The Luna Cure

TWENTY-SEVEN

Dante whispered something to Sapphire before she left, and he made his way over to me. "Hey, what's up?" He asked, his tone soft. Dante walked closer, but seemed to be wary of my reaction. After I did nothing, he finally came to kneel in front of me on the floor.

"Can you tell me what's upset you?" He asked, reaching out and putting a hand on my arm. The sparks soothed me, and I didn't pull away from him like I had with Sapphire.

I glanced to the TV, and was hit with a new wave of despair. "It's Max," I managed to get out between sobs. Dante turned to the TV to see what I was talking about, and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Max Abernathy? What did he do?" He asked.

My hands reached up to wipe my tears, but they kept coming. "He had a kid. He got married. He named her Venice." I rushed out, feeling pathetic with every word.

Dante thought over my words, taking his time to respond. Just as he opened his mouth to respond, his eyes widened in surprise. "Wait. Holy shit. Is Max the same as your brother Maxwell?" He asked, surprise evident on his face.

I had tried so hard. I had tried to keep my family a secret, to keep Dante from finding out, but my resolve had broken. It didn't matter anymore. There were only five Abernathy kids, after all.

So I nodded yes.

Dante blinked. "I'm sorry, Florence. I could call Max, if you wanted. He'd be here in a heartbeat if he knew you were here."

I shook my head. "No. There's five Abernathy's, not six. They've forgotten about me. I'm gone from their lives. I should be gone from this one, too. They were the only reason I stayed together, stayed sane, and they've erased me, I'm gone, why can't I be gone?" I cried, my hands pulling at my hair. When I was in that basement, I just wanted to see my family. They were all I thought about when I was starving or trying not to go crazy from the TV.

"Hey, no, that's completely false. You're wrong. Don't think like that. Maybe it was just too hard without you, and they couldn't bear the constant reminder that they lost their daughter?" He rubbed his hand up and down my arm, trying to comfort me.

"They probably told Batilda about me, they gave me away. They wanted me gone, six kids was too much and I was the last, first to go. They've moved on, I'm no longer needed, I shouldn't be here—"

Dante shook his head furiously. "No, stop saying that. Come on, I'll show you just how wrong you are." He stood up and offered me his hand.

I shook my head. I just wanted to sit here and not get up, and die here. I'm sure my family wanted the same thing.

"Fine." Dante said, and before I knew it, he was reaching down and picking me up in his arms.

"No, put me down!" I protested, and he ignored me. In a flash, he used his wolf speed to get us across the castle, and my head spun.

Dante set me down on my feet on the stone floor of an enormous, library-like room, but instead of books, each shelf held documents upon documents.

"Come on," he practically ordered, making his way to the left most wall, where file cabinet upon file cabinet lay.

He walked to the second set, and I saw labels on the cabinet, with letters. The second cabinet read AAR-ABD, while the next one read ABE-ABR. Dante immediately started pulling out drawers, flipping through files and documents, until he finally got the one that said ABERNATHY.