What had he been feeding Lily-Anne? What was he feeding Fiona now?
“What about the drugs?” I asked Bellanger. “Why do you give her those pills?”
“Fiona’s medication is important for her. It’s all that stands between her and another disaster. Don’t pretend to understand her needs,” Bellanger said.
“What’s in them?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Bellanger began to reach into his jacket, a slow movement, as if he hoped I wouldn’t notice.
“Is that what you spent all your energy on?” I asked. “Not focusing on finding a way to spread parthenogenesis, but on a way to get us under your control.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His hand shifted under his jacket.
“Then take one yourself.” I locked eyes with him, and that rush of dizziness came over me: no longer disorienting, now as clarifying and clean as waking up after a long sleep. “Take one of the pills, Dr. Bellanger.” A direct command, the first one I’d used against him.
The world felt too silent, shrunk down around the two of us. My mother tensed. I knew that to her ears, my command sounded like ordinary words put out into the world. Hopeful but inadequate. Reliant on the other person’s obedience. She didn’t know that my voice was worming its way into his brain, taking his choices and handing them over to me instead.
Bellanger stood very still. Nobody spoke. For a moment I wondered if it would even work: What if I couldn’t control him? His brain had made me. His words had formed me. Could I reach into his mind, or was he too familiar, still holding my very genes in thrall—
Then Bellanger’s hand was moving again. He pulled the bottle free and unscrewed the cap, tipped out a palmful of the blood-bright pills. A pause, long and heavy. I could feel the hovering shock of Fiona and my mother, wondering whether he’d go through with it. He pressed one pill into his mouth, his lips opening, and after a moment his throat bobbed.
“Take another,” I said.
Bellanger’s lips moved. It took me a moment to realize he was saying, Please. I thought he’d try to turn it into his decision, but this was naked fear and rage. He didn’t understand why he was obeying me. A body he’d ignored, suddenly turned powerful. Then he slid another pill between his lips.
Fiona looked from Bellanger to me and back again. Something had cracked along her expression, like she was seeing him for the first time. I grabbed on to that hope. She was the least predictable and most important part of this equation. I had to get through to her.
I walked forward until I was right in front of Bellanger. He staggered, caught himself. I was met with the sour brush of his breath. A hint of that same cologne. I reached out to steady him, and he grabbed at my arm, grudgingly grateful. Wordlessly, Fiona watched Bellanger struggle to stay upright, his muscles slurring out of his control. “How?” he asked. His pupils were widening pits, big enough to slide a finger right through. “How, Josephine?”
God, how I’d imagined this moment: Telling him who we really were. Showing him what I actually was. This power that was supposed to be a testament to his legacy. That little girl on the garage roof, thinking that Bellanger would hold me up if I let go and flew into the air. “We’re all like this,” I said. “Every last one of us.”
“No. No. I would’ve known. I watched you—”
“All of us,” I said, “except the one you murdered.” But Gina would’ve revealed something impossible too, if she’d been given the chance.
Bellanger shook his head, low sweeps, back and forth.
“It’s inside all of us. Isabelle can stop a man’s heart with her fingertips.” I held up my hand, my own fingers hovering close to his skin. “Cate? She brought me back to life. And when I speak, you obey me.”
His breathing was labored, as if each pump of his lungs hurt him.
I addressed Fiona now. “He’s taught you that your powers are his too. But he abandoned us, and we found our power on our own. You lose nothing by leaving him, Fiona. You have a whole world to gain.” I lowered my voice. “I’m afraid for you. I’m afraid of what Bellanger is planning to do with you, and I’m afraid of what he’ll do with your daughter. What will he do if he decides he wants her more than you?”
Fiona touched her stomach, and I imagined her responding to a submerged kick and flutter.
“You can’t take her,” Bellanger whispered.
“I’m not asking you—”