Author's Note: Here's where the first of my troubles with timejumps come into play. More on that later...

March 1778

It had been a month since Molly fled from Setauket. It had taken her that long to finally reach Philadelphia and finally persuade a local to point her in the direction of Valley Forge.

She was completely exhausted. She had spent most of the last month living in the woods. Since her conversation with Lloyd Jameson, she refused to travel by the main road. She was too fearful of bandits. Luckily, this strategy had worked so far. She had not run into any trouble so far. She would only go into town if she needed to stock up on food, or to steal a horse. Molly had stolen a total of six horses since traveling through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania.

Although Mr. DeJong had given her the last of her pay from the tavern, Molly still did not have much money. She resorted to stealing horses and selling them to merchants or farmers in towns miles away. Horses fetched a decent rate, and she was using that money to purchase goods and purchase a room at an inn for the night.

But now all that was going to end soon. She purchased a horse in Philadelphia, and she had already set out for Valley Forge. She had been traveling for close to three hours when she finally arrived at what appeared to be the campsite… or what was left of it.

There were several men wandering around the deserted area. They appeared to be scrounging for things of use that had been left behind. She rode over to one of them.

"Is this Valley Forge?" she asked.

The man's voice was gravely, "Aye, what's left of it."

She began to look around the abandoned field. She could still see the outlines from where the tents had been constructed.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Soldiers moved on."

"What do you mean moved on?"

"They left. Moved to search for new campgrounds."

She growled in frustration. I missed them! I just missed them!

"How long ago was this." She demanded.

The man shrugged, "A day ago. Maybe two."

The man tried to go back to digging through the pile of abandoned junk in front of him. It was all garbage, but the man didn't seem to mind.

"And did anyone mention where they might be headed?"

"Why do you expect me to know?" the man spat

Molly rolled her eyes and produced a pouch of coins from inside her coat. She tossed the pouch to the man. Just like Lloyd Jameson all those weeks ago, the man began to count the contents of the pouch.

"Do you?" she asked.

The man swallowed his pride, "Middlebrook. One of the soldiers mentioned something about Middlebrook."

"New Jersey?!" Molly exclaimed. She had seen that location many times on her map.

"Aye."

She began to swear.

Molly was in a very bad mood. She confirmed the location on her map, and, sure enough, Middlebrook, New Jersey was only a few towns to the west of Middletown, New Jersey. She thanked the man for the information, and then she began riding on the main road, in the direction of the Continental Army.

The man had been telling the truth. Soon, she came upon evidence that a large mass of people had traveled through the woods. As soon as she confirmed she was moving in the correct direction, she retreated to the woods once more and continued to follow. She only rode for hours upon hours. By time it was evening, and she decided to stop, so she found a place to set up her camp near a lake. She groaned in pain as she slid off her horse and landed on her feet once more.

She was depressed. She had spent so long thinking that Valley Forge would be the end of her trip. But now she was still riding another horse, and she was still hiding in the woods. A month ago, she had hardly been outside of Setauket.

Although the sun was setting, and she knew that the weather would become far colder soon, she decided that she wanted to swim in the lake. Although it was still winter, she felt hot and grimy from riding all day. She tied her horse to a nearby tree and fed him some bread. Then she started a fire, stripped out of her clothes, and waded into the lake. The water was freezing, but she didn't care. She swam out further into the lake and floated on her back for quite some time.

By time she swam back to shore, darkness had fallen. She wrung the water out of her hair and hastily dressed. Then she sat in front of the fire. She needed to dry her hair completely before going to sleep. So, she sat there, chewing on a piece of dried meat and shivering in the front of the fire. She was already beginning to nod off, and she would've fallen asleep right then… but then she heard a branch crack behind her.

Her eyes shot open and she whipped her head around. She gasped as she found herself face-to-face with the barrel of a pistol. A young man had his finger on the trigger.

"I wondered when you'd finally come back to shore." The man chuckled.

Molly shivered, but it was not from the cold. He had been watching her. She understood who he was: he was one of the Tory bandits she'd heard about. She said nothing and continued to listen to the man as he spoke.

"Are you alone?"

Silence.

"Come on, darling. I don't want to hurt that pretty little face of yours. We've got other plans for you."

Silence.

She was trying not to let her eyes betray her, but Selah's musket was right beside her. If she could grab it, she could grab it, she might have a chance at fending him off. Of course, that was only if he didn't shoot her first.

"We?" she finally said. That meant there was more than one.

Her fingers were just brushing the barrel of the musket. She always kept it loaded, so that wouldn't be an issue.

"Ah, she speaks!" the man exclaimed.

He kept the pistol pressed against her, but he reached out to grab her face. That's when she took her chance. She leaned away from his touch, and she grasped the barrel of the musket. He was still reaching for her as she swung the musket towards him and hit him in the leg. He cried out in surprise and stumbled to the side. As he regained his balance, she twisted the musket around and swiftly pulled back the hammer, then she pulled the trigger.

She yelped in fear as his pistol went off as well. Luckily, she fired first, and his shot whizzed past her. The man began pawing at his chest. In the firelight, she could already make out the blood beginning to spill out of him. She wanted to be horrified by what she had done. She expected to feel the same things she had when she killed Alex. But this time, it was different. As the man collapsed on the ground, she wasn't sorry for what she had done.

Before she could process what had just happened, she received a blow to the back of the head. And she collapsed in a heap beside the young man as unconsciousness took her.

She awoke a few minutes later. She blinked repeatedly, trying to shake the dizziness she was feeling. Finally, she came to her senses. Her hands were bound and laying on her stomach, draped over the back of a horse. She didn't dare move. This had to be the other part of the we's doing. The only problem was, she had no idea how many of them there were.

Eventually, the horse began to move, and she saw that there was only a single man guiding the horse. She turned her head and discovered that he was, indeed, the only person. She also watched as they began to get further and further away from her meager camp. Everything she had was being left behind. Even her musket and her stolen pistol. She still had her knife with her, but it was stashed in her boot. She couldn't reach it right now. She feared, if she tried, the man would shoot her before she could fight back.

Then there was her head. It was still swimming. So, she remained on the horse. She wasn't sure quite what she expected, but the man only led the horse for about a mile or so. And then they came upon a cabin.

The man stopped the horse at the front of the house and then Molly felt him roughly grab her around the waist as he dragged her from the horse. She kept her body limp, and as he was trying to heave her into his arms, she threw her weight back against him, causing him to tumble onto the ground.

Her head was still swimming, but she wasted no time beginning to punch the man. But that proved to be difficult with her hands bound together. He swung back at her and delivered a blow to her jaw. She yelped in pain as he shoved her off him and then effectively pinned her to the ground. He was swearing and spitting at her. In the struggle, she managed to bend her leg and she slipped the knife out of her boot.

He had her by the throat at that point. She was gasping for air when she plunged the knife into the man's stomach. He cried out, and within a few moments, he collapsed on top of her, his breathing shallow. She could feel his warm blood seeping into her clothing.

She laid there for a moment, her chest heaving. She was fully awake now. She finally rolled him off her and scrambled away from him. She cut her wrists free from the rope and then looked back toward her attacker. After seeing the damage she had caused, she experienced the same reaction she had after killing Alex. She got on her hands and knees and began vomiting. She fainted after that.

When she awoke the morning, she discovered that her second attacker had succumbed to his wound during the night. She groggily rose to her feet and she decided to enter the cabin.

From what she could tell, she had been correct: the two men who had attacked her were bandits. The cabin was in rough shape. Although there were supplies inside, and although it was furnished, it seemed that it had been abandoned far longer than it had been occupied. She guessed the two men must've stumbled upon the building and were using it for shelter during the winter months. It also appeared that the two men did not have any other accomplices with them. The horse Molly had been tied to was her own horse. And there were only two horses in the small barn beside the cabin.

As for the cabin itself, it was quite sparse. However, there was food, and a hearth, and weapons, and a bed. She needed to keep moving. She needed to catch up with the Continental Army. But now she was suddenly overwhelmed with the numbness she had felt before.

She rode back to her campsite and collected her things. The first man's body was still there. It was harder to look at his corpse hours after he'd been dead. She wasted no time dragging his body into the lake, to hide the evidence. Then she rode back to the cabin.

She tied her horse in the barn with the other horses. There was hay there and water, and she knew her horse would be warm at night. Then she saw to the second man's body. She dragged him into the barn and hid him under a sheet. She felt weird, leaving him by the horses, but the weather was so cold that she knew he would not begin to smell for some time.

It was not Molly's intention to stay at the cabin. She did not want to stay there. She wanted to get away from that place as soon as possible, and she wanted for forget everything that had happened there and near there. She had repacked her rucksack. She had disposed of her bloodied clothes, stolen from Whitehall, and replaced them with clothes from the cabin, from one of the men she had killed.

She was ready to depart. But then it rained. And it seemed as if the rain was not going to stop. So, she delayed her departure, until the weather cleared.