Amiriah pov
Reaching out to Lenna was perhaps the hardest thing I'd done since returning to S City. After days of internal debate, I finally summoned the courage to send a message to her personal encrypted channel—a channel we'd created as teenagers that I prayed she still monitored.
The Blue Quill Bookstore. Thursday, 8 AM. Come alone. -M
That was all. No explanation, no pleasantries. Just a time and place, signed with the initial only she would recognize as mine. I half-expected no response, but within minutes, my phone lit up with a simple reply:
I'll be there. -L
The morning of the meeting, my anxiety threatened to overwhelm me. I paced the darkness dimension, checking and rechecking my appearance, rehearsing what I would say. Lani watched me with those too-perceptive eyes of hers, sensing my unease.
"Do you have to go, Mama?" she asked as I knelt to help her with breakfast.
"Yes, treasure. But I'll be back soon, I promise." I stroked her cheek. "And then maybe... maybe we won't have to hide anymore."
After breakfast, I prepared to leave. Creating a stronger barrier around the safe house, I reinforced the darkness wolves I'd made to protect Lani. They would watch over her, and through them, I could check on her while I was gone.
"Now remember," I said, kneeling to Lani's level, "stay inside. Don't answer the door. If anything feels wrong, call me right away." I pressed the special phone Jackson had given me into her small hands.
She nodded solemnly, her eyes wide. "I'll be good, Mama."
I pulled her into a tight hug, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair. "I know you will, my brave girl."
With a final kiss on her forehead, I stepped back, my darkness swirling around me. "I love you, Lani."
"I love you too, Mama."
The darkness enveloped me, and I stepped through it, emerging a block away from the Blue Quill Bookstore. I took a moment to compose myself before walking the remaining distance.
Lenna was already there, seated at a corner table with two cups of coffee. The sight of her hit me like a physical blow—my twin, my mirror image, yet somehow a stranger after all these years apart. She looked up as I approached, her eyes widening slightly.
"Miri," she whispered, standing but not moving toward me.
I appreciated the space she gave me, the careful distance. She remembered, then, how I'd reacted to touch at the mansion.
"Lenna," I acknowledged, sliding into the seat across from her.
We studied each other silently. She looked well—healthy, strong, her eyes clear and focused. But there was a tension to her posture, a wariness that hadn't been there before.
"I wasn't sure you'd come," she finally said.
"I wasn't sure I would either."
She pushed one of the coffee cups toward me. "Black, two sugars. If you still take it that way."
The small, remembered detail nearly undid me. "I do."
We talked cautiously at first, skirting around the deeper issues. Then, abruptly, Lenna leaned forward.
"The family has been looking everywhere for you," she said. "Everyone's... they're not doing well, Miri. Mom's powers are fluctuating dangerously. Dad barely sleeps. Hayden's disappearing into his work. The twins are stalking former hospital employees. Kario's got his shadow team combing every inch of S City."
I stared into my coffee, unsure how to respond to this litany of family dysfunction.
"They're sorry," she continued. "All of them. For drugging you, for bringing you to the mansion against your will. They were just so desperate to keep you safe, to talk to you..." She sighed. "It was wrong. They know that now."
"It'll take more than an apology," I said quietly.
"I know." She hesitated. "Miri, S City isn't as safe as it was four years ago. Things have... changed."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"People have been going missing. When they return—if they return—they're half-dead, their powers and souls nearly drained." Her voice dropped. "Three of them mentioned seeing darkness before they disappeared. Not shadows, not night—darkness that moved on its own."
A chill ran through me. "That's not me, if that's what you're suggesting."
"I know it's not. But whatever it is..." she looked troubled. "I think it might be connected to what happened to you at GreyStone."
I was about to ask what she meant when my phone rang. Catanila's name flashed on the screen. Frowning, I answered it, but it was Jackson's voice that came through.
"Mira, I was doing my frequency checks on S City scanners, and it's showing that Dr. Johns from Greystone Hospital is in S City. He's looking for something."
The blood drained from my face. "Dr. Johns is dead," I said automatically, forgetting Lenna was still with me. "He died in the fire. I saw him die."
But even as I spoke, horrible memories surfaced—Dr. Johns with his cold smile and colder hands. The man who had seen me not as a patient, but as an experiment. A possession. A future wife he was crafting to his specifications.
"He didn't just see me as a perfect test subject," I whispered, more to myself than to Jackson. "He saw me as his ideal wife. He was trying to make for himself."
My stomach churned as more memories broke through the barriers my mind had created. He had controlled my body with drugs and magic, forced me to do things I hadn't wanted to do. Killing for him. Pleasing him.
"He tried to have a child with me," I continued, horror washing over me. "When it didn't happen naturally, he started the gene tube project..."
I registered Lenna's shocked expression across from me, but I couldn't stop the flood of memories now. The clinical violations. The experiments. The pain.
"Mira?" Jackson's voice sounded concerned through the phone. "Are you there? What should we do?"
But before I could answer, I felt it—a presence behind me. A hand touching my hair with sickening familiarity.
"My dearest Amiriah," said a voice I had hoped never to hear again. "I've been looking for you since the fire. I knew you wouldn't die."
Dr. Johns. Here. Alive. His fingers stroking my hair as if he had every right.
I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. My body remembered the conditioning—the punishment that would follow if I pulled away from his touch.
"It's been so long," he murmured, leaning down to kiss my forehead.
Bile rose in my throat. I gagged, my body's rejection overriding the old programming.
Suddenly Lenna was there, a blur of movement. Her fist connected with Dr. Johns' face with a satisfying crack, again and again, driving him back from me.
"Don't. Touch. My. Sister." Each word was punctuated by another blow.
When she finally stopped, breathing hard, Dr. Johns straightened, wiping blood from his lip. But he was smiling—that same cold, calculating smile that had haunted my nightmares.
"I know where you live, Amiriah," he said casually. "My team is outside your safe house right now. I would love to know what you're hiding there and take it for myself."
Shock and panic coursed through me. "You wouldn't," I said, my voice shaking. "You don't know where I live. Stop lying!" The words came out as a desperate scream.
His smile widened as he pulled out his phone, turning it to show me live surveillance footage of my safe house—the place where I had hidden Lani, my most precious secret.
I didn't wait to hear more. I turned and ran, already summoning my darkness to transport me home. But something was wrong. The darkness responded sluggishly, refusing to form a portal.
Behind me, Dr. Johns laughed, the sound like broken glass in my ears. "You can't get there. I've blocked any more darkness from flowing back to that house. Clever little device, don't you think? Based on your own power signature."
I kept running, panic making my heart hammer painfully in my chest. I couldn't see through the eyes of the darkness wolves I'd left with Lani. The connection was severed.
With trembling hands, I pulled out the emergency device Jackson had given me and called Lani. Each ring felt like an eternity.
Finally, her voice came through, bright and happy. "Hi, Mama!"
"Lani," I cut her off, my voice urgent. "There are bad people outside the house. You need to hide, right now."
There was a pause, filled only with her heavy breathing. "Mama, where are you?" Her voice trembled.
"I'm trying my best to get there," I said, tears streaming down my face as I ran through the streets. "I'm coming, treasure. Just hide."
Another pause, then her small voice, so terrified it broke my heart: "Mama, am I going to die? The barrier is breaking. They're going to take me."
The world seemed to stop around me. My baby—my light, my treasure—was in danger, and I wasn't there to protect her. A primal scream built in my throat, but I forced it down. I needed to think.
"No," I said firmly. "You are not going to die. I won't let that happen."
A desperate plan formed in my mind. Dangerous, untested, but our only hope.
"Baby, I need you to walk into the darkness of the wolves," I instructed, trying to keep my voice calm despite the terror clawing at my chest.
"I've never been in the darkness without you," she whispered back, fear evident in every syllable. "What if the darkness takes me away?"
"You trust Mama, right?" I said gently, though my heart was breaking. "The darkness won't hurt you. It's part of me, and I love you more than anything. Now go into the darkness, now!"
I took a shuddering breath. "I love you, my Lani. My light. My treasure."
"I love you too, Mama," came her small voice, and then the line went dead.
Tears streamed down my face as I ran faster than I'd ever run before. If my plan worked, the darkness wolves would pull Lani into the shadow dimension—a place between realities where she would be safe from Dr. Johns, but isolated and terrified. If it didn't work... I couldn't bear to think of the alternative.
When I finally reached the safe house, the barrier was indeed broken. I burst inside to find chaos—furniture overturned, doors smashed, men in tactical gear searching every corner.
Something in me snapped at the sight of these strangers invading our home, threatening my child. My darkness exploded outward, no longer controlled or contained. Black tendrils whipped through the air, catching the intruders before they could react. I didn't stop to think. I just killed—methodically, ruthlessly, one after another.
As they fell, my darkness collected all of Lani's things—her clothes, her toys, her books—making it appear as if only one person had lived here. No trace of my daughter could remain for Dr. Johns to find.
I ran through the house, calling for my darkness wolves, searching desperately for any sign that Lani had escaped into the shadow dimension as I'd instructed. But there was nothing. No response. No connection.
Terror and panic threatened to overwhelm me as I burst back outside, covered in blood and nearly insensible with fear for my child. There I ran directly into Lenna, who had apparently followed me.
Her eyes widened at the sight of me—blood-spattered, wild-eyed, on the edge of complete breakdown.
"We can help you," she said urgently, gripping my shoulders. "Whatever you're looking for, we can help you, Amiriah."
My mind was still racing, trying to locate my darkness wolves, trying to find Lani. But I couldn't feel them. For the first time since developing my powers, I couldn't sense my own darkness.
"Scan the city," I managed to say, my voice breaking. "The shadows, anywhere in the city—look for two big darkness wolves."
Lenna nodded immediately. "I will. The family has resources, technology. We'll find them." She hesitated, then added, "But I have one condition. You move back into the mansion for safety. You'll have your own space, your own security. But we can protect you there, Miri. And we can help you find what you're looking for."
Under any other circumstances, I would have refused. But Lani was out there somewhere, alone in the darkness, possibly being hunted by Dr. Johns. I needed help. I needed resources. I needed to find her before the darkness—my darkness—swallowed her completely.
"Fine," I agreed, my voice hollow. "Just find them. Find the wolves."
As Lenna made calls, mobilizing the Spellman resources, I closed my eyes, trying once more to see through the wolves' vision. Nothing but static, darkness upon darkness.
"I'm coming, Lani," I whispered into the void. "Hold on, treasure. Mama's coming."
But for the first time since her birth, I had no idea where my daughter was. And the fear that I might never find her again was more terrifying than anything Dr. Johns could ever do to me.