The Loud House - Wild Card

Chapter 12: From Bad To Worse

"In all honesty, I'm touched you didn't call his bluff," said Lori. "I thought you still hated us."

"I don't hate you, eldest sibling," said Lisa. "I never hated any of you."

"If that's true then why did you emancipate yourself?" Asked Lori. "Change your name, move to Switzerland?"

"It was the opportunity of a lifetime," said Lisa. "I knew our parental units wouldn't allow me to move to the other side of the world after losing Lincoln."

"Is that the only reason?"

Lisa paused. "No," said Lisa. "The truth is, I miscalculated."

"What do you mean?" Asked Lori, confused.

"Before we banished our male sibling to the yard during the. . . incident," Lisa replied. "I ran a statistical analysis about the probability of success for our endeavor, extrapolated from the data of similar past false narratives throughout our family history."

"English, Lisa," said Lori.

"I ran the numbers based on the other times we punished Lincoln through similar deception," Lisa clarified. "An example being the time Lincoln was using noise-canceling earbuds to tune us out."

"I remember," said Lori. "Lola came up with a plan to get him to confess."

"Precisely," Said Lisa. "Because of our continued success when employing such teaching methods, I did not foresee any negative consequences of performing the same teaching scenario again on Lincoln. But then, he was kidnapped." Lisa took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. "I considered it my greatest blunder."

"You were four," said Lori. "None of us saw this coming, how could you have?"

"I was a child prodigy," said Lisa. "I should have considered this possibility. The pain of losing Lincoln was . . . unlike anything I have ever experienced. I felt as if my heart would rend in twain." She replaced her glasses, taking a breath. "I was unused to intense feelings such as these, and was desperate to find an adequate means of distracting myself from what we did. Science had always been my rock, my haven, how I made sense of the world around me. In an effort to prevent myself from feeling this pain again, I had to bury myself in my work. The cold, clinical world of science became my sanctuary to hide from my guilt."

"So that's why you left," said Lori. "You were afraid of allowing yourself to get close to someone again, only to be afraid of the pain you would feel if you lost them as well."

Lisa nodded. "With science, there was a serenity," she said. "It was pure and unspoiled. Upon removing my emotional attachments and focusing solely on science, I was able to feel at peace again, if only for a short while. But I eventually learned that even science is not as pure as I once thought, and that there is a danger to such detachment."

"How so?" Asked Lori.

"It was upon coming here," said Lisa. "When I was abducted, Lincoln didn't reveal himself immediately. In fact, I attempted to escape after the first night here. I managed to escape the lab and evade the guards, and eventually reached some sort of office. There was a computer open on the desk before me, and my curiosity overtook me. What I saw on the computer was. . ." Lisa stopped, visibly trembling at the memory. Lori gently rubbed her sister's back, attempting to comfort her.

"What did you see, Lisa?" Asked Lori.

"She saw what she was supposed to see," came a voice from behind her. She heard a click and felt something cold press against the back of her head. A gun. She cursed and raised her hands, letting her weapon drop to the ground. Lisa spun around quickly, but dropped her gun as she saw her sister's predicament. Standing behind her was the man with the scar over his eye, who she knew as Brock, Lincoln's "number-one guy" as he called him.