Amendable (Book 3 in the Original SOCIETY Series) ✔

❦Fourteen❦

With Maddox having been given the name of the man who had been Eli's best friend-slash-uncle-slash-father-figure, Eli had this undeniable connection to his younger brother. 

He once told me, back when Eli was around seven or eight, that he woke up a lot in the middle of the night because a man kept telling him to. That the man kept telling him to go check up on his little brother. Eli had done so, and that was when he found Maddox hiding under his bed and sniffling from being so scared of the dark. 

Eli shrugged a shoulder, scrunching his nose as he flicked away all the jelly beans (he hated them), and mumbled that he climbed under the bed with his little brother. He held him tight, promising that nothing bad was going to happen to him with Eli around. 

Then the kid turned, looking up at me as his brown eyes watered and whimpered, "It was Maddie, you know..." 

I raised a brow, waiting for him to clarify. 

"It was Maddie always waking me up whenever my brother was crying. I could tell because he kept saying, 'Get up, Squirt.'" 

Eli sighed, looking down at the mess of jelly beans on the table in front of him. He sniffled, wiping the back of his hand under his nose. 

"I miss him all the time... And I wish... wish that I could see him just one more time." 

I'd never forget that conversation with Eli. He never mentioned Maddox waking him up again, but probably because that was something really endearing for him and wanted to keep that to himself. But as far out as the idea of Maddox still watching over Eli was... I like to think that it was true. 

Little Maddox was another story though. I'd never tell Thea, because it would probably hurt her heart having to think about the loss of her best friend, but I grew up with Maddox Sr. And every time... Every. Time. I look at the gray-eyed child run around, and jump around, and other things, it was like watching Maddox Sr all over again. 

In the Society, we were taught how to be one way once we hit a certain age. But until then, we were... slightly... allowed to be children. To an extent. As I said, it was slightly. In the fights we got into with one another for "training" Maddox had always been the light-hearted one about it. He'd laugh and jump around with bubbling excitement that was odd to see (now, anyway) when children were training to be killers. 

I see Maddox when I see Thea's son. He's got a little bit of my old friend. Not entirely because Little Maddox was his own person, and one-hundred percent Auric Dennison's son, but there were just... glimpses... of my departed friend. 

Don't ask me why I won't tell this to my cousin. 

I think maybe it has to do with bringing up the painful past between her and Maddox, as well as Thea never feeling like she could repay Maddox for what he'd done for her back then. Even if she doesn't say it... I know that my cousin will forever feel guilty in letting Maddox die. Even if I tried to convince her that there was no way to save him, she'd still say she could have. That there should have been some way to have saved Maddox. 

As well as Langley. 

"Mommy, Goober's eye fell out again!" 

I blinked a few times, my eyes settling back into where I was in the living room, and hearing little Maddox whimper as he shook his teddy bear at Thea. He flipped onto his knees, crawling into her lap and pouted that his teddy was sad. 

Thea smiled a little, brushing back her son's hair and kissed his forehead before looking down at the teddy bear together with her finger tracing the buttonless spot where the eye should be.