The Island From Hell

Chapter 19

"What are you talking about?" Blitzo asked curiously. "Look I know your old man croaked in all but I wouldn't exactly call that merit for fate screwing up your family."

"You don't understand. My father wasn't the first person I lost." Moxxie then proceeded to wrap his arms around himself, his fingers feeling through the fabric of his shirt, and going over the long healed but permanent scars on his body. Scars that had painful memories attached to them. "Edward Hamilton was my adopted father."

"Holy shit, you're adopted? I never knew that. Eddie's will didn't mention it."

"He didn't think it mattered. To him, I was his son and there was nothing more to it. He didn't give a damn about blood or genetics, and neither did I."

"So how did you end up with him?"

"My biological father was a crime lord who liked things to go his way. So much so that he would react violently to anything or anyone that dared to oppose him. My early years were spent with him trying to force me to be a criminal like him and if I even considered refusing, he would beat me. He beat my mother as well because she wanted to spare me from his dark world. She wanted me to grow up decent and to do honest work. When I was about Maisie's age, she told my father that she wanted a divorce and that she was taking full custody of me. 'Nobody leaves me!' He shouted. And then he shot her dead."

Moxxie winced at the horrible memory of his mother's death that still haunted him to this day.

"After that he made me help him hide the body and tried to flee the country with me. But one of the neighbor's heard the gun shots and called the cops. My biological father was arrested and I was sent to foster care. It was a year afterward that I was adopted by my real father. Then twenty-one years later, I lost him too. And now nine years later, I'm at risk of losing my children. Losing my mother traumatized me, losing my father made it hard to go on, I don't know how I could survive if I lost Max and Maisie."

Blitzo felt a great sense of empathy for Moxxie's sorrow. Though he had never witnessed someone he loved being murdered or never got to say goodbye to a loved one who passed on, he knew what it was like to have a father who didn't love and care about you the way he should. Blitzo was abandoned by his father, basically sold out for a better career. The asshole just packed up his stuff and left without even saying goodbye. To this day he couldn't understand how someone could just leave their kid without a second thought. Just throw them away like their garbage or something.

That's what Blitzo saw when he first met Loona. A kid who had been thrown away and felt that no one would ever really want her. He saw himself in her. So he adopted her, and would try everything he could to keep her from feeling the same way he felt when his father left him.

"Don't give up." Blitzo told him. "We will find them."

"I'm a failure." Moxxie said. "I failed my wife. My children. Millie's parents were right, I'm never going to be good enough for her. I'm not a real man. Look what I've done. I brought my family here! To the place where I knew my father had died! How could he do stupid?! It's all my fault!"

"Now stop that! Feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to do anything except give you suicidal thoughts."

"But I brought-"

"Newsflash I brought my daughter here, but you don't see me getting all depressed and beating myself up over it. Wanna know why? Because I know it's not going change anything! It's not going suddenly take me back in time so that I never came here! And it won't do the same for you! So here's the deal, you made a mistake. Now fix it! Don't just go into all that depression shit that doesn't solve anything! Find your kids and then get the hell off this island!"

Moxxie looked at him utterly amazed.

"Okay either I'm starving or you're actually making sense."

"Damn right I'm making sense! Now hand me those rocks and sticks so I can get a fire going. I'm freezing my ass off here!"

It rubbed Blitzo's hands raw, but eventually he created campfire and just in time too, because the sun had now set and there was darkness all around. Suddenly something roared at a distance. The sound was unforgiving and full of anger. Moxxie huddled close to Millie, holding her in a protective manner. Blitzo and the mercenaries traveling in the group were on high alert for any sign of danger. As for Vox? He wasn't the least bit afraid or unnerved. In fact he was smiling.

"What was that?" Blitzo asked.

"The devil that we are hunting." Valentino answered. "He senses that we are near and is trying to scare us away. But he won't succeed."

Actually Valentino was only half correct. Alastor was making that unholy noise because he could smell Valentino's scent and did not recognize Moxxie or Millie's. He did not know that the children's parents were close because he did not know their scent. This meant that according to his nose, only danger was close by. So like a ghost or a spirit, he was trying to frighten away the dangerous individual.

"Go ahead." Valentino chuckled quietly. "Run, hide, try to scare me off. It won't do you any good. One way or another, I will catch you. You will not escape me again."