Page 10 of House of Kallan
Tyrus sighed. “So dramatic. He will let me have this baby.”
“No,” Idris insisted, stepping into the room. “Look at me, Tyrus.” Reluctantly, Tyrus looked up. There was a pout on his face. “You can’t bring the baby home with you. Especially not before you talk to Iker and the rest of your husbands. Understand?”
“But she doesn’t want him,” he said, throwing the woman a glare. One that made her jump and try to scurry backward again.
“She’s been through hell,” Idris said. “She might change her mind. You can’t just take babies. That’s not the way the world works.”
Tyrus looked at the baby and then grumbled. “Fine, but if Iker says I can have him?—”
“We’ll talk about it,” I cut in. “Idris is right. You can’t just take a baby.” Especially when I wasn’t convinced he was stable enough to take care of a child. “Why don’t you sit with him in that chair for a while,” I suggested, nodding to the chair on the other side of the room.
“What about the others I have in the shadows?” he asked as he moved to the chair. The woman’s eyes went wide with fear as she looked around the room and took in all the shadows.
“Keep them there for now,” Idris said. “Can you do that?”
Tyrus was barely paying attention as he stared at the baby, but nodded. I made sure the woman was more or less calm—she wasn’t, but I didn’t think she was going to run with the madness and screams happening outside her room just yet—and then followed Idris out.
“Tell me they’re both safe with him,” I said before he could break away.
Idris chuckled and glanced over his shoulder. “I think anyone trying to hurt that child is in danger of a very dark and painful death. I don’t know why he fixated on him, but right now, he’s the safest person in this entire facility.”
“I know you mean that as reassuring, but I’m more unnerved,” I said, frowning at the room we just left.
“Tend to what you need to, Tatum. He won’t leave the building with the baby. I meant what I said. Iker will have a fit,” Idris said. “I’ll make sure the newborn is in the bed before we leave.”
Without much of a choice, I took Idris at his word and headed for the bulk of the horrors being led in, which was primarily more pregnant women. Thankfully, there wasn’t another episode like the first I’d been handed.
The women were terrified, of course. Unsurprisingly, they trusted the men who deposited them into the beds only slightly more than the place they’d been taken from. Their stories weren’t any different from the ones we’d heard so far. The crimes committed against these women were vast and they were stuck carrying monsters.
Unlike Suzanne, we could see the monstrosities that were placed within them. We worked well into the night; we took their vitals, created records, got them settled into their suites, and began monitoring their pregnancies.
There were two more that were ready to go into labor within the next couple of weeks. After seeing what the one went through, they were understandably terrified.
I wasn’t sure how to help them. It’s not like I could tell them they weren’t carrying monsters. That would be an outright lie. The things I’ve seen were too horrendous to repeat most of the time. After those reports were filed, no one involved or witnessing those moments ever spoke of them again.
Not for the first time, I mentally added building somememorial to remember these women to my to-do list. Then there was the idea that there might be families or friends in the outside world who didn’t know what had happened to their loved ones. Was it kinder to let them wonder and save them from learning of the trauma, or to tell them the truth?
It was nearing midnight by the time the chaos calmed down. I returned to the first woman’s room to find her asleep. Someone else had gotten to her and the record by the door said her name was Sadie.
The offspring section was largely blank, as tended to be the case right after birth. There was a note that read ‘demon?’, but other than ‘assigned male at birth,’ there was nothing in that part of the folder.
Placing it back in its home, I entered the room and stood over Sadie for a minute. She was asleep, but the pinched expression on her face said it wasn’t a peaceful slumber. I would wager a guess that these women will have nightmares for the rest of their lives. No matter what might surround them in the future.
Crossing the room, I found the newborn awake in the little bed. His eyes were open as he blinked lazily where he stared overhead. It’s said that newborns don’t actually see very far, but there was no doubt in my mind that he saw me. His attention shifted as he looked at me.
“Hey, wee one,” I whispered. “Are you going to bite me if I touch you?”
I didn’t get an answer, of course. He was a monster. Not a miracle. Reaching my hand in, I gently touched his forehead with my thumb and smoothed his hair out of the way. Someone had cleaned him off, and I had to agree with the weird oni—he was perfect. Beautiful and sweet.
Tyrus had left him bundled tightly. I assumed it was Tyrus who finally placed him in his bed. Though I hadn’t seen it, I imagined that he’d not left happily. Despite how unsettling Tyrushad been, I smiled at the memory of his fierce protectiveness toward this newborn.
Was it because he was a demon? Had he been the one to suggest he was, or had that been someone else’s observation?
“Sleep, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Someone will be in to feed you when it’s time.”
He blinked at me, but there was no indication that he understood.
After making sure he was securely snuggled into his blankets, I left the room, closing the door all but a crack. After checking in at the nurse’s station, I finally left for the night. It wasn’t often that I stayed as late as I had today, but it wasn’t as uncommon as one might think.
