Abandoned

Chapter 9

Maddox POV

I rummaged through the papers in my parents’ office.

I was sitting at my mom’s desk, going through her drawers, and trying to find something that would explain the new girl and our resemblance.

I didn’t know what I was hoping to find.

A part of me wanted nothing to do with her.

Another part of me screamed that she was someone important. It screamed that she was mine, and I wanted everything to do with her.

“There is nothing here.” Milo sighed angrily. “I don’t even know why we thought that we would find something. She is fucking no one!”

He stood up and started pacing around the room.

I glanced up at him and sighed. “Go look in dad’s desk drawers.”

Milo rolled his eyes but listened to me. He walked to dad’s desk and started opening the drawers. I knew that he was pissed off just by the noise he was making.

I threw the useless papers aside and looked back into an empty drawer. I reached in, trying to see if something was in the back of the drawer, when the bottom moved.

My heart raced.

I lifted the bottom of the drawer and saw a hidden compartment under it. It was a fake bottom.

I saw a file in the compartment.

It made my hands shake. Could it be important? Could this be what we were looking for?

I picked up the file and placed it on the desk in front of me.

I gulped and looked up at Milo. He was going through dad’s papers with an angry look on his face.

I looked back down at the file and opened it.

My heart stopped.

It fucking stopped.

“Milo.” I called my brother, keeping my eyes on the paper in front of me.

He didn’t answer.

Maybe he didn’t hear me? My voice was quiet and raspy.

I was in shock.

I was in pain.

“Milo.” I called him again, raising my voice a little.

It worked this time.

“What?” Milo asked angrily.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I couldn’t move my eyes from the birth certificate in front of me.

The name on the birth certificate was Madeline Adams. The date of birth was the same as Milo’s and mine. The hour of birth was only 45 minutes after me and 17 minutes after Milo.

“Max?” I heard Milo’s worried voice.

I looked up at him.

His eyes widened when he saw my face. He jumped up and rushed toward me.

“What the fuck happened?!” he shouted, cupping my cheeks and looking into my eyes. “Why are you crying?!”

I was crying?

I looked back down at the certificate. Milo followed my gaze, keeping his hands on my face.

I felt him freeze.

I felt his hands fall limply from my face.

I watched as he fell on his knees.

“She is…” Milo mumbled, his voice breaking.

He grabbed the paper and lifted it to get a better look.

My eyes fell on the paper below, and my heart broke into a million tiny pieces.

No.

No, no, no, no!

Fuck no!

It wasn’t fucking possible!

It was a death certificate with the name Madeline Adams on it.

A death certificate?! A fucking death certificate?!

She wasn’t dead! She wasn’t fucking dead! I just saw her! I just fucking saw her!

I knew the exact moment Milo saw it because I heard him gasp.

“She isn’t dead.” I said immediately. “This is fake.”

Milo started shaking. A small sob escaped him.

I grabbed his shoulders and turned him toward me.

“It isn’t true!” I said. “She isn’t fucking dead! We saw her! That’s our Madeline, Milo! She is alive!”

My heart just wouldn’t accept the possibility that she really died. The certificate had to be fake. It had to be fake! I saw her in school. I just saw her walking into the library a few hours ago. She was alive.

“Did you see the date of death?” Milo mumbled as tears fell on his cheeks.

I gulped and looked back at the paper in front of me.

My heart stopped.

“That’s why we had that breakdown when we were four.” Milo mumbled. “We lost her.”

The death certificate stated that she died at the age of four.

My heart raced impossibly fast. My vision got blurry. Something wet fell on my cheeks.

“We bullied her.” Milo mumbled, his voice quiet and raspy. “We called her names. We watched fucking Mary torture her. We laughed. We...”

Milo stopped talking because a sob broke through his lips.

I looked at him, and my heart clenched painfully. He looked broken.

“We will make it up to her, Milo.” I said as I wiped the tears from his cheeks. “We will apologize. We will make sure that no one ever touches her again. She will be loved and protected from now on.”

Milo sobbed and leaned into me. I wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could.

We were never whole. We always missed something. We always missed her.

“Why is there a death certificate if she isn’t dead, Max?” Milo asked me.

I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know.

“We need to do a DNA test.” I said. “There isn’t really a need for that because I fucking know that she is our Madeline, but we need it for legal reasons. We need to prove that she isn’t dead.”

“We need to talk to our fucking parents.” Milo said coldly. “If they know that she is alive, I will fucking kill them, Max. I’m not kidding. I will kill them with my own bare hands.”

I clenched my fists. I didn’t want to believe that they knew.

But they never wanted a daughter…

Did they do something to get rid of her?
But why wait until she was four? Why didn’t they give her away immediately if they didn’t want her?

“I want to go get her, Max.” Milo said quietly. “We need to get her and bring her home.”

I wanted to do that. I wanted to do that so fucking much.

“We don’t even know where she lives.” I sighed, leaning my head on Milo’s. “We will get her tomorrow at school.”

Milo raised his head and looked at me with a frown.

“That’s too far away.” he said. “I can’t wait that long, Max.”

“What can we do, Milo?” I sighed. “Search every fucking house in town until we find her?”

Milo bit his lip and furrowed his eyebrows. “Somebody probably knows where she lives.”

“We will see her tomorrow morning, Milo.” I said, taking his hand in mine. “We will hug her and tell her that she is ours. We will bring her home, Milo, I promise.”

Milo clenched his jaw and took a deep breath.

I gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand.

“You promise?” he asked.

“I promise.” I said pulling him into a hug.

I would bring her home.

She belonged here. She belonged with us.

I would kill the ones responsible for taking her away from us.