Hurts so good

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR|| MILO

"Where the hell is she?" Cassius's eyes flare, ready to unleash the pent-up anger he's been building up for weeks. The door slams behind him as he marches up to the woman who's been like a second mother to him ever since he lost his. 

Aunt Joyce looks up from her computer and sighs, taking off her glasses and placing them on the desk in front of her. "Hello boys," she says and stands, walking toward us. Her eyes land on Cassius. 

"I suggest you check that tone, Cassy." Despite her almost deadly warning, she pulls him into a tight hug, and for all his anger, Cassius melts into her hug and squeezes her. 

There's only so much that can calm Cassius's anger but she hugs like Amaris. She hugs me next and if I close my eyes, she feels like her too. Her skin is soft like hers and their curly hair smells the same; like coconuts and shea butter. 

She lets go and I miss her touch. For a split second, I forget that it's not Amaris and I want to pull her back. She steps in front of Aiden and she sees something in his eyes. He looks down and she tilts his head up to look into his eyes. Aiden hasn't spoken since Amaris left apart from the orders he barks out for the security team to find out where she is. He blames himself the most for what we did. 

"I'm sorry," Aiden says looking into beautiful brown eyes eerily similar to Amaris's. Aunt Joyce frowns for a moment before realization sets in and she pulls him into a hug. "Me too," she says quietly before pulling away. 

We look at her confused and before I can ask her what it is that she's sorry for, she clears her throat. "I'm sorry about what Amaris did. I'm sorry she hurt you." 

"She told you?" Cassius asks.

Aunt Joyce looks at him with an expression that looks like remorse. "No, but I can see it in your eyes."

She leads us all to sit on the couch in her office before sitting on the coffee table directly in front of us. She takes a deep breath as if to ease her nerves and exhales. "Do you know why Amaris did what she did? do you understand it?" she asks cautiously. 

"Dissociative identity disorder. It's usually a reaction to trauma as a way to help a person avoid bad memories." I recite the words Amaris used to describe it to us. "Amaris created the grim reaper because she's unable to control her emotions. I don't think she ever learned how. When she experiences extreme negative emotions, the grim reaper takes over and acts as a shield." I say, thinking back to when she found out what we did and imagining how painful that must've been for her. We hurt her. 

"Yes. That's my fault." Aunt Joyce says, bringing me out of my thoughts. She looks down and fiddles with her fingers in shame. 

"Your fault?" Aiden asks, frowning at her statement. "How?"

She looks up and her eyes go vacant as if she's lost in a memory. "After her parents died I wasn't sure how to comfort her. Her reaction was... unusual. Tears ran down her cheeks but she didn't cry. It was like as she was feeling her emotions, something was sucking them away. It was like she was just numb." 

"Amaris developed her reaper personality as a child?" I asked, confused.  "Amaris never showed any signs of having an alter until after she started killing." 

Cassius scoots out further in the chair, leaning closer to aunt Joyce. "Are you saying it wasn't created for killing?" 

"Yes. She uses the alter personality as a tool to help her dissociate when killing now but It was created to take the pain of her parent's death away. Doctors suggested that she see a therapist but I refused. I couldn't take away her pain but her alter personality could. I thought I was helping her but in reality, I just let her create a part of herself she couldn't control." Aunt Joyce gets up from the coffee table and walks over to her desk. She pulls out a folder and cuts the red seal to open it.