Life With The Boy Next Door

Fifteen years later, Alice again woke up, opening her eyes and meeting an equally familiar and unfamiliar gaze. That was the only unusual part of her morning. The room was still dimly lit, the high windows letting in only thin slats of dawn light.
Alice glanced over to her right and saw Mandy, now forty six, hunched up in a corner, her brown eyes wide with absolute fear. She sat up properly in her bed, then swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. Mandy was mouthing unintelligibly at her and shaking her head, but she was too preoccupied with the boy standing before her, taller than she’d thought he would be.
The boy wore black jeans, a tight black t-shirt without a jacket even though the temperature in the room was freezing, and heavy looking black combat boots. He had his father’s black hair, but it was curly like his mother’s, and his mother’s translucent grey eyes. His mouth was set in a semi permanent smirk, his eyebrows arched.
Alice had to suppress a sigh. He was even more perfect than his father, and she had dreamed of what he looked like for years. She took a deep breath in.
“Aron” she breathed it out.
He looked suspiciously at her, oddly intrigued by the tone in her voice. He reached a hand up and ran it backwards through his thick hair. It was the colour of spilt ink; his eyes looked foggy by comparison.
“Hey, Mom” he said casually, his voice deep and rough sounding.
“Happy birthday” Alice whispered clearly, smiling faintly up at him.
She stood and moved to stand in front of him, her head reaching only to his chest.
Aron laughed derisively and rolled his eyes.
“Thanks” he muttered, staring back at her.
Alice cocked her head to one side and gazed into his face, drinking in the sight of him, after fifteen years apart. Her son turned fifteen today, and he had come to find her. She reached out for him and he stayed stock still, letting her gently touch his face and jaw. She had never been able to touch him, to hug her boy. There was something showing in his eyes that she couldn’t quite identify. She lay her palm against his cheek, and he absently leant his face into her hand, closing his eyes for a few moments.
“What can you do, baby? What are you?” Alice asked quietly, forgetting all about Mandy and their imprisonment.
Aron smiled then, a cold expression, and took a step back.
“Because you are my mother, I won’t show you my Control. I Control minds, Mom. But I am a Storm Child. See these eyes? That’s your doing. Storm Children only ever have grey eyes. I have none of Dad’s werewolf gene. I found you easily enough though, I must admit. They didn’t hide you very well” he said easily, his natural arrogance shining through.
Alice took her hand away from his face and narrowed her eyes at him instead.
“Did they come for you?” she asked cautiously.
Aron nodded and shrugged.
“Not too much effect, though. You needn’t worry for me, Mom. I can take care of myself. They’re all dead. Every single one of those conniving, interfering women. All dead” he said, looking and sounding as if it were nothing abnormal to him to have murdered so many.
Alice raised her eyebrows at him. He was colder than she’d thought he’d be.
“How…how is your father?” she asked, losing all control and holding out hope for Cale’s life.
Aron shrugged again, inspecting his nails with careless scrutiny.
“He’s dead, too, Mom. Don’t worry about him. I dealt with him for what he did to you almost as soon as I could talk. I love you, you see. I couldn’t let him carry on after what he did, even if what he did resulted in me” he replied cavalierly.
Alice choked and fell backward onto her bed. She looked back at Mandy, who stared at her with horror.
“Alice, he has to leave. He has to get out of here! He’ll be the end of everyone and everything! I understand them now! I understand it all! He’s evil! Destruction personified! You should have killed him when you had the chance!” Mandy shrieked.
She was cut off instantly after Aron casually lifted a hand and snapped his fingers at her. Alice was temporarily blinded when a flaming golden white lightning bolt spiked down through the ceiling above their heads and burnt Mandy where she sat, still huddled up in her corner. When her vision returned, she gaped in terror at the blackened, charred remains of her one and only friend. Then she looked up at her son.
Aron looked less than shocked. His irises started to spin and instinctively, she glanced away towards the farthest wall. Aron chuckled coldly at her reaction. He walked round to stand in front of her again and tipped her head up with two fingers beneath her chin.
“No, you shouldn’t have killed me, Mom, and I’m glad you didn’t. I’m glad that you loved me too much to end my life before it had even begun. And for that, I’m going to reward you. I’ll let you live, even when I’ve killed everybody else on the planet” he told her, his voice calm and even kind.
Alice slowly backed up from him, but he just walked after her, unwilling to let her leave him a second time. Not after he found her again.
Aron lunged for her and caught her, spun on his heel and pulled her after him into the spinning gold vortex thundering in the now obliterated centre of the bedroom.

Less than a day after Alice met her son again, they stood together, utterly alone, on the edge of the destruction Aron left in his wake, wherever he went. He protected her, but he cared about no one else in the world, so he had no doubts about destroying all of it, country by country.
Right now, they stood in the middle of Scotland, burning debris scattered all about them. Alice stared in frightened wonderment at the disaster surrounding her on all sides. She clung tight to Aron’s left hand, the one he didn’t necessarily need to work his magic. He turned to look down at her and grinned, his grey eyes flashing with power.
“So how’s about it, Mom? Like it?” he asked naughtily, fifteen year old immature glee showing on his handsome, cold face.
Alice slowly shook her head, as he knew she would. Instead of getting angry, he merely shrugged and pulled her with him yet again.
He paused, though, when a slight figure materialised in the smoky distance. He waited for the figure to come closer and then started to spin a tornado with a flick of his wrist. A clear, girlish laugh came from behind the dusty haze and Aron stopped, his eyes widening as a burst of pure heated flame appeared in front of his face, the end of the flame attached to a young woman’s hand like a leash. She was small and slender, with long midnight black hair slicing past her high cheekbones like a raven’s wing. Her ruby red eyes glowed as the fire leapt from her palm and encircled her like an embrace.
“Hello, Aron. I’ve been waiting for you for a long, long time. What took you so long?” she asked, her voice melodic and piercing to the untrained ear.
Aron didn’t flinch.
“Who are you?” he demanded, his own voice strong and unbending in its authority.
She laughed again.
“Starre. Now come with me” she replied, ordering him.
Aron didn’t like that. No one instructed him. No one.
He raised his right hand in the air and threw a bolt of fiery lightning towards her perfect face. Starre giggled and flicked it away from her, not even bothering to watch as it dissipated into nothingness. Aron raised one eyebrow and stepped toward her. She watched and smiled, before reaching out to him and gripping his arm tight. With a yell, Aron was torn away from his mother and into Starre’s fire. Alice reached for him, but to no avail. She couldn’t survive in this dead world without him, and he was trapped with that girl.
Aron turned back with an agonised expression on his face, hands outstretched.
“Mommy!” he yelled, his man’s voice breaking in half.
Alice lit up at the sound of that undeserved title, so heartbreakingly thrown at her. She lifted her hand to wave to her baby, love in her heart even as he ruined life. The very last things she ever saw before she, too, died, were Aron’s anguished face and Starre’s triumphant smile.
So Aron lived.