Chapter Text
All and all, Mama would consider her current company to be complete shit. She’s been surrounded by federal agents crawling about her lodge like the worst case of bed bugs for roughly a month.
And she knows it’s been roughly because she’s starting to feel off. Tired is different than off, she’s been tired for about a decade now. There’s restlessness seeped into her bones that will never quite let her mind settle down. Her body is just hardwired to fight Abominations now and it’s really too late to change that.
So she winces when doors slam open, her hands itching for her gun or her boot knife. Both were taken when she was taken in, along with a dozen other smaller concealed weapons on her person. She still has one last small knife on her, hidden in her bun they never made her take out. There’s nothing she can really do with this, given that she’s under constant surveillance and handcuffed to a goddamned table a good quarter of the time.
They keep asking her what she knows, she keeps asking them where her residents went. Neither side is getting anywhere and both are starting to grate.
Mama’s afraid to think too deeply on it, but she knows she’ll cave first. Not in the way the feds want her to, of course, Mama’s always been terribly recalcitrant. It’s always been easy for her to worm her way out of danger with authorities is the thing. She’s talked her way out of tickets, trespassing, and a plethora of other dubiously illegal things done in the name of monster hunting. Smile wide enough, cant her chin just so, and nod at all the right times. It was a joke around town, never get in an argument with Mama because she’d have you agreeing with her and thinking it was your idea in fifteen minutes flat.
Doesn’t work so well on the feds, but she figures it might be her saving grace from an unmarked grave.
So she can’t talk her way out of this particular crock of horseshit, so she just stays silent. Resolute and unmoving as Mount Kepler--and unfortunately just as likely to collapse under the weight of it’s own fall. Mama feels her eyes get a little drier every day, feels her teeth start to ache. She doesn’t know what the fuck her daddy was, doesn’t know what kind of feral she’s in for. Mostly she just hopes it doesn’t hurt. Hopes she goes like Thacker, unaware of who she is and what’s she’s become.
The lock to her cell clicks and her eyes snap to the door. It’s about dinner and she’s hungry as hell. The food they give her does a bit for her body, keeps her human side fueled just enough to temper the ravenous sylph in her. Won’t last much longer but that’s fine.
She hopes she doesn’t hurt anyone when she goes—except maybe Haynes.
“Well, hello Joseph,” Mama drawls as she leans back as far as the handcuff will allow. She’s fairly flexible for her old age and can ever manage to prop one foot up on her knee, casually. It stings her newly healed leg, the tendons still a little tight but it’s the gravitas that matters. She’s a woman with a reputation to maintain, an aura that she cannot allow to crack or else it’s protection will fade, “Delightful seeing you this evening.”
Stern grimaces at the name, just like he does every other day when he waltzes in and she greets him like a cherished old poker buddy, “It’s eleven am, Miss Cobb.”
Mama squints, well fuck, they’ve finally managed to wreck her circadian rhythm then. With a great heaving sigh she kicks off the table and her chair clatters dangerously back onto all four legs. Stern winces and Mama smiles sharp as razor wire, usually, that smile makes the agents flinch--Even Haynes hadn’t quite been able to stand it. Never flinched but he had looked away first, Mama counted that as a win.
Humans are good like that, they still remember being prey deep down in their bones. Skittish like horses, the whole lot of them. Mama doesn’t really think of her heritage too much, what she is doesn’t matter on a day to day basis but everything right now is about weighing her advantages. How much of herself is worth showing, how much can she push before she’s shoved face-first into the dirt for one last long nap.
Stern? Stern, she can push pretty far. Fucker’s willing to bend so he doesn’t snap. There’s a part of her that chitters softly, in the back of her mind--Haynes, he’ll be fun to get a go at. Stern just doesn’t summon that little undomesticated spark. Mama’s not all human, not prey turned predator the way that humans just are.
Mama’s half predator, half raptor patient and waiting to swoop in for the kill--but not Stern. Not any of his peers either, skittering around her like a deep part of their brain knows she’s dangerous. Just Haynes, just their boss, just that smug, arrogant, bastard of a man. He’s the one that triggers something under her skin, makes her fingers itch her eyes narrow but never blink.
Stern settles across her table, there’s no tray in his hands and it’s all Mama can do not to growl. Deep in her throat or in her gut, it doesn’t make a difference, she’s starving all the same. Stern stares at her, eyes assessing the white of her hair that she knows it’s going whiter. Mama told her when she was just seventeen and the first streak of steel showed in her black that it was a ray of starlight. It doesn’t feel like starlight now, she’s seen herself in the mirror when they bring her to shower. Dark steel roots blown through with blinding white replacing what black she’d had left, it’s the shock they tell her. Not uncommon of woman her age who’ve undergone traumatic experiences.
Mama had laughed in the shrink’s face like they knew anything about the trauma Mama has gone through in her life.
Still, his eyes linger on her bangs, Mama knows the trick. She’d taught it to Jake when he had only just arrived at the lodge. If you stare at people’s forehead instead of their eyes you can muster the courage to say whatever’s on your mind. Whatever is on Stern’s mind that he hasn’t already tried she just doesn’t know anymore. She’s running out of time for guesses.
Stern taps his fingers against his wrist, a tick of his she’d noticed. He’s nervous but she’s not sure why. It raises her hackles as he finally begins to speak “Perhaps Haynes is right, perhaps I am compromised but I’m not blind--If I blinded myself to the lodges’ oddities it’s only because…” His voice drifts but Mama’s eyes are on him like a hawk at the way oddities rolls off his tongue. Her back straightens but otherwise, nothing betrays the sudden hot vein of panic that pumps in her blood.
Stern plows through, eyes glued to her hair, drifting up and wavering at the halo of slate on her scalp, “They didn’t recognize her, didn’t know to even look but I saw it, Mama.”
There’s a pressure to his speech even though it’s practically a whisper. His body angled away from the camera so his lips are hidden but it’s the way he says her name--Her name, not Miss Cobb, Madeline Cobb, or the number on her file the size of an accordion. He says her name and he looks at her and Mama knows he knows about Dani. It sends a chill through her heart even as her face stays stone still but Stern can’t possibly--He’s so close and he doesn’t stop looking at her like he can see her. See past her airs, see past the minor glamors she’s been conjuring since childhood, surrounding herself in them like a shield. This is her worst nightmare. This is what her own Mama warned her about, this is why her mama kept her out of hospitals and school sports and a million other things because no one can know what she is--
“Mama, breathe.”
Hands gently press against her own, grounding her to the table and Mama wheezes, “How?”
Stern frowns, not exasperated or irritated but small and so much sadder than he’s ever seen her. She doesn’t think he’s ever looked truly sad like this, and Mama reads people like she’s breezing through the paper. Stern and stiff Joseph Stern, Mama has underestimated him, she thinks. Ignored him and now it’ll be her doom. She won’t take the lodge down with her, she knows Barclay will keep them safe. They’d planned for this, even though he’d always promised if they took her they’d have to go through him but they can’t.
Joseph Stern won’t let them either, and doesn’t that just kick the air out of her chest.
His eyes crinkle, going glassy like he’s holding back emotion. Mama hadn’t thought him capable, but somehow the bastard has weaseled his way into this circle, not under her protection but a goddamn protector in his own right. He squeezes her hand softly and says, “The way she was, at the end there. You have the same eyes, Mama.”