Reaper's Word

Chapter 38: A Startling Knowledge

Clair moved through the kitchen. She was hungry, which now that she wasn't always hiding she had a normal appetite and a healthy one. She grabbed some food that sounded good to her. She wasn't alone in the kitchen today, Gamma and Alpha were with her watching her.

"I'm making food for myself, thank you." She said to them. She wasn't as good at hearing the others as she was with Gamma. Alpha gave a disappointed feeling, and Gamma sat down giving a kind of whine.

"Fine." She said and threw them each a good amount of the shaved turkey from the fridge. They ate it faster than she could blink.

"Gluttons." She commented to them but Alpha just pranced off into the hall happy with what he'd received. Clair opened the fridge and looked around in it. She saw a container in the back, she cracked it open slightly. She took a small whiff and the smell of it made her instantly sick. She actually had to run to the sink.

"Uh." she said looking at it. Inside was some kind of mixed pasta veggie thing. She wondered if it was just leftovers brought here.

"Eat this, gross." She said and set it on the floor. Gamma ate the entire thing, including the plastic.

"You're not supposed to eat the plastic." Clair said. She gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. Clair made herself a sandwich and drank some milk then moved from the room wandering down the halls. She thought to look around the places she hadn't really been yet.

This place was huge and she hadn't been everywhere. Mainly she'd skipped the basement. As that was where the hell hounds spent most of their time. She moved that way, the sun was up in full. It was why Gamma had now left her and went to sleep an hour or so ago. Night creatures obviously. She was feeling it a bit herself as her living hours were changing too. Clair moved down stairs to the lower part

of the house moving along and staring at the rooms there. More bedrooms, some odd rooms with things she didn't know what they were. All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

Down here she actually found a laundry room, though nothing was in it. She wondered if the house actually used this room or not. She moved on and found several different shop rooms. Tools for working with metal or glass. At one end she found a large room that was partly exposed and to her shock there was a pool here.

Clair put a hand to her stomach. She felt ill again and hurried back to the bathroom she'd just passed. The feeling started to subside and she relaxed but then it came back full force. She was sick right there in the toilet. Was it something she ate?

She stood there for a bit and sat down on the edge of the tub. She wondered if perhaps she'd caught something. As far as she knew all those that were brought were healthy. She hadn't really seen or talked to the last group brought in, though only four were left.

She knew that at the moment Isaiah was still sleeping so asking him if he could sense a sickness would have to wait. He'd probably have to find them to know. Which he hadn't fed during the moon all that well so the request might be an easy one as he'd need to feed again.

She was learning more about him as the days passed too. She'd seen the wings and touched them. They looked frail and broken, like tattered pieces of cloth. They were tough like leather and flexible to boot. Hard to tear or damage as well. As far as he knew only he or another like him could shred his wings. Made her wonder what happened to him in the other place he'd been born. She didn't ask, better that way.

Clair was feeling better now and stood up. She moved to leave the bathroom after first taking a glance at herself in the mirror. She looked healthy, didn't feel like a fever. She rinsed out her mouth and spit

the water back in the sink. She never really paid that close attention to herself in the mirror. Just brushed her hair, her teeth and called it a day. Wasn't like she was going out for a night on the town.

She thought that she actually looked healthier though, not so hollow or underweight as before. She was still slender but a healthy weight she thought. Clair felt like she had a slight headache building now and frowned. Figuring she should just get a head of it and some ibuprofen might do the trick. She rummaged through the cabinet there. She was worried, was his blood doing something more to her? That it just took a longer time to complete or something?

She didn't find any drugs in the top ones and moved on. There wasn't much in the drawers, just the bare essentials down here. She opened the bottom drawer moving a couple things aside, and gave a sigh, none. She pulled her hand back and paused as she looked down.

There were a couple boxes there. One was tampons and that was what made her freeze. She suddenly felt very cold and terrified. Her heart nearly stopped. She was late, very late. Clair tried to think back, tried to remember when her last one was. Jesus, it hadn't even occurred to her to think about it. Oh Jesus, what if this was morning sickness? No, no, no.

There were a lot of factors that could make it late, stress, which she had plenty of. Diet, which had been horrible up until late. She'd dropped weight as well. Wait, why did she just jump to that conclusion? She couldn't be it wasn't possible. She'd seen that list, but something inside twisted in fear.

"Shit." She said to herself.

Clair stood looking at herself in the mirror. It had to be well over a month since her last one. She'd had one just before the winter sleep she knew that. After that she couldn't really remember when her last one was. The winter sleep had been a few months ago, right?

She turned to the side raising her shirt looking at herself, was she bigger around the middle? She couldn't tell, maybe, sort of. Crap she had to be, when did a person start showing? She was starting to

freak out a little. She felt a slight touch on her shoulder and she turned but no one was there.

"Hello?" She said looking around but the hall and area was deserted. She got a warm feeling and she realized it was just the house. It seemed to have picked up on her sudden mood swing. Maybe the house knew. It seemed to know things at times. One missed period wasn't bad was it? But she had more than one didn't she? She wasn't using the word yet, no wrong she was wrong. Taking a breath she spoke out loud.

"I don't suppose you know do you?" A warm feeling came to her and she swallowed. She wasn't sure if that was a "Yes you are," or "Yes I know." Plus she hadn't expected such a swift response from a damn building.

How the fuck would a building know anyways? Why would she assume that it would know? She felt like tearing her hair out all of a sudden, why was life so unfair? She stood for a second gathering her courage to ask more pointedly. Clair was sure she was losing her mind for sure now.

"Am...Am. No I don't want to know." She said what would she do if she was? She couldn't be, she read the list she wasn't what he needed for that to happen. She had to know, just to put her mind at ease. Perhaps it was something else. She could feel the house just waiting for her to ask. She took a breath and spoke.

"Am I pregnant?" A warm feeling hit and she just bolted from the room. She was going to the library. It was a freaking house, it couldn't know such things. However she felt like she was going to have a panic attack. No, absolutely not.

"You lie." she said sharply as she ran. A cool feeling came to her. She felt tears starting to build, what would he do if he found out? It wasn't like she could hide something like that. Clair made it to the library and got the journal flipping through it. She walked back and forth as she did so at a fast nervous pace.

It said just what she thought. There was only one blood type that could give a reaper a child. The woman had to be psychic and rather well developed. Those were the main two, and then a few others were written down as well. The bloodline she came from had to have been linked with previous psychic's. Along with specifics on when the said woman would be born. All of these added to the likelihood, but the first two had to be met for even the remote possibility.

The problem was that Clair didn't know who her birth parents were. She'd been adopted. It did say in the book that the first two were a must. The more the woman fit the rest of the list the easier it would be for her to conceive.

"Who the hell would want to?" She snapped angrily, feeling tearful. She'd just gotten used to the idea of sharing his bed, now this? Clair sent an entire row of books flying with a thought in her anger. She took in a breath and calmed herself and marched over to a table.

Clair grabbed some paper and started to write down the things in the book. She checked off the list as she went for what she knew that she had for sure. She didn't know if she'd been born during the full moon. She got up going through the shelves until she found a book with moon tables. She knew when she was born and the time. She'd been given to her adoptive parents straight from the hospital. After about thirty minutes of trying to understand she was horrified to find that she was indeed born during a full moon.

"This is ridiculous, how can so many little things really matter!" She nearly shouted, slamming the book closed and putting it back.

She went back to the list. She didn't think that she had that strong of a talent. She'd been very weak at first never having used it. Now it was very strong, her telekinesis, but that wasn't her main talent was it? It was her ability to mask herself. She didn't even need to think about it to do it. She did it naturally, and that meant something didn't it?

Plus her ability to sense others, she could do that before she could walk. With a sigh she checked that too. Out of the list the only ones she didn't have marked was previous psychic's in the family, and her blood type. She didn't know her blood type. Clearly she must have the blood type if she was. Which meant that she had pretty much everything on the list.

Clair moved to the fireplace in the room and burned the paper in it. Then she paced the room thinking. Every time she asked, she got the same answer. She looked at herself in the mirror and thought that she might very well have a baby bump. Though her mind was so worked up she could be imagining it, she couldn't be showing yet. It was like two months since she'd first slept with him right? No way she'd show yet, but she thought she'd gained some weight.

Then she thought about how Isaiah would respond. She read over what he was. The woman that had written it said that chances were they wouldn't see the child to full term. Their natures weren't to nurture or raise a child, and the child might be seen as a threat.

However they could use it against them too if that was the case. A child wouldn't after all be a true reaper but it would be a connection to it. A vulnerability until it was old enough to defend itself. Had anyone tested that theory? She didn't know Isaiah's full story of how he got trapped here, or anything else on the matter. She was not going to ask him. How did you even bring something like that up?

Clair was so torn, so lost on what to do here. She was against abortion. Now it didn't seem like such a bad thing. Could she perhaps force a miscarriage. She wasn't going to wait around for Isaiah to find out and then beat her or something. Or what if he killed her? Could she maybe find something to consume or she figured trauma to her midsection might do. She felt sick at the idea of doing such a thing, but what choice did she have?

Clair moved to leave the room and the door slammed. The coldest feeling she'd ever gotten from the house came to her. It was a very clear and deadly warning. She stopped where she was and hung her

head feeling overcome with tears. The house wasn't going to let her, and it was clearly going to do something if she tried. It was giving her a warning now.

"I'm sorry, I'm just so scared. I can't do this!" She put her face in her hands. A warm understanding feeling touched her. Clair had to leave, she needed to figure it out. How to get out of here. The house became quiet around her leaving her and she controlled herself. She had to leave, that was the only answer. Especially if the house was going to act against her in other ways. Her thought of leaving it didn't give any kind of feeling.

Clair left the library and started with a serious search and test of the house. There was nothing here at all. She couldn't get on the roof if she thought of escaping. This was going to be a problem. Isaiah would know but he wasn't going to tell her. He'd already told her what he was going to do to anyone that tried to escape. Now was the time, she had freedoms. She was not being watched super closely by him at the moment.