Page 2 of House of Kallan
“Want to hold him?” I asked. The skeptical look she gave me had me smiling. “It’s okay, Lydia. It’s okay to be scared. You’ve been through a lot. But I promise, most monsters are just like you and me. Even when they first come into the world.”
“He can’t hurt me?” she asked.
The infant wiggled in my arms at her voice.
I touched her hand and pinched it lightly. “That’s what his little teeth feel like right now.”
She nodded and looked back at the baby. “Okay.”
Shifting to sit on the edge of her bed, I nestled the baby into her arms. I was relieved to see the way she sighed, a smile pulling at her lips. And the little one just stared up at her with big eyes. He knew his mother.
“That’s better,” I said, and she gave me a smile. “You’re not alone, honey. We’re never going to shove you into the world andexpect you to know what to do with your son. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t his mother.”
Lydia nodded. “He’s… really kind of cute.”
“He’s definitely cute,” I said, making her smile again. “I’m going to continue my rounds. If you want to put him back, just make sure you put the lid on securely, okay?” Lydia turned worried eyes to me as the fear rose again.
“Trust me,” I urged. “There’s also the call button if you need it. Someone else will come in and bring him back to the wet bed if you’d rather not. You don’t even need to take him out of the blankets if you don’t want to.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay.”
As I headed for the door, I paused. “You should think of a name for him.”
“What do you name monsters?” she asked quietly.
“Well, my name is Tatum. Not that unusual a name in the human world, yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah, but you… don’t look like him.”
I smiled. “Believe me when I tell you that what you see of most monsters is not truly what they look like.” I nodded toward the newborn. “We all have a shape that we hide. Why do you think we’re called monsters?”
Her eyes grew ever-wider.
“I promise you, regardless of what we look like, I’ve found that the true monsters aren’t those with different shapes and sharp teeth. They look more like you than me.”
“Not the ones that took me,” she said quietly.
“You’re right. In every species, there are bad eggs who are responsible for the most horrific acts. Until the Division of Silence emerged, humans were actually more monstrous than supernaturals with all their wars and war crimes. But alas, peace never lasts long enough.”
She nodded and turned her attention back to the baby. I left her door cracked for her own peace of mind before I headed down the hall to visit one mother-to-be that I was mostconcerned with. Suzanne was lying on her side, her large stomach resting on the bed. She looked beat.
The color of her skin was sallow, and the whites of her eyes were almost yellow all the time now. She often got random bloody noses.
Suzanne opened her eyes as I rested my hand on her stomach. There was no doubt in my mind that she was carrying multiples and therefore she’d birth them sooner rather than later. The problem was, whatever she was carrying had concealed themselves within a cocoon that no monster or machine could see through.
All I knew was that if we were going to save her, we needed to get the babies out before they could tear themselves free. Already, they were draining her life.
If you want your mother, you need to calm down in there,I thought with my hand still resting on her stomach.You’re killing her. Do you understand?
Of course, they didn’t. Nor could they actually hear my thoughts. I turned my attention back to Suzanne. “Hang in there. We’re considering ways to extract them with no one getting hurt. Soon.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. I pulled a blanket up over her, then watched her for a minute. She was scared, and I was scared for her.
I dimmed the light and left her room.
There were dozens of rooms just like Lydia’s and Suzanne’s. Tons of pregnancies still in gestation and an equal number of mother/child rooms.
They weren’t just bedrooms or medical rooms, though. They were mini suites, so the women could have some semblance of living and not feel like they were still prisoners. Although, I’ve been told about the places they were kept. A room with a bed was going to be an improvement from those conditions.
