MOTHERS

◙twenty-eight◙

Lorelai cringed, anticipating Cole's grasp around her wrist, his fingers pinching her skin. She recoiled, still haunted with flashes of his bloody claws, of his tail lashing out behind him. She prayed to postpone the moment when he'd take hold of her, or to faint and maybe black it all out.

But her back had already hit the wall, and she had nowhere else to go.

In any case, Cole didn't grab her, or yank at her like Lola had to Tegan. He approached slowly, like an animal trainer would a scared, lost pet, and reached out a hand.

"It's okay," he said, his voice much softer than she'd ever heard it. "I'm not going to hurt you."

A part of her took offense at the way he spoke to her, as if she were demented, not able to fully comprehend human speech. But he wasn't human, hadn't been raised like a human, and likely didn't understand social interaction much.

Though he was gifted with it when he first arrived at my house and convinced me to believe him...

She presumed that his shape-shifting power allowed him to take on some of the personality of the person he was posing as. Which then reminded her to wonder what had happened to the man whose ID card he'd stolen. And how he'd managed to make the picture look like him.

Or had it? Had she looked at it properly?

She glanced down at his palm as he extended it to her. She squinted at his fingers, blackened and wrapped in soot, as if they were singed.

"Are you..." She hesitated to touch him. "Is that dirt? Or ash? Or... some other substance I shouldn't be touching?"

He flinched, but his hand came closer to hers. "Burn marks." He winced. "I... can wield fire, so it seems." His gaze flickered to his ash-covered fingers, then back to Lorelai. "I just found out about it, so I'm still learning," he lowered his voice, "and my siblings don't know yet."

Lorelai did her best to hide the surprise from her face. So he'd uncovered a new ability, and he didn't want his siblings—Lorelai assumed mostly Lola—to know about it?

The girls had been right that these creatures could and should be pitted against one another. There was a silent tension between them, an unspoken discord that they didn't seem to notice, but that Lorelai and the others had. A subtle battle for leadership, between Lola and Cole, and likely one of strength and morbidity between Rivo and Star.

I hope the others will take advantage of our separation and feed their children with doubt. Because if they have doubts, then we'll be able to find their weak points, then stop them.

She set her hand into Cole's, and a jolt of lightning pierced through her at the contact of her skin to his. Strange, as he'd touched her before, and she hadn't perceived such sensations within her. Maybe because she hadn't yet acknowledged who he was, what he was, but now that she had, a link had formed between them.

A link she didn't want.

Child or not, he wasn't hers, he'd never be. This adult, this full grown alien had taken up space inside her belly, had lived there rent free for several months, but she'd never feel anything for him other than disgust and fear. He didn't share her DNA; he didn't share anything with her.

Yet all the rage, all the disappointment in her seemed to filter out as he held her hand; not squeezing, not tugging her anywhere by force. He infused her with an eerie sense of calm, settling all her frayed nerves, even soothing her upset stomach for a spell. His eyes—now a mirror reflection of hers, no longer flaring red and looking like blood gathering in his pupils—were gentle, reassuring. As if he hadn't just popped up coated in scales and wielding a giant reptilian tail behind him, whipping it out at anyone and anything in its way.