A/n: Long time, no update! Here's the next chapter.

Break In

SMASH!

Glass shattered all over the floor. Everyone in the household jerked awake and immediately they were all thrown into a panic. Elizabeth heard her father shouting, maids screaming, and more breaking glass.

No, not another raid! she thought, clambering out of bed and throwing on a house coat. She ran to her closet and pulled out a sword from the very back. Her father said sword play was awful and terribly unladylike but after the last raid, she wasn't about to be caught without a sword. She heard more yelling and scuffling and then Molly came bolting into her room, slamming the door behind her.

"What is it?" Elizabeth asked at once.

Breathless and terrified, Molly managed, "The King is back!"

She felt like a rock had just dropped hard in her stomach as Saradon's words seemed to echo before her: Don't say I didn't warn you.

"What do we do?" Molly wailed.

Elizabeth thought quickly and developed a semblance of a plan. She locked the door as she heard more noise downstairs and footsteps racing up the stairs. She grabbed an armful of clothes and told Molly to get the sheets from the bed. Molly obeyed and ripped the sheets from her bed, then together they ran into the room connecting to the bedroom. Elizabeth shut and locked the connecting door, tossed the sword she'd grabbed aside and steadied the trembling Molly.

"S'like them pirates all ov'r ag'n!" Molly cried.

"Listen to me." said Elizabeth holding Molly's shoulders tightly. "Take the servant's entrance and go through the servant passageways to the basement, and leave through the cellar door. You'll have to run through the brush and cross the river after that. Run to the fort and alert Commodore Norrington. Go!"

Molly whined and sobbed but hurried to do what she was told, fearing for her and her lady's life. She dropped the sheets on the floor and swiftly disappeared out the servant's entrance.

Elizabeth furiously tied sheets and clothes together as she heard pounding on her bedroom door. She used the curtains in the powder room she was in as well, joining them to the sheets and clothes. With a mighty crash, she knew her bedroom door had been broken down.

"Open this door!" someone shouted, banging hard on the connecting door between the powder room and Elizabeth's bedroom.

She drooped her make-shirt rope for a moment and struggled to inch the heavy bench from beside the door to in front of it, buying herself a few more seconds as they pounded harder.

"No harm will come to this household if you open this door now!"

She prayed her knots would hold as she tied one end of her rope to the foot of the antique dresser by the window and threw the other end over the sill.

"All we want is Miss Swann - open this door or we'll break it down!"

She started down her makeshift rope, struggling to hold on and not slide too quickly. She could feel the fabrics stretching and straining and then realized that her rope was not long enough: there was a sizable drop from the end of her rope to the ground.

"You were warned!"

BANG!

Elizabeth hung for a split second at the end of her rope, as far down as she could, took a deep breath and then let go. She landed painfully wrong on her ankle, but would not be stopped by it. There was no time. She raced as fast her feet (and throbbing ankle) would carry her across the wet ground and down into the brush and trees at the side of the house. She tripped repeatedly which made her ankle hurt worse, but there was no slowing down. Slowing down meant getting caught by Saradon and his men. That was not an option.

The connecting door blasted apart at the handle where it'd been shot. The soldiers slammed their bodies into the door several more times before they were able to open the door and move the bench enough to enter the powder room. They ran to the twisted sheets hanging out the window and looked down but saw nothing. They searched the room thoroughly and the bedroom but came up empty. Two soldiers discovered the servant's entrance and hurried down it, suspecting the girl must have gone that way.

In the foyer, being held by two more of Saradon's soldiers, the Governor continued to yell fruitlessly.

"Leave her be! You are all under arrest for breaking and entering!"

Saradon stood by coolly examining his fingernails and ignoring the Governor's protests. The Swanns' servants had also been restrained and they stood in muted horror. More crashes and shouts sounded throughout the house as the rest of Saradon's men searched and forced entry to any locked room.

Moments later, Commodore Norrington and several of his men came rushing in through the wide open doors.

"Governor! What's happening!? Where's Elizabeth?" Norrington said quickly, taking in the sight of Governor's household trashed, the Governor himself and most of his servants all in their sleeping clothes being held by soldiers not bearing the colors of Port Royal. He and his men raised their guns at once, Norrington training his on the regal man in red.

"It's Saradon!" The Governor shouted. "He's come to take Elizabeth!"

All at once, two soldiers who'd been searching upstairs came barreling down reporting that they'd found nothing, while Saradon waved at another one of his men in the foyer who's gun was trained Norrington and then several of the female servants screamed. Shots rang out and all hell broke loose. It was absolute chaos as servants ducked for cover and the braver ones grabbed household objects to try and aid Norrington's men in the fight. Smoke filled the foyer from the gunshots and the Governor crawled on his hands and knees into the next room, bleeding from a graze on his right shoulder. Saradon slipped out of the room in the confusion and while Norrington noticed, he was occupied in a fist fight with one of Saradon's men and couldn't chase him.

The fight spread to the kitchen and several other rooms in the house. Norrington, who's gun had run out of ammo and been wrestled away from him some time ago, was resorting to anything he could get his hands on. He grabbed pots and pans and threw them at the lead soldier he was fighting. The soldier ducked and dodged, grabbed a carving knife and lunged at Norrington who barely made it out of the way in time. They wrestled for the knife, tumbling around on the floor until Norrington managed to get a hold of it. The soldier pushed him away with a hefty shove before Norrington had a chance to use the knife and they both scrambled to their feet.

Servants, a few of Saradon's men and a few of Norrington's men moved their respective battles to the kitchen too, causing a distraction that the lead soldier took advantage of. He dove at Norrington who didn't move as fast this time and missed that the other man had scooped up a heavy frying pan from the floor. The frying pan came at Norrington's face as he brought up the carving knife and though he was knocked out cold on impact, the knife sliced into the gut of the soldier.

There was a sharp whistle heard somehow over the clanking and shouting, and Saradon's men stopped what they were doing and began a full retreat back to the foyer. The bleeding soldier sneered that he didn't have time to finish off Norrington and limped after his fellow men.

"She's gone." Saradon said as his men rushed into the foyer, some seriously injured and some not. "Let's go." He had to jump over the overturned table and dodge the arms of the soldier pinned half underneath, but then he was out, running briskly down to the Swanns' gate, his men hurrying behind him.

Elizabeth crashed through the trees, a terrible stitch in her side growing. Branches scratched her face and tangled her hair. Thistles and bushes ripped at her nightgown and scraped her legs. Rocks and sharp fallen sticks gauged her throbbing bare feet. She tripped on a root and was pitched straight down into a deep mud puddle. And still there was no stopping. Adrenaline pulsed through her and she didn't know if Saradon's men were taking chase or not, but she didn't want to find out.

Her ankle screamed in pain as she hoisted herself up and continued on. The stitch, her gathering scrapes and bruises and her ankle slowed her progress but she was determined not to stop. Not until she reached her destination.

A/n: Thanks for reading! Reviews are like oxygen. :D

(Note: This version of this chapter has a significant amount more action than the previous version and gives you another glimpse at how Saradon is no longer like Humperdink. -Aug '09)