"Hide."

The word was urgent, something not often heard coming from John Cameron. It sounded foreign on his tongue. The women scattered underneath cots and huddled in corners, quivering as they caged their children in their arms.

Adeline scampered across the floor, weaving in and out of panicked men cocking their guns and lighting torches. Her eyes darted from wall to wall, searching hopelessly for anywhere to find shelter. Heart caught in her throat, she suffocated with the sound of her blood pulsing. A lightheaded sense of panic washed over; she wordlessly snatched up her shawl up from its place on the dusty table and shot out the back door, still in her scanty nightdress.

The crunch of leaves beneath her feet and the wind fluttering past her ears did not go to Adeline's head at all; she was deaf to every sound in the world that was not her heartbeat and the sickening echo of the Huron war call dispersing throughout the woods.

With every glance back at the cabin, her legs grew weaker. She stopped abruptly behind a maple tree, the taste of blood heavy on her tongue, and, as if a thick layer of ice had begun to form in crystals around her, stared helplessly as blood flashed under torchlight, screams from inside the cabin reverberating in her skull. The young cries of anguish cut her insides like shards of glass.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

In her head, Adeline tried to reach out and just do something, anything. But the ice on her skin locked her in place in the bushes. The dizzying violence before her was almost not happening. It was all a dream. If she just woke herself up maybe this would all end and everything would be-

The ice hit her lungs. The snap of a twig mere yards in front of her plucked her out of her own brain and left her open in the air for the taking.

For seven days, Adeline Blackburn did not breathe. She did not blink. She did not eat or drink or sleep-she was frozen.

Only, seven days was twenty seconds. But time does not work the sayme when in the perfect sphere of petrification.

Two shadows, men, no doubt, stood but twenty feet in front of her. She watched the tiny glint in their eyes moving; searching for her in the brush. The growing fire behind them crackled.

Her stomach growled. She prayed silently they couldn't hear.

A low voice spoke a short string of words Adeline could not understand before another crack of twigs released her chest from its own airtight grip. The shadows disintegrated into darkness as the flames grew larger, licking the dried leaves of the trees around them.

Only, to Adeline, everything blurred into a red hot mass, blank spots ripping through the fabric of her consciousness.

And everything disappeared into black.

Adeline did not remember falling asleep.

The sun burned through her eyelids and she squinted; birds sang around her as if nothing had happened. She spent several minutes on the ground, her head against the dirt, wondering if she had imagined the whole thing. If it really was a dream.

Maybe she had had too much wine and not enough food to level it out. Maybe she'd fallen asleep at dinner with her head on the table while everyone laughed at what a lightweight she was. Maybe she was still sleeping, still tipsy, and couldn't quite pull herself out of it yet; Alexandra would come wake her up soon, offering her a cup of tea and a piece of rye. She always did.

Adeline blinked again. No Alexandra, not this time.

As she pushed up weakly in an attempt to prop herself on her knees, a faint rustling a few yards away slammed her back into the brush. Watching through the undergrowth, she sucked in a deep breath and quietly readjusted in a vain attempt to see. Three people, maybe more. No Indians in sight, but two women, one in pink, one in blue. Someone behind her view of the cabin mumbled. She angled her head and listened harder.

"What did you say?" A redcoat. Adeline could not see who he was speaking to. But another utterance of words and she knew.

"Mirrors...tools...clothes," Uncas said lowly. "Everything inside. They didn't take anything."

She tried to cry out, tried to make him notice, but her voice caught in her throat. Her heartbeat blocked the way. Unable to steady her breathing, she forced out what could be construed as a pained noise.

"Uncas?" It came out as a whimper. She got nothing in return but silence. Wearily but desperately, Adeline crawled up from the ground and panted.

"Uncas," she said louder, her voice quavering. The muscles in her legs switched from stumbling into a full-on sprint and she felt the dust kicking up from under her feet. "Hawkeye!"

Nathaniel and Uncas shot up from the ground, rushing towards the girl as she tripped through burning wood and the corpses of her family.

"Adeline!" Nathaniel shouted, opening his arms for her to jump into. She held him so tight he thought he might suffocate, but he didn't mind. She was alive; traumatized, but alive.

The two young women stared in shock. The redcoat, though on edge, darted his eyes from person to person, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

"Adeline, why are you still here?" Uncas questioned, pulling her gently off Nathaniel. She wouldn't let go.

"Who did this?" Nathaniel demanded. He carefully pulled her out at arm's length to look her in the eyes. "Adeline, who did this?"

Her expression unchanged and her heart racing, she took in a hard breath and tried not to hurl. She recalled the night once again, her eyes empty.

"Huron," she breathed. She began to feel lightheaded again. "Huron..."

Then black.