Aileen fell to the ground next to her father's body. The blood and snow seeped quickly into the thin fabric of her skirt, soaking her knees. Old "Priest" Vallon, the man she had been raised by-- believing all the while that he was invincible-- stared blankly into the sky.

Aileen's little brother had gotten there before her, no doubt hearing his last words. She looked at him with guilt and fear. Guilt for not being able to protect his bright, innocent eyes from witnessing the murder of his own father. Fear for what the future held for the two of them now that Vallon was gone.

She pulled the young boy into her arms and squeezed him tight, feeling the shoulder of her dress grow wet from the few tears he'd cried. But the anger inside him would never allow him to cry again.

"Give the boy to the law. See he gets a good education," a voice said. Just hearing it made Aileen's blood boil.

"You'll do nothing to him," Aileen growled, throwing herself at the men attempting to grab her brother, giving him a chance to escape. The Natives grasped her arms and held her instead.

As she saw her brother's little head of brown hair bobbing away through the crowd, she never would have thought that it would be the last time she'd see him as he was.

"And the girl?" they asked.

Aileen trembled but hid it with a scowl as she faced the man who killed her father.

Bill the butcher. A tall man with dark hair and a thick mustache to match. He had one glass eye with an eagle and a shield painted on it. The other eye examined her very soul, displeased with what it found there. His mouth was pulled into a sour frown. There was a fierceness about him that terrified the seventeen-year-old.

He looked her over and stood so close she could feel his breath on her face, still slightly ragged from the fight.

"I know what happens to girls all alone on these streets," he growled, "No amount of wit or strength inherited from your father could prevent it."

He nodded to his men, who let the young woman go. She barely kept her footing. Bill placed a rough hand beneath her chin, taking in her dark brown hair, fair skin and blue eyes. "I'll be damned if I let the daughter of my most honorable competitor go to such a fate when I am so capable of preventing it."

Aileen raised an eyebrow at him, not sure what he meant and not liking the sound of it. As he continued to gaze at her, his face gained an almost imperceptible softness. "Here is where I show you mercy. If you are obedient and wise, you may come to call this day a blessing."

"Aileen Vallon is no more!" Bill announced, "From now on you will know her as my wife, Mrs. Emily Cutting! And I will hear no more about Vallon's daughter nor his Dead Rabbits!"

He turned back to the young woman now trembling openly before him. "That includes you, my dear."