Chapter 66

Neil thinks he doesn’t deserve me? Sophia wondered incredulously.

That sounded more like what she’d been thinking since the first day she’d met him, hell, since she had started dreaming about him, she had been thinking that.

Sure he’d scared her more than anything else for a long time, still did, but since she’d had the chance to get to know him better, and since he’d confessed earlier, she knew that the good was more prominent within him than the bad.

He’d been forced to do bad things for her father, all of them had, Scott, Connor, Victoria, and even Jackson. The people they were deep inside, had been manipulated like any soldier serving in any military, molded into something completely different.

And like any soldiers, they weren’t allowed to question the orders given to them by their superiors, and even if they did, Thorin must have made them believe that they had been protecting their pack, their territory, and their families from outside threats.

And like any soldier trained to follow orders, to be weapons for their pack and their government, they did what was expected of them, even taking lives they had no right to, thinking it was in service to a greater good and the safety of their pack. But really, all it had been was to serve one powerful man with his own agendas.

It was sick and repulsive to think that so many people had not only been killed through Thorin’s orders, but that those weapons honed and trained to do it for him had also suffered significant physical and psychological damage. It was his fault that these other soldiers Neil had mentioned, and himself, were still suffering from flashbacks, anxiety attacks, or post-traumatic stress disorders.

That was what happened when people went against their nature, and their good hearts, forced to commit and witness things that were horrible and ghastly against other living beings.

But like any commander that didn’t care what he put those beneath him through, as long as his goals of greed and power were met in the process, it didn’t matter what happened to those that had to do his dirty work, Sophia’s father had ruined the very lives that served his hidden cause.

She could only imagine what they’d been through in training alone. By the sounds of what Neil had told her, it was merciless and brutal, and especially sounded like they simply just didn’t give them any choice but to do what they were ordered to, otherwise, they too would be beaten to an edge of their lives, or made to disappear. And he hadn’t needed to say what that meant. ‘Disappear’ was just a nice way of saying that they’d been killed in cold blood for failing or not wanting to comply.

So, Neil had no choice. He had been forced to do her father’s bidding – all of them had. It just confirmed what she already knew, that Neil was good. He was a good person. But Sophia couldn’t deny that after getting those answers from him, it involuntarily raised more in its place.

Why was only Neil on trial here then? Why weren’t Scott and Connor here too? They had been part of the same unit, and worked together, hadn’t they? Then why was Neil the one made to pay alone? If all of them just followed orders, as he’d said, then why was he the only one that had been accused of all those horrible things?

Not that she wanted that for Scott or Connor in the least, as she was greatly relieved that they weren’t here waiting with them to be executed, but the question still remained, why weren’t they if Neil was?

There was suddenly a loud clang on the iron bars of her cell. She jumped and was standing upright within an instant, even after hours of sitting cross-legged against the wall, and with her legs stiff and sore as hell, with one even sleeping, she was up and instantly ready and in the fighting stance Scott had taught her.

He would have been proud if he’d been there to see it. He had been drilling things into her that whole week of training she’d gone through with the three males, and he’d kept saying that he would keep training her the same thing over and over. He hadn’t cared how bored she got, because he’d wanted her to learn things until they became like second nature to her.

Clearly, it had worked, and she wanted nothing else than to tell that to Scott now, but obviously, she couldn’t. But where she knew he would have been proud of her; the prison guard didn’t think as much about her having successfully rewired her subconscious flight-and-cower-like-a-mouse response into the exact opposite. Sophia smiled, despite the guard laughing at her, most likely thinking she was ridiculous at best, and cute at worst. No, she smiled proudly, because she knew how very different her reflexes and instinctive reactions had always been up to this point. If this one reaction had been proof of anything, it was that she was not a flighter anymore, but a fighter.

“I wouldn’t be smiling like that if I was you, girl,” the guard’s rough voice ground out.

He seemed to be middle-aged but looked much older at the same time. His voice was one of a lifelong smoker, which Sophia surmised was probably why he looked older than he really was. He even gave a wheezy cough in confirmation of her suspicion, and not to mention the smell of his breath that hit her nose full force just then. Sophia wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“That’s better,” he laughed, his wheezing getting worse. “Here’s your breakfast, a last supper of sorts, or we can only hope.” She felt Neil’s indignant anger from the cell next to hers in response to the arrogant guard’s words, practically saying that he wanted her to be executed, but she didn’t show or feel as much as a flinch. “Not the fanciest food you’ll have, but then again, scum like you two don’t deserve anything better.”

Sure enough, he pushed one of two trays of food underneath the cell door’s gap he’d been holding in his hands, which Sophia had only vaguely noticed earlier. It looked like it held something that looked like watery oats, two burnt toast pieces and with a side of sweet corn that didn’t look so ‘sweet’ anymore.

When it came sliding on the floor toward her, she saw that some of the food got swiped off the top as it was too highly stacked off the plate to get underneath the opening, and as a result a lot of it got wasted onto the floor.

Well, maybe ‘wasted’ was too strong a word, as she wouldn’t want the food even if it had stayed on the plate.

As she lifted her eyes from the tray that looked like it held leftovers from two weeks ago, she saw that he was waiting for her reaction.

Showing no reaction whatsoever, Sophia simply looked down at the food again, grabbed a toast, though burnt looked the freshest.

“Hmmm… Oh my Goddess! Best. Toast. Ever,” she said in between each chew, looking at him with her eyebrows raised in feigned excitement. “Would you mind bringing me some more, please, since it’s my last meal and all?”

Giving him a wicked smile with her cheeks still filled with black toast, she saw how his expression changed and instantly looked like he’d just got peed on by an elephant or something. With a disgusted scowl, he quietly slid Neil’s breakfast to him and stalked off.

Sophia heard Neil’s amused chuckle. Well, since they were going to die anyway, might as well have some fun.

“Thank you, kind mister prison guard!” she called after him.

Even though she had the overwhelming urge to spit the toast back out, she swallowed it instead. It was the first food they’d gotten since being locked in here, and since they’d conveniently forgotten to bring them dinner last night. Sophia’s stomach had been rumbling and moaning for most of the night, so she hardly had a choice. The other food though…she wasn’t even going to touch that.

By the sounds of it, Neil also only opted for the toast. To think of the amount he usually ate in one sitting, this was not close enough to take his hunger away.

Fucking prick, she thought with a glare at nothing in particular. If this was truly their last meal, then the true monster between them all was this guard.

She knew if their connection had still been open, Neil would have been amusedly telling her what a bad influence he’d been on her vocabulary, but if truth be told, she’d always found a strange sense of relief from her overwhelming emotions when she swore, especially at bad peopled, whether it was only in her head or not.

Sophia heard a pair of three heavy footsteps approaching down the corridor, the sound of each combat boot hitting the concrete floor sent its echoes ricocheting off the walls all around the prison block. With each sound reverberation, her heart impulsively picked up its pace.

This was it, she just knew. They had finally come to take them…

Her heart ticked faster, and Neil, who had probably heard it, came to stand by the wall. She could suddenly feel his agony, his sadness, his longing and even his faith. She wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t trust in the Goddess’s mercy so much, but couldn’t find the words.

“Soph, be strong,” Neil breathed to her, and she so badly wanted to see him, touch him. “Whatever happens, know that I’m so very proud of who you’ve become. Whatever happens, keep that chin up and those shoulders square. And whatever happens, Soph, know that I never deserved to, but I love you. It feels like I always had, and know that I will never stop to–”

“Captain Neil De Boule,” Sophia heard Neil’s cell being opened and one of the guards addressing him, while she was still trying to come to terms with what he’d just said to her. “Keep facing the wall and place your hands flat against it.”

In the meantime, Sophia’s mind was reeling and balking like a stubborn mule at a bridge crossing. Not just because of Neil’s admission that he’d loved her as she had loved him, but at what the guard had just called him. Both concerns were fighting for her attention, and she had no idea which one she needed to address first.

“Sophia Tibald, and Thorin Tibald, your trials will follow directly after and in succession to Captain Neil De Boule’s,” the largest and broadest guard between the three informed them monotonously as he led Neil in handcuffs again, out of his cell.

“Neil,” was all Sophia could sob out as he gave her one last infinitely sad and yearning look before he was pushed to walk away by the guard.

“Remember, keep that chin up, baby,” he said over his shoulder to her.

As she watched him being led away down the corridor through distorted and watery eyes, Sophia knew she wanted to call after him; I love you too…

But she just couldn’t for some frustrating reason, as her mind was circling around to what the guard had called him.

Captain Neil De Boule…

Suddenly she remembered why his name had sounded so familiar to her the first time she’d heard it. It felt like it was ages ago already, but now it made sense. Now that ‘Captain’ was put to his name, a memory flicked across her mind’s eye.

It was a memory of where she’d overheard her father talking about him to his friends over whiskey in the living room once. They’d been discussing Neil all along! Sophia realized, holding back bile from rising in her throat at the memory.

He’d bragged about Neil being his fiercest warrior. The warrior he would send into any camp or town he’d wanted to be wiped out and obliterated. He’d even said that this warrior captain was even more ruthless and destructive than himself!

At the horrific realization, the realization of who Neil had been all along, Sophia found herself running to the filthy toilet she hadn’t even wanted to look at until now. Not caring about that anymore, she bent over it and puked everything out.

The entire wholesome breakfast she’d just had to force down her throat simply vacated her stomach again, all at once.

And somehow she was able to hear her father laughing from his cell, as though he knew that her world had just come crashing down on her.