -if the source of the shout wasn't coming from two familiar figures...

Alvar.

Ruy?

Neverseen agents.

"You."

Sophie stared at Keefe. Not a question.

A statement.

A revelation.

An accusation.

And all his sweet talk... every single smirk had been a lie. The meaning must've clicked a moment too late for him.

"Wait! Foster, that wasn't me, I swear-"

"Shut up!" Sophie screamed, holding back tears. She gave one last look at his desperate, broken expression- and his comrades approaching behind him -before sprinting towards the nearest subway door, right as it slammed shut.