Born to Endless Love

A New Kind of Normal

Act Two: The Death Arc

Born to Endless Love Chapter Sixty-One: A New Kind of Normal

Max age: 28, Alec age: 48, Michael age: 19, JJ age: 17

Max Pov- "How does anyone do anything with their left hand," Michael yelled, throwing his whip to the ground in frustration.

It's been a week since the demon attack and Michael was just now getting strong enough to move around the institute. The first thing he wanted to do was get some weapons training in, which no one else in the building agreed with.

It was way too early for him to be thinking about training, but Catarina says that it's best to let Michael have a sense of normalcy, and unfortunately his idea of normal is training once a day.

Aunt Isabelle picked up her son's whip and wrapped it around his wrist for him. "You will get the hang of it in due time. Hell, maybe we can learn how to do it together. It would be cool to learn how to use my whip in both hands."

The irritated look on Michael's face showed that she was not helping or making him feel better.

"Maybe we should put a hold on weapons training for now and start with something a little easier," Uncle Simon suggested. "Like holding a fork properly."

"I can hold a fork just fine," Michael lied. I knew it was a lie because I watched him try to eat some cereal this morning and he kept missing his mouth.

Both his parents looked like they were thinking the same thing I was, but neither of them wanted to break it to him that he was caught having trouble. Michael has been adamant about not accepting help from anybody. He wants to act like nothing has changed, but it's impossible when such a life changing thing happens to you.

My parents and I have been staying at the institute all week, since Dad needed to keep an eye on both Michael and JJ to make sure they were making a full recovery. Father wanted to go back to the apartment, but dad refused to let him out of his sight, so the compromise was that all of us spend the week here.

Anyway, during this week I have noticed that Michael hasn't been sleeping. He pretends to, but once he knows his parents and everyone else is asleep, he gets out of bed and wanders around the institute. There isn't much for him to do, since he can't play video games anymore or train. Hell, he can't even read since it's impossible for him to turn the pages on his own. Not that reading would have been his first choice. He's not JJ by any means.

The first night we stayed, Michael did go to sleep, but he woke up in the middle of the night screaming so loud, it woke up the entire institute. Even Jocey, George and Mary wandered out of their rooms to see what was going on.

He had woken up and managed to calm down by the time we all got to him, but he refused to talk about why he was screaming in the first place. It was obviously a nightmare, but he refused to talk to anyone about it.

A guilty part of me wanted to try to comfort him, since I was the only one who knew the full extent of what he's been through, but I don't feel like I have the right. One, Michael doesn't know that I know what happened to him, and he seems to want to play it off like nothing ever did. Two, I still haven't gathered the courage to tell him or any of my other family members that I am the one who summoned all those demons.

Dad says I need to tell them before we go back home, but it's just so hard. I start to say something, but then I think about all the disappointed looks I'll get, and it makes me freeze up.

It's not just my family I'm worried about. What if Darius comes to hate me too? Summoning those demons could have put his daughter at risk. He's only had her for a year and he is already very over protective of her. If he knew I was the one who not only put her in danger, but him and Dantes as well, he might start to look at me the way he did when we were children.