Reversed

iv. four

"Two hours, don't forget." Ruy finished detailing the Alluveterre ambush before walking out.

Once he was gone, Sophie used telekinesis to pull all the daggers and throwing stars from the targets. She dropped them in a pile at her feet.

Sophie knelt down and made sure all the gadgets were still in her pockets before sliding the weapons back into their holsters. She slipped her two special daggers into their sheaths at her waist. She flipped the switch on the wall to make the targets go back and headed towards the door.

Before she could make it out the door, black shadows collected in the center of the room. Sophie bristled as the shadow simulation rose back up from the ground.

"I deactivated the training course," she growled. She lifted her weapons, but the shadows fled to the dark corners of the room, crawling back to reveal . . . a person.

He had black hair and silver-tipped bangs that were shorter than the last time she saw him. Which had been when she was still with the Black Swan.

"Tam?" she gaped.

"Yeah, it's me." His silver-blue eyes held questions in them as he flipped his hair out of his face, but he didn't say anything.

"You control the shadow simulation?" Sophie asked him.

"When did you join the Neverseen?"

"Where have you been this whole time?"

"Are you a double agent?"

Sophie raised an eyebrow. What?

"Sophie, what's going on?"

"You're still with the Black Swan."

Tam looked away. "You know I came here against my will."

Sophie crossed her arms. "Well, I didn't."

"What?"

"They showed me who the Black Swan and the others really were. They revealed everything."

Tam shook his head. "No way. They're messing with you, Sophie."

Sophie sighed. "Tam, I know what I saw and how I feel. Nobody can just plant that. I'm telling you, the Black Swan isn't who you think they are."

A disbelieving laugh. "Wow. You're a really good double agent." He held up his hands. "I get it, you can't expose yourself here."

"No. You don't get it," she said, jabbing a finger towards him. "What I'm saying is the truth. The only reason I'm talking to you right now is because you wouldn't have been dragged into this if I hadn't talked to you in Exillium."

The silver in his eyes hardened, letting Sophie know that he was finally taking her seriously. "What did they do to you?" Tam whispered.

Sophie put her daggers back into their sheaths. "I'm with the Neverseen now. For real. And I'm going to get revenge on everyone who manipulated me. I suggest that you don't get in my way."

Tam's mouth tightened into a straight line. He didn't try to stop her as she walked towards the door.

Just as she took off her gloves to slide her fingertips over the DNA scanner, Tam said, "You can deny it all you want, but it won't change the fact that the Neverseen are messing with your head. This isn't normal, Sophie. You have one of the strongest minds I know—it won't last forever. The real truth will come out."

She closed the door with a little more force than necessary.

Sophie took a quick shower and changed into a fresh set of black clothes. She donned her cloak, rechecked her weapons, grabbed her gloves, and walked out to the front of the hideout, where Trix was already waiting against the obsidian wall facing the drop of a sheer cliff.

"Do you have your daggers?" he asked.

"Of course I do," Sophie said, patting her thigh. "You think I'd leave for my first mission empty handed?"

"No, the ones you got from the Black Swan that we modified."

"Oh. Yeah." She couldn't wait to get a chance to finally use them.

Trix spun his finger in a circle and a mini tornado wrapped around it. He snapped his fingers and it dispersed. "You should have a better name for them. Not just your Black Swan daggers."

Sophie took one of the glowing weapons out and turned it in her hand. "Hmm. I think our Technopath added bottled moonlight."

"And you're the Moonlark."

"Moon daggers?" They asked in unison.

"Sure." Trix nodded with a crooked smile.

Oman and Ruy walked out of the front. "Are you ready to teleport?" Ruy asked.

Sophie nodded, pulling up her hood.