Life With The Boy Next Door

Later that afternoon, just after Alice had found the strength to lift herself up off the floor, the doorbell rang, the sound of the bell trilling all throughout the little house. She dragged herself back down to the door and slowly twisted the door knob to open it. The entire team of Lost Society women stood on her doorstep, firm expressions on their faces.
“What do you want?” she demanded flatly.
Her eyes were dark grey now, signifying just how angry she truly was. The clearness was all gone and her pale cheeks held hectic spots of ruby red.
Isadora pushed her way to the front of the small crowd to stand right in front of her.
“You are endangering us all by leaving your son alive. You have to go back and kill him to save the rest of the world from sure destruction” she said defiantly.
Alice crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows, her bright red hair trailing over her shoulders.
“No, you’ll just have to fend for yourself, won’t you?” she retorted sharply, thinking of her baby son so far away from her.
The women advanced on her, forcing her to retreat inside the hallway.
“No matter what you do to me, I am not going to kill my son” Alice said stoically, dropping her arms and letting them hang loose at her sides.
Isadora smiled at her and shook her head.
“It might even be too late by now for you to kill him. Each Child is different, and nobody knows how fast he’ll grow. We’ll kill him” she said, tilting her head to one side and observing Alice’s face carefully.
“And how are you gonna do that?” Alice snapped back. “I’m still here.”
Isadora shook her head.
“You won’t be for long. You just wait” she replied, bringing her hand up.
Reflexively, Alice glanced down, just in time to see the needle and syringe in Isadora’s left hand. She had no time to react as the silvered, sharp tip of the needle bit into the side of her neck and the contents of the syringe plunged into her bloodstream.
Almost immediately, Alice swayed on her feet, her eyes blinking rapidly as she tried to stay awake. But then she closed her eyes involuntarily and slumped onto the floor, her knees crumpling underneath her.

When she eventually reopened her eyes, there was a shallow slice opening up her forehead across the middle, and someone was cleaning the dried, congealed blood off. Alice groaned and groggily searched the face floating above her own. The woman was in her early thirties, with cropped blonde hair and concerned brown eyes.
“You were shanked on the way in here. Don’t worry about it, they do it to us all, to mark us. You’ll heal up just fine. My name’s Mandy. I’ve been here for the past fourteen years” she told her, trying to smile.
Alice sat up slowly, her head pounding viciously.
“Where’s here, Mandy? And I’m Alice” she murmured.
Mandy shrugged.
“No one knows, Alice. The Lost Society bring those of us who don’t do what they want and lock us up for who knows how long. Maybe until we die. What’s your story?” she asked patiently.
Alice sighed heavily.
“I am married to a werewolf. My son is something that I don’t know what. They want me to kill him, but I can’t and now they’re going to find him and kill Aron themselves! What’s your tale?” she said quietly, sniffing and wiping away her brand new tears.
Mandy patted her back.
“When I was sixteen, I was a victim of a vampire attack. I never knew his name, but he raped me and two weeks later, I gave birth to a little boy with black eyes and a hunger for blood. I raised him on my own for one year and then left with the Lost Society team. And try not to worry too much about your Aron. They said the same thing with my boy Taylor, and they did find him, but not until he was fifteen. They tried to kill him, but by that stage, he was too strong for them. Trust me, Alice, by the time they get to Aron, he’ll be able to slaughter all of them, top to toe. No matter what he is” she answered, smiling properly for the first time.
Alice blinked up at her, past the veil of tears.
“Why do they take so long? Don’t they learn?” demanded, flicking a curl behind her ear.
Mandy grinned wryly at her.
“Nope. Apparently not. They think they know everything, but they know next to nothing. They don’t really know what the kids are capable of, even when they’re babies. I mean, when I had my baby, I couldn’t feed him properly because he sucked blood. Your baby might be even worse than that, but nobody knows for sure. He’s not a werewolf, like his father?” she checked, finishing up cleaning Alice’s cut.
Alice shook her head.
“No. He has my eyes, he’s not a werewolf” she said definitively.
Mandy raised her eyebrows.
“All right then” she muttered, turning away and sitting down.
Without saying anything else, Alice gingerly felt the number carved into her forehead. She paled further when she traced the number ‘112’. The singular digits were all linked together, to form one long sloping laceration. There were more than a hundred of them in the institution, and none of them had ever gotten out.

Back home in New Hampshire, Vale answered the doorbell, carrying Aron in his arms. Annabelle and Jared were there in front of him, the former rocking back and forth nervously on her heels. They both stared at the baby.
“Is that…?” Annabelle asked shakily.
Cale nodded.
“Yeah, this is Aron. He’s your grandson” he told them.
He shifted Aron off of his shoulder and turned him round to face them. At the sound of words being spoken, he had opened his eyes, and now he was staring, wide eyed, at his grandparents. Jared gazed back at the boy, then all of a sudden his pupils dilated and shifted. Annabelle’s soon followed suit. Quickly, Cale turned Aron back to him and placed his hand firmly against the back of his head. He gently stroked the soft black hair and smiled benignly at his parents-in-law.
“So, what brought you over here?” he asked pleasantly.
Jared blinked and shook his head, as if to rid it of some terrifying, uncomfortable memory.
“We came to see Alice. We didn’t know what to expect with the baby” he said, sounding vaguely disoriented.
Cale arched an eyebrow.
“Alice isn’t here. Were you expecting something much different to what you see before you now?” he replied, his tone slightly acidic.
Annabelle shot him a falsely bright smile and shrugged her delicate shoulders.
“I wasn’t really sure, to be honest, Cale. I knew something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what the child would look like. He looks quite normal” she said, staring fixedly at the back of Aron’s head.
She pulled her hand out from behind her back, and in it glinted a tiny silver pistol. She carefully cocked it and pointed the muzzle at Aron’s skull.
Cale looked right into Jared’s eyes and saw the anger and fear warring behind his gaze. Very slowly, he grasped Aron and moved him back and away again, to face the adults.
Aron’s irises, grey as storm clouds, began to rotate around the dark pupils and one of his tiny hands gripped his father’s finger. Cale concentrated, scowling faintly.
“You are not going to shoot Aron. You will leave right now and you will not ever come back” he ordered, his voice blank but forceful.
Slowly and out of her own control, Annabelle lowered the little gun and turned her back on the house. Jared followed her and as soon as they were both out of his sight, Cale took his son back inside the house. He shut the door.