Disclaimer: I do not own "Huntik."
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Chapter 20: Revelations
"SOPHIE!"
Lucas' cry drowned out all the applause that Renee got after the song was over. Knowing that she had succeeded, Renee handed the microphone to the next singer, walked off the stage and over to Lucas, and smiled sweetly.
"Yes?"
Looking around, and seeing that everyone was staring at them, Lucas grabbed Renee's arm and pulled her out of the room and into the hallway. He walked a few yards away from the door so that no one would hear them.
"Where did you hear that song and how do you know it well enough to have it memorized?" Lucas asked, more angry than anyone had ever seen him.
"First of all," Renee explained, "I heard the DotEXE remix while watching a music video and I wanted to know what the original song sounded like, so I looked it up. Second, it's got an awesome beat and I wanted to try and figure out what the lyrics meant. They're a little cryptic in some places."
Lucas sighed, trying to calm down. "I don't want you listening to that song ever again, or any song like it, and I definitely do not want you singing it, even when no one else is around to hear it."
"Excuse me? You are not my father. You are my brother."
"And our parents are dead, which means that I am in charge."
Now Renee was getting mad. "You didn't even know that I had survived the fire. And, even when you found out, you didn't come see me. If it weren't for the Red Comet, would you have let me go the rest of my life thinking you were dead?"
"Yes."
SLAP!
Lucas staggered back a couple of steps, then looked at Renee in shock with one hand on his cheek. The girl standing in front of him was furious; she practically had steam coming out of her ears.
"I could tell from the day I first met you that you didn't have a brain," Renee said through clenched teeth, "but now I can see that you also don't have a heart, and you're most certainly a coward. You're like the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion all in one. I am ashamed to call you my brother and I am really glad that I don't remember you."
Now Lucas was really confused. "Sophie, what are you talking about? Of course you remember me."
"No, I don't, because I'm not Sophie."
As Lucas stood there in silence, trying to figure out what Renee was saying, Sophie walked up and stood next to Renee, shock, hurt, and betrayal on her face.
"Lucas?"
"Sophie?" As slow as the wheels were turning, Lucas finally figured it out and turned to Renee, eyes wide. "Serena?"
"I go by 'Renee' these days. Not that you would care."
With that, Renee ran off as fast as she could in her heels. Wilder ran after her, calling her name. Lucas stared as the blond ran past.
"What is he doing here and why does he care about Serena?"
"He's her father."
Lucas turned to stare at Sophie, eyes even wider than before. "He's her WHAT!?"
"He adopted her after he found her in an alley in Paris, with no memories of her previous life. He cares more about her than you could ever care about everyone in our whole family put together." With that, Sophie ran after her sister and Wilder.
Lucas stared after them, silent. The onlookers walked away, not wanting to deal with the Casterwill boy. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last time, Lucas was left alone.
Renee ran out of the mansion completely and into the gardens. She would have kept running, except her feet were starting to ache because of her heels and her legs were giving out. Her injuries from all those years ago had never completely healed, and, several times when she'd been doing something that required her to be on her feet a lot, she'd had to stop and sit down at some point because it hurt too much.
She sat down on a bench as Wilder and Sophie caught up to her. Wilder sat on her left side and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close. Sophie sat on her right side and held her hand as Renee started to cry.
"My brother's an idiot."
"I already knew that," Sophie said, "but I had no idea he was that bad. To think he would have let me gone my entire life without knowing. . ." She couldn't even complete the sentence.
"There are times when I look at other families and wish that I knew who mine were," Wilder said. "And there are other times where I'm glad that I don't."
"This was supposed to be fun," Renee said through her cries. "I thought this would be like one of those pranks you play on family members on April Fool's Day. It wasn't supposed to end in tears, except maybe for him."
"This is Lucas we're talking about," Sophie told her. "I was expecting him to pull out the whole give-up-being-a-Seeker-and-go-into-hiding thing. I should have known there would be something else. He's gotten worse ever since we defeated the Blood Spirals. Sometimes I wish he had stayed away from me. I think I would have preferred if he died with our parents." She paused for a moment. "Am I a horrible person for saying that?"
"No," Wilder and Renee answered at the same time.
"He knows about Renee now," Wilder said. "He's not going to leave her alone, either." He turned to his daughter. "You'll have to face him again sooner or later."
"I choose later," Renee mumbled.
"He's right, though," Sophie said. "We can't avoid him forever. If we don't go to him, he'll come to us."
"Do we have to go to him right now?" Renee asked. "Can't we stay out here for a little while longer? It's such a nice night."
Wilder didn't buy the act. "Your legs are hurting again, aren't they?"
"Why do you have to be such a good father?" Renee asked as she looked up at him. Wilder smiled and kissed her forehead.
"Because I have such an amazing daughter," he answered. "I wanted her to be proud to call me her father."
"I am proud."
At that moment, Cherit flew out of the mansion and over to the trio.
"Is everything alright out here?" he asked. "Everyone is worried."
"Tell them we're fine, Cherit," Sophie answered. "Tell them we'll come in soon."
With a nod, the little white Titan flew back the way he had come. Renee looked back and forth from her father to her sister.
"I'm glad you two are here," she said. "I don't know what I would have done."
"That's what families are for," Wilder said.
"Real families," Sophie added.
Renee smiled at them as she tried to forget about the events that were in the inevitable future.
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Someone really needed to slap Lucas, and Renee was only too happy to.
I was going to have them just walk around at the ball, have one of them meet Lucas and talk to him, and then walk away while the other went and talked to him, having no knowledge of what the other had talked about, and have him totally freak out. But then I was listening to that song and these last two chapters were born.
That actually is the story of how I came to know that song. No one in my family knows that I know it. I don't want to know what their reactions would be.
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