Always With You- SOKEEFE(unlocked)

Chapter Sixteen

Keefe's POV

Keefe felt Sophie slump closer into his neck, and wrapped his arm around her body. He loved being able to hold her and to protect her, even though he knew full well she could protect herself. Her only issue was that if it was down to her and someone else, there was no doubt she'd always save the other person.

"At least now I know how you won that race to the kitchen. That totally counts as cheating by the way." Keefe told Sophie, "But... you could've totally Fostered it back there. Your parents were super worried about you, you know. Even more than me, and that's saying something. Grady had to mesmer me into not jumping off a cliff to see if I could teleport to you."

When Sophie stayed quiet, Keefe nudged her with his shoulder.

"Foster?" Keefe whispered to her.

Nothing.

"Foster." he said louder, "Sophie, if you're messing with me, this is not funny."

Keefe moved to look at Sophie head on, holding her limp face in his hands, but she didn't look different. No bruises. No scratches. No injuries. But her heartbeat was slow, and she looked pale- very pale.

He laid Sophie down on the cot they were sitting on and took out the cannula attached to her arm, hoping the paleness on her face was due to the blood loss. The worry in Keefe kept growing as the minutes passed.

Keefe lightly shook her shoulders every minute to try to get her to wake back up, but still, nothing. It was as if her body had just powered off.

"Elwin." Keefe said.

"Kind of busy over here." Elwin said as he sterilized a needle to stitch up the opening in Jolie's abdomen.

"Yeah, er, yeah of course." Keefe said timidly.

He was trying to decide whether or not it was a good idea to pull Elwin over mid-stitch, but... it was Sophie. He needed her to be okay. She had to be okay.

"But, uh..."

"What Keefe?!" Elwin asked angrily.

"Something is wrong with Sophie and I don't know what to do and I'm scared it's something bad." He quickly said.

"Keefe, it's probably the blood loss. I'm sure she'll be fine once blood returns back to her system." Elwin explained to him.

"Is she supposed to be pale and unresponsive, though."

"Maybe give her some fade fuel just in case she lost concentration on the leap."

"Erm, but she teleported." Keefe told Elwin, "She doesn't have her pathfinder on her."

"She could've taken a Leapmaster." Physic supplied.

Elwin's face dropped as he ran a hand through his dark hair, "That's not possible. She came from the Forbidden Cities."

"Maybe check her eyes so we can be sure." Physic said.

Keefe nodded and pulled back Sophie's eyelids, "I think you're right. Her eyes look pretty glazed over."

Elwin dropped what was in his hands and ran over to Sophie's cot. Keefe watched as Elwin wrapped his fingers around her wrist and put his other hand on her forehead. He stepped back and ran his hands down his face.

Keefe's eyes were glassy with tears he kept from spilling over. These were the times he wished he wasn't an empath, because he could feel every worried, terrified, grief-stricken emotion radiating off of Elwin. The emotions that came with news no one wanted to bear.