Five months had passed since she'd been thrown in to this world, and she'd almost given up on ever seeing new York again. She was in the kitchen with Magdaline, searching for a band or a tie or something to hold her hair back while she peeled potatoes and carrots. In the five months she'd been here, she hadn't had a chance or the ability to cut her hair, so it now brushed slightly passed her shoulders. She picked up a piece of rope triumphantly.
"Ah ha!" she announced. Magdaline looked over at her smiling.
"Lovely, now come get to work on these vegetables." she told her.
Janine walked over to the table, tying her hair back and picking up a small knife used for cutting and peeling. When she'd first started helping Magdaline, she'd cut herself with almost every stroke of the knife, and found herself wishing for one of those peelers her mother used when she made big meals. Now she was almost an expert. She smiled, if her mother cold only see her now.
That thought came with a pang of regret. She wasn't even sure if she'd ever see her mother again. Magdaline didn't miss the look that passed across Janine's face.
"Thinking of home again, aren't you?" she asked. Janine nodded.
"My mother." she said. " My family may have been annoying, but I miss them. So, what's all this food for anyway?" she asked, changing the subject.
She frowned at the small look of fear on Magdaline's face. "What?" she asked.
Magdaline glanced around, then leaned in closer. "Tonight's the hunt. They have one every year."
Janine frowned. "They make all this food for men to catch animals? What's so terrible about that?"
"You don't understand." Magdaline said. "It's not foxes or deer these men hunt once a year. It's humans."

Janine sat in her room still stunned by the announcement Magdaline had given her about the hunt. She couldn't believe civilized men could take place in something so inhuman and barbaric as hunting down people for sport. Magdaline had told her no one was excluded. Last year it'd been a young woman only in service for a short while. The slaves didn't go to the hunt, they were afraid, and rightly so. She'd been told one year a couple of slaves took pity, and tried to help the hunted that night. It resulted in all of them being killed. Since then, no one even peeks out the window.
The sun had gone down and Janine could her the drunken cheers of the men and women in the courtyard . She covered her ears, trying to pretend she was back in New York and the cheers were on the TV Peter had up too loud tuned to a Yankee's game trying to goad Egon out of the lab to get into an argument about who had the better team, New York or Toronto. It almost worked until the anguished scream came form the courtyard reached her ears. Her eyes flew open. That cry of terror sounded familiar. She knew it like she knew how she sounded.

Trembling, she rushed to the small window, trying to look out into the courtyard. She couldn't see anything, but she heard the scream again. Forgetting everything, except the blind terror she felt for the injured person, she rushed out of her bedroom door and towards outside.

She rushed out the door, stopping suddenly at the sight that was before her. A small gasp escaped her lips, as she saw a beaten and broken Darius being drug into the courtyard. Then she heard Michael's voice.
"You didn't give us much amusement, we may have to select another this night." then she heard the word she'd been dreading. "Kill him."
"No!" she screamed, running past everyone, towards Darius' bloodied body. She threw herself on him, glaring at everyone present.
"Have you no heart!" she screamed at them. "He's a human being. How could you do this!"
Two men approached her, but she held onto Darius, swinging at them.
"Get away!"
Darius look up at her painfully, through the one good eye left. "Janine. Help me," he rasped. She smiled down at him, tears in her eyes. "It'll be all right," she whispered. "Move!" Michael said, finally regaining his composure. "Or you will be our next victim."
She glared at him. "Go ahead, kill me." she spat out. "But I can promise you, I won't run. You'll have to kill me here. I refuse to be your sport."
"Get her away from there," Michael yelled at the men closest to her. It took few minutes and several men, but they managed to drag her off of the man, kicking , and screaming. But when they approached Darius, he was already dead. Janine had given him a small knife while she was covering him, and he'd used it to kill himself.
"He's dead, my lord."
Michael cursed, glaring at Janine, who smiled wickedly at him. "I let him die like a man, " she announced. "Not like a dog you imagined him to be."
Michael stood over to her, murder in his eyes. 'You will regret sinking your nose in my affair, bitch."
She sucked in a cry when the first lash struck and split her skin.
"Christopher only needs you intact," he snarled, swinging his riding crop again, this time hitting her shoulder blades. He doesn't need you flawless."
Tears came to her eyes as the crop struck her skin again, but she'd told herself she wasn't going to scream, or beg. He could kill her but he wasn't going to get any satisfaction out of it. After the ninth or tenth lash, however, her legs decided they didn't want to work anymore. She'd have fallen if the men weren't still holding onto her. Before the crop came down again she heard Christopher's voice.
"What in the name of hell do you think you're doing?"
"Stay out of this," Michael snarled at his brother. "This doesn't concern you."
"It does when you're whipping my servant." Christopher snapped back.
"She interfered with the hunt,' someone yelled. "She deserves to be our next animal."
Christopher glared at the mob in the courtyard. "Only if you want to deal with me." he snarled at them. No one answered. Christopher turned his attention back to Michael, grabbing the riding crop out of his hands. "If she deserves to be punished, I will do it, not you. However, I think this practice of hunting the slaves is not only quite barbaric, but impractical. Now we have to go without a decent stablehand until next spring when the slavetraders come again."
He tossed the crop off to the side and walked towards the two men still holding up a near unconscious Janine. They promptly released her. Her legs gave out, but he caught her before she hit the ground. He gathered her up in his arms and stormed off back into the house. Michael watched him for a moment, then stormed in followed by the others.
Magdaline was waiting timidly by the door when Christopher strode in.
"Is she..."
"No. Boil some water, then bring it to the lab along with some clean cloths."
Magdaline scurried back into the kitchen. Christopher carried her up to his lab, kicking the door open as he walked in. He laid her down on a mattress, and she moaned softly.
"Quiet you fool," he told her. "What were you thinking'
"Won," she murmured. "Saved...life."
"The stableman is dead, Janine." he told her.
"Died like...man...not like...dog." she told him. Magdaline rushed into the lab, carrying the water and the cloths. She gasped, seeing some of the bloodied welts and cuts on Janine's back. Christopher looked up at her.
"Got over to the long table and get me the brown bottle." Magdaline ran for the table and returned a moment later.
"What is it?"
"It's an ointment I made. It works well on sword wounds, it should work on this also." He reached for her dress and started unlacing it. Janine's eyes widened. "No," she gasped, sitting up on the small mattress.
"Janine, don't be a fool." he snapped. I have to clean these wounds."
"I'll do it," she rasped, unlacing her dress the rest of the way. He face burned in embarrassment, as she slid the dress off her shoulders, turning her back to him, and letting it slip to her hips, while covering her breasts modestly with the front of it. She couldn't be naked in front of him. Not yet, and certainly not for something like this. He looked at her naked back, covered with cut from Michael's crop. He started washing off the dried blood. Janine bit her lip trying not to scream everytime the cloth touch her skin. "What were you thinking?" he asked again, after he'd sent Magdaline away. "I'm sure someone told you about the hunt. If I hadn't heard your screams, and come down, you'd probably be dead."
"It wasn't about heroics," she said. "It was about saving a man's life. What Lord Michael does is inhuman." she coughed, grimacing. Her throat felt like it on fire.
"Water, please?"
He left her a moment, then returned, carrying a cup.
"Here, drink."
She took a sip. It wasn't water in the cup, but some concoction that tasted almost like honey and cinnamon.
Christopher finished cleaning her back and started applying the ointment. Janine couldn't hold back a moan of pain.
"Burns," she gasped.
"Of course it burns," he told her. "You have open wounds."
But she didn't hear him. Any other time, she could've grimaced and bore it, but after the lashes, and now the ointment, she blissfully fell into the waiting darkness.