what happened after unlocked

chapter forty-five ~ wrong sides

Sophie felt her throat close off right as she saw his face.

She knew that face.

But it was long gone.

She drew back, squinting at him, trying to figure out whether it was a potion. Because if this was truly him, then she wasn't sure what to believe anymore.

Oralie was silently sobbing next to the wall on the other side of the door.

Kenric cracked a lopsided grin. It was so like the one that Sophie had seen so many times that she began to doubt herself.

"Hello Ora, Sophie," he said, voice suddenly warm. "Nice to see you again."

Sophie felt her brows arch in confusion. "You're not Kenric. Kenric is dead!"

Kenric laughed. "Oh no, but I am."

Sophie shook her head over and over, sure that she was losing brain cells. "Who are you? I know you're lying."

Kenric walked forward. "Don't you remember what Aurora said? Someone who used to be on the side of good and then switched to bad? Driven insane by their choices?"

"How did you know that?" Sophie hissed.

"A couple of devices I got from Tinker," Kenric said.

"What?!" Sophie yelled. "You've been bugging me?"

"I believe that's what the humans call them," Kenric said plainly. "So, now that we've cleared up that, have you finally come to realize that I'm not lying yet?"

"Prove it," Sophie spat. Her heart pounded loudly in her chest.

"Well, how about I tell you how I managed to survive?" Kenric proposed. "You see, I have another ability that no one knew about, well, except for Oralie."

"How can you have two rare abilities?" Sophie said.

Kenric shrugged. "I mean, you do, but I guess it was just fantastic genetics. I'm a Psionipath."

Sophie gasped. "So that's how you got away? You just put a shield around yourself before the flames could take you and leaped off!"

Kenric smiled at her, but it was too cold to be considered kind. "Good. I'm glad you're following. And then I settled down for a few months, biding my time, angry at the world, avoiding everyone...that's when I decided that the only organization strong enough to get rid of the world's most dangerous creatures was the Neverseen."

"And you didn't know the Black Swan existed?" Sophie said, raising an eyebrow. "They want the same things, they'll just do it a better way and they'll make sure not to harm anyone."

"Harming people is the only way, Sophie!" Kenric urged. "And at the time, the Black Swan was just a myth."

Sophie glared at him.

"After joining, I realized they were only focusing on you. I wanted to focus on the grand scheme of things. So I went my own way."

"But...we all saw you die!" Sophie argued. "One second you were there, and the next you were gone!"

"I'm a Telepath, Sophie," Kenric said blatantly. "You underestimated my abilities because you were naïve when it came to me, and Oralie too, of course. You liked us so much that you let it blind you. Everyone knows you should never fully trust someone."

"So...so you managed to transmit an image of your disappearance into everyone's minds right as you were about to die, blinding us in the process? Even I can't do that!" Sophie wracked her brains for some reasoning.