FIFTY NINE

FIFTY NINE
DARRAGH’S POV
The world tilted.
That was the only way I could explain it. One moment, I was walking into the room with Eamon, my mind still heavy from everything that had happened, and the next—there she was.
Sara.
On my father's ward bed. His hand wrapped around her waist like he owned her. Like she belonged to him.
My stomach turned inside out. The air left my lungs in one sharp exhale.
She scrambled away from him so fast she nearly tripped over her own feet. Her face went white. Guilty white. The kind of white that screamed everything I didn't want to know.
"It's not what it looks like," she said.
Those words. Those fucking words that everyone said when it was exactly what it looked like.
I turned and walked out. My legs moved without my permission, carrying me down the hallway like I was sleepwalking. The stone walls blurred past me. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, drowning out everything else.
Behind me, I heard Eamon's voice. "Sara, don't—"
"No, I have to explain." Her footsteps echoed after mine, quick and desperate. "Darragh, please."
I kept walking. Faster now. I needed air. I needed space. I needed to get away from whatever the hell I'd just witnessed.
"Darragh, stop!"
Her voice cracked on my name, but I didn't slow down. I couldn't. Every step I took away from that room felt like trying to outrun poison that was already in my bloodstream.
She caught up to me in the main corridor, her breathing ragged. "You have to hear me out. You have to let me explain."
I spun around so fast she stumbled backward. "Explain what?" My voice came out rougher than I intended. "Explain why you were in my father's bed first thing in the morning? Explain why his hands were all over you?"
"It's not like that—"
"Oh my God." The words fell out of me like a prayer or a curse. I pressed my palms against my temples, trying to stop the images from replaying in my mind. "How could I have been so blind?"
Sara's face crumpled. "Darragh—"
"You have a thing with my father?" The question tasted like bile. "Is that what this is? Is that what's been happening this whole time?"
"No!" She stepped toward me, her hands reaching out like she wanted to touch me. I jerked back. "No, it's not like that at all."
"Then what is it like, Sara? Because from where I was standing, it looked pretty fucking clear."
Tears started pooling in her eyes, but I was past caring. The betrayal sat in my chest like a stone, heavy and sharp and impossible to ignore.
"Your father is a creep," she said, her voice shaking. "He's been propositioning me for sex, saying weird things about how he would divorce your mother and—"
"I don't believe you." The words came out flat and final. "If that was true, if he was harassing you, you could have come to me. You should have come to me."
"I wanted to protect you!"
"Protect me?Potect me from what?!" I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "By getting cozy with him instead? By letting him put his hands on you?"
"I wasn't letting him do anything." Her voice broke. "All I wanted was to protect you from having to deal with this. From having to choose between believing me or believing him."
I stared at her. Really looked at her. The girl I'd grown up with. The girl I'd trusted more than anyone else in this world. The girl who'd just been in my father's arms.
"You're lying," I said quietly. "You're standing there lying to my face. In what world would I have picked my father…"
"I'm not— You are doing it right now. You are picking his side."
“No, No I am not. I am angry, Sara. I am angry for my mother!”
Sara choked. “That is why I am doing this. I am doing this for you and Luna Dayo.”
Hearing her say that, sicked me to my core. "Stay the hell away from me."
The words hit her like a physical blow. She actually staggered backward, her hand flying to her chest. "Darragh, please. You know me. You know I would never—"
"I thought I knew you." I turned away from her again. "Clearly I was wrong."
"Where are you going?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My throat felt like it was closing up.
She followed me anyway. Of course she did. Completely out of the healer’s quarters. Down the corridor, past the great hall, out into the courtyard where the morning air bit at my skin. The sun was higher now, casting everything in harsh, unforgiving light.
"Darragh, stop running away from me."
I whirled around. "Running away? You want to talk about running away? You are doing it right now! Dodging accountability! How long has this been going on, Sara? How long have you been sneaking around with him?"
"I haven't been sneaking around with anyone!"
"Then why were you there? Why were you in his ward, in his bed, letting him touch you like that?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Opened it again. "I can't tell you."
"You can't tell me." I repeated her words slowly, letting them sink in. "Right. Of course you can't."
"It's not what you think—"
"I don't care what I think anymore." The truth of it surprised me. I really didn't care. I was too tired to care. Too hurt to keep trying to make sense of it. "You know what? Maybe you should leave Moonveil."
Her face went white again. Whiter than before. "What?"
"You heard me. Maybe it's time for you to go somewhere else. Find a new pack. Start fresh."
"You don't mean that. Moonveil is my home!"
"Don't I?" I stepped closer to her, close enough to see the tears spilling down her cheeks. "Because I'm thinking if you don't leave on your own, I might have to make it uncomfortable enough that you want to."
"You would never do that to me." Her voice was barely a whisper. "You would never humiliate me like that."
I wanted to tell her she was right. I wanted to take it back, to pull her into my arms and pretend I'd never walked into that room. But the image of her on my father's bed wouldn't leave my head.
I always did wonder why mother just decided to pack her things one morning after years of sticking by father’s side. Could this have been it?
Considering it hardened my heart and the next words that came out were much cruel than the last.
"You don't know what I'd do anymore," I said instead. "Clearly we don't know each other as well as we thought we did."
"Darragh—"
"After your grandfather’s funeral and the academy, leave this pack. From henceforth, you're dead to me, Saraphina Maychild."
The words came out calm and cold, and I meant every single one of them. They hung in the air between us like a death sentence.
She broke.
I watched it happen. Watched her face crumble, watched her shoulders shake, watched the tears she'd been holding back finally overflow. She pressed her hands to her mouth, but the sobs came anyway. Broken, desperate sounds that cut through me like glass.
Part of me wanted to comfort her. The part that remembered growing up together, sharing secrets under the old oak tree behind the pack house. But that part felt very far away now.
"I never wanted to hurt you," she whispered through her tears. "I never wanted any of this."
"But you did hurt me." I turned my back on her one final time. "And now we both have to live with it."
I walked away and didn't look back, even when her crying got louder, even when I heard her call my name one more time. I kept walking until I couldn't hear her anymore, until the only sound was my own footsteps on the stone path.