3rd Person pov
Amiriah's words fell like physical blows upon the assembled family. "Where was your help when I was being cut open? Where was your help when I was being used as a breeding experiment? Where was your help when I was giving birth alone, terrified, not knowing if my baby would live or die?"
Amara stumbled backward as if struck, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a sob. The revelation of what her daughter had endured—not just torture and experimentation, but forced breeding and childbirth without aid—was beyond anything she had imagined. Her legs gave way beneath her, and she sank to her knees on the marble floor, tears streaming unchecked down her face.
Xavier stood rigid, his normally commanding presence diminished by the horror of his daughter's words. For perhaps the first time in his life, he appeared truly shaken, the blood draining from his face as the full implications of Amiriah's accusations registered. His hands trembled slightly at his sides—a minute tell that only his family would recognize as profound distress.
Lenna remained closest to her twin, her expression a mixture of heartbreak and vindication. She had suspected—had pieced together fragmented clues from her research into Greystone—but hearing the truth from Amiriah's own lips was still devastating. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, knuckles white with the effort of maintaining her composure.
Hayden's analytical mind seemed to stutter at the phrase "breeding experiment," his eyes widening in shock as he protectively drew closer to Tara and their son. The thought that his sister had been used in such a way—violated in the most fundamental sense—was so abhorrent that his usual detachment crumbled completely.
Zuri and Zari, always in sync, gasped in unison, instinctively reaching for each other's hands. Their faces mirrored identical expressions of horror and guilt—guilt that they had not somehow sensed their sister's plight, that they had accepted her supposed death without question.
Kario looked utterly lost, his youthful face crumpling in confusion and pain. He had been just a teenager when Amiriah was sent away, too young to have had any say in the decision, yet the guilt on his face was as profound as any of them.
When Amiriah's confession escalated into full-throated screams about her solitary childbirth, the family seemed to physically shrink under the onslaught of her raw pain.
"YALL DON'T KNOW HOW PAINFUL IT WAS FINDING OUT I WAS PREGNANT AND ALONE!" she screamed, her composure finally shattering. "HOW SCARED I WAS! THE PAINFUL BIRTH, HAVING TO DO IT ALONE, NOT KNOWING IF I WAS DOING IT RIGHT!"
Amara wept openly now, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs as she imagined her daughter—her baby—facing childbirth alone, terrified, with no medical help. It was a mother's nightmare magnified a hundredfold.
"NO ONE WAS THERE TO HELP ME!" Amiriah continued, her voice cracking with the effort of forcing out words that had been bottled inside her for so long. "NO ONE WAS THERE TO TELL ME IF MY BABY WAS BREATHING RIGHT, IF THE CORD WAS CUT CORRECTLY, IF THE BLEEDING WAS NORMAL!"
The clinical details of her solitary delivery caused several family members to flinch, the visceral reality of what she had endured becoming painfully clear. This wasn't melodrama or exaggeration—this was the horrifying truth of a young woman forced to be her own midwife out of desperate necessity.
As Amiriah's tirade continued, her darkness swirled more violently, reflecting the storm of emotions coursing through her. Her face cycled through expressions with alarming rapidity—rage to grief to fear to a fierce, almost feral protectiveness when she spoke of her child. Her entire body trembled with the force of emotions too long suppressed, her darkness responding to her distress with increasingly erratic patterns.
"My child is all I have," she declared, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper after the screaming had drained her. "The only person who has never hurt me, never abandoned me, never looked at me like I was broken or dangerous or crazy. And I will kill anyone who tries to take that away from me. Even you. Especially you."
The absolute conviction in her voice as she threatened her own family sent a collective chill through the room. This wasn't hysteria. This wasn't trauma talking. This was a mother's promise, as ancient and immutable as the darkness itself.
When Amiriah finally turned and ascended the stairs, her darkness barrier dissolving behind her, the family remained frozen in place, each processing the devastating revelations in their own way.
It was Lenna who broke the stunned silence. "I've had suspicions for weeks," she admitted quietly. "The way she would lock herself away for days at a time, the voices I sometimes heard from her room, the protectiveness whenever anyone got too close to her door." She shook her head. "But I wasn't sure. I thought perhaps it was some other secret she was guarding, or simply her need for absolute privacy after what she'd been through."
"A child," Amara whispered, her voice raw with emotion. "My grandbaby. And I never knew. Never helped. Never even suspected." She looked up at Xavier, her eyes red-rimmed but suddenly fierce. "I failed her. We failed her. Our daughter gave birth alone, Xavier. Alone and terrified. What kind of mother am I that my child endured that without me?"
Xavier seemed to age before their eyes, the weight of guilt bending his normally straight shoulders. "The hospital," he said hoarsely. "Breeding experiments. They used our daughter as—" He couldn't finish the sentence, his legendary self-control finally cracking. "I signed those commitment papers. I believed those doctors when they said she needed institutional care. I delivered her into their hands."
"We all did," Hayden said, his voice uncharacteristically unsteady. "We all believed what we were told without questioning it deeply enough."
Tara, who had remained silent throughout the confrontation, stepped forward. "I thought she might have a child," she admitted. "The way she touched her stomach when she saw Harrison, the look in her eyes—it was so familiar to me. It's how new mothers often react when they see another baby, with that instinct to check that their own child is safe." She cradled her son closer. "And her reaction to Harrison... it wasn't just fear of physical contact. It was jealousy and pain. She was comparing his birth, surrounded by family and medical care, to her own child's birth—alone and afraid."
"She hates us," Kario said softly, voicing what they all feared. "She actually, genuinely hates us. And maybe she has the right."
"And she'll never trust us," Zuri added. "Not after everything."
"Especially not with her child," Zari continued.
The twins exchanged one of their silent communications before Zuri spoke again. "The poison energy we detected—it must be the child. Some kind of defensive ability, perhaps inherited from whatever experiments they performed on Amiriah."
"All this time," Amara said, almost to herself. "All these weeks she's been here, her child was hidden in this house. Right above our heads. And we never knew."
"She never intended to trust us," Xavier said, a hint of his old sternness returning. "She maintained that barrier around herself and her child from the beginning."
"Can you blame her?" Lenna asked sharply. "After what we just learned? After what she's been through? She threatened to kill us if we tried to take her child away. Not because she's unstable or dangerous, but because that child is literally all she has in this world. The only person who has never hurt her, never betrayed her, never abandoned her."
The family absorbed this harsh truth in silence.
"She said she did everything alone," Amara whispered. "Delivery, cord cutting, newborn care—everything a mother should have help with, should be prepared for. And where was I? Moving on with my life, accepting that she was dead without fighting for the truth." Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "She was right to ask where we were. Where were we when she needed us most?"
"The question now," Hayden said pragmatically, though his voice lacked its usual clinical detachment, "is what do we do with this information? She clearly doesn't want us involved in her child's life. She made that abundantly clear."
"We respect her wishes," Lenna said firmly. "We give her space. We let her set the pace. We prove to her that we can actually honor her boundaries this time."
"But the child—" Xavier began.
"Is hers," Lenna interrupted. "Not ours. Not yet. Maybe not ever, if that's what Amiriah decides. This isn't about what we want or what rights we think we have as grandparents or aunts and uncles. This is about what Amiriah and her child need right now."
"And what do they need?" Kario asked, genuine concern evident in his voice.
Lenna considered the question carefully. "Safety. Security. The certainty that we won't try to take over or make decisions for them. And most of all, they need us to acknowledge the pain we've caused, even unintentionally, without making excuses or trying to justify our actions."
Amara nodded slowly, wiping tears from her face. "You're right," she said. "This isn't about us or what we've lost. It's about what Amiriah needs to heal." She turned to Xavier, her expression resolute despite her tears. "And that starts with accepting that we might never have the relationship with her or her child that we want. That we might never be forgiven."
Xavier closed his eyes briefly, absorbing this painful truth. When he opened them again, the commanding patriarch had been replaced by something more humble—a father facing the consequences of the worst mistake of his life.
"So we wait," he said simply. "We give her time. We prove ourselves worthy of her trust, if that's even possible."
"And we respect her boundaries," Zuri added.
"Without exception," Zari finished.
As the family dispersed to process the night's revelations, each carrying their own burden of guilt and regret, Lenna remained in the foyer, her gaze fixed on the staircase where her twin had disappeared. She thought of the child upstairs—a niece or nephew she had never met, never held, never even seen. A child who had been hidden in the shadows, protected fiercely by a mother who had endured unimaginable horrors.
A child who, despite everything, was family. Her blood. A Spellman, whether Amiriah wanted to acknowledge that or not.
But Lenna understood better than anyone in the family what Amiriah needed now. Not pressure. Not demands. Not even well-intentioned overtures that might feel like intrusions. Just time, space, and the radical belief that this time, her boundaries would be respected.
It wasn't much to offer after so much suffering. But it was a beginning. A fragile foundation upon which trust might—just might—someday be rebuilt.