Amiriah pov
I stepped out of the bathroom, leaving Lani happily splashing in the tub with her rubber ducks and bubbles. "Don't sink them all while I'm gone, treasure," I called over my shoulder, earning a giggle in response.
My phone sat on the bedside table where I'd left it, Jackson's number still pulled up from earlier. I hesitated only a moment before pressing call. If anyone could find information about my missing year, it would be him.
"Yo, Mira," he answered on the third ring, his casual tone a stark contrast to the tension coiled in my shoulders.
"Did you find anything in other cities about during the time I was missing?" I asked without preamble, pacing the length of the room.
A pause. "No, there's nothing about you anywhere in the world. I've tried everything—security footage, financial records, medical databases. It's like you just vanished completely."
Frustration crawled under my skin. "That's impossible. I had to be somewhere for almost a year."
"I know, but wherever you were, someone went to extraordinary lengths to erase all evidence. This isn't just good hacking or record manipulation—this is professional-level erasure."
I thanked Jackson and hung up, my gaze landing on the business card sitting on the dresser. Kaison Monroe. The man from the hallway, the one who claimed to know me, who kissed me with such familiarity that my body had responded before my mind could intervene.
My fingers reached for the card almost of their own volition. Could he be the key to my missing memories? Or was he just another threat, another manipulation in the endless series that had defined my life?
The rational part of me screamed danger. Trust no one. Especially not a stranger with blue flame eyes who appeared out of nowhere claiming a shared past.
But something else—something deeper, more instinctual—pulled me toward the number on the card. If the hospital had truly wiped my memories, if I had been missing for nearly a year as Jackson confirmed, then perhaps this man did know something. Perhaps he wasn't lying.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I dialed the number.
One ring. Two. Three. I was about to hang up when a deep voice answered.
"Hello, Mira. You finally called."
The familiar way he said that name—not Amiriah, but Mira—sent an inexplicable shiver down my spine.
"Don't call me that," I responded, my voice sharper than intended. "Call me Amiriah, sir."
A low chuckle resonated through the phone, rich and somehow familiar despite my inability to place it in my memories. "Calling me 'sir' hurts. How about you call me Kaison?"
I rolled my eyes despite being alone in the room. "Fine, Kaison. So let's say what you're saying is true—how do I know you're not the one who erased my memories? How can I trust you... Kaison?"
"You can trust me, Amiriah," he replied, his voice softening. "I would never try or do anything that would cause you harm."
"How do I not know that you might be working with your cousin Cole?" I challenged, recalling the name Jackson had mentioned in connection to Greystone Hospital.
His tone changed immediately, a dangerous edge entering his voice. "I'm not like that piece of shit of a cousin. I promise you, I will gain your trust, Amiriah, no matter how long it takes."
Something about the vehemence in his voice gave me pause, silencing my next retort.
Taking advantage of my momentary quiet, he continued in a lower, more intimate tone: "I'll make sure you remember me the way your body does."
My heart rate spiked suddenly, a flush creeping up my neck at the implication of his words and the memory of how my body had instinctively responded to his kiss. No one had affected me like that since...
Since when? Another blank space where a memory should be.
"Goodbye, Kaison. I have to go," I said abruptly, hanging up before he could respond.
I set the phone down, my hand trembling slightly. What kind of control did this man have over me? How could a stranger's voice elicit such a visceral reaction? Unless he wasn't a stranger at all, and my body remembered what my mind could not.
Shaking off the disturbing thoughts, I returned to the bathroom where Lani was still playing, oblivious to my inner turmoil.
"Are you ready to get out, treasure? The water's getting cold," I said, reaching for a towel.
She nodded, raising her arms to be lifted. As I picked her up and wrapped her in the fluffy towel, I noticed it again—that strange sweet, flowery odor emanating from her skin. It wasn't the bubble bath; this scent was different, more potent, with an underlying sharpness that reminded me of my own darkness.
I'd first noticed it a few days ago, dismissing it as a new soap or shampoo. But it had grown stronger, and now I realized it was clinging to me as well, transferring from her skin to mine whenever we touched, refusing to wash off.
Carrying her to the bed, I dressed her in soft pajamas and combed her damp curls, all while my mind raced with possibilities, none of them comforting.
"Story time?" she asked hopefully, already reaching for her favorite book.
"Not tonight, treasure. Mama's tired. Let's just go straight to sleep, okay?"
She pouted a bit but settled down without argument, another sign that something wasn't quite right—Lani never gave up story time without a fight.
I sang softly until her eyelids grew heavy and finally closed, her breathing evening out into the rhythm of deep sleep. Only then did I carefully scan her with my darkness, sending tendrils of shadow across her small form, searching for injuries or illness that might explain the strange odor.
Nothing. No fever, no wounds, no physical abnormalities of any kind. Yet the scent was undeniably stronger now, and as I watched, something happened that turned my blood to ice.
A faint mist rose from Lani's skin as she slept—pink, purple, and black wisps that intertwined and danced above her before dissipating into the air. It looked disturbingly like my own darkness, but with a different quality to it—more fluid, more poisonous.
A terrible realization dawned on me. These weren't symptoms of illness. These were manifestations of power—specifically, darkness poison manipulation, one of the rarest and most dangerous abilities, third only to my own darkness manipulation in terms of destructive potential.
My baby, my innocent Lani, was developing powers. At barely four years old, when most children with magical abilities didn't manifest until at least age Thirteen.
Panic clawed at my throat. If anyone discovered this—my family, the magical authorities, the people who had experimented on me at Greystone—they would take her. Study her. Try to weaponize her, just as they had tried with me.
I couldn't let that happen. I wouldn't.
Carefully, I used my darkness to contain the poisonous mist emanating from her, absorbing it into my own shadows where it couldn't be detected. I would need to teach her control, and quickly, before the manifestations became too powerful to hide.
But how did she develop this power? Darkness manipulation was an ability forced on me at the lab. That curse that hunted me until I gained control of it. The Spellman family line of magic was Dark Shadow and Dark Matter manipulation.
Unless... unless was she cursed with darkness while I was pregnant with her at that Hospital. I know that the Darkness marked me with a rune on my side the night of that fire.
I shook my head, frustrated by the fragmented pieces that refused to form a coherent picture. Too many questions, too few answers.
For now, I needed to focus on the immediate concern: helping Lani control these emerging powers before they betrayed her presence to those who might wish to exploit her.
"I'll protect you," I whispered, gently stroking her cheek as more tendrils of pink-purple darkness rose from her skin. "No one will do to you what they did to me. I promise."
But even as I made this vow, a chill ran through me. If Lani's powers were manifesting this early, this powerfully, there must be a reason. Something had triggered them, accelerated their development far beyond the normal timeline.
Was it the strange purple corruption that had nearly consumed her when the darkness wolves had brought her back to me? Or was it something else—something genetic, passed down from a father whose identity remained locked in the blank spaces of my memory?
Whatever the cause, one thing was certain: I couldn't hide Lani forever. Sooner or later, her powers would grow too strong to conceal, even with my darkness supporting her. Sooner or later, I would have to make a decision—continue running and hiding, or find allies who could help us both understand and control the darkness within us.
The thought of trusting anyone with this secret was terrifying. But as I watched more poisonous mist rise from my sleeping daughter's form, I wondered if I would have a choice.