It was nearing sunset and the four of them were hunkering down for the night in a small alcove in the side of the rock face that appeared to have once been inhabited by a family of bears or some other large predator, judging by the carrion littering the floor.

Derek was going to take the first watch, then wake her in a few hours to take over as was their usual night-time ritual. She huddled close to Matthew under the blanket they'd managed to liberate from the Cornucopia, but it did little to keep the chill air at bay. The small fire choked up the cloistered cave air with smoke making it hard to breathe without feeling as if you were suffocating.

It seemed like she'd only just settled and sleep had only just started to percolate in the far-off reaches of her mind when Derek shook her awake. "There is no way that was..." she started to complain, but stopped when she saw the look on his face.

Sitting up so fast that she got dizzy, she knit her brows in concern as she tried to sense what it was that had gotten him so worked up. "What is it?" she whispered when she failed to pick up on any danger, taking care not to wake the others without undue cause for alarm.

"I'm not sure," he told her, helping her to her feet without waking Matthew. They moved to crouch at the mouth of the cavern. "Someone is out there. I'm going to go check it out."

Emily felt her heart clenching in a panic. "No!" she told him with complete seriousness, "You can't go out there alone, not in the middle of the night...who knows what could be out there? If it's some kind of mutt and you run into it alone, you won't stand a chance!"

"Relax, Princess," he soothed, running his fingers through her hair, his eyes staring into hers and yet focused a million miles away. "I'm not going in search of trouble, I just want to see what's going down so we'll have enough time to pack up camp and run away if whatever's thrashing around out there comes this way."

"I don't think it's a good idea," she insisted, "Let's just go if it worries you that much."

He pressed a finger to her lips to silence her. "Just keep watch for a few minutes and I'll let you sleep the entire rest of the night. I'll be back before you've had time to miss me."

"Derek..." she tried one last time to reason with him, but he pressed his lips to hers before she could get any more words out, and then he was gone.

Simultaneously fuming with anger and extremely confused, she sat herself down beside the fire to keep watch. She decided she was going to be mad at him when he got back; he would've never let her pull a stunt like that if it had been her that wanted to go investigate a potentially dangerous situation in the dead of night.

Against her best efforts to stay awake, she ended up nodding off a little, waking herself up when her chin slipped out of her palm where it rested, nearly causing her to faceplant into the dirt.

She felt her cheeks burn a little with embarrassment, annoyed that she'd allowed herself to fall asleep on the job. Then, she started to panic a little realizing that Derek still hadn't returned. She knew she shouldn't have let him go alone.

She was very seriously considering going after him when a figure emerged from the trees running, panicked, in an uncontrolled path towards them. 'I swear to God, if this is some kind of joke, I'm going to kill him,' she thought, pursing her lips in a determinedly unsmiling line.

But as the figure got closer, she realized that it wasn't Derek and she immediately felt her heart drumming a panicked beat against her ribs. She was on her feet before she knew what she was doing and, knife at the ready, she ran out to meet them head on.

The closer she got, the more she felt the blood seemingly racing through her veins with an icy fear. "Ian?" she whispered as she came face-to-face with him and he collapsed in her arms.

He was covered in blood and sweat and his handsome face wore the hallmarks of combat. He looked into her face as if in disbelief that it was really her, his eyes wild and unfocused. "Emily?" She nodded, pushing his hair back from his forehead where a gash was matting his blond hair with blood.

He became even more agitated as he tried to piece together a story with disjointed words. But the only thing she really managed to pick out was that Derek was dead – the cannon must've gone off while she was asleep. The taste of bile rose in her throat as the realization that she was alone in protecting two innocent people fully hit her.

And suddenly, she was panicking. "I've got to go find him!" she insisted, "Maybe he's still alive – I've got to help him!" Ian's grip on her tightened as she leapt forwards in the direction from which he'd come. She fought hard against him, but he was just too strong. She collapsed to the ground with a cry like a wounded animal.

She wanted to cry, but she was just too exhausted to call up any tears. Ian's sticky blood-slicked hands on the sides of her face called her back to reality. As if reading her thoughts, he solemnly promised her, "We'll protect them together."

'Together.' The word rattled hollowly around in her head as she tried to make sense of what he was promising.