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Chapter 8: Wishes and Regrets

"The amulet. It's gone."

"What do you mean the amulet's gone?" Lok asked.

"I mean it wasn't up there," Sophie answered. "Someone was here before us."

She opened her hand and held it out for the others to see. Resting in the center of her palm was a locket. It was small, only about an inch in diameter, and circular. A Celtic knot that sort of looked like three horses chasing one another was engraved on the cover.

"Whoever it was," Sophie continued, "left this behind in exchange for the amulet."

"If the amulet was already gone," Harrison spoke up, "why did you still leave your mom's ring up there?"

"If she took the locket without leaving something behind, it would be as if the person who took the amulet had never left it in the first place, and whatever trap that's been set would go off."

Sophie nodded at Wilder's words, and noticed that he looked very pale and was staring at the locket with a strange look on his face, almost as if he recognized it.

"So what do we do now?" Den asked.

"We obviously can't complete the original mission," Zhalia answered, "but we do have a clue as to who took the amulet. We can examine the locket and try to find out who it belongs to."

"Let's head back to Sutos first," Wilder said. He wasn't staring at the locket anymore, but he was still pale and still had that look on his face. "We can't do anything else here, so there's no point in staying."

The rest of them nodded and started walking back down the tunnel. They had walked almost to the section with the colored stones when they realized that Wilder wasn't with them. Zhalia was prepared to go back and drag him back to Sutos, but Sophie volunteered to go back and get him in a nicer way. The boys, Zhalia, and Cherit waited where they were while Sophie walked back to the cave.

Wilder had his back to the tunnel, looking out at the cave. Sophie walked up and stopped next to him.

"Is something wrong?" she asked. Wilder was silent for a moment before answering.

"I've imagined coming here for quite a few years now," he said, "but I always imagined that someone else would be with me."

"Your daughter?" Sophie asked. Wilder nodded.

"Renee. She loved horses. Even when she was young, she would always look up stories and legends about famous horses in history and mythology. When I introduced her to the Seeker world, she immediately began looking for connections between the Titans and the myths. She's the reason I know so much about the Hippocampus. There would be days that, as soon as I walked through the door, she would just start blurting out facts and details about Titans that may have inspired the myths and where they were possibly hidden. I don't think she bothered with whether or not I was listening, but it didn't matter because I always was. I wanted to bring her to all the places she talked about and get the Titans for her that she was interested in. Now I'm here, but Renee isn't."

Sophie listened patiently as Wilder ranted, waiting for him to pause. She wasn't sure what to say to him that would make things any better, but she tried.

"I know what it's like to lose someone you love," she began, "except I know that my parents are never coming back, and you said so yourself that you don't know if your daughter is dead or not. She may be alive, and you may still find her."

"I've been telling myself that for two years," Wilder said. "It gets harder to believe with each passing day."

"As long as you still believe, there's still hope," Sophie said. "It's when you stop believing that the situation turns into exactly the outcome that you feared. Don't give up."

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Wilder asked, shaking his head at her. "We were enemies."

"It's just like I said when we last met," Sophie answered. "I told you that I thought there might be something different about you, different from Defoe or Klaus. I was right, and I think I'm starting to understand what that difference is."

There was silence for a moment as Wilder looked at her with one eyebrow raised. After a while, he sighed and looked back at the cave.

"When we last met," he began, "you also said that I was a coward, that I resorted to dirty tricks because I was afraid of getting hurt and not fulfilling my ambition. In a way, you were right about that as well. I was afraid of getting hurt, but not for the reasons you thought back then. Renee was adopted. I was never able to find out who her real family was, so I was all she had. If I became seriously wounded, not only would I not be able to find her, but I would be unable to take care of and protect her when I did find her. I wanted the position of leader of the Organization so that I would have the resources to find her. Unfortunately, because I fought so hard for that instead of just searching for her like I should have been doing, resources or not, I'm now stuck on this island, with no way of ever finding my daughter." He paused for a moment. "I failed her." A tear ran down his face at those last three words.

"You haven't failed," Sophie said, placing a comforting hand on his arm. "You're still alive, which means that you can still search for her."

"How?" Wilder asked. "There's nothing on this island that I can use. I've tried escaping to the mainland, but the soldiers always catch me."

"I'll try talking to Grier," Sophie told him. "Maybe we can work something out."

Wilder turned his head and stared at the young woman next to him. Memories of his daughter raced through his mind. Renee was constantly helping people, from good friends to neighbors to complete strangers. She was strong, kind, and wise. Though he would never have admitted it to anyone else, Sophie reminded him a lot of Renee. He smiled. With no warning, he hugged Sophie, whose eyes grew wide at this unexpected and out-of-character gesture from Wilder.

"Thank you," he whispered.

He let go, and Sophie smiled at him before turning and walking back down the tunnel once more. Wilder took one more look at the cave before following her.

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More about Renee, and there's more to come in future chapters. Keep reading and keep reviewing.