Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 145

Chapter 145

The drive felt endless. Too long. Every stretch of road gave her more time to think, and more time to think only made things worse. Her mind kept darting in all directions, looking for escape routes that were not there. At one point she thought of asking the driver to make a stop by her house. Just a quick stop, she would say. She had forgotten something. Needed to pick up a file: Needed medicine. Needed anything. Then maybe she could run. Maybe she could slip away through the back and vanish before anyone

stopped her.

But even that fantasy collapsed almost as soon as it formed.

Run where?

To what?

She had a husband. A home. A life rooted in the same world Ethan’s reach existed in. She could not vanish into thin air. She could not outrun whatever this was if it chose to come after her. The thought was childish and desperate, and she knew it. Still, the fact that her mind reached for it at all told her how trapped she felt.

There was nowhere she could run to.

Nowhere that felt truly safe.

She sat straighter then, trying to compose herself before they reached town. If she was going to do this, she needed to do it properly. Panic would not help her. Fear would not help Ethan. Fear would not help Meadow. So she swallowed as much of it as she could and tried to build some order in herself before stepping into the hospital.

When she arrived at the general hospital, the place felt ordinary in the way hospitals always did. Busy. Sterile. Full of movement that pretended everything in life could be measured and fixed if only the right hands, got hold of it. Usually that atmosphere soothed her. Usually it felt like familiar ground. Today it did not. Today it felt thin and exposed.

She did not go to Ethan’s previous doctor.

That had been a deliberate decision from the start.

If the problem originated there, or anywhere near there, then walking right back into that circle with questions would be foolish. So instead she sought out someone she trusted. Her friend, Dr James Pitsberge. If she had a father figure outside of home, it was him. Steady. Experienced. Protective in a quiet way. He would not panic. He would not gossip. And if anyone could look at scans and tell

her the truth plainly, it was James.

She poked her head into his office.

He looked up from behind his desk and smiled with mild surprise.

“Camila.”

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Chapter 145

His tone held easy amusement, the kind of warmth that made her feel almost worse because she had brought fear into his ordinary

morning.

“I am glad you are here, doctor.”

He smiled at first, then frowned. He had noticed her face. Not fully recovered from crying, then. Of course he noticed, He noticed

too much.

“Is everything okay?”

She nodded quickly.

“Just a little argument with Brad.”

1

The lie came easily because she needed it to. James was not a nosy man, which made lying to him feel worse somehow. He would accept the answer because he respected boundaries, and that respect made her feel disloyal. He had always looked out for her in his gentle way. He did not deserve deception. But she gave it anyway because truth felt too dangerous now to hand to anyone without

thinking three times first.

James told her to take it easy, and the kindness in it almost undid her again.

Instead she got straight to the point.

“When will the radiographers be available?”

That made him blink. Confusion crossed his face, then curiosity.

“What does a wolf therapist have to do with radiographers?”

“I have a patient I would like to scan. I think he might still have silver lodged in his body because his body is hostile for his wolf to

take over.”

That explanation was enough to make him understand the medical logic, but it only opened more questions for him.

“Why would your patient have silver in his spine?”

Camila hesitated, then gave the simplest version.

“He had an accident, doctor, and there was silver in it. Some shards lodged in his spine.”

James frowned more deeply now. Not because he doubted her, but because he knew enough to feel the wrongness immediately.

“That is unusual, Camila. Think about it. We have had patients brought here from accidents; some of them had silver bullets or grenades involved, and the shards never lodged in their spines. Maybe hit the flesh and stay buried in it, but it never got their

bones. The spine is too

specific.”

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Chapter 145

That sentence did something awful to her insides. Because she had thought it too, somewhere in the back of her mind, but hearing

it from someone like James made it feel sharper. More real. Less like anxious imagination and more like a problem solid enough to

touch.

“Do you have previous scan records of the patient?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Well, it would have been great if you could let me see it.”

Camila took out her phone immediately. She did not want to return empty-handed. She did not want to circle back later and lose time. So she called Keith, hoping Ethan had the medical reports and scan images saved somewhere in an email.

Keith picked up on the first ring, which told her he had probably been expecting her call.

“Good morning, Beta.”

He greeted her back.

“I would like to know if you have copies of Alpha’s medical result and scan image of his spine in an email. I have a doctor that

wants to review it.”

“Hold on, let me ask him.”

Back at the cabin, Keith took the request to Ethan, who sat with Meadow on the couch in the living room. Ethan and Meadow had kept Meadow’s progress to themselves. That made sense. Neither of them wanted the household knowing the therapy was working until they understood more clearly what they were dealing with. Camila understood that caution. She would have done the same.

Keith relayed the request. Ethan nodded and glanced toward the bedroom.

Meadow understood before he even said anything. She got up to fetch his tablet before he had to ask, sparing him the trouble of wheeling himself there. That small detail said more than people sometimes realised. Camila did not see it herself, but later, when she thought of the couple, she pictured things like that. The quiet care. The ease growing between them. The way Meadow had started moving around Ethan with instinctive softness.

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Underwater: The Silent Luna