3rd person pov
Over the past few weeks, Amiriah had perfected the art of avoidance. She appeared only when necessary—brief, silent visits to the kitchen in the earliest hours of the morning or the latest hours of night, when the rest of the family was likely to be asleep. She no longer joined them for meals, responded to knocks on her door, or acknowledged their presence if they happened to cross paths in the mansion's corridors.
The revelation of her child's existence had escalated her isolation to new heights. Where before there had been cautious progress—small, tentative steps toward rebuilding bridges—now there was only the impenetrable wall of her darkness, both literal and metaphorical.
Lenna had spotted her twin early one morning in the kitchen, assembling a large tray of food with uncharacteristic haste. What caught her attention most was the strange configuration of darkness swirling around Amiriah—not the usual defensive tendrils that accompanied her movements, but a more deliberate cocoon-like formation, as if she were concealing something within it.
When Amiriah had tensed at the sound of footsteps approaching, Lenna had deliberately continued past the kitchen without entering, giving her twin the space she clearly needed. But the incident troubled her, adding to the growing tension that had been building within the family since the night of revelations.
That tension finally reached its breaking point during a family meeting in Xavier's study.
"The real problem," Xavier declared, pacing before the assembled family members, "is that Amiriah is not merely avoiding us now. She's actively hiding my grandchild from us."
His tone held the commanding authority that had always defined his role as patriarch, but now it was edged with something rarely heard from Xavier Spellman—frustration.
"It's been almost three weeks since we learned about the child, and what do we know? Nothing. Not age, not gender, not even a name." He slammed his palm on his desk. "This cannot continue. That child has Spellman blood. Amiriah cannot keep denying that fact."
Amara rose from her seat, moving to place a gentle hand on her husband's arm. "Xavier, please. You cannot force Amiriah to let us see her child. She needs time."
"Time?" Xavier scoffed. "She's had time. And frankly, I'm concerned about the child. Amiriah is clearly unstable—her outbursts, her threats, her isolation. Is she truly capable of caring for a child alone? She needs her family's support, whether she wants to admit it or not."
"That's not fair," Lenna countered, her voice sharp with disapproval. "Amiriah has cared for her child all this time without our help. She's kept that child safe, fed, loved—obviously with great success."
Hayden nodded in agreement. "She's extremely protective, Father. That indicates a strong maternal instinct, not instability."
"And how would you know?" Xavier challenged. "Have any of you seen this child? Heard this child? Do we even know if this child is healthy, well-adjusted, properly cared for? We don't know anything because Amiriah won't tell us anything."
"Maybe because the last time she trusted us, we sent her to be tortured and experimented on," Zuri said quietly, causing the room to fall momentarily silent.
Xavier's expression hardened. "That's enough. I'm going to speak with her. Now."
Before anyone could stop him, he strode from the study, heading toward the grand staircase with determined steps. The rest of the family rushed after him, protests rising.
"Father, stop," Kario urged. "This isn't fair to Amiriah or her child. You can't just demand things from them."
"This approach will only push her further away," Zari added.
Xavier ignored them all, his pace unfaltering as he climbed the stairs. "It doesn't matter. She's had enough time to hide. I want to meet my grandchild."
The commotion in the hallway—their raised voices, Xavier's commanding tone, the hurried footsteps of multiple family members—penetrated the soundproof barriers Amiriah had erected around her bedroom. The noise was enough to disturb her from the deep sleep she had finally managed to fall into after days of insomnia.
She jolted awake, immediately disoriented and irritated. Lani was sleeping soundly on her chest, thankfully undisturbed by the noise that had woken her mother. With careful movements, Amiriah transferred Lani to the bed, tucking the blankets around her small form. She instructed the darkness wolves to guard her daughter before moving toward the door, too sleep-addled to remember she was wearing only a crop top and shorts—attire that left visible the intricate darkness rune etched into the skin along her side, a memento from her time at Greystone she typically kept hidden.
Her hair was tousled from sleep, her eyes narrowed with grumpiness and indignation as she made her way down the stairs toward the source of the disturbance. The sight of her appearing so suddenly—disheveled, half-dressed, and radiating irritation—brought the arguing family to an abrupt halt.
Lenna's eyes immediately fixed on the rune visible on her twin's side—an ancient symbol she recognized from her research into forbidden Darkness rune, one associated with binding and containment. She had never seen it before; Amiriah had always been careful to keep her body covered.
The rest of the family was equally startled by Amiriah's appearance, though for different reasons. There was something so reminiscent of her childhood self in her grumpy, half-asleep face—a glimpse of the little girl who had been notoriously difficult to wake, who would scowl and sulk for hours if roused too early. It was a painfully human moment, a reminder of who she had been before trauma had hardened her.
"What the hell is all this yelling about at two in the morning?" Amiriah demanded, her voice thick with sleep but edged with genuine anger. "People are trying to sleep, and you're down here yelling and whining about what?"
Xavier, momentarily taken aback by her sudden appearance, quickly recovered his composure. His face flushed with renewed anger as he pointed an accusatory finger at his daughter.
"It's been weeks since you've avoided us," he shouted. "You dropped a bomb saying you had a child, and you're not telling us anything about it, not even letting us meet our own grandchild, the newest member of this family!"
The others winced at his tone, recognizing it would only escalate the situation. But Xavier was too far gone in his frustration to moderate his approach.
Amiriah stared at her father for a long moment, her expression shifting from sleep-addled irritation to something cooler and more measured. She tilted her head slightly, regarding him as one might an irrational child throwing a tantrum.
"How do you think you have a right to see or call my child your grandchild?" she asked, her voice deceptively calm. "What if my kid doesn't want to meet you? Then what? How can I trust all of you with something I hold so dearly after what you've shown me?"
She straightened her posture, fully awake now as she faced down her father. "You're asking for too much." Her gaze swept over the assembled family. "Now can you all quiet down? I have a sleeping kid upstairs." Without waiting for a response, she turned and ascended the stairs, disappearing back to her room.
The family stood in stunned silence for several moments after her departure.
"Well, that went well," Zuri said sarcastically, breaking the tension.
"Did you see that rune on her side?" Lenna asked, her voice low with concern. "That's a binding symbol—one used to contain dark energy, usually against the subject's will."
"She won't remember any of this in the morning," Hayden noted with a clinical detachment that didn't quite mask his concern. "She was still half-asleep. Amiriah has always experienced periods of semi-consciousness when suddenly woken—she speaks, she responds, but the memories don't form properly."
"Which means we're back to square one," Kario sighed.
Xavier stood rigid, his anger giving way to a complex mixture of emotions—frustration, yes, but also grief and something that might have been guilt. The glimpse of his daughter, bearing marks of her captivity on her skin, sleep-tousled and vulnerable yet still fiercely protective of her child, had affected him more than he cared to admit.
"I just want to know my grandchild," he said finally, his voice uncharacteristically subdued. "Is that so wrong?"
"No," Amara said gently, taking his hand. "But this isn't the way, Xavier. Forcing the issue will only drive her further away. We need to respect her boundaries, earn back her trust."
"If that's even possible," Zari murmured.
Lenna was still staring at the staircase where her twin had disappeared. "Did you notice she said 'kid' not 'baby'? She's been careful not to reveal anything about her child, but that was a slip."
"A kid, not a baby," Hayden repeated thoughtfully. "That suggests an older child, not an infant but maybe a toddler."
"But that would mean..." Amara began, then stopped as the implications registered.
"That she's been hiding her child for years," Xavier finished, his expression darkening again. "Years during which we had no idea, no contact, no knowledge that we even had a grandchild."
The realization settled heavily upon them all—the magnitude of what had been lost, the time that could never be recovered, the birthdays and milestones they had missed. It was a grief none of them had been prepared for, a loss they were only beginning to understand.
"We need to be patient," Lenna said finally, though patience had never been a Spellman family trait. "If we push too hard, we might lose them both for good."
As the family dispersed to their respective rooms, each carried the weight of this new understanding. The child upstairs—this unknown Spellman descendant—was old enough to be called a "kid" rather than a baby. Old enough, perhaps, to have formed opinions about a family they had never met, to have absorbed Amiriah's fear and distrust, to view the Spellmans as a threat rather than as kin.
The path to reconciliation, already difficult, had just revealed itself to be even longer and more complex than any of them had imagined.