3rd person Pov
Lenna's truck pulled up to the mansion with a screech of tires, the urgency of their arrival evident in her reckless driving. As she and Amiriah stepped out, the family—who had gathered in the foyer at the sound of the vehicle—froze in collective shock.
Amiriah was almost unrecognizable—covered in blood, her hair wild, eyes unfocused and darting. She moved with predatory alertness, like a wounded animal expecting an attack from any direction.
"Riri!" Amara gasped, rushing forward. "Are you hurt? What happened?"
Hayden moved to examine her. "The blood—is it yours?"
Xavier stepped closer, his expression grave. "Amiriah, let us help you."
But she ignored them all, walking past without acknowledgment, following Lenna directly to the tech room. The family exchanged bewildered glances before trailing after the twins.
"What's happening?" Zuri whispered to Zari. "How is she with Lenna?"
"When did they reconnect?" Kario asked, confusion evident in his tone.
In the tech room, Lenna immediately began typing at multiple terminals, her fingers flying across keyboards as holographic displays illuminated the space. She held a phone to her ear, barking orders about scanning the city for darkness wolves.
Behind her, Amiriah paced like a caged predator, her body language a disturbing mixture of aggression and terror. Every few minutes, she would stop and ask Lenna if there was any news, her voice increasingly desperate.
"Anything yet? Have they found anything?" she demanded, her hands trembling visibly. "They have to be somewhere. They can't just disappear."
The family watched from the doorway, stunned by the dramatic change in their long-lost daughter and sister. Gone was the cold, controlled woman who had fled the mansion a month ago. This Amiriah was fracturing before their eyes, barely holding herself together.
"Lenna," Amara began cautiously, "what's happening? Why is Amiriah..."
Xavier cut her off, his analytical mind focusing on the practical question. "Why are you looking for darkness wolves when you can simply create more?" he asked Amiriah directly. "Your power has always been creating shadows, not finding them."
The room fell silent at his logical query. All eyes turned to Amiriah, whose pacing abruptly stopped. Her expression shifted from desperate to something harder, more defensive.
"Because it is something very important to me," she said, her voice thick with emotion that she seemed barely able to contain. Her hand unconsciously drifted to her stomach, a protective gesture that didn't go unnoticed by the more observant family members.
Without another word, she turned and stalked from the room, her darkness trailing behind her like a living cloak.
As soon as she was gone, the family turned to Lenna for answers.
"What is going on?" Hayden demanded. "Why did you bring her here without telling us? And what are these wolves she's looking for?"
Lenna didn't look up from her screens. "Amiriah is on the edge of losing herself completely," she said, her fingers never pausing in their work. "If we don't find those wolves, she told me herself that 'nothing else matters. Not the family. Not herself. Nothing.'"
She finally turned to face them, her expression grave. "Whatever those wolves have, it wasn't just important to her. It was her everything. Her reason for surviving the horrors she endured. Her reason for living."
The family absorbed this in stunned silence.
Amara was the first to speak, her voice breaking. "What could be so precious to her?"
"A person or something else" Hayden said suddenly, his analytical mind connecting the dots. But Tara and Amara took a second thought about Amiriah hand gesture to her stomach was an maternal gesture.
Zuri and Zari exchanged knowing glances. "We were thinking the same thing," Zuri admitted.
Kario paled. "If Dr. Johns found her safe house, and she's this desperate to find these wolves..."
"Then whatever she might be looking for might be in danger," Lenna finished, turning back to her screens with renewed urgency. "Or worse, already taken."
In the guest bathroom, Amiriah had created a sound barrier of darkness, preventing anyone from hearing her breakdown. Again and again, she tried to see through the wolves' eyes, to connect with the shadows she had created to protect Lani. Nothing worked.
Pain and rage overwhelmed her. With a primal scream, she slammed her fist into the mirror, shattering it into glittering shards that sliced her knuckles open.
"Lani," she whispered, her voice shaking uncontrollably. "You can't leave me here all alone in this dark world with no light."
The pain in her chest was physical, radiating outward from her heart to her stomach. It felt as if part of her soul had been torn away.
A soft knock at the door interrupted her spiraling thoughts. Hastily wiping her tears and attempting to compose herself, she opened it to find Amara standing there, concern etched deeply in her face.
"Are you okay?" her mother asked softly, eyes taking in the shattered mirror and Amiriah's bleeding hand.
Amiriah nodded stiffly and pushed past her, heading back to the tech room where Lenna was coordinating the search. The look on her twin's face when she entered told her everything she needed to know.
"Nothing yet," Lenna said, frustration evident in her voice. "We've got teams scanning every shadow in S City, magical detectors calibrated to your darkness signature, even psychics trying to sense them."
"Why can't they find anything?" Amiriah asked, her hand trembling slightly as she braced herself against a desk. "They have to be somewhere. They couldn't have just... disappeared."
As she spoke, the family noticed her darkness beginning to behave strangely. Instead of responding to her conscious control, it seemed to be acting independently, tendrils creeping up the walls and across the floor, pulsing with an unnatural hunger.
"Her control is slipping," Xavier murmured to Hayden. "If she continues like this..."
Hayden nodded grimly. "The darkness will consume her from within. We need to stabilize her, at least temporarily."
They exchanged a look of silent understanding. With a subtle gesture from Xavier, Zuri and Zari moved to flank Amiriah while Kario retrieved a special syringe from a hidden compartment in the tech room.
"I'm sorry, Riri," Amara whispered as Hayden and Xavier suddenly restrained her from behind.
Amiriah fought wildly, her darkness exploding outward in jagged spikes, but the family had prepared for this. Kario injected the sedative into her neck with practiced precision, and within seconds, her struggles weakened. The last thing she saw before unconsciousness claimed her was Lenna's anguished face, mouthing "I'm sorry."
They laid her in her old bedroom, the space now secured with specialized wards designed to contain shadow magic. For nearly a day, Amiriah remained unconscious while the family continued the search for the mysterious wolves.
When she finally stirred, her eyes held a vacant blankness that frightened them more than her previous panic. It was as if she had already given up, already let go of everything that anchored her to this world.
That night, her screams echoed through the mansion, heart-wrenching cries that chilled them to the bone.
"IT'S MINE! YOU CAN'T TAKE IT! IT BELONGS TO ME! IT'S PRECIOUS TO ME!"
She thrashed in her sleep, darkness leaking from her pores, spreading across the room like living ink. The family retreated to the far wing of the mansion, unable to bear her anguish but equally unable to help.
As dawn approached, a new sound pierced the quiet—deep, chilling roars from outside the mansion grounds. Lenna rushed to the security monitors, her breath catching as she saw them: two massive wolves made entirely of darkness, prowling at the edge of the property barrier, their eyes glowing with unearthly light.
"Turn off the barrier!" she shouted to her father, who had joined her at the monitors. "Now! Amiriah needs them!"
Xavier hesitated only briefly before disabling the protective field that surrounded the mansion. The moment the barrier fell, the wolves surged forward with terrifying speed, rushing past the startled family members who had gathered in the foyer.
The temperature seemed to drop as they passed, leaving behind a chilling, oppressive feeling—as if they had momentarily gazed into an abyss. One wolf positioned itself at Amiriah's bedroom door, growling at anyone who approached, while the other disappeared inside.
"What are they doing?" Amara asked, clutching Xavier's arm. "What if they hurt her?"
"They're her creation," Lenna replied, though uncertainty tinged her voice. "They must be bringing her what she lost."
Inside the bedroom, the second wolf had merged with the darkness already filling the room, creating a swirling vortex that enveloped Amiriah completely. She opened her eyes within this shadow dimension, immediately scrambling to her feet.
"Lani!" she called desperately, searching the endless void. "LANI!"
She ran through the darkness, following instinct more than sight, terror mounting with each passing moment. What if she was too late? What if the darkness had consumed her child? What if Dr. Johns had found her first?
Then, in the distance, she saw a small form lying motionless on what appeared to be a floor of shadows. Her heart nearly stopped as she sprinted toward it.
Lani lay unnaturally still, her small body cold to the touch, her hands covered in a strange purple substance that seemed to pulse with its own light. It was eating at her skin, consuming her slowly from the outside in.
"No, no, no," Amiriah gasped, gathering her daughter into her arms. "Lani! Baby, wake up!"
The child didn't respond, her normally warm brown eyes closed, her chest not moving at all. Seeing these it felt like It made Amiriah feel like she was stabbed in the chest, heart and stomach all at once
Amiriah didn't hesitate. With Lani clutched protectively to her chest, she commanded the darkness to release them, running from the bedroom the moment they materialized. She sprinted to the nearest bathroom, kicking the door shut.
Through the crack in the door, the family glimpsed Amiriah's frantic movements in the bedroom running in the the bath room. They couldn't clearly see what—or who—she was holding, but the careful, desperate way she cradled the bundle spoke volumes.
"What is it ?" Amara whispered
"What ever it is she's trying to save it," Hayden observed, her panicked actions as she ran into the bathroom.
Inside the bathroom, Amiriah laid Lani gently in the tub, turning on the shower to wash away the purple substance that was consuming her daughter's life force. As the water hit the strange material, it hissed and steamed, releasing a noxious odor.
"Stay with me, treasure," Amiriah pleaded, washing Lani's small hands and arms where the substance had made contact. "Stay with Mama. Don't leave me."
The purple matter seemed to fight back, clinging stubbornly to Lani's skin. In desperation, Amiriah called upon her darkness—not the wild, destructive force it had become in her panic, but the controlled, protective power she had developed to keep her daughter safe.
Tendrils of shadow wrapped around Lani's affected limbs, drawing the foreign substance into themselves, absorbing it completely. Amiriah gasped in pain as the purple matter transferred to her own darkness, burning like acid, but she didn't stop until every trace was gone from her daughter's body.
Lani remained unconscious, but her skin began to warm under Amiriah's touch, her breathing growing stronger.
"That's it," Amiriah encouraged, tears of relief streaming down her face. "Come back to me, my light."
Outside the bathroom, the family stood in stunned silence, trying to process what little they could see.
"Whatever it was she had has a strong control on her" Xavier said, his voice hollow with the implications.
"That's why she ran," Zuri and Zari realized that night when they kidnapped her.
"Whatever it is it brings her peace and safety"Zari said
Kario looked stricken.
Lenna stepped forward, determination in her eyes. "We need to give her space now."