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Saffron's POV

'Tell me Saffron, do you try to ruin my life? Or does it just come naturally to you?' He asks curiously as I scream in pain. He beats me again and again, and when I fall to the floor, he kicks me while I'm down.

'No Uncle! Stop this now! You don't want to do this!'

'Bad girls must be punished Saffron.' He says, hulling me up from the ground to hit me again.

'Uncle, you will get caught! They will lock you away!'

'I will kill them all.'

I gasp and turn sharply to get out of his grasp, not knowing where I am, I run and hide behind a crate in the tip. Sitting there, I silently pray that Uriel has the children safe and sound. I check my injuries: Only a few broken bones, a little more than a few cuts and bruises.

I could hear shuffling; my uncle was muttering words to himself as he looks for me. I try and steady my breathing to a minimum to stay as quiet as a mouse.

'Fee fi fo fum!' Uncle yells. 'I smell the blood of…' He pauses and chuckles to himself. 'Little Saffron.'

More shuffling, his footsteps are getting closer.

'Be her alive, or be her dead.' I clamp my eyes tightly shut with the fear.

'I'll grind your bones to make my bread!' He yells and, as he says this, my arm snaps, causing me to scream out in pain. As soon as the scream left my lips I clasped my hand in front of my mouth but it was too late, he had found me.

'Don't you run away from me, little Saffron. You scurry like mice, and we all know what happens to mice, don't we?'

'No, sir.' I stammer. He wasn't making sense again, this was when he was most crazy and unpredictable.

'Mice get their tails chopped off with a carving knife.'

Tears flood my eyes as I see him pull out a silver blade from his pocket.

'SAFF!' Zed yells from the distance.

'Taz and Jos? Are they okay?!' I ask fearfully.

'Uri has them, they're safe.'

I breathe a sigh of relieve, feeling more relaxed now. Uri has them and they are safe.

'Let her go now!' Saul yelled. Uncle places the knife against my throat.

'Nobody move or I will kill her. Then I will kill each and every one of you.' He says darkly.

'Just put the knife down, we can talk about this.' Diamond says calmly.

'Poisoning my mind! All of you! Poison, poison, poison!' He screams. Trace shifts so he is standing in front of Diamond to protect her.

'You really don't want to do this, just stop. Please!' Zed says.

'Don't you understand? This girl is bad! Killing her is right! She has poisoned all of your minds with her gift. You cannot see the badness in her. I will be doing you all a favour.'

'No, Saffron is good!'

'She killed my soulfinder and her parents, she tried to kill me and then she took my son away from me. Speak of the devil….How are you Josiah my son?' He called out. I could see Josiah in the distance, he was holding Uriel's hand and Uriel was holding Tazzy.

I smile at them although they don't smile back. They look a little ill to be honest; they're staring at me with horror. Then I realise why: I have a knife under my throat. Uriel slowly puts Tazzy down and looks as though he wants to run up to me but Yves stops him and whispers something in his ear.

Uncle is pressing the knife against me hard so there is a flow of blood that trickles down my neck and chest.

'Please Uncle, not in front of Uriel. Not in front of the kids.' I beg him, willing to let him kill me somewhere else, but just not here.

'My kids, Saffron. Josiah is my son.'

'I'm not your son and you are not my father. He is.' Josiah said, nodding at Uriel. That made me happy since it worried me that Josiah might not get on well with Uriel. At least I know they will be okay when I…well…pass.

'Don't do this uncle…just not here anyway.' I whisper.

Even when I couldn't see him, I could feel him smiling behind me.

'Little Saffron wants to die alone.' Tazzy starts crying, her sobs getting louder and louder.

'Someone stop that racket or I'll stop it myself!' My uncle glares at Tazzy and Uriel hides her face against him.

I look to the floor, unable to meet anyone's gaze, when suddenly I see something. A snake wriggles over the dirty ground next to uncle. The snake's skin was metallic black and glittered as the light hit each of its tiny scales. It really was beautiful. Beautiful and venomous. The mortality rate from a black mamba snake bite was 100%. I smile at the snake and then my grin widens when it wriggles onto uncle's shoe. The Benedicts look at me with confusion, as though I've gone mad.

Uncle shakes my shoulders and the knife digs in further.

'What are you smiling about, girl?!' He hisses.

I use my unbroken arm to point down to his foot. 'There's a snake, uncle.'

In an instant, uncle tenses up. His whole body freezes and he drops the bloody knife to the floor. The noise of the knife hitting the floor must have startled the snake as the snake suddenly darts up his trouser leg causing me to giggle at the sight of my horrified uncle.

I thought he was going to scream but he just fell to the ground limply. Cold-out fainted. The snake squirms back out from his trouser leg and wriggles away, back under the heaps of rubbish. Strong arms grab me from behind as Uriel pulls me against his chest. He buries his face against my neck and I could feel the dampness of his tears mixing with my blood.

'Saff! God you scared me so much! Don't you ever put me through that again, you hear me?' He murmurs against me.

'Love you Uri.' I whisper, closing my eyes with relief.

'I love you too, Saff, so so much.'

Uriel was staring at my uncle lying on the floor. I turn round and he was lying very still, struggling to breathe. He must have been bitten.

'Saffron.' He whispers. Uriel holds me back from moving any closer. 'So sorry Saffron. Forgive me.'

I felt all the broken bones in my body click back into place again, much to my surprise.

'Thanks.' I say quietly.

'I'm going to find my soulfinder now…going to see Lula. Forgive me.' He whispered before finally shutting his eyes.

'Come on Saff, let's get out of here before anyone else gets bitten.' Uriel says gently, lifting me up in his arms and carrying me away. Maybe it was the relief of being alive, or the fear of almost dying or even the grief from my uncle dying, all I knew was that I was suddenly very tired and a little dizzy. Before I knew it, I passed out in the safety of Uriel's arms.