"You're mother," Elizabeth whispered as she felt the fear drain from her body, "Your mother has blue eyes? I thought that…"

"My mother is not one of us," he snapped, "My mother is a white woman who abandoned her young son in order to go back to the white world, a world that is filled with much hatred and chaos. I do not understand it."

Elizabeth felt the fear in her gut again as she started to back up, started to fumble around for anything that she could use as protection against the seething heathen in front of her. Nothing was in her reach and if she harmed the man that promised nothing ill to her than she would have no one to protect her from the raging tribe outside.

"If you mean me no harm than why are you keeping me here? Why won't you take me back to my…" Elizabeth stopped as her lower lip started to tremble. She had no family to go back to. They were all massacred in front of her eyes, her mother and sister being torn to shreds while her father's lifeless body lay mere yards away.

"Where would I take you little one?" he asked quietly, "Me and my fellow warriors came upon the carnage left by the Apaches. The Apaches are our sworn enemies. Instead of joining us to help fight against the white man they continue their raids upon us, choosing instead to steal from their fellow brothers instead of the real demon that is all around us."

"You're not…you're not an Apache?" she asked as she wrapped her arms around her body.

"I am part Cherokee," he proclaimed proudly and then growled slightly, "And part white."

There was a fire burning in his dark eyes and Elizabeth could tell that whatever this man in front of her had experience from the white world was not good. She had heard stories of Indians being slaughtered and killed, just for the sport of it, of women and children being murdered as well, weaponless, defenseless against the soldiers that raided their lands.

She had also heard the tails of what Indians had done to the white settlers that chose to move out west, the white people they felt were encroaching upon their land. She was a first hand witness of a brutal attack by a rabid Indian clan, one that was completely unprovoked.

Now she stood in the home of one of them, in front of a dominating man who could easily break her in two, who could do what the other savages had done to her and leave her like they had left the other members of her family. Instead, this man chose to help her, to save her because her eyes reminded him of a woman who abandoned him long ago. Elizabeth wasn't sure whether or not her familiar eye color would work in her favor but she needed to do something to keep this man, this White Bear, on her side.

"I…" she licked her lips and looked down at her torn clothes, "Thank you for saving my life."

He grunted something that she wasn't sure was in English or his Native tongue and she looked up to see him holding something out to her. She took it, hesitantly, and came in contact with the some of the softest material that she had ever felt. She wasn't sure what to do with it but he stepped forward to show her and she instinctively stepped back.

"I will not harm you little one," he said again, "I want to show you want to do with it. Wrap it," he said making the motions around himself, "It is a buffalo robe. It will keep you covered until I am able to find something for you to wear around the village. Your clothes will not do."

She tried to blink back the tears again as she thought about how her clothes had been torn, ripped away from her body by eager hands that abused her, damaged her, raped her. She wanted nothing more than to burn the clothes that still clung to her body and then she wanted to take a hot bath, scour the filth of those heathens off of her once porcelain skin.

"I shall return. I will find you clothes, then we will go to the river, you will wash the dirt from your body," he said with a sad smile, "I cannot promise that it will cleanse your soul."

"Thank you," she whispered as she felt the tears slide down her face, "I…"

He nodded and then he disappeared, leaving her alone in the large Tipi. Elizabeth walked towards the center of it, where there was a fire pit and a pot that White Bear cooked his meals in. In the right corner across the room were more buffalo robes in a pile on the floor. It looked like it was his sleeping mat. Hung from the walls of the tipi were various weapons and other things that a warrior would carry with him. The Tipi was circular and the only way in and out would be the flap that White Bear had just exited.

Elizabeth slowly slid down to her knees on the hard floor and felt her body start to shake with sobs. There was no escape. She was forever a captor of the Indians and she would never see the familiar white world again.

Lucky watched from a few yards away as Kristina took another sip of water from the canteen that he had with him. She wasn't saying very much and he was afraid that the gruesome discovery the two made was doing more to her mind than she wanted to admit.

He tried his best to prevent her from seeing the dead bodies but her horse was too fast and it ran off rather quickly, leaving them to make their trek back to town on one horse. It was taking them twice as long and he insisted on stopping every few miles to make sure she could stretch her legs and have some more to drink. He offered her some jerky but she declined.

She was stretching again, those boy trousers clinging to her skin and she turned towards him, nodding that she was ready to go. He wasn't. He was still trying to figure out how he was going to get back into town and break the news to his mother.

"Is everything okay?" Kristina asked quietly as she came to stand before him.

"Everything's fine," Lucky said with a forced smile as he pulled his hat off of his head and dropped it on hers, "You look like you're getting red. You shouldn't have left without a hat."

"Yeah and I should've listened to Mama and I should've listened to you and I shouldn't have been such a baby when I saw those people," she said biting her lip, "Is that why you're mad? Cause I retched like a little girl."

"No," Lucky said as he brushed some of her hair from her face, "No, Kristina, what you saw, what you witnessed, if Lu saw that she would've passed right out. I'm amazed that your not in hysterics right now. That's something you ought to be proud of."

Kristina gave him a small smile, "I want to cry. I mean those poor people and to have someone just murder them and leave them there was just…" she shuddered and then she felt herself being pulled in Lucky's embrace, "You're going to go back and bury them right, Lucky?"

Lucky squeezed his eyes shut and felt his chin nodding against her shoulder before pulling back and fixing the hat on her head, "I'm gonna see if we can get some boys rustled up so we can bring them back here."

"Is that a good idea?" she asked as she followed him back to the horse. "They've been out there for days. If you touch them you could…"

"They're my family," Lucky said turning on her abruptly and causing her to stumble back, "They're the people my Mom's been waiting for."

"What?" Kristina whispered and reached out to him, "Lucky…"

"And it's my job to get back there and tell her before anyone else does."

"Oh my!"

"Ma'am, I am so sorry, my apologies," Johnny said as he bent down in front of the door to pick up the packages he just had a hand in sprawling across the boardwalk, "It would be easier if some of these shops had…well hello," he finished with a grin.

"You!" Lesley Lu seethed, "Don't touch my things. I will collect them myself. Cowpoke, you need to watch where you're going," she muttered as she stacked the boxes on top of one another.

"I wasn't aware that a woman of your stature even knew what a cowpoke was," he said standing back up with a smile as he held a box in his hands, "Didn't even think people like you purchased things from out west. I thought you had them all railroaded in from your fancy eastern places."

"What I buy is none of your concern," she said holding out her hand for the box he held, "Give me back my things."

Johnny shook his head and tsked, "One would think that your mother raised you better than that. You should say please."

She scoffed and fisted her hands on her hips, "After you collided into me with your big, brute, smelling body."

"I don't smell!" Johnny said as he thumbed his hat up on his head with his free hand, "I'll have you know I bathed the night I got into town. I couldn't stand the uppity eastern woman clinging to my favorite denims."

Lu gasped, "Oh how dare you! You should consider yourself lucky for being able to touch a woman of my high standards, let alone that I had the bad luck of falling into your lap."

"Oh," Johnny laughed, "Lady you jumped right in there the first opportunity that you had."

Lu growled as she stepped towards him and waved a lace covered finger in his face, "That's right, I am a lady, if I wasn't I would slap you so hard you'd taste the blood in your mouth. Never presume that I ever want your filthy hands on me and I don't care if I'm falling straight into the mud never, ever, touch me again. Now give me back my box," she grabbed it to from him and turned around, ready to storm back to her other things that was still scattered in front of the doorway, only her new kid boots caught on the hem of her skirt and she wound up tripping, falling head first amidst her other boxes.

Johnny laughed as he stepped over the fallen woman, "I'd help you but I don't want to dirty up your skirt with my filthy hands. Have a good day ma'am." He gave her a tip of his hat and continued down the boardwalk towards the Mercantile, his laughter floating back to her on the wind.

"Oh you'll pay for that cowboy," Lu grumbled as she righted herself and started to dust off her skirt, "I may be an eastern lady but I was born and raised a Spencer and you'll get what's coming to you." She frowned as she looked at the mess that lay at her feet, "After I collect all my things."

Sonny Corinthos looked down from where he sat on the bed to the woman that was buried beneath his silk sheets, her hair in disarray on the pillow, her breathing even and smooth. Sam McCall was the only woman that he let comfort him on this day and he did not want to examine why he allowed that to happen.

His eyes traveled from her naked body towards the line of windows that displayed a view of Charlesville, Arizona. His back was propped up by the lavish handcrafted headboard he had sent down from California and his legs were lying on top of the sheets. The warm out there was filtering through the open windows causing his skin to stick to the material but he was finding it difficult to move. On days like this he was even finding it difficult to breathe.

This was the anniversary of his wife's murder. This was the day when someone came to his house and told him that his precious Caroline, Carly, was killed, her life snuffed out by unknown assailant. No one bothered to tell Sonny that she was assaulted, tortured, battered and bruised before the bandit killed her and he couldn't say he blamed the messenger. Sonny Corinthos was a well respected lawyer back east with a temper that barely needed a match to be lit.

When the undertaker asked him to verify that it was indeed Carly's body Sonny then saw what they had done to his wife. He wasn't even able to remember her as the beautiful, vibrant blond woman that he knew and loved. His last image of his son's mother was that of a broken woman who fought her damndest to survive for her husband and child.

He had always told Carly not to fight so hard, he wished on that day she had listened to him.

They had first met when she was fifteen years old. Sonny decided that it was time to move out of his parent's house and into the best known boarding place in town. He was going to be working at a law firm while attending school to get his degree. Carly was the laundress for her mother's place of business and Sonny knew that it was love at first sight.

Things didn't get heated until she was sixteen and the night of her birthday she declared to Sonny that she was a woman and she wanted him to make love to her. He tried awfully hard to resist but he couldn't and nine months later their son Michael was born. Sonny thought that a new marriage and baby would be oppressive but it only made him more driven, more determined to make something of himself.

He graduated from law school with honors, opened up his own place of business and helped Carly deal not being blessed with anymore children. To him, it never really mattered; he had all that he ever needed until that one horrible day when it was stripped from him by a man who selected a random woman for the taking.

Sonny waited until after Carly was buried, until after Barbara Jean and Michael had sometime to grieve and then he sought out Johnny. Together the two of them found the man that murdered his wife. They tried to bring him to the law but the sheriff stated there was no evidence, no witnesses nothing that could pin this unnamed man as the person who took the light out of Sonny's life.

So Sonny handled things his way and Johnny O'Brien helped clean up the mess.

Not soon after Sonny closed down his law office, packed up Michael and his mother-in-law and moved out west where he started a saloon and tried to finish raising the only child, the legacy that his wife left him. He was grateful that Barbara was around because sometimes he felt like he was the worst father in the world.

Stirring beside him pulled Sonny's attention back to the present and he noticed that Sam was slipping out of the bed beside him. He reached for her arm and stilled her, preventing her from leaving.

"You looked like you were someplace else," she said quietly, "I was going to leave you alone."

"I'd rather you didn't," Sonny said releasing her arm, "Michael gets worried about me when I get like this and I'm sure he feels better knowing that you're here."

Sam nodded and sat up in bed beside him, pulling the sheet up to cover her body, "Would you like me to make you something to eat?"

Sonny shook his head, "I'll eat tomorrow. Could you just…"

Sam looked over at him. His eyes were avoiding hers but she could see the torture, the desperation, wanting to escape the pain but not knowing how. She knew, over the past year many men told her how she could help them escape. It was what brought her here to The Devil's Gate, to the man that was beside her, needing her in a way she hated.

She turned to him, pressed her cheek against his face and brought his focus back to her. She then leaned up and kissed him, pressing her full lips against his own. Her body was being lowered, pressed back into those silken sheets, while her legs were being spread and Sonny was losing himself in her.

"I expected to find you on some ranch land, not hiding out in the back alley washing out some barrels."

Emily dropped what she had in her hand and whirled around, coming face to face with the grinning man that stood only a few short feet from her. She squealed and then found herself launching into his arms, hugging him tightly as silent tears slid down her face.

"Oh God Jason, you're back! You're back right?" she asked as she stepped away from him.

"I'm here," Jason said, "And apparently you're married."

Emily's eyes widened, "You've met Lorenzo?"

"No, no," Jason said laughing softly, "And I never pictured you married to a Lorenzo, let alone a cowboy, Emily," he smiled softly, "You're parents not take it well?"

"Our parents didn't take it well," she emphasized, "They decided to pack up and leave when things weren't going thier way. I was tired of fighting them," she shrugged, "When Lorenzo came into my life I no longer felt the need to be what they wanted me to be. He fell in love with me and my flaws and that just…" she was beaming at her brother, "He's so amazing Jason. I can't wait for you to meet him."

"I heard that you have a ranch outside of town?" Jason asked, "A rancher's wife?"

Emily blushed and nodded, "Not what I was raised to be. Mom just about had a heart attack when she found out that Lorenzo and I were engaged. She said that all her years of training me to be the perfect eastern wife were gone and there was no reason for her to go on living. I don't know how Lorenzo made it through the incident without laughing."

"How long have you known him?" Jason asked, "I mean, I don't have to go around asking…"

"No!" Emily laughed as she took her brother's hand and led him over to the backstairs of the Mercantile, "Jason he's wonderful. He's from Mexico. His grandfather came out here a long time ago and purchased this land, making an empire. His father lost it during raids and decided to go back to Mexico. Lorenzo came here trying to turn it back into his grandfather's dreams but it's more than that, so much more, he has the biggest spread around and there's always so much going on. We normally have a good foreman so Lorenzo doesn't have to travel with the herd but we recently lost him so we're looking for a new one," she bit her lip, "I don't know how I'd live without him for months on end. Oh!" she covered her hand with her mouth, "You just let me go on and on."

"I like to see you happy," Jason said with a small smile, "I'm glad that he's making you happy. I hated seeing you in that house, Emily. I know that you kept reassuring me that things were okay but," he shrugged, "They never seemed to be."

"They were to me until you left," Emily said softly as she squeezed his head, "Things were alright and then you disappeared and then Lorenzo showed up and I suddenly realized that there were so many better things out there for me, Jason."

She laughed quietly as she reached up and tugged on his hat, "I hated that you left but I'm glad that you did. I started looking outside of the Quartermaine world and look what I found?"

"What are you doing here?" Jason asked, "I mean, it looks like your working."

"Apparently Alexis' daughter decided to take the day off," Emily sighed, "I offered to help her out. Lorenzo is across town helping Ric with supplies. These barrels had food in them and we're cleaning them out before we add more stock."

Jason nodded, "I'd like to meet your husband when he gets back. I'd like to meet any nieces or nephews that I might have as well," he grinned.

Emily's smile slipped from her face as she released her brother's hand and made her way back over to the barrels, turning them upside down to let out any excess water, "There are none."

"Em…" Jason said quietly as he stood up.

"But it's not from lack of trying," Emily said as she tried to fight the tears that threatened to escape, "I mean we've been trying, lots and lots, and I'm sure you don't want to hear this because you are my brother but we have been and…"

"Hey, it's okay," Jason said as he took her into his arms and rubbed her back, "It's okay."

"This man has given me more than I could have ever asked for," Emily sniffled against Jason's chest, "And the one thing that I should be able to give him I can't. I feel horrible Jason, I feel so useless."

"You are not useless," Jason said stepping back and making her look at him, "And if this man thinks that you…"

"No," she smiled sadly, "No Lorenzo couldn't be more supportive. He's staying with me, no matter what the outcome of our visit with the new doctor."

"New doctor?" Jason asked.

"Yeah," Emily said wiping away the rest of her tears, "Laura Spencer, her brother is moving to town. He and his family are on their way here from Philadelphia. Lorenzo and I are staying at the hotel until they arrive. He wants to make sure we can get in to see him as soon as he puts the sign on the door."

"When are they due to arrive?"

Emily felt the twist in her gut again, "Last week."

"Kristina!" Ric yelled as he jumped off of the boardwalk and raced across the street to where Lucky Spencer was helping his limp daughter off of a horse, "What the hell happened, Lucky? Alexis!"

"It's okay, Ric," Lucky said as he helped Kristina stand, "You alright there? You blacked out on me."

"I'm warm," Kristina murmured as she leaned into Lucky's chest, "And my head…"

"Kristina!" Alexis cried as she ran out of the door and grabbed her child, "Where have you been? What's happened to you?"

"Lucky, what's going on?" Laura asked coming out of the store behind Alexis. She watched as Ric and Alexis seemingly pulled their mumbling daughter off of her son and towards the store.

"Mom, I need to speak with you," Lucky said as he stepped towards his mother, "I think it's best that we do it in private."

"Not until you tell me what happened to my daughter," Ric said advancing towards the young man, "She can barely speak. She wasn't suppose to leave town today."

"Ric, hey," Lorenzo said finally making it across the street and holding the man off with a palm to his chest, "I'm sure Lucky has a logical explanation for this."

"I do," Lucky said, "I wasn't aware that your daughter was suppose to stay where you could see her. She told me this morning that you allowed her out for a ride."

"Not like this we didn't!" Alexis gasped realizing that her daughter had on pants.

Lucky turned back to his mother, "I need to speak with you."

"What's going on?" Emily asked coming around the side of the mercantile with Jason in tow, "What happened to Kristina?"

"We're still waiting to hear," Ric seethed.

Lucky was running out of patience, Laura was growing more anxious, as were the other women standing around and there was a small crowd that was forming and starting to move across the street, towards them.

Out of the corner of his eye Lucky could see his father stepping out from the saloon. He knew that was his baby sister at the other end of the boardwalk making her way towards them. There was also some stranger that he had seen the last few nights in Sonny's saloon that was lingering against the door of it now.

He was going to have to tell his mother and he wasn't going to be able to do it privately.

"Kristina and I went for a ride," he said taking his mother's hand and moving her in the direction of Alexis' store, "I shouldn't have let her get that far away from me but she was having so much fun," he smiled softly, "She was laughing like she use to when you let her spend the night with us, remember?"

"Yes," Laura said nodding slowly, "Lucky, what…"

"Kristina wanted to race towards this rock crop, she thought it was a rock crop but it was a wagon, burnt up pieces of it," Lucky said as he watched his father push through the crowd towards him and his mother. He stepped back and held out Laura's hands to Luke.

"Lucky, please," Laura said quietly.

"Spit it out boy," Luke snapped as he slipped his arm around Laura's shoulders.

"We found Uncle Jeff and Aunt Mary," Lucky said as he watched the horror appear on his mother's face, "Kristina found them."

"What?" Ric shouted.

"My baby!" Alexis cried. "Come inside, come in."

"No," Kristina said finding some of her strength, "No, Lucky…"

"You are to stay away from that boy," Alexis said as she dragged her daughter into her store, "I knew he would turn out to be nothing but trouble since he moved out."

"Jeffrey," Laura whispered as her body fell limp against her husband's, "It couldn't be."

"I didn't want it to be," Lucky said, "After I got Kristina away, I went back," he watched as Lorenzo moved around him towards his wife. Jason Morgan stepped aside and let the Alcazar's comfort one another, "I checked to make sure it was them," his eyes moved around again and he saw the stranger from Sonny's saloon cross three dusty road, standing next to the famous gunslinger as they all listened intently for Lucky to continue, "It was them Mom."

He stopped, he tried to regain his composure as he struggled with the last of his heart wrenching news, "But there were only three of them."

"What?" Luke asked shocked.

"No," Laura whispered, "No, it can't be. Who, Lucky? Who was missing?"

"Elizabeth," Lucky said quietly.

"Oh God, Luke what do we do?" Laura asked desperately as she turned to her husband.

"We'll get them Laura," Luke said as he pulled his wife into a tight embrace, "We're going to round some boys up and we're going to get your family."

"Elizabeth, poor Elizabeth," Laura cried against her husband's shoulder, "What about her?"

"Laura," Luke said hesitantly, "I don't think that…"

"We go to the site, we follow their tracks and then we find her," Jason Morgan spoke up from amidst the crowd, "We bring Elizabeth home."