Not having a single clue, nor care, for what the hell Russell accused him of now, Doyle can't help but chuckle. A chuckle, that turns into a sardonic laugh.

"You're my only friend, Russell. Who the hell else would I be sending a signal to?" Bitterly, he jokes as he leans against the frigid wall.

"Doyle..." Sophie tries to hush him from her own point at the bars.

Russell takes his step forward and then another as his hand steadies to aim, then suddenly lowers down at his side.

The prisoners have hushed. They wait, they watch, they whisper. Doyle can smell their fear. Not anymore for themselves, for the living dead, but for his own skin.

"You keep this up, Sergeant and you'll lose everythin'," Russell replied curtly, "Naw, you can either learn to behave 'ere, or we're gonna have to find a way to get ridda ya. The colony has an order, has rules for a reason. Hell, if you were in charge, I'm sure you'd want rules in place too."

That cocky grin of Russell's returns, when he adds over Doyle's noted silence, "Ya gonna play along or are we going to have a problem here, Sergeant? Let it be and you can walk with us. That goes for all of you...just play by the rules, keep all of us safe....and all of you can go home by next light. Keep talkin' nonsense and we're gonna have to kick you outta here, or worse. I'll do anythin' to protect those kids in the school, to protect the likes of Abby from this colony fallin' apart."

Russell's ego-trip of his power filled the room stronger than his ultimatum.

In truth, Doyle didn't really understand what was happening here. He didn't know what Russell wanted from him, or what he wanted in general.

Sophie, Abby, Elisa, himself...they had a good thing going here, even if Russell was bat-shit insane. Outside of that fact, Doyle wasn't ready to pay the price of such a luxury— the price of lives. Lives of civilians, of those he cared about, of himself. He turned his face, looking to Sophie, as most of the others in the cells agreed to subject.

"I don't need you to stand with me," Doyle says to Sophie before he addresses Russell, "I'd rather die than live by your ridiculous standards. You're nuts. Everyone can see it now. You can hide behind your repulsive southern charm....but I ain't buyin' what you're sellin', hoss. Never have. You know it. I know it. Send me to my death, to my exile. You won't catch me beggin' for my life. Do what you gotta do."

To the bars, Russell descends on faster than a rubber band snapping back. Doyle, still at his seat on the bench, takes in the veil lifted from Russell's face. He sees raw anger, hatred, madness. He'd seen it before. If not in him, then certainly in the ghosts of his past.

"Then maybe it ain't your life I need ta threaten. Abby, the doctor...this one righ' here..." Russell has the guard open up Sophie's cell and it's when she's dragged out by her hair, that Doyle finds his feet. His resolve, his own sacrifice, counted for nothing when his actions are held against him to punish her.

Doyle's voice tightened as he threatens, "When I get out of this fuckin' cage, I'll kill you with my own hands. It's a promise."

Doyle's eyes danced back and forth, making sure he understood the full impact of what he told him as he continued, "So you better kill me first, or throw away the damn keys to this cell. When I get out of here, you're through. Trust me. You do somethin' to her, to any of them, and I promise you will be begging me for your life."

The ruler of Richmond Hill smiles in return to Doyle's threat. Though the soldier doesn't have the upper hand, he still makes his demands, his careless threats, without a leg to stand on against him.

"Have it your way, Sergeant," Russell replies and with his abrupt exit, Sophie is dragged out with him and his men.

Against the bars that smelled of iron and decay, Doyle glares. Sizing up the back of a man, that he fantasized in killing in the most painful of ways, he paces in the cell. Sophie's screams stick with him. Long after she's gone, Doyle still paces. No longer carrying anger toward her, but a frustration he'd never felt before.

He's helpless, caged, weak.

Though it wasn't part of his duty or obligation, Doyle's innermost self felt bound to protecting Sophie. Protecting her, Abby, Elisa, since he had nothing left to define what it truly mean to be James Doyle. If he couldn't protect them, then where did his value lie?

Doyle wondered if the siren from earlier meant the group Paige mentioned had something to do with it. If, someone else among them, or maybe Paige herself, lit a signal from Doyle's tower. Everything Russell accused started to tie into what Doyle now believed, had never been a hallucination. He'd seen Paige. She really warned him. They were not alone in wanting to overthrow Russell's reign.

The entire colony on lockdown, Russell dragged this woman as she kicked, screamed, and cried for all those who could not save her.

His eyes loomed over the dark circles of his horrible day, but with that siren, he at least gained control of the colony's streets as the civilians retreated to safety from the worst of their fears. Their eyes caught his once in a while from their windows, but he carried on with his desperate rage to get control back from everyone who threatened his seat of power from District 4 here.

He would not fail. He'd worked too damn hard to take this place, to get it to be of value to the capital again.

Thanks to Kate, he discovered more rats in the nest long overdue for some poison.

Throwing Sophie to his men, they drag her into the mansion and into the halls to which the likes of her position in this place she'd never otherwise see. The men drop her when the doors have come to close and nothing but cold hardwood is there to catch the sputtering of her tireless cries.

"Dr. Martin, I present to you your friend and science project, Sophie Grey..." Russell says and as Sophie lifts her chin from the floor, she can see the doctor sitting rigidly in the chair with her hair messed and her lip bloodied.

The guard forces Sophie up to sit her on her own chair, but she's finding her body going limp in defeat. She'd experienced this before. Her body sometimes couldn't quite catch up with a newfound terror. As she looked upon the faces of Russell's men that surrounded them, then that of the untouchable and somehow, perfectly dressed bombshell leaning on Russell's desk, Sophie found it hard to decipher just what was going on here.

"The two of you have been keeping secrets from me. As you both know, the capital requires any experiments or medical procedures to be documented and sent to them, but Kate here has discovered some concerning hand-written notes in your files, doctor..." Russell starts as he plops down the familiar folder onto the floor between the two captives.

"Open it," he demands of Elisa, "Open it and read what we've pulled from your notes. The page on the very top."

Elisa fidgets with her fingernails and the tremble of her bruised lip intensifies as she slowly reaches down and picks up the file thrown on the floor.

Adjusting her glasses as if in slow motion, Elisa's hands shake while she holds open the folder of her own making.

"Patient has incredible abilities to heal from even the deepest of wounds. While the rest of us are still recovering from bruises and gashes from the crash, she shows no signs of injury by the time I could even stitch up the first laceration. The shrapnel caught in her abdomen should have killed her from the damage it would've done to the lung, but her miraculous abilities have caused the object to be pushed out from her organs and from the entry point..." Elisa breathes in sharply as she continues, "The object fell to the floor and her skin only showed the blood from the wound. A couple of minutes later, there wasn't a single mark on her skin. Not a bruise, not a scar, not anything but the blood drying to her skin..."

"That's enough now, doctor. I think we've gotten to the point of why we're all here," Russell says as Kate, the redhead in heels, takes the file into her own hands.

"We've notified District 4 of this information, Sophie. Until they arrive, you are being detained. As for you, Dr. Martin, General Connor himself has ordered you to go with Miss Grey to the district. It is my understanding you will undergo a trial of your own there."

"However," he continues, "He also ordered that we make sure these claims are correct..."

Kate's polished red nails take hold of the letter opener on his desk where she finds herself seated and hands it to his waiting palm.

Gasping for air, Sophie's cries cloud her vision. She hangs her head, tries to bolt up, but is shoved back down by the two men with hands pressed firmly on her trembling shoulders.

Yet, instead of pleading for them not to hurt her, she asks, "Where's Abby?!"

As the blade tears into her abdomen, Sophie screams out, and the tears Elisa has been holding back fall from her eyes as she turns her face to look away.

Through these darkest days, in our final hours, we are reminded that we are nothing. Obsolete, to the universe, to the future. A thousand bottles cast into the ocean, bracing against the tide, flowing endlessly with time. All of our messages inside thin panes of glass. Written, in pleas, our last confessions, or deepest wishes. Then I remember every new day that I see the sun, that we are not alone. God will not abandon us and should He not see us through the end of days on Earth, then He will surely take us home into the house of the Lord.

Rather than send my troubling thought or any news, to the ocean, as we have so many times my dear friend, I send it to you now. Against my best judgments. Against the wishes of Paige, of Isaac, of anyone who is left to care.

We're in trouble, Nick. Alive, for now. I don't know if I'll make it back to them since I snuck out when I could to give you our most recent news where we've agreed to leave it. We're on the move, we are coming. But we've been taken hostage and these men, these horrible people, are coming with us. If they catch me, I'm dead. If the colony catches me, I'm also dead. I ran all night, traveled alone, to get you this. Please, Nick, I know you're the only one who can help us when we get there. I'm worried about Emma. Prepare for Abel. He's the psycho that's coming with us. He can't be trusted and he has to be killed. Him, and his people. More, than Russell, if you can believe it. Believe me when I tell you it's bad, that he's already killed one of us and hurt Paige.

I trust you'll know what to do. They'll be there by noon probably tomorrow because of your signal. Pray for me. Pray for us all. You're our last hope, Nick.

-CC

It may have been the coming of winter, but the temperatures outside the tent weren't the cause for CiCi's chill. In the night the men move from tent to tent, lifting the front flaps and peeking in on her in their watch. Some tents piqued their interests and they lingered in the entryways. CiCi doubted any of her fellow survivors found sleep this night, with the men violating their space and potentially, their bodies if it weren't for Abel's orders for them to keep their hands off everyone. An order she'd have to trust these perverts would obey, in his absence to retrieve the rest of his people he left behind.

With Isaac, he'd planned to move with them into the colony at Richmond Hill. A sickening agreement, that kept CiCi and Paige furious over in their distrust for Isaac's judgment.

Watching a shadow dwell outside of her tent in the backlighting of the campfire, CiCi can't breathe. When the shadow brings a dirtied hand to lift up the flap of her tent, a creepy older man with a long unkempt beard stares back at her. He sizes her up, remembering well Abel's order to leave her alone, but finding little comfort in it now. His desires flash at her like a tight rope, a dangerous fire sparking higher than that behind him.

While the other women might have tomorrow to fear, CiCi had been marked by Abel as his own. She was, after all, his mysterious Eve's protector and therefore, to remain pure....or some insane crap like that.

Knees bent close to her chest, she holds onto herself when the man finally abandons her. If she was going to get this note to Nick, she had to leave soon. Whenever these men went to sleep and stopped circling like starved vultures, she'd bolt. Poor Paige moaned in agony in the distance. Their stash of medicines raided, Abel refused to give their beloved nurse any relief to the injury he inflicted.

At daylight, they were all to head to the colony where Dalton and Nick stayed unaware of the danger coming into the stronghold they were all about to go to war over.

Keeping her faith, CiCi hoped Isaac could see them through this, and not for his own selfish purposes. If not Isaac, then God would. He'd kept to CiCi's side through a lot of things, so she had to keep faith He'd help her to safety. Her tiny gold crucifix out and over her shirt, the indent of the cross imprinted into the palm of her hand with how tightly she clenched it whenever a new shadow passed in front of the tent. She prayed, wishing she still had the rosary her grandmother gave her at her first communion and hoped this cross worked just the same to ward off evil.

Backlit in orange from the firelight, each distorted image of the sinister males came and went. Some lingered outside and outwardly discussed all the possibilities they had for her in their sick fantasies, but none stepped a bold foot inside. She wondered if they waited for her to go to sleep, as she waited for them to do the same.

In her hours sitting here in horror, she worries for Emma in the tent across the camp. Then, she remembers her condition, and how they'd found her. She gasps to herself, crying into her hand as she puts together what she should've at the first swinging of that man's primitive cross.

When they found Emma, dirtied, bloodied, and bruised, she spoke of her escape from a horrible group lead by a crazed leader. Connecting the dots as to Emma's condition, these disgusting men, and their reminiscence on what they did to Emma and her sister, CiCi choked on her tears and the bile rising in her throat.

Instead of praying for her own safety, she began to pray for Emma. Whatever courage she lacked before in leaving, is renewed on the pregnant girl and how she came to know such a grim fate.

When a smaller shadow interrupted her prayer and dove into her tent, CiCi's shriek is robbed by a tight hand over her mouth. Relieved, in seeing Paige.

"He's asleep...Abel...most of his men..." Paige whispers in strain against her injury.

Glancing at the fabric of her tent, CiCi can no longer see the shadows of men but she hears the voices gathered beyond.

"Where's Emma?" CiCi can't help but ask since if anyone knew where she was, it was certainly the caregiver.

Paige swats profusely. Her eyes have almost no trace of pupils in the darkness—concern enough for her condition, but Paige is a survivor. If CiCi were to take guesses on who would survive out of her entire camp, it would be a toss between Nick and the woman before her. Both seemed to have an unnatural ability to focus on the tasks of surviving and putting whatever plagued them in the back of their minds...almost in a concerning way.

"She's safe. Hidden. I snuck her away when Abel left before. They were distracted. Bastards are terrified of him...he's the one who did this to her..."

"I know, I just put it together," CiCi responds, "I can see why they're afraid of him...aren't we all?"

Paige's lips are dry, parting in frozen movement as she tries to breathe before saying, "He has Russell's nephew with him."

CiCi, not knowing Russell personally, had heard about his nephew from Isaac in his mindless obsessions to get revenge. It had been a plan of his own to kidnap the only living relative to the colony's leader, but the barbaric notion quickly was dispelled amongst the group. How thrilled he must be, that his new rapist ally did his dirty work for him.

"How?" CiCi can't help but ask, but by Paige's reaction and condition, she doubts she even has that answer or is finding the necessary time to give it. It didn't go with the task at hand, which meant it was a pointless conversation. A silent reaction CiCi got often when her question proved irrelevant or wasted on too much empathy. Something, she used to take far more personally than she did now.

"If you're going to go, you need to go now," Paige eyes the folded note in her hand. Paper, that everyone in the camp knew often exchanged between Nick and CiCi.

"How did you know..." CiCi trails off.

Paige adds, "And I hope you're planning on bringing' that to the colony and not throwing it into the ocean this time."

Handing her a knife and a pack of matches, CiCi takes what Paige has managed to hide for her.

"I've already got a knife," CiCi whispers, sliding Paige's hand back to her, "You keep it. You're going to need it. I have one of Nick's he left for me."

Taking only the matches, Paige nods as she gladly takes back her only weapon.

"Go, I'll watch your back. Go." Paige whispers after her, as CiCi first heads out, with Paige there to guard the rushed trail behind her.