While they have been talking, arguing, even, John Smith has been thinking. And he knows where they will have taken his child. Not to a house, not out of the city, but to the docks, to a boat.

They arrive just in time to see the ship sailing away.

Meg clutches and carves her nails in her hands. The cabin she is in is rich, finely decorated. The man's cabin. The Marquis.

Obolensky.

She is lying on his bed, tangled into blankets, clutching at the wound in her side, inexpertly bandaged. The blood is thick, warm, moves sluggishly with each pound of her heart. She bites down on a twisted rag of sheet to stop herself from screaming. The cuts on her arms, where they sliced her open to stop her hitting them away, they have begun to throb again, and the loss of blood is making her light headed. It makes the world spin – the colors are too bright, she can't breathe properly. Blood leeches out of her.

She wants her Dad.

The door opens, and she wants to pick up a chair, a candle stick, anything, to defend herself, prove she is not weak. But despite herself she whimpers, turns away, tries to melt into the wall as he enters.

He pulls up a chair. Sits down.

The door shuts and locks behind him.

No. No. She is the daughter of John Smith, and she is braver than this.

So she pulls herself upright, removed the fabric from her mouth, for all she trembles – and she spits in his face. Weak, she misses, but the man's eyes glimmer with something.

'You're not so much like your mother as I thought.'

She won't react to that. She has an agenda of her own, despite her spinning head, despite the rising fear.

'What do you want with me?'

'More of your father in you.'

'Why have you brought me here?'

'Bastard that he is.'

'Go to Hell!' and she throws herself at him, clawing for his face, and even draws a bit of blood before her throws her off and draws a gun.

He has very pale skin, an aristocrat's face, and pale brown hair. Slimy silver eyes.

She wants to flinch away. Wants to whimper and scream and hit her head again and again, to block out the screaming, the buzzing of flies over her mother's corpse, the whispers in her head.

But she has been running for long enough.

'Tell me what you want with me.'

He smiles, slowly, for all the trickle of blood. He wipes it away – it smears strawberry across his embryonic, sun starved flesh.

'Now why should I do that?'

And she stands. Stands without support, walks up to him, until the mouth of the gun touches her chest – just over her heart.

'Maybe just to see me squirm.' she whispers.

She hates the way he looks at her. There is something in his eyes she Is not used to seeing – but which she knows is very, very dangerous. But she bites back the hysteria, and doesn't shake – doesn't tremble even a bit as he looks at her.

'Your father slept with my wife. I discovered this, killed her, would have killed you, too. Came into your nursery. But the window was open. He had heard my whore of a wife screaming for him to run, before I slit her throat, and he had snatched you up, before I could throw you after her, down into hell. I could have let him go. But an insult like that – for nothing but a sailor to encroach upon what I owned and then take from me my rightful revenge – how could I suffer that? I would have killed you then, when I met you first, if he hadn't...' he trails off and Meg smirks.

'Beaten you.'

The man hits her around the face and puts the gun to her head, still smiling his crocodile grin, while she splutters out a mouthful of blood.

'And then I thought to myself, I could kill him. Or I could kill his daughter. Or I could take her from him. Let him suffer in the knowledge that she was mine to do with as I pleased, as was her slut of a mother.'

Meg bites her lips to stop the scream. She will not look away from him. She will not let him see her scared.

'You know, she loved him. And he did not love her. She said so, when I ripped out her eyes. That she loved him with all her heart, for all he could never return her affection to the same extent. That he made her a better woman. She was mad, a lunatic – I never should have married her. But she has such lovely eyes – like yours as a matter of fact. Very much like yours.' He moves closer and Meg flinches away. She can smell his breathe – the trace of wine, and meat. A carnivorous breath.

There is no wind in the room. No air. She looks at him and tries to run – but he grabs her arms, holds her, bruises her, opens up the slices his men made of her.

And now she cannot hold it back. And the madness comes.

Hysterical, his hands are in her hair, and she is small and screaming and sees flies move out of her mother's eyes, maggots squirm within her skin.

A knock at the door.

The Marquis leaves her, opens it, exchanges a few words with the sailor. Then he leaves.

Clutching at the ripped fabric of her nightgown, which he has not quite succeeded in tearing away, Meg whimpers, claws at the walls, feels them move in about her. Feels her blood drain, smears it across her arms and legs and face, pulls out her hair in great hunks, knows what will happen to her.

Despite herself. She knows.

She clutches closed the gaping nightdress, and sobs.