Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 108

Chapter 108

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96

The four of them settled into conversation after that. It was a good kind of evening. Easy. No tension. No pack politics breathing down their necks. No Amber hovering. No staff rushing around in the background of every little moment. Just company. Warmth. Familiarity. Ethan acted as interpreter for Meadow with an attentiveness that felt natural now. There was no irritation in it. No sense of obligation. He watched her hands, listened with his eyes, and gave her back to the room in words when needed. Meadow noticed it too. The ease with which he did it. The patience. It made her feel less alone inside other people’s conversations.

What surprised Ethan more was Elaine.

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Elaine had been trying. Really trying. It showed in the way she watched Meadow’s signs, in the way she attempted little things, in the careful attention she gave even when she did not fully understand. Somewhere in the conversation Ethan learned why. Elaine was taking online sign language classes. The knowledge caught him off guard in a way that stayed with him. He looked from Elaine to Meadow and back again, and something softened in him all over again.

Maybe being Luna would not be as difficult for Meadow as he had feared.

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He had worried about that. More than once. Even when he had not wanted to admit it. Whitewood could be harsh, and leadership came with demands. Conversation. Presence. Public scrutiny. Meadow’s muteness had made too many people underestimate her already. It had made others pity her in ways that irritated him even when he was still pretending not to care. But sitting there now, watching Elaine

make the effort to learn, watching Meadow respond with shy gratitude, Ethan realised Meadow would not be as alone in it as he once thought. People could meet her halfway. They could choose to. And if enough of them did, then maybe she could step into that place

without being swallowed by it.

That thought gave him more peace than he expected.

Keith shifted the conversation then, telling Ethan the two small cabins had been prepared for the therapist and her medical staff. Ethan

listened carefully. Normally he might have reacted with guarded reluctance. Therapy meant work. Pain too. Frustration. The constant

reminder of what had been lost and what might never fully return. But tonight the mention did not sit heavily in him the way it once

would have.

Now he felt hopeful.

Genuinely hopeful.

If Echo could stir, if sensation could return even faintly, if something in him was beginning to wake, then maybe the sessions would not

just be another routine to endure. Maybe they could lead somewhere. Maybe the work would matter in a way he had nearly stopped

believing. He found himself impatient in a different way now. Wanting to begin, Wanting to see what else might come back. Wanting

proof. Wanting more.

The evening at the cabin stayed warm.

But back at the mansion, things were not warm at all,

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12:00 Wed, Jun 17

Chapter 108

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Joseph sat at his desk with the kind of stillness that only came when his mind was working too hard. The room around him was quiet, but his thoughts were anything but. Alan Wilde was dead. Murdered before he could tell what he knew. Murdered on the way to speak about what he saw regarding Alpha Cain’s death. Joseph kept circling the same questions with no satisfying answer. How had it happened? Who got to him? How had they moved so cleanly that no useful witness remained? It was like watching a door close just as he reached it.

There had been no real breakthrough.

No eye witness left behind to explain how Wilde himself had been killed.

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12:00 Wed, Jun 17

Underwater: The Silent Luna