The Winner of the Game

== Preface ==
The wind tore at Sophie’s clothes. She reached up to tug her hood down, to shield her identity.
No one could know who she was.
Because here, she wasn’t Sophie Foster.
She was someone—no—something else.
And she was about to jump off a cliff. Both literally and figuratively.
She was about to make the greatest mistake or greatest decision of her life.
She knew people—friends who had made it before. She knew what went wrong. And she was determined to make it right this time.
She had to.
She had to win this—this game—no—this war that they were fighting.
If she didn’t—
Then there wouldn’t be a game. No gameboard, no players.
No losers, no winners.
No—anything.
So she had to win.
She had to win before their enemies won, and they lost.
She had to win for herself.
And she would.
She had to believe that she would.
Because hope was all she had left. 
== 1. ==
Sophie sat underneath Calla’s panakes, her knees tucked to her chest as she let the songs and melodies of the leaves wash her worries away.  
Of course, her worries would never truly disappear. Not while he was gone.
Gone.
Sophie had to fight the tears that formed in her eyes at the mere thought of the current state of her friend.
After all they’d been through, everything they’d done together, all the promises he’d made—he was gone.
He left her.
Again.
Sophie thought that after the first time, maybe—maybe he would’ve—learned his lesson?
But apparently not.
If Keefe had learned his lesson, then he would be sitting next to her right now. She would be leaning on his shoulder, and his fingers would be running through her hair while they sat in the silence. And then Sophie would blush, and he would make some joke that would make her face light on fire. And then—
Sophie forced the wishful thinking from her mind. It really wasn’t helpful. She just wished that—that it was true. She didn’t want Keefe to have left. She wanted him here. Beside her.
But he wasn’t.
He was miles away, who knows where—hiding. Running. Running away from his fears. Like he always did.
And so she sat here.
Alone.
Tears pricked her eyes again and she closed them, fighting for a few last moments before the tears slipped down her face.
The moments didn’t last.
Her tears trickled down and a sob crawled up her throat.
Gone.
Alone.
Why?
But she knew why. It was because he was a reckless, lying, idiotic, moron. And she hated him. She hated him so much. She hated him for leaving, she hated him for not saying goodbye, she hated him for leaving her with a letter, she hated him for breaking his promise, she hated him for making her hate him, and she hated him for being so—Keefe.
If he wasn’t Keefe, then Sophie wouldn’t be crying. If he wasn’t Keefe, then Sophie wouldn’t hate him. If he wasn’t Keefe, then Sophie wouldn’t have ripped up that letter and taped it back together who knows how many times.
She reached into her cloak pocket and pulled out the crumpled piece of paper that was the letter Keefe left her.
The paper was yellowed and crumpled, and tear spots could be seen splattered across the page. The words were slightly disconnected in some places, where Sophie had ripped the paper apart and taped it back together again.
She’d stomped on this letter, ripped it up, thrown it off the cliffs (and then teleported to retrieve it before it hit the water), and just sat with it and cried, and cried, and cried until there were no more tears left.
She looked at the letter again now, rereading the words, her hands shaking a bit as the tears dripped onto the page once more.
She hated this letter. But—no matter how many times she tried to destroy it; she’d always piece it back together. Because he gave it to her. Because it was all she had left.
She stared at his handwriting every day, trying to make the words mean something more than they meant.
But it was always the same.
Each little word, down to the 'LOVE, KEEFE' at the bottom, had ‘Keefe’ written all over it. She could imagine him writing this, his brow furrowed and his tongue threatening to stick out.
And then Iggy—well, it was safe to say that Sophie broke down when she saw the imp’s new dye job. It was—her favorite. And also her least favorite. Dex even offered to change Iggy’s color a couple days ago. Sophie declined.
Elwin said she was grieving.
She supposed that was what this was. This state of—nothingness. She wasn’t—there. Her friends would come over and talk to her, make jokes—like Keefe used to do—and tell her everything was going to be alright.
But it wasn’t alright.
The biggest mistake they made was when they called her ‘Foster.’ No one but Keefe called her Foster. She—she’d never been angrier than she was in that moment. She yelled, threw things, and then afterwards—she cried. And she stopped seeing anyone.
That was two weeks ago.
Two weeks of the month and a half of grief.
Grieving.
But—grieving implied closure. It implied that Keefe was gone.
He wasn’t gone.
He was out there somewhere.
And all Sophie had to do was find him.
And she’d spent this month—this month of tears and anger. She’d burned all the bridges and built them back up again, brick by brick, stone by stone, building her walls up around her—securing herself in an impenetrable fortress that she hid inside, sheltering her mind from reality.
But now—now she was done.
This was the last time she’d cry over Keefe whatever-his-middle-name-was Sencen.
Because he wasn’t gone, and he was an absolute idiot.
And she was going to find him.
== 2. ==
Keefe was in pain. Every part of his brain was in agony. Visions of unimaginable horrors plagued his mind! If he were given a choice between this and being enveloped by shadowflux while Mommy dearest watched with a creepily proud smile on her face, he would choose the shadowflux.
Okay, maybe he would choose this.
But it was painful, okay!
See—Keefe was enduring the most difficult thing that all young humans must face every single school day.
Math Class.
To be more specific, AP Math.
It really sucked.
Like—a lot.
Keefe had a photographic memory—he could pick this up pretty fast.
But it was so—damn—tedious!
I mean—who cares about finding x?
Let it stay lost!
He never wanted to see it again!
Ever!
He wanted it to burn in the fires of everblaze and die an extremely, painful, slow, agonizing death.
“Mr. Sande?” The high, drawling voice of Mrs. Diane interrupted his thoughts.
He lifted his eyes to stare at the board—then at the old woman who called his name. Oh—yeah—he was going by Kai Sande now. I mean—it wasn’t as good as Keefe Sencen, but it was the next best name he could think of.
Mrs. Diane was a short little woman with half-moon glasses and a stern frown that never went away.
Keefe often thought of her as Mrs. Dying. It was a much more fitting name, for it seemed that she was deteriorating right before their eyes.
Humans had such short life-spans, it was incredible.
And also weird.
“Mr. Sande?” Mrs. Diane asked again, a hint of impatience added to her tone.
“Yes?”
The little old teacher tapped the board with her ruler, “The answer to the equation?”
Keefe’s eyebrows rose and he scanned the board—the little cogs and wheels in his brain turning, trying to figure out the answer.
“It’s—uh—12!” Keefe said, the answer plopping into his brain. “Yeah. It’s 12,” Keefe said with more confidence.
Mrs. Diane pursed her lips, “Correct.”
Dang, Mrs. Diane probably hated him more than Lady Belva was in love with him, and that was saying something.
After giving him a thorough and extremely disapproving stare, Mrs. Diane went on to torture another victim, and Keefe went back to his daydreaming.
What did he daydream about, you may ask?
Foster.
It was always Foster.
No matter how many times he tried to put her out of his mind, everything always came back to Foster.
He left her—and he had to remind himself that it was for the best, but…he couldn’t help wondering if he’d made the right choice. If he hadn’t—screwed everything up again.
He’d already done that once. And it—it was the greatest mistake of his life.
He hurt Foster. He hurt her so much.
That look on her face when she figured out what he was doing—
He really didn’t want this time to be like that.
But he couldn’t help thinking—it was already like that. He’d already made the mistake. Foster—she would hate him now.
That is—if she hadn’t taken his advice and forgotten all about him.
The thought sent a pain in Keefe’s gut.
Forgotten all about him.
That was best, but—he—
He just missed her so much. And if she forgot him all together—
That was like—like—closure.
That sealed the deal.
He’d never see her again.
And he—he had to. He had to see Foster again. He just—he couldn’t imagine a world without Foster in it. Without her laugh—without her smile—without those golden flecked brown eyes that stared into his soul and just—knew him.
He didn’t have anyone else who knew him like Foster did.
Even with the Foster oblivion.
Keefe just couldn’t—couldn’t let that—
The shrill ringing of the school bell cut through his thoughts. He kind of hated that bell. It was so—annoying. The Foxfire bell wasn’t much better, but at least it wasn’t so—shrill.
He got out of his small—cramped seat and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Backpacks were—odd. There were a lot of different bags you could use for keeping schoolbooks and pencils and stuff like that, but humans chose this.
Humans were weird.
Keefe followed the flow of students down the crowed hall towards the cafeteria.
Oh—the cafeteria.
He had always taken the foxfire food for granted—but now? He longed for it more than anything in the world.
Well—next to Foster.
But this—this stuff that the humans called food was—well, it left much to be desired.
Basically, it sucked.
He took a tray and went to stand in the line, a cloud of misery slowly forming over his figure.
While you’re waiting, you’re probably wondering how Keefe was talking to people. It’s pretty weird.
See—apparently his commands didn’t work on humans.
He figured that out pretty quickly. A couple of a*******—sorry, guys—had cornered him on the first day and tried to stuff him in a dumpster.
Well, he’d tried to use a command on them.
It did NOT work.
So he had to resort to the good old sock-in-the-face.
He hadn’t been bothered by them since. And he didn’t have to worry about not being able to speak, which was a plus.
Keefe moved down the line until he stood in front of the deli. The lunch lady plopped a glob of—who knows what on his plate.
Yum.
He carried it to the only empty table in the cafeteria and wolfed down his food as fast as possible—ignoring the revolting smell and taste—hoping to finish before the harpies got there.
The harpies were the girls.
*shudder*
Keefe had seen the harpies at the sanctuary, and he was pretty sure they’d get along very well with the girls at Brownings Highschool. Or maybe they’d tear each other apart.
He was pretty sure the latter was wishful thinking.
“Hey Kai!”
Oh no.
He was too late.
They were here.
“Kai,” the girl said again. Her hair was wavier than Foster’s—much more tamed. It was dirty blonde instead of the golden color that took Keefe such a long time to find a paint that matched it. Instead of the golden flecked, chocolatey orbs that were set into Foster’s face, more piercing grayish blue ones stared at Keefe—framed by lashes covered in thick, black mascara and surrounded by peach eyeshadow that Foster would never be seen in public with.
Not that the girl wasn’t pretty, but she just—wasn’t Foster.
“Um—hi?” Keefe greeted the girl.
“Hi, I’m Hope,” the girl sat down at the table, putting down a binder marked ‘AP Math.’ “I was wondering if you could help me with the homework for Mrs. Diane’s class. You’re really good at it.”
Keefe could feel the giddy, flustered emotions coming from the girl. They made him shift in his seat uncomfortably.
“Um…sure,” he replied.
“Thanks, these problems are h***,” Hope opened her binder to a paper that had hearts doodled all over it. Keefe just caught a glimpse of his name before Hope ripped the piece of paper out and crumpled it into a ball, hitting him with a fairly large amount of embarrassment.
“That—that was just me doodling—I—I get bored in class,” Hope said, her cheeks pinkening.
“That class is pretty boring,” Keefe said, going for a subject change.
The subject change seemed to work, for Hope’s emotions relaxed a bit as she said, “Tell me about it, Lady Diane is—” she shuddered.
Keefe snickered, “She’s certainly something—strangely enough, I don’t think she likes me very much…”
“I don’t think she likes anyone,” Hope said.
Before Keefe could respond with some witty comment, another girl joined them at the table. A brunette this time—with a slight tan and chocolatey brown eyes—much darker than Foster’s. Keefe knew this one. Her name was Breanna. She’d just broken up with her boyfriend Cade two days before—or so she ranted to him yesterday.
“Hey Kai,” Breanna said in her unnaturally pleasant tone. “What are you doing with Hope?” Her smile got a little dangerous and Keefe had to fight not to gulp.
Hope answered for him, “He’s helping me with my math Homework.”
Breanna turned to Hope with a confused look on her face, and her emotions matched her expression, “You? Asking someone for help with math homework? The homework must be really difficult—I am so glad I’m not in AP Math. I don’t know if I’d survive.”
“Well, it’s not that—” Hope started to say when the announcement speakers boomed, “All students with detention must report to room 25 immediately.”
Keefe, sensing an escape route, stood up from the table, “Sorry girls, I just forgot—I have detention.”
“What’d you get detention for?” Hope asked curiously.
“I—I called Mrs. Ferrant ‘Mrs. Ferret,’” Keefe said, before exiting the cafeteria with his backpack.
Phew.
He was safe.
But he didn’t have detention (crazy, right? It was so unlike him…he needed to get back his detention status as Designated Troublemaker. It was the highest of awards.), so instead of heading towards room 25, he turned and exited the building—heading out to the bleachers.
Free from the girls—and their emotions—Keefe’s mind wandered back to Foster again. The girl’s flustered and giddy emotions were very different from Foster’s emotions when she was around him.
They were usually a mix of worry, frustration, I-want-to-strangle-you-right-now, the occasional pang of sympathy—but never pity, and often something else he couldn’t describe.
He sometimes thought about that indescribable emotion—it was—fuzzy. Fuzzy, soft, and warm. That was the best way he could describe it.
Wishful thinking had him interpreting that emotion as—well—reciprocated feelings, but that was probably only—well, wishful thinking.
Keefe sat on the bleachers, looking out at the empty field that he knew was about to be filled by the school’s football team. A bunch of hairy jocks that all shared one braincell.
He wished Foster were here next to him.
If she were—she’d be resting her head on his shoulder while he ran his fingers through her golden hair—and then he’d tell her a joke that would make her emotions go all—I-want-to-strangle-you-but-I-also-think-that-was-super-funny—and she’d try not to laugh, but then she’d laugh and she’d look at him and her emotions would be all fuzzy and soft and warm and—
Keefe halted his train of thought.
That wasn’t possible.
Because Foster wasn’t here.
She was miles away, probably sitting under the panakes tree or in her room at Havenfield or hanging out with the Fitzer.
She wasn’t with him.
No matter how much Keefe wanted her to be.