Mirrored Conflicts (a Sokeefe story)

Chapter 15: The Punishment

"Allow me to get this straight," Alden Vacker began, a frown on his face. "You two used your cognate abilities to steal the Freemans' address out of my mind after I explicitly told you it was too dangerous for you to go. You justified this because they might be in trouble, but then proceeded to have a lengthy chat with the only Freeman who was not currently in danger, causing her memories to return, and allowing another human to learn the secrets of our world?"

There wasn't much Sophie, Fitz, Dex and Biana could do except nod—though Biana piped up, "To be fair, I didn't actually know what they were doing until Dex hailed me to come join."

"But you knew where we were!" Dex reminded her.

"Stop making me complicit in your actions!"

"You are complicit in our actions, and if we're going down you're going down with us."

Biana pouted.

"Amy was in danger, though," Sophie reminded him. "My Neverseen counterpart showed up to try to kidnap her, remember?"

"And ended up having a lengthy conversation with his Black Swan girlfriend about choices and legacies and stuff," Dex muttered.

"I'm not his girlfriend!" Sophie snapped. "I mean that. I don't even know where you guys got that idea from."

"Uh, he's the guy you told me and Dex you had a crush on, right?" Biana checked.

"I don't have a crush on anyone! I was lying and yes, I was using Keefe as a model—"

"Ah yes, let's talk about that one, shall we?" Alden interrupted, regrouping. "All of your teenage... crush talk aside, when Fitz brought to me the name 'Keefe Sencen,' you knew exactly who he was and what his connection was to the Neverseen, and didn't believe that was information you should tell the adults in your life?"

"Including that you had a face-to-face interaction with your Neverseen nemesis and intentionally hid this piece of information?" Magnate Leto added.

Sophie grimaced. "I didn't want anyone getting the wrong idea about him."

"Well, your friends seem to have plenty of ideas now, so was it truly worth it?" Grady said with a scowl.

People seriously needed to stop using the "boyfriend" word about Keefe, especially with him in the room.

"He didn't have a choice in any of this, okay?" Sophie said desperately. "He's just like—" she cut herself off before she could open that particular can of worms... but she had a feeling Magnate Leto had already guessed what she was going to say, going by the stricken look on his face. She took a deep breath and restarted. "He was born into his role. He doesn't know any different. And every time I've talked to him—"

"Multiple times?!" Grady exploded.

"Yes, multiple times! He's a normal kid. He likes jokes and pranks and gossip! And he has more abilities than he knows what to do with, some of which have the ability to cause real harm to others, but it's not like he had a choice in that, either!" She held Magnate Leto's gaze, refusing to back down from her point. "I got lucky that the Black Swan were the good guys, okay? Keefe didn't have that. And it's not like the Neverseen isn't fighting for change—it's just their methods that are wrong, and Keefe disagrees with those! He's the one who let me and Dex go when we were kidnapped!"

Dex sucked in a breath.

"Who's to say there isn't an ulterior motive?" Grady countered. "Perhaps the Neverseen realized they couldn't get any information out of you, so they might as well have a member establish trust with you to try to infiltrate the Black Swan later!"