3rd person pov
The grandfather clock in the hallway had just struck two in the morning when the front door opened quietly. Lenna Spellman slipped inside, still dressed in club attire—a short black dress with strategic cutouts, hair tousled from dancing, the faint scent of expensive liquor clinging to her. She'd been at Underground, the family's exclusive nightclub, where she could lose herself in anonymous revelry without the burden of her family name.
Her heels clicked against the marble floor as she made her way through the darkened mansion, expecting everyone to be asleep. Instead, she found light spilling from beneath her father's study door. Unusual at this hour. Curious, she pushed it open.
The entire family was there—Mother seated in Father's leather chair, her normally perfect makeup smudged from tears; Father standing rigid by the window; Hayden pacing the room while his pregnant wife Tara watched him with concern; the twins Zuri and Zari huddled together on the sofa; and Kario, the her older brother, looking more like a man than she remembered, his face grave.
They all turned to her at once, their expressions a mixture of shock, grief, and something else—hope?
"What happened?" Lenna asked, instantly alert despite the alcohol in her system. She dropped her clutch on a side table, the carefree club girl vanishing instantly. "Is it the baby? Tara, are you alright?"
No one answered immediately. Amara rose from the chair, tears streaming freely down her face as she crossed the room and embraced her daughter fiercely.
"Mom?" Lenna whispered, growing alarmed. "What's going on?"
When Amara couldn't speak through her tears, Xavier stepped forward, holding out a folded piece of paper. Lenna took it, her hand trembling slightly as she read.
The note fell from her fingers as she looked up, her eyes wide and filled with a desperate light. "I told you," she whispered, her voice growing stronger with each word. "I TOLD ALL OF YOU SHE WASN'T DEAD!"
She whirled to face each family member, her accusation encompassing them all. "I kept telling you I still felt that she was alive! But you and those doctors—" her voice cracked with emotion, "—said I was having a 'mental episode' because of the 'pain of losing my other half.'"
None of them could meet her eyes, the guilt of their disbelief palpable in the room.
"Where is she?" Lenna demanded, spinning back to her father. "Is she okay? When is she coming?"
Hayden stopped his pacing. "We don't know yet. We're searching for her now."
"She was here tonight," Zuri said quietly. "At the gala."
"Watching us," Zari finished.
Lenna's legs suddenly felt weak. She sank onto the nearest chair, her mind racing. "She was here? In this house? And I was out at that stupid club instead?"
No one responded, but Amara knelt before her daughter, taking her hands. "We need to tell you something else, Lenna," she said gently. "Something we should have told you long ago."
Lenna looked into her mother's eyes, sensing what was coming.
"We're sorry," Amara continued, her voice quavering. "For faking your death to the world. We thought we were protecting you after... after what happened with Amiriah." Xavier stood need to his wife and said "We thought you weren't ready to go back into the world because of your illness."
"My 'illness,'" Lenna repeated bitterly. "You mean the grief of losing my twin sister? The panic attacks? The nightmares? The feeling that half of me had been ripped away but was somehow still out there?"
The family exchanged uncomfortable glances. They had witnessed Lenna's struggles first-hand—the brilliant hacking genius who could break into any system but couldn't piece together her shattered self. The episodes that would send her spiraling, the drinking that became her only escape, the nights she'd sneak out to the family nightclub to lose herself among strangers who didn't know her pain.
"We thought it was easier this way," Xavier admitted. "To let the world think Lenna Spellman died in that boating accident, while you recovered in private."
"But I never asked for that!" Lenna cried, rising so suddenly that Amara fell back. "You locked me away just like you did to Amiriah! Different kinds of cages, but cages nonetheless."
The comparison stunned them all into silence.
Kario spoke up, his voice gentle. "Lenna, we're going to find her. We have resources, connections—"
"I'll find her," Lenna interrupted, a fierce determination replacing her anguish. "I should have been looking for her all along, instead of believing your lies."
She moved to the study's computer terminal, the alcohol in her system forgotten as her fingers flew across the keyboard. The family watched in a mixture of awe and concern as screens filled with data—security footage from the gala, facial recognition software launching, city surveillance systems being tapped.
"Lenna," Hayden began cautiously, "you shouldn't exhaust yourself. Your condition—"
"My 'condition' is about to get a whole lot better," she replied without looking away from the screen. "Because my twin is alive, and I'm going to find her."
The family exchanged worried glances. They had underestimated Lenna's connection to Amiriah, had misunderstood the depth of the bond between twins. They had treated her like fragile glass needing protection, when all along she had been steel bent but never broken.
As dawn broke over S City, Lenna was still at the computer, her eyes red-rimmed but filled with purpose. The rest of the family had retreated to their rooms, but Amara remained, watching her daughter work with a mixture of pride and regret.
"She won't be easy to find if she doesn't want to be found," Amara said softly.
Lenna's fingers paused over the keyboard, and a small, knowing smile curved her lips. "You forget, Mother. No one knows Amiriah like I do. Not even you."
She turned back to the screen, where surveillance footage from the gala played. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the faces of guests, searching for the one that would mirror her own.
"I'm coming, Miri," she whispered, using the childhood nickname only she had ever called her twin. "Just like I promised I would, all those years a