Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 130

Chapter 130

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Camila was startled too, though for a slightly different reason. Meadow should not have been speaking outside the structure Camila set

for her. Not like this. Not if things were unfolding normally. But nothing about this session was normal. Camila hid her confusion and

stayed with the process.

“Why don’t you want to open the door, Meadow?”

No answer.

Only tension.

“I need you to open the door and let Nightshade through.

wolf to me.”

Camila made her tone firmer then and snapped her fingers to reinforce the instruction.

“No,” Meadow croaked.

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The sound was weak this time. Rougher. Stranger. But still unmistakably vocal. Camila knew then with complete certainty that this was

not a simple mutism case. Whoever did this had worked on her thoroughly. Carefully. Layer by layer.

“If you do not open that door, I will.”

The threat broke something open at once.

Meadow started sobbing.

Not gracefully. Not silently. It was immediate and childlike and terrible to see. She brought her palms over her ears and shook her head

with her eyes clamped shut, crying as though the sound of Camila’s voice itself had become unbearable. Then the words came from her

again, but wrong somehow, Younger, Broken.

“Did not see, did not hear, must not speak.”

She repeated it.

Again.

And again.

A mantra.

A command.

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Chapter 130

A prison.

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The little girl in those words was impossible to miss. Meadow had not only resisted. She had reverted. Slid backward into the original state imposed on her. Camila felt alarm rise for the first time in a way she could not fully hide. Whoever laid this compulsion on Meadow had done it with horrifying precision. Blind, deaf, dumb. It was all there in the command. If Camila pushed too hard now, she risked

locking Meadow back down into something far worse than what they came to solve.

She decided to wake her.

“I will count to three and snap my hands, Meadow. The moment I do that, I want you to wake up.”

But Meadow kept sobbing and repeating.

“Did not see,

did not hear, must not speak.”

Ethan sat frozen in shock.

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He barely heard the room anymore. All he could hear was his wife’s voice saying those words. His wife’s voice. It battered through him

worse than the sobbing did. She could speak. She could. Something had happened to make her fear speaking so deeply that her entire

body fought against it. What kind of horror did that to a child? What kind of mind locked another mind down that way?

Camila began.

“One, two…”

“Continue.”

Ethan’s voice cut through sharply.

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He wanted more. Even if it hurt. Even if it was ugly. Even if Meadow cried harder for it. He wanted a clue. Any clue. Something he could

use. Something he could hate properly. Something he could hunt.

Camila shook her head.

This was Meadow’s first session. She would not push further than she judged safe.

“We will try again tomorrow.”

Ethan stared at her a second, then forced himself to yield. He did not like it. He did not like stopping there when something had finally

cracked open. But she was the expert. Not him. And Meadow was not a battlefield he could command through force.

Camila started again.

“One, two…”

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12:03 Wed, Jun 17

Chapter 130

Meadow sat up with a gasp.

Her eyes were pure purple.

Nightshade.

Ethan knew it instantly.

Then she spoke again, but this time the presence behind the words felt different. Stronger. More urgent. More wolf than frightened girl.

“He told us not to speak.”

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The words came out before she gasped for air and fell back against the couch, eyes shutting again.

Camila was so shocked she nearly missed her own ending.

“Three.”

She snapped her fingers.

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Meadow opened her eyes.

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Normal again. Confused. Breathing hard. Clearly with no idea what had just happened. Ethan and Camila just stared at her in equal shock,

though Camila’s shock was threaded through with professional exhilaration. Ethan linked her immediately.

“What just happened?”

Camila linked back at once, barely containing herself.

“Her wolf opened the door last minute.”

Ethan frowned, still trying to keep up with what that meant.

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