Back and Stronger: Alpha's Daughter

Sophia cut back through the school in her effort to flee the man of her dreams. She rounded the corner and leaned against the wall outside the school cafeteria. The rancid odor of the square pizzas, crinkle cut fries and rotting milk made her gag as she forced air into her lungs. Her hands rested on her knees and she tried to calm herself. She kept her ears peeled for sounds of anyone coming. To have gotten caught would surely have brought more punishment, reigning down on her from the fist of steel. Her eyes closed briefly and the man from her dreams floated into her head. He’s real. Oh, my goddess, he’s real. She couldn’t believe it. The adrenaline left her body, slowly, like a balloon that had a tiny puncture in it, then panic set in. Shit. He’s real. No longer a dream that her mind took her to during her restless nights. He was flesh, blood, and muscle. He was beautiful. She needed to leave. She didn’t want him to see her again, not like this; beaten, bruised, and bloodstained. She certainly would not class and though she knew she would pay; she needed to escape. After her altercation with Matthew, the narrow walls of the halls of academia had closed in, threatening to crush her in their stifling grasp. She stood up and winced at the pain in her shoulder and bit her bottom lip at the pain that accompanied the creaking, popping sound from her knee. Her entire body ached, and her cuts and scratches burned like the heat from a thousand bonfires.

Her eyes skimmed the length of the hall, and she evaluated her likelihood of getting out without being caught. She glanced down at her shoes and ran her sole along the eggshell linoleum. The scratch marks and scuffs from hundreds of teenager’s shoes marked the otherwise shiny surface. She tapped her foot to check the sound of the buckles on the straps. The clanking metal echoed in her ears. She crept down the hall. Step by quiet step, she drew closer to the steel double doors. She ignored the signs that cheered on Tibald High Trojans. Their burgundy and white block letters and stringy pom-poms that left their strands on the floor beneath it went unnoticed. So focused on the doors, her freedom, that she ran into the sharp-edged corner of a locker that had been left open. Certain that it had left a scratch, she winced, then reached up to close it. A classroom door was up ahead on the right. She knew the teacher in that classroom. He was one of her father’s cronies. Fear caused her to tremble, and she nearly gave up her fight to escape. She heard a sound coming from the door and she ducked in between two freestanding banks of lockers. She waited for the click, clack, click of heels to pass by, then grow quieter. When she felt it was safe, she stepped back out into the hallway. The eerie silence left in the clatter’s wake made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Or maybe she was just so afraid that if they caught her, this would be the time she would be beaten to death.

She cautiously approached the door to the classroom. When the creak of a desk chair and the scraping of wood against wood reverberated from under the door, she stopped and held her breath, certain that she was about to be caught. After a minute and nothing happened, she opened her eyes and peered through the glass on the door. The teacher had been too busy sneaking a shot of whiskey from a bottle hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk to notice her. Thank the Goddesses. The gaping wound in her shoulder had torn open again, either in the scuffle with Matthew or from running from the man in her dreams. The blood from it ran down her arm, along her wrist, across the top of her hand. Like a snake slithering, it ran along her fingers, then puddled at her nails before it dripped on the floor, leaving a dark red trail behind her.

The walk down that long hallowed hall had been an undefinable time in her mind. Fear that the bell would ring, ending class, or that someone would come caused a desperation that assaulted her chest like a five-ton boulder. She heard the wind outside and felt the draft from under the door on her feet. She was close. So close. Screw it. She ran the rest of the way as fast as her abused body allowed. She put her hand on the push-bar and pushed. The door didn’t budge, and the weight on her chest grew heavier. She kicked the door and pushed again. Sophia needed out. Now. She grabbed the handle and pulled so hard she almost fell, but thankfully, the door flung open. Cool air washed over her. She tasted it on her tongue, the refreshing feeling of freedom. The bloody print of her hand on the silver of the door; the only clue that she had been there, or where she had gone.

Sophia ran to the gate, not once stopping to see what was behind her. She shoved it open and escaped the school grounds, ignoring the agony she was in. She was headed for the wooded area that led to the cliffs that overlooked the town of Aolith, the only other major town in the Lucian pack territory. There had been a couple of times the Goddesses had blessed her and she escaped to the cliffs, but those were times her father had been busy elsewhere performing his alpha duties and all she had to worry about was the rest of the pack. They were far and few in between, but she had been grateful for each time.

Her ribs throbbed, her shoulder burned, and the rest of her body ached. If she were to be seen by anyone, she would be returned to her father. The entire Lucian pack was under her father’s rule, and his orders were to never be denied. The expanse of green lawn that lay before her seemed larger than a football field, though it was nowhere near that big. She stumbled and caught her balance. If she were to fall, it would be more likely that they would see her from a classroom window. Come on. So close. So damn close. She pushed her body, ignoring the excruciating pain that submerged her brain into a gray fog. She allowed herself to look back just once and gasped when she saw a shadow by the staircase to the main door. Panicked, she stumbled again. Her knees hit the damp grass with a thud, then her elbows. Biting back a yelp of pain, she pushed herself off the ground and tried to run. She had to slow down, her body unable to take much more, but she didn’t stop. Stopping wasn’t an option. She knew there would be hell to pay at her father’s hand for this, and if she was going to have to endure it, then it was damn well going to be worth it. A hawk called with its screaming keen, then called several more times in a row. It was courting. Briefly, her mind flicked to the story she vaguely heard in class. Once she crossed the clearing and through the trees, she was numb from blood loss and pain. She slowed to a walk, feeling it was safe to do so. It was unlikely that anyone would be on the path, but if there were, the sooner she made it to the clearing at the top, the better. She would have a full view of the trails that surrounded the cliffs and if someone were to come, she knew she could hide. How sad it was, she thought, that the possibility of having to hide if someone came still represented a freedom to her she barely knew.

Choosing to stay off the path had been for the best, though it made the climb to safety from the pack more treacherous. Her thoughts ran rampant with the freedom that fed her soul. The faint sound of a train’s horn sounded in the distance from the station in Aolith. It carried on the wind, so it sounded like she was standing before it, ready to step on. The sound fed her hope that she could have a better life. One day...after I graduate, I’ll be on that train. I’ll run away from here. I don’t even care where the train takes me. Even if I must go hide amongst the humans. I’ll get away. I’ll get away from this life. The thug-thug of the wheels matching the thump of my heart and taking me closer to freedom. One day... She slid between two bushes. Branches jabbed at her and one stuck in her shirt, trapping her between the points. Ever so carefully so as not to tear her shirt, she grabbed the branch and broke it off. That’s what she’d like to do to Matthew and his minions. Just snap their bones when they start being cruel. Oh, she could handle the words, though they hurt. But the physical pain on top of what she endured at home was enough to tip her over the edge. She was tired, so damn tired. She left the branch tip still stuck in her shirt until she cleared the narrow spread between the bushes. I can’t leave Leo, I can’t leave him in that house, so he will just have to come with me. But wait, what if it would just be better for him if I was gone? He could have a normal life instead of a life on the run. Father rarely turned his anger on him and was never violent. But how do I know it would stay that way? That Leo would always be safe?

Birds chirped overhead as they flitted from tree to tree. Bushes rustled and twigs cracked under the feet of the wildlife that lived there. A squirrel scurried up a tree. Tiny eyes of a raccoon glowed from its hiding place in the tiny cave of shale when she disturbed its slumber. A bunny hopped in front of her. She knew there were wolves in the woods. Not shifters, just plain old wolves. They were afraid of shifters, so she never got to see one, but she hoped to. She stepped over a downed tree trunk and slid into a puddle filled with dead leaves on the other side. When she was little, her mother would tell her stories about the fairies that lived in the woods and that if she paid attention, she would see tiny doors at the base of the trees that held the magic. Sophia would listen for hours while her mother told her of the magical electromagnetic vortex that was in the center of the massive trees that made the grove. Her mother had said that if she was very silent, completely still, she could connect with her earthly energies and her inner being. She decided at that moment; she was going to find the grove. Heading toward the cluster of trees as fast as she could, her thoughts wandered. Occasionally, she looked up to make sure she was heading toward them and not strayed off course. A calmness fell over her, and the peace of nature enveloped her in its beauty. She felt gentle breezes brush across her face, and the sounds of silence provided a haven for her rambling mind to run free.

When she looked up and the grove stood before her, proud and strong, her heart swelled. She found it. As foolish as it was, she couldn’t help but look at the bottom of the trees for tiny doors. She laughed at her own silliness. She jumped at the bizarre sound that emanated from her throat, unsure if it sounded like a crow or a seal. Is this really what her laugh sounded like? It had been so long that it was a sound as foreign to her as someone telling her they loved her. Her body ached from all it had endured in the last 24 hours, and she needed a rest. When she found the center, she sat down on the ground with her back against the base of a tree that had to be at least a hundred inches around. She took her sock off and wrapped it tightly around her shoulder wound, as best as she could, anyway. She used the other to wipe as much blood, dirt, and smudge as she could. When she gave up and accepted that it was the best she could do, she leaned back and closed her eyes. She inhaled the air and smelled the damp moss. She fingered the needles next to her on the ground and when the wind blew just right, the sweet scent of a flower that reminded her of her mother’s perfume tickled her nose. Her heart beat faster and thumped in her chest loud enough to ring in her ears when she thought of the security guard. The man from her dreams. The differences that his tattoos and piercings made were colossal, giving him an edge that she hadn’t seen in her slumbers. But, Goddesses, he was beautiful. Sweat pooled in her palms as she recalled the details of the dream. The tender touch of another person, in and of itself, was powerful. Shame filled her with remembering that he saw her looking so beaten.

She allowed herself to recall the dreams and lost herself in emotions that stirred within. There must be a meaning, a reason for the dream, and for him to be working at her school, too. There must be... but what? Was it a premonition? He was merely a security guard at her school and subject to the same directives to abuse and torture her as the rest of the pack, but for a flicker of an instant, she had seen kindness in his eyes. Brief though it was, she hoped it was true. In trying to decipher the meaning of her dream and the no-longer mystery man, she almost missed the sound. The sound of people. She held her breath and didn’t move so much as a finger. She prayed a silent prayer to the goddess, though why she did considering she’d never answered her pleas before, she couldn’t rightfully say. When silence surrounded her, she knew it was time to move on. She needed to be in position to see when someone was close by. She veered away from the direction the sound had come from. Having had the rest and the fond memories of her mother to warm her heart, she moved a touch faster than before.

She climbed the rocky hill, avoiding the tree roots that jutted out, then finally reached level ground. There was a while to go, but the sun had started its slow descent, sinking to when it would disappear below the horizon. She was eyeing the sky and not paying attention to where she was going when she walked into a gigantic cobweb spread from one side to the other. She bit back a squeal and swatted at the web tangled in her hair and on her face. Along with the panic, she thought she felt tiny little legs crawling on her. She smacked at her arms and her face, then pulled pieces of webbing off herself. Breathe. It startled her, that was all. She recalled her mother telling her of a superstition that she grew up believing. Her father laughed, but she vividly remembered feeling that her mother believed it. The superstition says that if you walk into a spider web, that it will be the day that you meet a friend, be it an old friend, or make a new one. She didn’t want to meet up with any of her old friends. They were the bane of her existence now, but maybe, maybe, she would meet a new one.

When the ground beneath her started another incline, she tried to stay focused on what was in front of her, but her ears peeled to everything around her. She walked through a swarm of gnats, swatting them away from her face, then immediately felt bad at sending them flying. It made her think of her father and how he’d grab her around the neck and fling her onto her flimsy mattress before he imposed additional torture. It often started with that. Being flung...somewhere.

At last, she reached the top and the cliffs looking over the city stood before her. Sweat glistened down her forehead and between her breasts. Her calves burned, but not from the abuse, but from the arduous climbing to get here. She knew, without a doubt, that by now her father would be in a rage because she was missing. Praying Leo didn’t receive the brunt of his verbal spewing, she continued on. She remembered Leo saying how he hoped that if he became alpha, that he wanted to be a compassionate leader and that her father had ridiculed him. How could he think he was compassionate by sparing me my life? Was he that delusional that he couldn’t see that one ultimate death would be preferable to dying inside a bit more every day until there had been nothing of her left besides an empty shell for the blood, tendons, and bones?

The city looked so tiny from that distance. Tiny, but alive. Dusk descended into that brief period when daylight was gone, but night had not yet arrived. Vague lights twinkled in the distance. She stepped out from the bushes and onto the ledge. A thorough look below on all sides ensured that there was no one around. She took another step. It was like being alone on top of the world and, for a brief space in time, she was safe. She knew it wouldn’t last long. But for just a minute, she relished in the feeling. For just a minute, she felt like she could survive this hell.

She curled her upper lip when Matthew pushed his way into her thoughts. Oh, how she hated him. Him and all his minions. She could barely recall that long ago, they were friends, classmates. They were peers. The words he whispered into ear while he held the side of her face pressed against the cold, flat surface of the desk haunted her mind. The sheer force of which he slammed her down on the wood had made her think her cheekbone and jaw were going to shatter. His hand on her neck, pressing, and the bite of his nails had made her bite her lip until it bled. “Do you want to know what I have in store for you next?” he had asked. A tear fought to escape my good eye. His torture, his abuse, was a horror unlike any other, because it was rare that she was tormented by his only his hands. There was always an audience, every bit as vile as he was. She shouldn’t get smart with him. It showed a fight in her she didn’t feel, but at that moment, she was filled with such loathing that she hadn’t cared. When he lifted her and slammed her face back onto the desk, her teeth rattled. She closed her eyes and recalled the pain that shot through her skull. Surely, she had a concussion, probably a severe one, by that point. When the heat of his breath had touched her ear as he leaned over her whispering the words that he was going to strip her naked, bound and gagged and offer her to the highest bidder on the football team, she choked on bile. Along with the smell of onion on his breath came the vision in her mind of how they would assault her and share her. Oh, hell no. I’d rather be dead.

Off yourself, he had said. Off yourself. How many times had she wished that she had the courage to do it? She knew it was a weak way to escape a painful reality, but certainly it would be better than the life she lived. She looked out at the brightening lights of Aolith. A haze clouded the space between where she stood and the cliff’s edge. The lights, they called to her. She took a tentative step closer to the dark, gaping hole. Her soles left solid prints in the packed dirt that lay across the sedimentary rocks. Off yourself. She took another step closer, closer to the 1,000-foot drop where she could tumble to her death. She briefly recalled a science class on velocity. 32 feet per second. So, like, in less than 40 seconds, it could all be over. Her vision hazed over, and the atmosphere spun before her eyes. She struggled to see. She took another step closer. What would it feel like to fall? She took another tentative step. She was certain it would be scary. Her heart would probably explode in her chest. Surely, she would be gone before she hit the bottom. What is at the bottom? Another step. Her father beat her for hours on end. Her classmates tortured her throughout the day, then repeated it the next. In under a minute, the pain can be over. She took another step, and the tip of her toes were over the ledge. One more, just do it. She held her breath and lifted her right foot. Tears. They rolled down her cheeks. She was crying, but that’s something she didn’t do. Her mother’s voice spoke to her in a whisper of wind. She had been telling her to be strong. It’s not over yet, she said. What wasn’t over? Satan’s inferno, that’s my life? But it could be. Ready to end it all, she moved her foot out into the abyss. Sophia teetered forward and back, her eyes tightly shut and her chest expanded from the breath she held. She was ready. She was ready to tumble to her death.

A force hit her like a mac truck, powerful arms wrapped around her waist. They tumbled away from the edge and onto solid rock. It had knocked out the wind of her and she wondered if a rib pierced her lung. Struggling to breathe, she looked to see who had stopped her. Who had prevented her escape from the morbid reality in which she had to function? It’s him. Holy shit, it’s him.

His arms wrapped tightly around her, he scurried them backwards and further away from the ledge. His eyes were wide, the honey hue expressed his worry. He gripped her arms and pulled them both to their feet. Panicking, he had asked if she was okay repeatedly. He gently ran his hands up her arms, and she winced when it grazed the sock bandage on her shoulder. His eyes skimmed from her head to her feet. He pulled her even further from the ledge.

“Are you okay?” He asked again, calmer now.

Sophia was in sensory overload. She couldn’t take it anymore. She tried to form the words to answer him, but nothing would come out, so she nodded. He looked into her defeated eyes and his touch gentled on her arm.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded again.

“What were you trying to do, kill yourself?”

Well, yes, Sophia thought. That was exactly what she had been trying to do. She didn’t think he would appreciate the truth, so she didn’t even try to nod an answer. Instead, she let her eyes hungrily take in how beautiful he was. He was no longer in the ugly security uniform they had to wear when on duty. He wore burgundy skinny jeans that fit snugly along his muscular legs, and a grey Henley with the sleeves pushed up his forearms. His tattoos showed a creative sleeve that was mostly black or brown, with spurts of color. On his other arm, a tattoo on the back of his wrist that wrapped around to the top. It sparked a memory that was stuck in the recesses of her mind, but she couldn’t pull out. His hair was still up in a man-bun atop his head and a silver Celtic cross dangled from a piercing on his ear. His neatly trimmed goatee had made her palms itch to be run along the scruff, just once. He was so ruggedly handsome it took her breath away. For once, she struggled to breathe in a good way.

“Let me ride you home,” he said.

Sophia shook her head no. She was in enough trouble. If he drove her home here, father would lose the tiny tentacle hold he had on his sanity. Besides, she was sure people were looking for her. With his next sentence, he confirmed that.

“People are looking for you. You disappeared from school and the bloody handprint on the door had people worried.”

She snorted one of those laughs she hadn’t recognized as her own.

He raised a studded eyebrow and the side of his mouth quivered, but sadness was in his eyes.

“Okay. People are looking for you, but I was worried. Come on, I’m taking you home.”

With no other options now, she shrugged. She would just lie about where she lived.

She hadn’t realized how starved she was for kindness. She memorized his every gesture as he helped her walk down the path. He guided her over treacherous areas and lifted her by her waist over a large slab of rock that had slid to block the path. He tried to talk to her, but she still hadn’t found her voice. After a few attempts, he gave up. When it was full dark and the twinkling of stars shined above their heads and the rays of the moon speared through the branches of the towering trees, he tapped into the extrasensory abilities that some of the stronger shifters had. He guided her with the gentle touch of his firm hands and kept her safe. What a strange feeling.

When they reached the end of the path, they had come out on the side furthest away from the school. They were at the edge of a dirt road she hadn’t even known was there. The unpaved road with scarce amounts of gravel scattered atop of it hadn’t looked like it was used in quite a while. His car, a midnight blue Subaru Legacy GT, sat all the way at the entrance. She knew cars because her brother loved them and had had nearly every matchbox car in existence when he was little. But it was so damn far away. Fatigue made her shoulders slouch and her eyes droop. There was no way she’d make it that far, she thought. He stopped walking when her step faltered, and he looked at her closely. His breath hitched in his throat at what he saw, and he moved closer.

“Just take it easy,” he said. “I won’t hurt you.”

He scooped her up and cradled her in his arms. The clomp of his boots as they hit the earth beneath him matched the cadence of his heartbeats. Her head lay against his chest, and she closed her eyes. She knew what he felt. She was all skin and bones, very little muscle, or shape to her. Aware that he felt how fragile she was, she was embarrassed, humiliated. He pulled her tighter against his chest as if to offer comfort, protection, to shelter from the raging storms that decimated her daily. While she relished the feeling of her body pressed against him, the sensations that flitted across her body in little tingles of energy had also hurt like hell. She winced and sucked air through her pursed lips. He loosened his hold while his long, powerful strides ate up the ground.

When they reached his car, he cradled her in one muscular arm against his chest and popped open the passenger door. Carefully, gently, he sat her in the seat. He squatted down outside the door and reached up to grab the seat belt and pull it across her body. She moaned at the slight pressure on her bruises and shoulder, and he quickly unlatched it.

“It’ll be okay,” he said.

Surely, he wasn’t saying my life would be okay?

He shut the door and circled the car to get in the driver’s seat. Sophia was envious of his confidence, his self-assured movements that said he was in control. He started the ignition and swung the car around in a smooth arch. Every time he hit a bump of uneven dirt or gravel, she cried out in pain. He tried not to hurt her, and she knew it by the way he dodged the bumps if he could, but the road was narrow, so narrow his car barely fit. Finally, they reached the end, and he turned onto the paved road. Had she not been numb with fear at the thought of the beating she knew was imminent and, swallowing down yelps of pain, she would have enjoyed the ride in a vehicle not meant to haul 60 students. The smell was fresh. It smelled clean. The windows reflected the winking stars in the night sky. Yeah, she would have enjoyed it.

“What’s your address?” he asked.

He couldn’t take her home. Absolutely not. She quietly gave him an address on the street behind hers, careful not to make eye contact. Sophia would cut through the yards. She felt his gaze on her and suspected he knew she was lying, but he hadn’t questioned it. At the end of the block, he stopped for a red light. Before it turned green, obnoxious sounds drew her attention. Matthew, Joss, and about twelve others were grouped together, shouting. They were shouting for Sophia.

“Sophia, Sophia, come out and play.” Sophia closed her eyes.

“Sophia, your daddy is looking for you?”

She slunk down in the seat as far as she could and swallowed the pain. He looked over from the driver’s seat, then rested a hand on hers that were tightly clasped in her lap.

“They won’t hurt you when I’m around, Sophia. I promise.”

She lifted her head and looked him in the eyes to see if he was teasing her. Did he mean what he had said? She wasn’t sure how she felt about what she saw. Yes, it appeared he meant what he said, but his irises had darkened to coal black. A lethal edge radiated from them that had her swallowing the saliva that had gathered at the back of her throat. His jaw was tight, his teeth clenched, and he gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white with little green veins raised in anger.

When they reached the address she had given, he pulled the car over onto the side of the road. He hopped out and walked around to the passenger side. The door opened, and he lifted her out and stood her on her feet.

“Will you be okay?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

He gripped her chin and raised her head, so she looked at him. She knew he saw desperation. He saw fear. He also saw a desolate acceptance.

She moved her chin out of his grasp and stepped around him, sneaking between two houses whose fences had left a 3-foot gap between their property lines. She wondered if this was what the last walk on death row felt like.