Board Thread:Short Stories and Fanfictions/@comment-43347423-20200111144721/@comment-43347423-20200126161512

Chapter Nine

Sophie panicked and immediately reached for his temples. His mind couldn’t be broken, could it? But Keefe had started screaming and yelling.

Oralie looked panicked as well and grabbed Sophie’s hand. “Let me read your emotions when you go into his mind.”

Sophie nodded and pushed her concentration into Keefe’s mind, bracing for the worst.

She wasn’t disappointed.

Keefe was definitely broken.

Shards of Lord Cassius snarling and yelling floated past Sophie as she followed the warmth to the little nook in his mind.

Lady Gisela telling him about his “legacy.”

But one memory in particular stood out to Sophie:

“Sometimes we have to break so we can rebuild ourselves into something stronger.”

Lady Gisela had said that.

Had she intentionally broken Keefe’s mind with guilt?

But why?

Sophie began to speculate but then realized that that wasn’t what was important right now.

What was important was getting Keefe out alive.

Sophie watched as Alden floated by, saying, “If you care about them, you’ll let them be happy.”

She saw Fitz yelling, screaming at Keefe when he’d explained that they’d let Alvar go.

Sophie’s red fury grew.

But that wasn’t what she needed.

She needed love.

But who did Keefe love?

His family was horrible to him and his friends all seemed to hate him.

Sophie tried Alden, hoping Keefe would at least come back for a father figure, but Keefe didn’t.

She tried each of her friends, remembering all the good times they’d had together.

She even tried herself, showing him memories of when she’d first trusted him when they were riding Silveny, when he’d given her the paintings of her family and her friends, and all the tiny, tiny, jokes that had always made her feel a little better. Even when she’d pretended they hadn’t.

But Keefe didn’t come back.

What else was there to try?

Sophie tried everything again, hoping against her will that he’d come back and smirk at her, make a joke about his hair, make a joke about being the president of the Sophie Foster Fan Club.

It didn’t work.

But she kept trying.

Over and over and over and over and over.

She wasn’t about to give up on Keefe.

But eventually, her consciousness was ripped out of his head.

She’d been pulled away.

There were more people in the room than she remembered.

When had Magnate Leto and Elwin and Grady and Edaline and Lord Cassius and Alden and Della and Juline and Kesler and Tiergan and Fitz and Biana and Tam and Linh and Dex and Marella and Stina and Maruca and Wylie gotten here?

All the bodyguards were there, too. Sandor and Ro already had been, but Ro looked different than she had before. So did Sandor, actually.

They both almost looked like they’d been crying.

But Sophie knew better than that.

“What do we do?” Sophie asked. “His mind is broken.”

“I… don’t know, Miss Foster.” Magnate Leto said.

Sophie ran over to her parents, not able to hold it together any longer. They hugged her back when she wrapped her arms around them, and Sophie burst into tears.

Keefe’s mind was broken and she couldn’t fix it.