Back and Stronger: Alpha's Daughter
Chapter 64

“Neil?” Sophia tried again for what was probably the millionth time already. “Why won’t you just talk to me?”

She knew he was in the cell next to hers, and she knew he was awake because she could hear him pacing back and forth there. She was also able to, however, catch a hint of determination trying to break through the thick layer of impenetrable hopelessness and defeat coming from him.

She was able to feel it through the just as thick concrete prison wall separating them, the one she was leaning against by her cell door, still holding onto the hope that he would bring his hand around from his cell to hold hers there. Even if they couldn’t look at each other, she wanted to feel him, for Sophia craved his reassuring touch more than she ever had before, and it was killing her that she was denied even that small thing.

It was faint, but Sophia could feel some sort of obstinacy returning to him in his pacing, and supposed that was a hell of a lot more promising of a sign that he was maybe starting to pull himself out of that terrifying vortex he had been spiraling into the whole time, instead of giving in to it. It had genuinely seemed like an inevitability that he would lose that battle just a moment ago, so this was better than nothing because nothing was what he’d been for hours now.

Sophia tentatively let out a soft sigh of relief. Even if he wasn’t talking to her, at least he was moving more and seemed to be attempting to right himself somehow. She found herself praying to the Goddess to help him in that struggle, since he wouldn’t allow her to help him.

“Come back to me, baby,” Sophia whispered in reminiscence of what Neil had said to her just last night, when he had been afraid of losing her.

She didn’t think it was loud enough for him to hear, but there was a momentary pause in his pacing before he continued again. Whether it was because he’d heard her, or because he had merely just stopped to look at something, or whether the crushing grief in her chest had originated from her heart, or his, it didn’t matter. Sophia realized that none of it mattered anymore.

It was time she truly came to terms with the reality of their situation, the same as Neil had. Pushing her away had been a way to make it easier on them both, for the truth was that no amount of reassurance would make a difference to what their reality was now. What could he possibly say to her now anyway to make everything better? He knew this and saw no use in promising her anything that would just turn out to be empty and wishful thinking.

He’d even shut her out, and that was even worse than not talking to her at all, and that was the point. They had lost even that. That was once theirs. Their connection. And the potential of it blooming into something more. That chance was gone now.

Both of them were accused of things that the law customarily had no mercy for, and the verdict always ended just one way in cases like theirs. Execution…

Sophia would have preferred that outcome almost six years ago, knowing now what ‘punishments’ and tortures she had to endure when her father had denied her a trial and a quick death. And it seemed that fate had a way to bring one back to face the demons once avoided. Both Neil and her had.

Execution would have been a much kinder fate back then, and this time she was inclined to think the same. Without Neil, life would be meaningless. She just couldn’t see any use in carrying on without him by her side. That was one very stark certainty she was able to reach in the face of so many uncertainties.

Death was the only outcome she would want then, and one she would ensure she would get. She would plead guilty to a crime she hadn’t committed just so it could happen quicker. The sooner they put her out of her misery, the better, because going on without Neil was an impossibility. It was as simple as that.

Even Neil seemed to have accepted that nothing mattered anymore either, that fighting for what was right was a lost cause in this case. Maybe that was why she also saw the practicality in that now, and why she herself now fell into a hopeless silence.

It was so much easier, better even, to just let it happen than to try and fight against air, because that was what their chances were of getting out of this. Air. Nothing substantial to see there or hold on to.

And it was after all a lot more logical to refrain from the incessant punching of that nothingness, as the only purpose it had served her so far was to tire her out. Feeling that tiredness reverberating in agreement through her entire body, especially in her suddenly too-weak-to-keep-standing-legs, she let herself fall back against the wall and sag down to the floor.

It was freezing cold all of a sudden, and it could have been due to the floor feeling like a frozen lake underneath her, one that would break at any moment and swallow her into its bitter depths, or the hope that vacated her bloodstream could have stolen the warmth from her as well. Either way, Sophia hardly thought it mattered. In fact, she welcomed the cold. She let it into her heart as a sense of nihilism settled there too.

It was just so much easier to accept that there was simply no way they could escape from the doomed destiny that awaited them. However, Soph couldn’t get rid of the hope that wherever Scott and Connor were, that they would still be able to replace a way to save her brother and Bella. That was the only spark still flickering within her.

And still, the pacing from Neil’s cell kept ringing, and she swore she felt a flash of anger the moment she had decided not to care anymore, which would have been a welcome feeling only a few seconds ago.

Hell, that was more than she could have hoped for just an hour ago when they’d arrived, or that was how long ago she thought they were in the cells by now, and were arrested an hour before that, but it felt like an eternity already.

Especially when Thorin had kept on taunting her it made things drag out and feel even longer. Luckily he’d stopped a while ago, but she had the feeling he was just resting a bit too soon, continuing to make their last minutes, hours, days, she didn’t know, of life miserable.

Just like with Neil, she couldn’t see her father, but she could hear his restlessness as well. It almost sounded like he was fidgeting with something, and she could definitely hear his boot’s sole tapping against the floor, keeping pace with his fidgeting. It sounded like he was impatiently waiting for something. For what? She wondered, but then remembered that she didn’t care anymore.

Sophia honestly hadn’t realized how much Thorin’s sanity had degraded until she heard the way he spoke earlier. No wonder her dream had been so urgently telling her that she needed to do something. After hearing his hateful voice again after such a long time of being free of him, there was truly no denying that her father might just have completely lost his mind by this time.

Was that why Vlad had said something to Jackson about an Alpha, a female Alpha, that was going around making deals? With her father there, and how it sounded like she had wanted Sophia and Neil caught specifically as well – did this mean that she aimed to right all the wrongs her father ever did and had allowed over all the years?

It certainly appeared to be the case from the little information she had been able to gather and overhear, which seemed to be the right action to take. Righting all the wrongs, so to speak. Or what appeared to be those wrongs.

But whatever the case, and despite what happened to Sophia, she hoped that justice would finally be served, that her father would be executed, and that Leo and Bella would be free from him.

However, she also couldn’t deny that this whole thing sounded strange as hell. Why would someone just come along and want to change things? But most importantly, who had the manpower to challenge him and succeed? What did she want from these acts of taking power from her father and apparently wanting to enforce justice? For what purpose?

And why did she make Sophia and Neil most wanted criminals if they were more against what her father did than anyone else?

This also made her wonder about who had orchestrated the ambush today? It somehow had something to do with her father’s friend, Vlad, and this new Alpha. Were they working together against her father?

Vlad was a mean son of a bitch, but did he even start to see that her father had gone too far, losing his mind more and more with passing time that he then called for help?

If so, she had him to thank for possibly saving her brother and the girls Thorin had kidnapped, but had to thank him for ruining her and Neil’s lives as well. Oh, the irony!

Goddess, you’ve been hard at it again, I see, Sophia thought to herself and couldn’t help the semi-hysterical laugh that came with it.

She heard Neil halt his pacing again at the sound of it, as well as her father’s ceaseless fidgeting and tapping.

“Do you see it now too, Sophia?” She heard her father from the few cell blocks down the aisle, which was quite long as she’d seen it stretching way down for many yards with many rows of cells on either side earlier when they had first been brought in.

For all she knew, there were other people there as well, other than Thorin, Neil, and Sophia. But she didn’t care. She just knew whoever else was there, they would be as doomed as they were. Spending their last miserable moments on this earth in a cold prison cell and waiting for their escorts to return so that they could just get this all over and done with. The waiting was worse than what was inevitably coming, so she knew that anyone would have liked the distraction of a crazy ex-Alpha of the Lucian pack going off on his daughter.

“I know the sound of that laugh,” her father pressed when she hadn’t answered his previous question, like so many others that came before that, but if truth be told, she’d still been too afraid and shocked then.

But now, Sophia just didn’t care about keeping her mouth shut anymore either. She was going to die anyway, so what the hell.

“You don’t know shit, old man,” she said loud enough, turning her head to the steel bars right next to her so her voice would carry easily down the aisle. Everything was solid concrete, so she knew the sound would carry regardless, but she did it nonetheless. “All you know is how to royally fuck people’s lives up, especially that of your own family. What the hell went wrong with you? You weren’t like this before mom was–”

“Don’t you dare speak of her!” Thorin interrupted her, and she heard him kicking something hard out of anger. “You took her from me!”

“Yeah, sure,” Sophia laughed despite herself, despite feeling her heart dying all over again. “A twelve-year-old girl murdering her own mother she loved very much makes a lot of sense – and then putting me through years and years of torture? Your own daughter? You’re fucking insane!”

“You deserved what you got. Chopping your head off would have been too easy on you–too kind. You’re a monster, Sophia,” he said, and she could just hear the self-satisfied sneer in his voice, thinking that he had gotten her there.

“And you’re a crazy sick fuck, dad,” she simply said, and could instantly feel his fury jumping a thousand notches at her insult, whereas she thought she felt a hesitant smile from Neil.

Even though she knew he was ready to kill her, she still heard him laugh. “You’ve developed quite the mouth since you disappeared, Sophia,” Thorin said, almost sounding amused. “How you must have thought that you were free and had a bright future ahead of you?” Again a bark of laughter. “How very wrong you were, you foolish child.”

“And you thought you were an Alpha who would never have to pay for everything he did. I guess we were both wrong.”

After that, Sophia had nothing to say to him anymore, and even less wanted to listen to anything else that he still wanted to say, so she ignored his taunts and accusations for the rest of the day.

She wasn’t going to waste the time she had left arguing with someone that was incapable of reason. He wasn’t her father anymore. Hadn’t been one to her for six years now. As far as Sophia was concerned, she didn’t have a father, and that man in the cell there was just a crazy prisoner that didn’t deserve a reply from her.

Even as Thorin kept screaming at her from his cell for hours after that, until his voice turned hoarse and abraded, still Sophia refused to say anything more to him.

She’d already said what she needed to say, and it felt pretty damn good to call him what she’d always wanted to call him, wanted to say to him, but never had the balls to. It was more liberating than she’d expected it would be.

That felt good, and it felt even better knowing that Neil had enjoyed it too. Even though she didn’t let it attach to her heart too much, she couldn’t help thinking that maybe there was still a way for things to work out differently…