Snow White and the Alpha

Chapter 5: Gone

|Nieves|

"Miss..." A voice called out softly, but I didn’t bother to acknowledge it.

I remained still, my gaze fixed on the vast, unfamiliar landscape beyond the window. The rolling hills and dense forests stretched endlessly, a reminder of how far I was from home—if I even had one anymore.

"It’s time for your lunch," the woman added, her tone laced with patience, yet edged with quiet insistence.

I didn’t respond. I barely even blinked.

The sound of footsteps approached, steady and purposeful, until the nurse appeared in my peripheral vision. She stood beside my bed, a cart in front of her carrying what I assumed was my meal for the day. I didn’t spare it a glance.

"You need to eat, Miss," she pressed, her voice a notch firmer. "You haven’t eaten in two days, and if—"

"I... I don’t have an appetite." The words tumbled out, barely more than a whisper, cutting off whatever she had been about to say. My voice, like the rest of me, felt hollow.

She exhaled sharply, clearly unimpressed with my excuse.

"Still, you need to eat. If you don’t, you won’t get any better."

I wanted to tell her that I didn’t care. That whether I got better or not made no difference. But instead, I held my tongue, letting the silence speak for me.

She lingered for a moment, perhaps hoping I’d change my mind, but when I didn’t, her patience finally wore thin.

"Why did the Alpha even bother saving you if you’re just going to waste away like this?" she muttered under her breath, clicking her tongue in irritation before turning on her heel and pushing the cart away.

I barely heard her. I barely cared.

Instead, I returned my attention to the window, drinking in the sight of the open sky and the distant trees. The quiet serenity of it soothed something deep inside me, offering a brief reprieve from the turmoil that had taken root in my chest.

But peace never lasted. Not for me.

I had no idea how long I had been staring out the window. Time felt meaningless, slipping through my fingers like sand. Then, without warning, a memory surfaced—a vivid, aching fragment of my past.

Lola.

It was one of those core memories, the kind that anchors itself deep in your soul, refusing to fade no matter how much time passes. The moment it surfaced, an unbearable wave of sorrow crashed over me, dragging me down into the depths of my grief.

“How’s the patient? Has she been eating?”

A voice pierced through the fog in my mind, accompanied by the soft creak of the door opening and closing.

“She refused to eat, doc.” Another voice answered, laced with concern.

“What?! She has to eat. Find a way—anything—because if something happens to her, we’ll have to answer to the Alpha.”

Footsteps shuffled around me, hushed whispers drifting through the room like ghosts. The nurses moved carefully, as if afraid their presence alone might shatter me. They coaxed, pleaded, tried to convince me to take a bite, but the mere thought of food twisted my stomach into knots.

I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I could barely breathe.

Lola was gone.

I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to block out the memories, but the darkness behind my eyelids only made them sharper, more vivid.

The burning village. The thick scent of smoke and blood in the frozen air. The rogues’ snarls slicing through the night like a death knell. And Lola—her warm, gentle eyes frozen in time, the light extinguished in an instant.

A strangled breath left me as my hands clenched into fists, but no matter how tightly I squeezed, the warmth of her touch had already faded, leaving only an unbearable emptiness in its place.

She had been my world.

My only family.

The one person who had ever truly accepted me. And now, she was gone, leaving me lost in a sea of grief with no shore in sight.

The door creaked open once more. A heavy presence filled the room, one I had come to recognize all too well. Footsteps echoed against the cold floor—measured, deliberate. Each step carried an air of authority, unyielding and absolute.

The others in the room reacted instantly. The nurses and doctor stiffened, their murmured greetings barely above a whisper.

Alpha.

A single word, laced with deference, as they instinctively moved aside, retreating into the shadows like startled prey.

And just like that, I was alone with him.

The man. The Alpha. The one who had been coming to see me every day without fail. The one who had saved me.

He stood tall, his frame dominating the space. Sharp grey eyes surveyed me with an intensity that made my skin crawl, as if he were dissecting me, trying to piece together a puzzle only he could see. He never spoke at first. Instead, he would take his usual spot by the window, arms crossed over his chest, watching.

Always watching.

I didn’t know his name. I didn’t care to know.

Because all he ever brought was pain.

He was the relentless force dragging me back to reality, refusing to let me slip into the comforting haze of denial. He never coddled, never softened the truth. And today was no different.

“I was told you haven’t been eating.” His voice, deep and edged with something unreadable, shattered the silence. There was no sympathy in his tone, only cold observation.

I said nothing.

His gaze flickered over me, assessing, searching. Impatience flickered in the depths of his stormy eyes, but there was something else too. Something sharper.

Pity? No. Not quite.

It was harsher than that.

"Do you need me to repeat the truth over and over just to make you take a bite?" he pressed, his voice steady, unyielding. "Your pack is gone. Everyone is dead. No matter how much you fight it, this is your reality. Accept it—and live."

A cold blade twisted deep in my gut.

I already knew. I had seen it, felt it, lived through it. But hearing the words spoken aloud—so carelessly, so final—splintered something inside me.

“You’re the only survivor,” he continued. “The rogues left nothing behind.”

A tremor of fury and grief surged through me. My hands clenched weakly at the sheets as I turned my head, glaring at him with what little strength I had left. My throat was raw, my voice a rasp from too many nights spent screaming in my sleep.

“And s-so what?” I forced the words out, my breath uneven. “Do you think I don’t already know?”

He tilted his head slightly, his expression unreadable. “You needed to hear it.”

A spark of anger ignited inside me, burning through the numbness that had settled in my chest like a heavy fog. I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms.

“Why? So I can thank you? So I can drop to my knees in gratitude because you pulled me out of that nightmare instead of letting me die with them?” My voice cracked, raw with emotion.

His gaze remained steady, unaffected by my outburst. “Yes. Because you’re still refusing to accept the truth staring you in the face.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, my vision blurring as unshed tears swam before my eyes. My pulse thundered against my temples, each beat a painful reminder of everything I had lost.

“You should have left me there,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “I should have d-died with them.”

Silence thickened the air between us, suffocating and heavy with unspoken grief. Then, without hesitation, he took a step closer. The weight of his presence loomed over me, a dark shadow pressing against my fragile existence.

“You won’t die,” he said, his voice firm, with a smirk plastered on his lips. “Not. On. My. Watch.”

Something inside me snapped. My head jerked up, my grief momentarily drowned beneath a surge of fury.

“Why?” My voice was hoarse, barely more than a breath. “Why save me? What am I supposed to do now? What’s left for me?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, something flickered in his gaze—something unreadable, something dark.

He didn’t say a word. Instead, he just stared at me, his silence fueling the frustration simmering inside me.

A sob then clawed at my throat. I wanted to scream at him, to make him understand that without my grandmother, without my pack, I was nothing. But the words never made it past my lips. They tangled with my grief, suffocating me from the inside out.

He turned toward the door, his footsteps slow, deliberate. Even as he walked away, his presence lingered, an unwanted reminder of the life I hadn’t asked to be saved for. At the threshold, he hesitated.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “You’d better have eaten something by then.”

And then he was gone.

The moment the door clicked shut, whatever fragile control I had crumbled. I collapsed onto the bed, curling in on myself as silent sobs tore through me. Hot tears spilled down my face, soaking into the pillow beneath me. My chest ached with every breath, the weight of my grief pressing down like a boulder on my ribcage.

Lola was gone.

My pack was gone.

And I had no idea how to keep going.