Author's note:
Before you start the final chapter, I just wanted to say thank you so much for reading this story! When I decided to make a sequel to Hexed, I was honestly a bit hesitant to do so. One of my favorite things about writing Hexed was the fact that the ending is left open to reader interpretation, so I didn't want to ruin the specialness of that ending by writing a follow-up that narrowed the ambiguity. I feel that I accomplished that by having the sequel explore a different aspect of the girls' story. I hope you enjoyed the final chapter, and thank you so much to everybody who's favorited, followed or left reviews on this fanfic!
Thorn and Luna had profusely asked Dusk how she felt about traveling to her aunt and uncle's for Christmas. Family gatherings always brought Dusk immense stress, as she feared being lambasted by her parents about her music career for the gazillionth time in a row. However, this year, while Dusk still had some reticence about her parents being as cold to her as the icicle-covered branches outside, she noticed a newfound relaxed feeling that she was not used to having around her parents.
They'd finished up dinner around a half-hour ago, and prior to opening presents, it was time for the Belleveaux family tradition of playing a rousing game of Monopoly. Well, it wasn't so rousing to Dusk, considering she hated the game due to her extremely shabby Monopoly-playing skills, but she'd just kind of learned to accept it.
"That was a lovely dinner, Karmin." Debbie exclaimed, as she moved her pawn five spaces to the left.
"Pacific Avenue. That's mine!" Alessia exclaimed. "You owe me $26!"
"Here you go, dear." Debbie handed Alessia the money.
"Yes, it was a wonderful dinner!" Uncle Nick commented.
"That macaroni and cheese was particularly good this year!" Grandpa Aaron Sr. remarked. "Did you put something special in it?"
"Yes, I added a bit of extra butter. Clearly that did the trick!" Karmin said with a chuckle.
It was now Dusk's turn. She was pretty confident she was going to lose soon. She only had $112, and she was nearing the highest-earning spaces on the board, both of which had hotels on them. She rolled the dice and got a six. As the blonde counted out the spaces, she promptly realized she was fucked. She had landed on Boardwalk, which was literally the worst possible space she could have landed on. Even if she mortgaged some of her properties, she still wouldn't have nearly enough.
"That's $2,000, Dusk." Taylor informed.
"Well, I'm out." Dusk said.
"Ha." Aaron let out a light chuckle. "Just like how it's gonna go in real-life."
"Yes, ha ha ha. Your older daughter's gonna be richer than your younger daughter. What a riot." Dusk said dryly.
"Hey!" Jaclyn snapped. "That's not cool, Uncle Aaron."
"It's just a game, darling." Uncle Nick assured his daughter.
"Yeah, he's just joking around." Uncle Jake chuckled.
"I know it's a game, but that was really mean!" Jaclyn argued.
"I didn't say anything that wasn't true." Aaron defended.
"Make fun of me all you want, but I'm happy in my career. I've been financially secure thus far, and if for some reason I don't have enough money at some point, I'll get another job to pay the bills and make sure to still find time to make the music I love." Dusk responded diplomatically.
If she thought about it more, it was quite like her encounter with Deyton and Dawn last week. If Dusk spent her life trying to live up to her parents' expectations, she'd be working in a bank or doing something equally miserable. She wasn't going to live in fear of others' judgment of her anymore, especially if doing what they wanted meant she'd be super unhappy.
Dusk's father had a frustrated scoff in response, but Dusk didn't care. It admittedly still bothered her that her father was so atrociously unsupportive of her, but she wasn't going to let it eat away at her anymore like she used to.
It was Jaclyn's turn next. She rolled a ten, which landed her on Park Place. Taylor also owned that space, and had monopolized it with a hotel.
"$1,500, Jaclyn." Taylor informed.
"Damn, I'm out." Jaclyn lamented.
"Jax, don't swear!" Aunt Karmin scolded. "My word, I don't know where she picked up that atrocious language!"
"Dusk, do you want to go out for a quick walk?" Jaclyn inquired.
"Sure." Dusk agreed, as she got up and headed towards the door with Jaclyn.
"We'll be back soon!" Jaclyn promised.
Dusk always liked her walks with her cousin, and was glad that she had suggested it. It was becoming a holiday tradition for them to slip away for a little bit every year and take a walk on their own. Dusk quite liked the bonding time with Jaclyn, away from all the other members of the family.
She had to admit, she'd been a bit less bothered by them today. Even Grandma saying "that's nice" when Dusk revealed the incredible news about her single going top 50 didn't piss her off as much as usual. The family was just not particularly warm or supportive, and as much as Dusk wished it was different, that was the way it was. No use losing it over something she couldn't change.
"Wow, Dusk, I can't believe your dad said that. He is such an ass sometimes." Jaclyn remarked.
"Try living with him." Dusk rolled her eyes.
"You know, you actually didn't seem as angry as usual. Even I would have ripped him a new one for that so-called joke he made when Taylor made you lose the game." Jaclyn replied.
"I mean, it's well established that he's an outhouse-tier jerkass, but what he said doesn't surprise me or anything. It's just how he is." Dusk shrugged. "I'm not gonna let him get under my skin. If he had his way, I'd be working in some business that I'd hate. I know what makes me happy, and I'm doing it, whether he fucking likes it or not."
"There's something different about you, Dusk." Jaclyn smiled. "At Thanksgiving, it felt like your parents' jeering was eating you alive. But now…I don't know. There's just something different about how you're responding to it, and I like it."
Dusk was pretty sure she knew what Jaclyn was talking about. Reflecting on the past few weeks, regardless of whether she was famous or not, she had a pretty fucking great life. Making the music video and performing at Jack's last week were things she truly loved. These were all really meaningful to her, and it filled her with joy to think about continuing to do those things with her two best friends, who were more of a family to her than most members of her actual family. Did she wish her parents were different? Hell yeah. Did it bother her that her parents didn't support her career, and made fun of her for it? You bet your sweet ass it did. In retrospect though, she knew that stuff like the music video, the concerts, and the upcoming interview made her so much happier than wallowing in misery about her parents not respecting her. She knew that her parents' lack of warmth and acceptance would likely still bother her, but there was no such thing as a perfect life, and thus nothing she could really do about her parents. She just had to accept the cards she was dealt, and make peace with it.
Still, she humored her cousin and replied. "What do you think is so different about me, Jax?"
Jaclyn looked deep in thought for a moment, as she pondered what might have changed since the last time she saw her cousin. Finally, a smile began to form on her face as she answered the blonde.
"Confidence." she replied.
Dusk felt more excited than she had in a while as she headed into the KWPL studio with her friends on the Wednesday after Christmas. The studio was much more modest than Dusk had expected; it was just a small little white building with a window in each room, and a satellite sticking out of the top. The ground around the station was covered with a light layer of snow, and the branches of the two trees on either side of the station also had a light coating of white. Although those two trees stood on their own, there was a small area that was completely wooded on either side.
Thorn held the door open for Luna and Dusk as they headed inside the station. Upon arriving in the building, Dusk noticed that the outside matched the inside in terms of quaintness. There were just a couple of rooms that appeared to be conference rooms and offices, in addition to a large studio.
"This must be the place." Luna pointed out.
"It's so much smaller than I expected!" Thorn remarked.
At that moment, a girl who appeared to be in her mid-20s popped her head out of the recording room. She had dirty blonde hair and donned a white sweater and long black pants.
"Hi! My name's Raven, and we'll be doing the interview right in here." the woman said.
"Hey! I'm Thorn." the black-haired goth informed.
"Hello! I'm Luna." the redhead introduced herself.
"I'm Dusk." the blonde replied, as the girls walked into the recording room together.
The recording room was a bit larger than the other rooms appeared to be. Raven sat in front of a large switchboard of buttons and levers, and moved her wheeled office chair until her mouth was near the microphone. The girls quickly saw another man sitting in the studio next to Raven, also sitting in a swivel chair. He donned a white shirt and red cargo shorts.
"Great to meet you girls!" Raven informed. "Thanks for agreeing to do this interview! We're really excited to have you here. I was thinking the interview would just be low key and chill, since that's the vibe I try to aim for with my show."
"What's up, I'm Dan! I'm the other morning host." Dan informed.
"Good to meet you!" Luna introduced.
"We're really excited to be here!" Thorn chimed in.
"Sorry if this is weird, but I just wanted to say thank you." Dusk replied. "I don't know if you know this, but you were the first radio station to ever play our song."
"I actually do know that, because I was the one to play it! That was back when I was doing the night show. They promoted me to mornings with Raven about a month ago. It's so nice not to have to work until 11pm anymore!" Dan chuckled. "Are you girls ready to go on-air?"
The three girls all nodded.
"Alright, we're live in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!" Dan counted down, as he flipped a switch on the switchboard. "What's up, guys? It's Dan in the Morning! We've got a wicked amazing show for you guys this morning, because we've got special guests right here in the studio!"
"Hey, it's Raven, and the special guests that Dan's talking about are none other than The Hex Girls!" Raven introduced. "Do you girls want to share each of your names so the listeners know who's who?"
"Sure! I'm Thorn!"
"I'm Luna."
"And I'm Dusk."
"You likely heard us playing their song "Hex Girl" a bunch back when it was popular, but now, they've got a new single out!" Dan exclaimed.
"If you watched the news this weekend, you'll also know it's not just any old single. This single helped convince our mayor to stop a pipeline!" Raven shared with the audience. "That's really impressive. How did you girls come up with the idea to do that?"
"Well, we'd heard that a pipeline was being implemented in the park. If you saw our music video, you'll know that we traveled to a nearby town, Auburn, where the pipeline was also being run through." Luna shared.
"What we saw was god-awful." Dusk informed. "There was a leak in the pipeline, and it caused oil to spray everywhere. There were animals covered in oil that were sick and dying, and the shortline was covered in oil."
"Oakhaven's park is so amazing that we couldn't let it be torn down." Luna stated. "We first decided to protest in the park, and it quickly became apparent that the construction workers weren't exactly taking precautions here either."
"We caught one of the workers on camera ignoring a leak, but things got heated, and he called the mayor." Thorn informed. "The mayor asked to see some evidence of the leak, and we knew we had to make something that would convince him how wrong it was to continue construction on this pipeline."
"That construction worker refused to listen to us because he thought we were just kids being rebellious, so we decided to make something that irrefutably showed the problems with continuing this pipeline." Dusk added.
"That's how we approached the music video." Thorn informed. "We wanted to make it documentary-style, to show our perspective and experiences with trying to stop this pipeline."
"That's an amazing thing that you girls did! In my opinion, Oakhaven owes you all a debt of gratitude." Dan added.
"Yeah, it's really admirable what you girls did." Raven smiled. "You did an incredible thing for this town, and it sounds like you were working on this for a long time."
"It took about a month to make the whole music video." Thorn answered. "We'd just put out our first album about a month prior, and we were ready to release our second single."
"It must have taken a lot of motivation to take on a project like that, but your hard work really paid off. You mentioned you just put out your first album, which I've listened to, and it's great. How long have you girls been making music?" Raven asked.
"Thorn and I have known each other since we were kids, and we met Luna at band camp when we were 14." Dusk answered. "We made "Hex Girl" as a music class project in high school, and the whole class loved it."
"We loved writing the song so much that we decided to make a whole album. We worked on it for over two years, and finally put it out about a month back." Luna added.
"That's so cool!" Dan exclaimed. "What you girls did with the "Earth, Wind, Fire and Air" music video is incredible, and I think it's gonna be a big hit. We just started playing it here on KWPL and everybody seems to love it, so I think we're gonna be playing it a lot more!"
"So, before we cut to a brief commercial break here, what's next for you girls?" Raven asked.
"We'd love to tour." Thorn replied. "If it's possible, of course."
"We do live performances pretty often around town." Dusk informed. "We're actually gonna be performing at Jack's restaurant right here in Oakhaven next Wednesday."
"I think we're all just living in the moment. We're loving all the feedback we're getting on the music video for "Earth, Wind, Fire and Air," and it's exciting to see people enjoying it so much, in addition to all the good that the video did for Oakhaven." Luna responded.
"Before we end the interview, we've got a little gift we wanted to give you." Thorn informed, handing Dan and Raven a small gift bag.
Raven looked a bit surprised, as she took the bag and opened it. It had been Luna's idea to get them a gift for asking them to come and interview, as well as being the first to play their song. Luna's mother liked arts and crafts, so when Luna informed her parents that she'd been invited for an interview, her mother offered to make them a stuffed tree out of fabric and cotton. Dusk quite frankly loved the idea. She admittedly had a soft spot for this station for being the first to ever play "Hex Girl" on the radio.
"This is so sweet! " Raven exclaimed, as she pulled a large homemade ornament out of the gift bag. "It's a Christmas ornament with a little inscription! On the back, it says 'To KWPL, thanks for being the first to have faith in "Hex Girl." Keep on rocking, signed The Hex Girls."
"That was really nice of you guys!" Dan exclaimed. "It's been awesome talking about your music with you, and thanks for coming on the show!"
"Yes, thank you girls! "Earth, Wind, Fire and Air" is one of my favorite songs we're playing on KWPL right now, so it's been really fun getting to learn more about how you got started!" Raven added.
"Thank you so much for having us!" Thorn exclaimed.
"Yeah, it was a pleasure to be here!" Dusk added.
"Happy holidays, everyone!" Luna chimed in, before Dan pulled the switch to start the commercials and went off the air.
"You girls are so sweet!" Raven stood up to give each of them a hug. "Thank you so much for the interview and the wonderful gift! Happy holidays!"
When Dusk thought back over the past few weeks, she'd probably had more fun this morning than she had any of the times she'd hung out with Dawn or the songwriting group. It was so cool getting interviewed by radio DJs that were passionate about music like she was, and sharing about their creative process. Dusk hadn't liked any of the fame-chasing and people-pleasing crap that she'd gotten herself wrapped up in during the past few weeks, but she knew she liked this. Even if it was just a local small-town station, it filled Dusk up with joy to get to talk about what she was most passionate about. Regardless of whether the band became famous again, or if her parents finally respected her like she'd wanted all this year, she didn't feel the need to chase that kind of happiness anymore. She was already doing what made her happy.