Born to Endless Love

A Step Toward Redemption

A/N: Trigger warning for implied sexual assault and the word r**p

Born to Endless Love Chapter Sixty-three: A Step Toward Redemption

Max age: 28, Alec age: 48

Max Pov- "Okay Max, this is it. This is the day you tell your family the truth. Walk right up to Michael and tell him about your involvement in his attack."

I stood in front of the mirror in my bedroom, trying to hype myself up, but it wasn't helping the knotting feeling in my stomach go away. It's been a month since the demon attacks, and it's a miracle that my family hasn't found out about what I did.

All the Downworlders knew about it, the nasty sneers and hisses I get as I pass by not diminishing even a little. Quinton's pack has been putting pressure on him to stay away from me, so unfortunately I'm keeping my distance for the time being.

It's only a matter of time though until Darius and the others start noticing the tension and start asking questions. I rather them find out from me instead of some random whispers in town. Especially Michael. With everything that's happened to him, he deserves to know the truth.

He deserves it... and yet I can't make my feet move from this spot.

I can still remember the day my friends and I were babysitting him and JJ, and we built that magic pillow fort. Michael had told me that day that I was his hero, whether he remembers being saved by me or not. He assured me that I was part of their family, in a time when I was doubting my place. His eyes had shone so bright that day, and they stayed like that all these years.

At least until the attack. Now his bright brown eyes were dark and clouded. He gets lost in his head a lot and zones out, which is nothing like him. Sure, the trauma of losing an arm can do that to a person, but I'm the only one who knows the full extent of the damage that demon caused. That's another thing I'm afraid of confronting him about. He's been pretending like it didn't happen, and that's probably not the healthiest solution.

I want to tell him that he can talk to me about it, but what right do I have to give him that comfort? It's my fault any of this even happened in the first place.

I want to make it right, but I don't even know where to begin. Hayden was still missing, father's amulet gone as well. It's obvious that Hayden has it, but dad assured father that he won't be able to hurt him with it again. The worst Hayden could do is use up the part of fathers soul that is already inside the amulet.

Dad... He hasn't said a word to me since the day father woke up.

Tears stung at my eyes at the thought but I quickly blinked them away and ran my hands over my face, taking a calming breath. "Don't think about that right now. One thing at a time."

Breathing smoothly, I finally forced my legs to lead me out of my bedroom. Father was sitting in the living room with some blueprints for the new Downworlder Orphanage scheduled to be built in Italy. The American ones proved to be successful, so the Clave agreed to put them all over the world. It was a big achievement for my father, but there was hardly time to celebrate.

The whole reason he pushed the clave to do this in the first place is because of all the Warlock Children that will inevitably be born and abandoned in the next year. The clave still doesn't know about the demon attacks, which is a miracle all on it's own. It seems almost impossible that they wouldn't find out, but both my parents know a lot of people who know how to make things slip under the radar. It fills me with even more guilt knowing that they had to call in such big favors because of me.

"It should all work out," father said, looking over his shoulder at dad who was standing in the kitchen, using magic to stir his tea. "As far as the Clave will know, a sudden baby boom of warlocks just came out of nowhere."