Katja watched through half-lidded eyes as Chavi tended to the gypsy's arm with the barrel of the gun pressed to the back of her head. Katja was lying on her side in the corner, thankfully forgotten for the moment. Tears slid down her cheeks as she sobbed silently, save for the occasional soft whimper escaping her lips.

The remains of Erik's mask lay on the floor before her as her body shuddered with emotion. She couldn't believe it. He was gone. Her husband and her hero was gone. Dead. Never coming to save her. And it was her fault. If she hadn't made him angry, if she hadn't continued to argue with him over that stupid name, if only she had dropped it when he asked her too, he never would have left the house and he'd still be alive. She was completely alone in the world and it was all her fault.

No, not completely alone, she was reminded as the baby kicked softly. Katja felt a rush of mixed emotions. The baby was the only connection she had left to Erik now, but she couldn't bear the thought of bringing a child into this hell. And that was if she and the baby even survived. Odds were that the gypsies were going to kill her before she gave birth.

But for now, all she could do was wait. For now, she was alive and despite everything, the baby seemed okay. Even after she had been tackled, knocked out cold, and raped, the baby seemed okay, and for now, all she could do was wait for rescue and hoped it wasn't too late for her or the baby.

"There," Chavi announced suddenly, breaking the silence. "As long as you don't do anything stupid, those stiches will hold." She glanced at the man holding the gun. "Now put the gun down Cato, before you hurt yourself." He started to lower the weapon, and once it was away from her head, she lunged for it. Before she could get a good grip on it, Cato was able to yank it out of her grasp and strike her with it.

"Nice try." Chavi fell to the ground, her temple bleeding. Luckily she seemed to only be dazed and not injured further. The gypsy took advantage of girl being stunned to tie her wrists together. "Not so brave now are you?" He grabbed her by her hair, ignoring Chavi's squeals of pain, and threw her into the corner by Katja.

"Where'd the gun come from?" the injured gypsy asked as he rubbed his bandaged arm.

"Grabbed it when I stopped by the camp to get her," Cato explained, gesturing at Chavi. "Thought it might come in handy."

As the two men began conversing with each other in their gypsy language, Katja locked eyes with Chavi. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "If…if I hadn't attacked him with that knife, you wouldn't have been dragged into this."

"You were just trying to protect yourself," Chavi replied softly. "I don't blame you for that."

"Why are they doing this?" Katja moaned. "What did I ever do to them?"

"I don't know," Chavi answered sadly. "This isn't like Cato. Garridan, maybe, but not Cato. He's a follower. He does whatever Garridan says because half the time he can't come up with his own ideas. Their parents died when they were young, and Cato never quite got over it. He clings to Garridan because he's all Cato has left. They're fiercely protective of each other which explains why he dragged me here. But I don't know why they're so fixated on you."

Katja closed her eyes and curled into a ball and remained silent for a long while, listening to their captors talk in their language, their words lost on her. "What are they saying?" Katja asked as the two men started arguing.

Chavi listened to them for a few minutes, her eyes growing wider and wider. Finally she turned back to Katja. "It's not whether or not we're going to die," she said, her voice barely audible. "But a matter of when and how."

Dieter paced back and forth, his mind consumed by worry. Fredrick was out there in the snowstorm; Katja was nowhere to be found; and the one person who knew where she was lying on the brink of life and death. Tanja knew something was wrong and sat quietly in the corner playing with the kitten, something odd for the normally rambunctious girl. He walked into the bedroom, where Brigitte was placing a cool, wet cloth on the sick man's forehead. "Any change?" he asked.

"Not really. Every so often, I think he's getting better, but so far nothing substantial has happened." She glanced towards the door, out the window at the growing blizzard, and back at the door. "Has Fredrick returned yet?"

He shook his head. "No," Dieter replied. He started to pull on his cloak. "I'm going to go after him."

"No!" Brigitte cried. "You'll get lost in the storm!"

"I have to do something!" He resumed pacing, tears burning his eyes. "I've already lost Katja once! I can't lose her again! And I should've stopped Fredrick from going out in the storm! They'll both die out there!"

"And if you go, you'll die too!" his wife shouted.

"They're my children!"

"You know I love them like my own," Brigitte countered. "But if you go out with the weather like this, you'll die. I won't lose all three of you. Not now, not like this."

Suddenly there was a loud banging on the door. Dieter rushed to open it and Fredrick practically fell into the room, snow swirling around him. It took their combined strength to close the door. "You can't see anything out there," Fredrick gasped, trying to catch his breath. "It's a miracle I made it back at all."

"Did you find anything?" Brigitte demanded as she pulled off his now white cloak and made the shivering man sit next to the warm stove.

"Not in that weather," Fredrick replied dejectedly. "By the time I got back, I couldn't see my hand right in front of my face. If I hadn't literally run into the house, I might have been stuck right outside the door. Has Erik woken up yet?"

Dieter shook his head. "He's still got the fever. For all we know, it'll be days before it breaks."

"We haven't got days!" Fredrick snapped.

"You just said yourself you couldn't see out there," Brigitte countered. "We're trapped in here until the storm lightens up. Wherever Katja is, she's just going to have to hold on until then."

"But what if my little sister is out there dying?" he demanded. "What am I supposed to do?"

"What can we do?" Dieter asked weakly.

Erik's eyes snapped open, his chest heaving. Katja. He had to get to Katja before it was too late. But Katja wasn't anywhere in sight. He wasn't at the lake anymore, and the last thing he could remember was the color white. What on earth was going on?

He glanced around at his surroundings and was surprised to find himself in his own room. There was a damp cloth on his forehead, and he felt awful. Suddenly everything made sense. A fever. That's all this was. He must have gotten sick and everything he had imagined happened to Katja was nothing more than fevered delusions.

After placing the cloth aside, Erik sat up slowly. He wondered how long he had been unconscious. Had his in-laws come for dinner yet? Or had they been here and gone? What was Katja doing?

Before he had gotten up to go check on his wife, the bedroom door opened, but it wasn't Katja that walked in. It was then that Erik noticed that he didn't have his mask on. His hand shot up to cover his face from the newcomer, but it was too late. With a surge of horror, Erik realized this meant that his delusions had really happened. "What have you done with my sister?" Fredrick demanded.

"They took her," Erik whispered.