The first thing she was aware of was the screams.

Her eyes fluttered open groggily, and she sat up. She listened in the still darkness of the bedroom. The screams were distant. They sounded as if they were coming from over the hill, in the direction of the McCaphrey's. They were distinctly higher pitched. Mairead. Michael. Her heart began to speed up furiously. She nudged Jacob beside her, and he sat up heavily, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"Is it?" he slurred, still emerging from the vestiges of sleep.

"Don't you hear them?" Annabelle asked urgently, slipping out from under the sheets and slipping a nightgown over her still naked body.

Jacob's eyes widened as he registered the sound.

"Get the children," he said solemnly, rising to dress. "And Mary." he added quickly, throwing on his breeches and a nightshirt.

Annabelle ran hastily to obey. She ran down the hall to Lily's room, which was the newly transformed nursery and closest to the Master chambers. She wrenched the door open, rushing to her daughter's side and shaking her awake.

"Lily, get up! Come on, get up! We have to go!" Annabelle dragged the girl from her bed, pulling her limp feet down to Joseph's room.

She did the same with the boy, shaking him frantically awake.

"Wha'?" he asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes confusedly.

"You need to get up, Joe! Hurry, we need to get out of here!" Annabelle pulled the twelve year old from his bed and pulled he and his sister farther yet down the hall.

When they reached Mary and Roisin's quarters, Annabelle found they had already woken. Mary looked to her seriously, her light green eyes filled with concern. Roisin was sitting quietly on the bed, toying with the frayed ends of her nightgown.

"What do you think's happenin'?" Mary asked, pulling the two Montel children close to her.

Annabelle shook her head. "I don't know."

A crash emanated from the front room. Loud, raucous voices could be heard from down stairs. Annabelle rushed everyone into the small closet on the eastern wall of the room, holding the door tightly shut. She prayed Jacob was safe.

"Mumma, I'm scared," Lily whispered, her blue eyes filling with tears.

"Shhh," Annabelle quieted the child, stroking her tangled dark brown hair. She looked to her son, who was standing at attention, silent and steely eyed. She praised him for his fearlessness in such a situation. Though, honestly, the boy scarcely knew what true fear was.

She heard steps coming ever steadily closer down the hall. She closed her eyes and prayed fervently for her family's safety. She could just make out the voices from outside the room.

"Tha' was a bloody fuckin' waste a time, tha' was," a loud, drunken tenor voice shouted, his voice echoing slightly along the walls. He had a very distinct English accent, as did his accompanying partners. "Didn' own a bloody thing tha' was worth anythin'! It was fun to watch it burn, though!" he laughed loudly, Annabelle could hear his stumbling steps come closer to the room they were hiding in.

She quickly covered her mouth, stifling a cry. Burned? They'd burned the house down? Were Mairead and Michael and Gregory inside? Tears stung her eyes at the thought of that little boy, clinging to his mother as their home was engulfed in flames.

"Yeah, an' tha' woman was a fighter! I love the Irish! Always great fun!" another voice, distinctly higher in pitch, as though he had just entered the throes of puberty. Annabelle shuddered at his words.

"Let's go in 'ere, mates," the first man slurred. "There's gotta be somefin' in 'ere…"

She heard the men stumble in and begin ripping through the room. They turned over the beds and ripped through the small amoire that Roisin and Mary kept their belongings in. They whooped and yelled as they discovered the women's underwear.

"If this is 'ere…then the bodies they belong to can't be far behind…" the teenage sounding man said, and he swaggered closer to the closet in which Annabelle and her family were stowed away. She pulled her children closer to her, willing them not to make a sound.

"Here, lil ladies," the man purred, sending chills up Annabelle's spine. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" he and his friends laughed, as if they were playing a casual game of hide-and-seek.

He threw open the closet door.

The light of the moon glowed on the figures of the women and children crouched within. The man that stood before them was tall and lanky, a rather weak look to his lean body. His greasy blonde hair was rattailed, and his skin dirty. He wore a dingy white shirt with a tattered brown vest and torn breeches. He smelled awful, but Annabelle's nose hinted traces of something familiar. Seawater. They were pirates. She immediately began to panic. She knew what pirates were about, and with three women in their grasp, the outcome could not be good.

The blonde man's eyes found Roisin, and his face filled with greed and lust. Mary stepped in front of her, holding her arms in front of her daughter.

"You'll not touch any one of them," she said coolly, her eyes filled with flaming anger and fear.

"Oh, really? I suppose you'll be volunteerin' for 'er then?" he grabbed the dark woman's wrist and dragged her out into the room, throwing her onto one of the flipped mattresses.

"Mum!" Roisin cried, running to assist her mother.

"Gotcha!" a rather fat, dirty man caught her by the waist and pulled her backward. His scraggly brown hair hung lankly under a black tricorn hat, and he had suspenders that strained to hold his trousers up. He stroked a strand of the girl's light brown hair. "Ello, duckie. Here to give us a good time? Once we're done with your mum, o' course." he laughed, exposing a mouth full of browning teeth.

Roisin fought against the man, tears filling her eyes. Annabelle recognized his voice as the same one who'd laughed about the McCaphrey's burning to death. Her stomach clenched with disgust.

"No!' Roisin screamed, kicking and wrestling with her captor. "Mum!"

Lily began to cry softly into Annabelle's nightgown. Joseph looked as though he might burst at any moment. Annabelle pulled him close to her.

"Don't do anything, Joe," she whispered quickly. "Do you understand me? Don't move a muscle."

Joseph did not respond, merely glared at the group of men in front of them.

The blonde man had already begun undoing his trousers when a large crash emanated from the doorway. A rather large black man had slammed through, dragging Jacob with him.

"Annabelle!" he cried, fighting against the man, who shoved him hard into the wall, causing him to shout in pain.

"Look wha' I found, Tommy," he addressed the blonde man posed on top of Mary. "Tried ta fight, 'e did. But, I broke 'is gun 'fore 'e could."

'Tommy' gave a rather nasty grin, and turned back to Mary, feverishly sliding his pants down. Suddenly, Mary kicked up a foot, catching the greasy man in the groin. He screamed and rolled over on the mattress, holding himself. Mary scrambled away, panting and adjusting her skirts. Roisin struggled futily against the man holding her, tears falling down her cheeks.

"Mum! Please! Help me!" she shrieked.

Mary ran forward, face steely with anger. She was almost close enough to touch her daughter when she was knocked over from the side. Tommy stood wobbling over her, positively fuming.

"You little bitch!" he punctuated the last word with a blow to her stomach. He pinned her down, straddling her waist and straightening her legs. He struck her over and over, oblivious to the screams of Roisin, Annabelle, Lily, and surprisingly, Joseph. Soon Mary was bleeding profusely, barely able to breathe.

"No!" Joseph screamed, jumping out from behind his mother and running right to Tommy. "Don't touch her you bastard!" he began mercilessly pounding on the man who'd hurt his Mary. The blows did little, and the man simply laughed, back handing the boy and sending him to the floor.

"It seems the young fella wants a fight," he addressed his friends, who began to laugh. "So I say, let's give 'im a fight!" he pulled the boy up by his auburn hair, leering drunkenly.

"No!" Annabelle screamed, rising and reaching for her son. "Take me! Take me instead!"

The men looked confused for a moment, but a menacing smile came over Tommy's face, and he dropped the boy, who fell to his knees. He strode forward, grabbing Annabelle's wrist and pulling her forward, shoving her to the turned mattress he'd just assaulted Mary on.

"Yeh'll not be touching 'er." a voice came from the doorway.

All the men turned, staring at attention. The fat man holding Roisin dropped her hastily, and she ran, sobbing, to her mother who lay on the floor. Tommy rolled over away from Annabelle, buckling up his trousers.

"Aw, come on, Cap'n," the man whined, looking longingly at Annabelle. "You said we was allowed to have a lil fun wif the-"

"I am your captain, and yeh bide by my orders," the man's gravelly voice was little more than a growl. "And yeh're not to touch tha' woman."

Tommy rose, sulkily moving toward his fat friend, who was also pouting in lieu of the new orders. Annabelle looked closely at the newcomer. He had a large gray mane of grizzled hair hidden under a black tricorn hat. His broad face was scarred and wrinkled, and his shoulders slightly hunched with age. His eyes were of the palest blue she'd ever seen. If she hadn't known better, she'd have thought he was blind. But as he strode towards her, pulling her up from the mattress, it became clear that that was not at all the case. He gave a rather polite smile and led her away from Tommy and the gang of pirates in the room.

"Now, Lady Montel," he said softly, his gruff voice like a purr in her ear. "I've got a proposition for yeh."