Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 199

Chapter 199

Joseph walked around the hospital premises like a man who had forgotten where he was going. He passed the same doors more than once. He crossed the same hallway, turned back, and found himself outside again without remembering when his feet had taken him there. The air outside the hospital felt too cold against his skin, but inside felt too tight, too bright, too full of people who were alive and breathing and moving as if the whole world had not just broken open in front of him.

He tried everything he could to get his shit together. He clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth like that would stop the shaking in his chest. He told himself he was Alpha right now, whether he wanted it or not. He told himself people were watching. He told himself Ethan was not there, their mother was unconscious, Levi and Ashley were injured, Whitewood had been taken on paper, and if he fell apart, everything would look even worse. He told

himself all of it, but none of it stayed in place.

How could everything crumble in a day?

That question kept moving around his head until it became almost physical. One day. Just one day. In the morning, he still had a pack. He still had a mother who scolded and interfered and planned things no one asked her to plan. He still had Ethan far away, recovering after surgery, and even if everything had been fragile, there had been hope. Real hope. Ethan was getting fixed. Ethan might return to them whole. They might finally correct one of the worst wrongs that had ever been done to their family.

And then everything else fell apart.

Joseph pressed his hand against his mouth and stopped near the outer wall of the hospital. His vision blurred. He blinked hard, but it did not help. He remembered the signs now. They had been there. They had not been hidden as well as he had wanted to believe. His mother’s paleness. The coughs that came at odd moments and were quickly waved off. The fatigue she always disguised with sharp words or some unnecessary argument. The way she had started moving slower without admitting it. The way she was not the tardy type, but she had started coming late. The way she was less active, less present, less fierce in the effortless way that had

always made Amber feel untouchable.

Her hospital visits had been constant too. Too constant. He had noticed them, but he had not noticed them properly. There was a difference. He knew she came to the hospital often, but because she always had a reason and because Dr Rosenberg was family enough to make it seem normal, Joseph had never pressed. He had never cornered her. He had never demanded the truth with the

same force he used on other people.

He should have seen it.

That thought landed hard, again and again, until he almost hated himself, He wondered why he never noticed it. Was he that blind? Was he too busy being angry, too busy handling pack matters, too busy worrying over Ethan, too busy dealing with Ashley and the mess of his own life? Or had his mother just been that good at hiding the parts of herself that were breaking? Maybe it was both. Maybe everyone in that family had been too used to Amber being strong that they forgot strong people could still bleed quietly. They forgot strong people could cough behind closed doors. They forgot strong people could sit alone in hospital rooms and pretend

they were only doing routine check-ups.

“I guess we believed she was too strong to break,” Rex, his wolf, said.

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Chapter 199

Joseph growled under his breath because he did not want reason. He did not want truth dressed in calm words. He did not want Rex

sounding sad inside him like that made anything better. Tears streamed down his face, hot and humiliating and unstoppable. He

wiped them away roughly, but more came. He looked away from the windows, away from the nurses crossing from one building to

another, away from the people who might see him and whisper later that the acting Alpha had cried in the hospital premises like a

pup who had lost his way. He did not care. He cared too much. Both feelings lived inside him at once, sharp and ugly.

He did not want to lose the only parent he had left. That was the thought that undid him completely. Their father was gone. Ethan

had been half-stolen from them for seven years. Their family had survived by holding itself together with pride, denial, anger, duty.

and Amber’s iron hands. She had been mother, Luna, storm, shield, and problem all at once. She could be controlling. She could be

impossible. She could push too hard and interfere too much and decide she knew what was best even when she was wrong. But she was his mother. She was still the one who had carried him. The one who had scolded him. The one who had looked at him like be

was still a child whenever he tried to pretend he was not hurting.

He was not ready to lose her.

He realised why she had been so desperate about grandchildren. The understanding hurt in a way he had not expected. At first, it had annoyed him. Her constant talk of heirs, of legacy, of needing the family line secured. Her desperate push for Ethan and Meadow. The way she had gone to get Meadow for Ethan, not caring how messy it was, not caring how it would look, because she wanted Ethan to have something before time ran out. Joseph had judged her for it in his mind. He had thought she was being Amber again, forceful and meddling and obsessed with what she wanted.

Now he saw something else beneath it. She had been trying to see most of it before she left them. The thought broke something soft and deep in him. She wanted to see Ethan loved. She wanted to see the family continue. She wanted to hold grandchildren, or at least know they were coming. She wanted to feel as if the McClouds would not end in broken men, poisoned history, and empty rooms. She had been running out of time and never said a word.

Joseph’s tears fell freely then. He stopped fighting them because there was no point. His chest hurt from holding back, and he did not know how to tell Ethan. Ethan had just finished surgery. Ethan had just survived something that might restore his legs, his wolf, his life. How could Joseph call him and say their mother was in a coma? How could he tell him she had been dying quietly while all of them missed it? How could he place that weight on Ethan when Ethan could not even stand yet?

But how could he keep it from him?

That question was worse. Joseph roamed the place for almost three hours. Three hours of walking until his legs ached and his mind became no clearer. Three hours of trying to get a grip on himself before returning to the hospital to check on Amber. He did not want to go back to her room looking shattered. He did not want Dr Rosenberg to see how badly the truth had cut him. He did not want Brian or any warrior to watch him struggle to breathe. He did not want anyone to think he could not handle it.

But he was not handling it. Not really.

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Underwater: The Silent Luna