27. Ava

AVA

T he Darkmoor campus was nearly deserted, a heavy silence hanging in the air as the last traces of daylight faded. Sunday evening meant most students were elsewhere, and that was exactly what we needed.

Fewer people meant less chance of getting caught.

I spotted Lisa waiting under the shadow of a large oak tree, her eyes scanning the quiet paths for any sign of movement.

I could still feel the weight of Aisling’s revelation pressing down on me, a dark cloud that threatened to pull me under.

The missing time, the bruises—it was all too much.

I swallowed hard, forcing the memories back into the dark corners of my mind where they belonged. Now wasn’t the time to fall apart.

Lisa’s eyes met mine as I approached. I knew she could sense something was off. But we didn’t have time to unpack it. There was too much at stake .

This was our only chance to do what we came here for, to get the answers we needed without getting caught.

So I did what I always did. I shoved the fear, the confusion, the pain back into the shadows. I pushed it all down, deep where it couldn’t reach me. Not now. Not tonight.

Tonight, we had to focus on the task at hand. There’d be time to fall apart later.

Slipping the key inside the lock, I whispered to Lisa, “You don’t have to stay, you know. I can tell them I stole it from you if I get caught.”

Lisa had a key to the Darkmoor Times office. It was a concession for our rogue, unfunded student newspaper. The college wouldn’t buy us printers of our own, but they would begrudgingly allow us to use the new state-of-the-art printers they had no problem buying for their favorite mouthpiece.

Lisa shook her head. “Ride or die, bish. Hurry up and open the door!”

I repressed the urge to hug my best friend in the whole wide world and fought back a wave of fear that I was dragging her with me headfirst into mortal danger.

If I lost Lisa, I’d be as fucked up as Aisling was.

Inside, the Darkmoor Times office was a mass of shadows as we tiptoed across the polished wood floors between the rows of dark wood desks.

Lisa switched on the old-fashioned brass banker’s lamp perched on the corner of the closest desk, casting a soft, amber glow around the office.

Tall bookshelves framed the walls, filled with stacked newspapers, files, and worn leather-bound books. Corkboards hung haphazardly, dotted with pinned articles, notes, and scribbles.

Lisa dragged another brown leather chair over so we could sit together.

I plugged my phone into the computer and opened up the photo I’d taken of Scáth on my phone.

Lisa snatched my phone out of my hand.

“Damn. That’s him?” Lisa asked, glancing rapidly between me and the photo.

I nodded.

Even when he was asleep, he was gorgeous. The sharp jawline. The pouty lips. Eyebrows dark and intense above eyes that seem lined with charcoal. The coiled power and darkness simmering even through the image.

Lisa let out a whistle. “No wonder you’re fucking your stalker.”

I grabbed the phone from her hand.

“Focus,” I grumbled, smiling nonetheless.

My hands trembled slightly as I opened up the facial recognition software linked to Ireland’s National Driver License Service.

I stared at the screen, my heart pounding in my chest. The image of his face peaceful, almost boyish in sleep, stared back at me from the photo I had just uploaded.

I wasn’t sure this would work, but it was the only lead I had. I had to try.

My finger hovered over the Search button for just a moment, my breath catching in my throat. What if knowing his real name changed everything?

I hit Search.

The seconds ticked by in agonizing silence, my pulse loud in my ears. And then his old driver’s license appeared, bold letters staring back at me on the screen.

Tynan Donahue.

I blinked, my mind scrambling to make sense of it. Tynan. I rolled the name over in my head, the syllables heavy on my tongue.

It felt so… familiar, like it belonged to a memory I couldn’t quite reach.

And then it hit me.

Ty. I used to call him Ty.

A cold shiver ran down my spine as the name clicked into place. Ty. My foster brother. The boy who used to be my friend, my protector.

I frowned. Didn’t Scáth—Ty—say something about not showing up in the system?

Then I realized that this picture of Ty I was staring at was at least five years old.

It must be an old license.

I clicked through the database but it seemed like this was the last record of Ty’s driver’s license.

Well, obviously Scáth— Ty —had scrubbed his most recent license record. But he forgot to scrub this old one.

But now I had his name and his birthdate.

My hands moved automatically as I opened the birth and death records register, searching for anything about Tynan and his family.

It didn’t take long.

I found his mother first: Mona Donahue . She died when Ty was just a boy.

I swallowed hard, a pang of empathy hitting me like a sharp twist in my chest. I knew that feeling. I knew what it was like to lose your parents, to be left behind, alone.

My own memories of my parents were faded, more like distant dreams than anything real.

The first clear memories I had were of that awful orphanage. Of being unwanted.

Scáth had lost his mother, too.

And then I found his father: Adam Donahue .

He’d died five years ago… when Scáth was seventeen.

Something about this made my stomach twist. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it made me uncomfortable, like there was something lurking just beyond the edges of my memory. I shook it off, trying to focus.

Next, I opened the Darkmoor Times ’ newspaper database. Expensive and comprehensive software, able to search through international archives, old databases, and sources that most people didn’t have access to.

I typed in Tynan Donahue and paused, my fingers hovering over the keys.

A strange warning feeling pulsed through me, like my gut was trying to tell me I wasn’t going to like what I found.

Maybe there was a good reason why Ty kept secrets. Maybe there was a reason he never told me his name.

I’d never been this close to the truth of who he was. And it terrified me, what I might find.

“You know,” Lisa said softly, “you don’t have to go through with it.”

I shook my head. “I need to know.”

I hit Search, the click of the mouse sounding like a gunshot in the deathly silent office, and braced myself for whatever was about to surface .

As the search bar spun, my stomach twisted into knots. Anxiety prickled up my spine, making my fingers tense on the keyboard.

It wasn’t too late to stop this. I could close the window, shut my laptop, and walk away from whatever dark truths were about to surface.

What if what I find changes how I feel about him?

The thought gripped me with icy fingers. I’d already begun to see something in Scáth—something deeper, something real. But this… this could shatter it.

What if there was a reason he kept his secrets? A reason I wouldn’t be able to forgive? Did I really want to know?

I glanced at the screen, my breath catching as the first few results blinked to life. One link. Then another. Then a dozen more, all lined up like a wall between me and the truth.

My chest tightened as I stared at the rows of newspaper article links. There was no going back now.

Lisa pushed her fingers through mine and gripped my hand as I leaned in toward the screen, silent and breathless.

I fought to keep my hands steady as I clicked on the first article. My heart pounded in my ears, drowning out everything else.

The headline hit me like a punch to the gut.

Seventeen-Year-Old Murderer Sentenced

My eyes raced over the lines, jumping erratically from sentence to sentence, barely able to focus. The words blurred together, fragments of horror settling in as I tried to make sense of it. Murderer. Sentenced. Seventeen. Jail.

The full weight of it pressed down on me, suffocating.

My chest tightened as the truth clicked inside me, like a lock turning into place.

A wave of memories and emotions crashed over me, slamming into me all at once.

The red and blue lights lit up the entire front of the mansion. They spread across the wide green lawn, reached all the way to the tops of the birch trees. I was drowning in them as I stood barefooted on the gravel drive, arms wrapped tight around my shaking body.

The rain cut straight through my nightgown. But I didn’t think the cold was the reason I couldn’t feel my fingertips. Why I couldn’t move them.

I saw him in handcuffs, fighting against the officers who were trying to drag him toward the police car.

He was shouting at me, eyes wild like a trapped animal, but all I could hear was the roar of blood rushing in my ears.

The crack of the officer’s knuckles against his cheekbone brought sound crashing back in.

I heard officers shouting and rain splattering. For a moment his head hung heavy between his shoulders, most of his weight supported by the men dragging him backward.

But as they opened the door to the police car to shove him in, he lifted his head and found me with his gaze.

His eye was already swollen from the knuckles of the police officer’s brutal fist. But the pain etched across his face was deeper than the darkest bruise.

He screamed, “I love you more!”

I heard myself screaming. “Ty! ”

The door slammed shut, cutting him off from me, and my knees buckled.

That would be the last time I saw him for years.

I gasped, my breath coming in short, erratic bursts as my flashback flickered behind my eyes—Ty being arrested, handcuffs biting into his wrists, him screaming for me as they led him away.

I felt like I was watching it all over again, helpless to stop it.

A cold dread settled in the pit of my stomach. Deep down, I knew whom he’d killed and why . I didn’t want to admit it, but I could feel the truth clawing its way to the surface, threatening to choke me.

Lisa’s voice cut through the haze, soft but concerned. “Ava… do you want to stop?”

I shook my head, my fingers trembling as they hovered over the mouse.

“No.” My voice was barely above a whisper, but the resolve behind it was solid. I had to know. I needed to see it for myself.

I clicked on the next article, my heart racing as the headline appeared.

Wealthy Biologist Killed by His Own Son

I skimmed through the text, my vision blurring with each word, my pulse pounding in my ears.

In a shocking turn of events, Adam Donahue, a man of distinguished lineage and one of Ireland’s most esteemed biologists, was found dead in his country estate under suspicious circumstances.

Authorities have confirmed that Donahue, 48, was poisoned, and his son, Tynan Donahue, 17, has been taken into custody in connection with the crime.

Sources close to the investigation report that Tynan Donahue has refused to speak since his arrest.

The words swirled in front of me, heavy with the weight of their meaning.

My mind reeled. Poisoned. His own father.

I could barely breathe, the horror of it tightening around my chest like a vise. But then again, I knew this already, hadn’t I?

A younger Scáth stood there, towering over the body of a man, his broad shoulders tense but his breaths steady, controlled.

My gaze lowered to the unmoving figure at his feet, my voice dying in my throat. The face was turned away, but I didn’t need to see it to know who it was.

Mr. Donahue. The professor. Ty’s da.

I’d never seen a human skin so pale. It wasn’t just bloodless. It was translucent.

“Is he…?” I dared to ask, my voice barely a whisper.

My heart hammered in my chest, but it wasn’t fear that gripped me. Not horror.

I looked up at Scáth, and he met my eyes with that same cold, unrepentant stare.

“He won’t ever hurt you again.”

I sucked in a breath.

Scáth killed his own father—for me. But why?

I kept scrolling down the article. A grainy black-and-white photo appeared, showing Adam Donahue standing proudly, accepting an award from the Irish president. The image was blurred and faded, but it hit me like a punch to the gut.

My breath caught in my throat, and I recoiled, my fingers snatching off the mouse as if it were poisonous.

A buried part of me knew him.

That face—the sharpness of his features, the coldness in his dark eyes—flashed like a nightmare I’d been trying to forget.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to push it away, but the image of Adam Donahue was burned into my mind. Why do I know him?

Lisa’s voice asking me what was wrong echoed as if from outside a cave.

She couldn’t help me now.

I had fallen deep into a dark, buried part of me.

My vision blurred, and my recurring dream came rushing back to me, unbidden.

I couldn’t move.

The velvet of the couch underneath me was so cold it felt wet. Heart thudding, I tried to push up off the couch. But I was frozen in place. My mind screamed at my limbs to move but they just lay limp like my body had stopped working.

Panic gripped me.

Why couldn’t I move?

From the darkness a shadow distended and detached, a silhouette. A man.

He walked toward me, his footsteps echoing off the high ceilings.

A ringing filled my ears, high-pitched and relentless, drowning out everything else as if the world around me had gone silent, leaving nothing but the sound of my own rising panic.

No. Please, not him.

He leaned over me, his face in darkness. But this time, the darkness receded like smoke, the features becoming clear, sharp, angular features carved out of cold, pale skin under slicked-back dark hair.

His thin-lipped smile didn’t reach his emotionless dark eyes; it was more of a mask, calculated and cold.

It was Mr. Donahue—the professor.

“Sweet, sweet girl.” His sour breath swirled around my cheeks.

Fear closed its bony fingers around my throat, cutting off my oxygen.

I tried to breathe.

I tried to scream.

I was screaming.

A scream ripped from my throat, raw and uncontrollable, tearing through the silence of the room. My chest heaved with the force of it, the sound of my own voice almost unrecognizable.

And then I was crying—sobs shaking my entire body, hot tears pouring down my cheeks as I crumpled under the weight of what I had just realized.

Lisa’s arms were wrapped tightly around me, her face pressed against my shoulder as if she could shield me from the truth I’d just uncovered. Her grip was firm, grounding, but it did nothing to stop the flood of memories that surged through me.

“That’s what he didn’t want me to remember,” I choked out between sobs, my voice breaking, the sickening realization settling over me like a cold, suffocating blanket .

All this time, all these blank spaces, these buried memories—they weren’t nothing.

I could feel Lisa holding me tighter, but it didn’t stop the tidal wave of fear and anger crashing inside me.

He didn’t want me to remember.

“Scáth— Ty —killed his father because he was abusing me.”