The remaining dregs of sunlight had all but been subdued by the profound blue-black hues of the night, the sky painted with a picture of peachy pink at the horizon, which eventually inked upwards into the purple and eventually, navy canvas.

Inside, the plantation house was lit scantly with oil lamps. The scale of the house in the daytime seemed somewhat tunnel after sunset, with only certain areas being lighted on a small scale. It seemed there could only be patches of visibility, and thus the eye's view could only extend so far into the shadows.

From these shadows, Arthur heard heavy footfalls. Slow, languid sounding – like little effort was being put into each step. His gaze went to the source of the noise, and even with the terrible lack of lighting in the corridor Arthur could make out the shape of someone coming down the stairs.

It didn't take long at all for the figure to be revealed.

Dutch soon reached the base of the stairs, looking reasonably more unkempt than the way he started the day. His shirt was untucked in places from his trousers, the creased off white material protruding from underneath the glossy red tones of his grand looking waistcoat. The buttons on the collar were far undone with the heat of the late summer day, and it appeared he had set his hat down somewhere for he was not donning it like he usually did.

The most notable thing about the gang leader's person was the potent stench of whiskey about him, it was clear he'd been drinking for a number of hours.

For a few moments, Dutch just seemed to stand there – before lifting his right arm, and revealing from the shadows along with his hand was a crystallised old glass containing the unmistakeable amber gleam of Whiskey.

"Will you give me a few minutes?" Dutch asked, lips hardly having left from taking a sip, his baritone voice muffled in the glass – although it was clear it was a demand rather than a question.

Arthur looked up, hoping his slight concerns were disguised by simple confusion. Dutch seemed a man undone at his best presently, but mix alcohol into the equation... that would be dire.

"What for?" Arthur dared to ask back, and in return was given a challenged look by his mentor.

"Ain't no matter of yours, son." Dutch snapped back, laying his hand on the brass knob of the door and shooting Arthur one last enforcing look. "A few minutes please. Alone."

'Get lost' – Dutch's hickory brown eyes seemed to coerce, and in that moment Arthur was facing a moral battle in himself.

Fine – he had decided he would avoid a scrap with Dutch and get out of sight, but Arthur was not going too far away – fearful of what sort of things Dutch might be capable of with his dangerous mind, further fuelled by the vigorous toxicity of alcohol.

-

Dread seemed to rise up through the trapped songbird's system in a way not dissimilar to ink clouding its way through water. It rose and rose within Lana, until each nerve ending was tingling with anxiety.

She had heard Dutch's voice outside her room; and he was the last person she wanted to see. Besides, from what she had gathered from his muffled tones – he seemed pressed, frustrated. Underlyingly angry. Lana guessed she was to be the victim for the lash out, not that this was uncommon to her – having had to live with Harper.

The door creaked open, and through wide eyes she clearly marked Dutch's shadowy figure entering the room. His footfalls were menacing, unintentional or not, as he wandered leisurely over to the small table in the room and twiddled with the oil lamp until eventually, it began to blossom into a faint light.

Lana tried to talk to herself over and over in her head, if she let him see that she was scared – he would take advantage. The singer knew she had to be strong, despite the frightening possibility he had come in here solely to hurt her.

Things were uncomfortable as Dutch wordlessly laid eyes on her. He absorbed her sad looking image, still beautiful – but drained; as she remained seated on the edge of your bed. Very much like a rose after heavy rainfall, petals weighted by large grey droplets.

"I see you're still wearin' those dresses I had bought for you." He remarked. Immediately, Lana could not help but scoff.

"Please excuse me, but it's not like I have very much else to wear." She had replied rather bitterly, fighting past the initial layer of fear to where the fierier emotions lay. She was still so angry about the way he had twisted her, and besides, she didn't want him thinking she was wearing these dresses to fulfil some fanciful feelings she may have had about him. Those were non existent. These dresses meant nothing more now than items of clothing.

Dutch hadn't seemed to of liked the tone of the fallen singer, and with an irked expression, he set himself down in the wooden chair she had once been tied to. With skittish eyes, Lana dared to look him in the face, before watching as he tipped a small glass to his lips. She recognised that smell, whisky – Harper often reeked of the stuff. It appeared tonight, that Dutch did too.

"Why are you here?" She decided to ask, a sound of frustration ringing clear in her voice. She was making it rather clear she didn't really want him around.

"Just wanted to see if you'd changed your mind about lyin' to me." He started, and for what felt like the hundredth time in recent history, her heart sank even further in her chest. The fool; he still really believed she was lying.

Slowly and cautiously, Dutch lifted his eyes from the bottom of his whisky glass and looked straight at his lost lover. His chiselled features illuminated in the low golden light, he cocked his head slightly – and an expression of disbelief and hopelessness crossed his face.

"I really did care about you, Lana." He started, making the girl deter away from looking at him hastily. Now he was lying.

"No. You didn't, Dutch." Lana returned with vivacious contempt, "If you had cared about me, you would know I really felt for you. I had no reason to lie." She spat her truth, watching his face now as he absorbed the words. "You knew how I felt about Harper. Trust me, I would be the first person to throw him into the fire – but I really don't have one clue about his operations."

A silence then sank into the room like a fog, settling and leaving a eerie tension in the atmosphere. Dutch soon broke it, setting his whisky glass down with a soft thunk onto the wood table top.

"You're still lying to me, I can tell it." He decided to say. Lana's gut understandably twisted in fury. "So you're sayin' you lived with a man for years, and didn't see a thing?" he scoffed, shaking his head. "To think I came in here hopin' we could set things straight."

The way he was acting was backwards, childish. It seemed his mind was completely closed to any other idea that the one he had pre-empted in his head. In that moment, Lana understood how Arthur had been feeling too, and it appeared like the rest of his gang couldn't get through to him anymore either.... Well, all apart from one.

"You're leading yourself round in circles, Dutch-" she fought back. "You don't see, it's not me who's the problem here – it's you!"

This home truth was a morsel that was hard to swallow, but it was the reality. Her recipient didn't seem to take it too kindly at all, as he rose from his seat and prowled in her direction.

"I'm sorry?" Dutch snarled in a tone that was suggestive of disgust. Disgust that Lana could have dared to question him yet another time.

"You heard me damn well, Van Der Linde." The scorned woman cussed him, standing from her seated position on the edge of the bed, "And you know it's true. It's not just me, I hear your gang don't believe in you anymore. These people you claim are doubters? Unloyal? They're sensical people." She drew in a sharp breath.

"They see past your shit and lies." She finally snapped, in the heat of the moment, slightly unaware of just how much was spilling from her conversations with Arthur.

"You've just got too much of a fucking god complex." She then concluded, teeth bared and fear diminished right to the back of her mind. For in this moment, she only felt fire in her belly.

She wasn't quite sure what to expect to happen, but you she was not bargaining on his hand to go around her throat in the way it did. He lurched out, like a python – and she soon felt his fingers pressing tightly into the delicate skin on her neck. Feet scuffed the floor, wriggling and writhing whilst Dutch marched her back with ease. It was a short distance, made even shorter by his rapid movements- until her back hit the wall with a prominent and painful thud.

"Now I see why Harper ain't come lookin' for you." Dutch reviled, he had such a hot hatred in his eyes for the girl he once adored in that moment, not that she could focus all too well with the heady feeling of dizziness. Lana was struggling to draw breath from the way his hands choked around the column of her throat.

"You're a mighty fine girl, til you start fucking talkin'." He spoke so bitterly, and with these words he only advanced in effectively strangling her with that bit more ferocity.

Eyes rolling, struggling to take in any air- Lana spluttered and wriggled in a futile dispute. There was a moment where she thought he was actually going to kill her.

She pondered as things flashed before her eyes, how she could have ever seen him as such a perfect figure.

Just before the singer was sure he was about to murder her in cold blood, a burst of relief came as his hands detached swiftly from her throat. She fought for her breaths, sliding down the wall with the headrush that sent her vision blurring and withering in waves of static darkness.

"We could've really had somethin', you know?" Lana heard Dutch say, but all she could think about was how weak her body felt in the aftermath of being on the brink of dying.

She was hauled up unceremoniously by the arm, 'No...' she groaned silently, feeling so utterly feeble in that moment. She was too drained to fight back against it, and that caused immense stress.

In the very next moment, she found herself laid face down. Cool, smooth... it was the table top beneath her frightened body. The edge of the furniture dug into her stomach, as she so desperately tried to fight against the restraint.

A definitive click of a belt followed by a heavy metallic thunk of it hitting the wood floor, sent her system into a new course of alarm.

"I don't normally ever think 'bout hurtin' a girl," he sighed, he seemed to be trying to justify to himself, "But you really deserve it for the way you have been treatin' me."

The distressed woman began to scream, the panic having given a boost of adrenaline that was much needed to fight back the hazy feeling from before.  How much more monstrous this man could get?

"ARTHUR!" Lana screamed. The only name she trusted in this place, and even then there were still airs of doubt. In her life, she had been led down so many wrong paths by male figures that it seemed trusting anyone completely anymore was a foolish thing to do.

Well, she had proved that much to herself – pinned under the weight of Dutch who appeared to be moments away from taking full advantage of this horrific situation.

Was this to be her darkest moment yet?

-

With the sun finally abolished from the sky, night was in full swing – bringing with it a cooler chill, the chirps of crickets at the orange flickers of fireflies in the long and untamed grass at the gateway of Shady Belle.

Arthur had ventured up there to talk with John, about his concerns that had only been mounting over the past couple of days. John already had some idea of Arthur's plan to take the ill-fated singer back to the family she had in Saint Denis.

"I wish I coulda' stood up to Dutch back there." Arthur reviled himself, kicking a stone about in the dirt.

John let out a sigh, a sigh that was uncertain of the right thing to say. He was considerably younger than Arthur, and felt it always a little alien to be trying to give advice to someone who was usually lecturing him about the ways of life.

"Don't worry 'bout it. I'da' been just the same. Dutch... he's... got this way about him as of late. Real intimidatin'." John replied, shifting his feet as he clutched onto his Rolling Block Rifle and played the part of the guard for the evening.  The brown eyed man looked across at Arthur for a moment and shot him a wry reassuring smile.

"I'm sure he's just trying to sweet talk her. I ain't even seen Dutch be rough with a girl." John said, and Arthur scoffed in response.

"You weren't with me n' Javier on the Ferry in Blackwater when he... well..." Arthur sighed, he did not want to go back there. The image of that young girl, the blood, the gore... he obviously was panicked to think about what Dutch may want to do.

"ARTHUR!"

Was that a cry from inside his mind? An echo of Lana's voice ghosting through his head?

The fact John looked as harrowed as anything, spelled to Arthur that the scream was not a figment of his imagination.

Arthur pelted from the gateway and back down the path like a scuttling deer. He couldn't focus on anything but being as fast as possible, and getting to that room before something bad happened.

To hear a scream like that, in such a blood curdling way – it meant something awful.

-

The door flung open, and Lana was ever so thankful to see Arthur's figure stood there. He was tensed, breathing ragged- suggesting he'd ran like there was no tomorrow.

Luckily for Lana, Dutch had not really gotten to doing much, for all the wriggling and thrashing about you had done to avoid it.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Arthur's voice sounded like a roar, he didn't seem to care about Dutch's imposing manner anymore.

"I thought I said for you to give us a moment alone?" Dutch replied, completely unhinged in the way he delivered the line so nonchalantly  my– blissfully unacknowledging of his behaviour. This just further stoked Arthur's rage.

"You ain't the man I thought you was." Arthur hissed, his voice wavered, like he was about to explode. The man shifted on the spot, clenching his fists. "The Dutch who brought me in, raised me.... He wouldn't do this. Never." Arthur added further.

"You've changed Dutch. I don't know you no more." Arthur sounded so very disgusted.

This seemed the final straw for the man. He stepped back, making a point of pushing down hard on Lana's neck so your her connected painfully with the table top – seemingly wanting to make one last gesture before making his leave.

"She's going. Tomorrow morning. I'll have Micah sort somethin' for the bitch."

Dutch stepped past Arthur with a challenging look that seemed to spell he would be in big trouble at some point. Arthur did not care any more, his next priority was getting this poor girl out of there. Right that very second.

Dutch slammed the door behind him, and made his way back upstairs. Weaving past the questioning from Abigail and Hosea, who were rudely awoken from their sleep. Arthur listened to the muffled voices of concern before focusing on Lana, watching her worriedly as she returned to stand, dusting herself down with shaking hands – feeling such an animosity but also great upset for all that had just happened.

"We're leavin' now. Sort your things and meet me outside, quiet as you can." Arthur's voice was softer, gentler now – a quiet coaxing through the rush of emotions that raced through her mind.

He disappeared then, leaving the door barely open behind him. Despite everything that had just happened, Lana knew she had to get herself together. She tried to push back the feeling of shock that was due to take a grip at any second, to push past it in order to sort her things and get out of this place.

She didn't have really very much to pack anyway. Just the few dresses she owned, the notebook and pen.

The raucous having settled down, Lana was able to sneak through the house around the front, tiptoeing through the maze of rooms until she slipped through the large front door. As promised, Arthur was waiting out front. In the bleak depth of the night, she could make out the shape of his horse in the poor lighting. It was like seeing freedom, in the shape of this gorgeous heavy weight mount. Part of the ticket out of this place.

"Let's get goin', before anyone sees." Arthur had whispered, and without Lana really acknowledging, he had guided the girl to his horse, hand gently wrapped around her arm.

"Here... put this on. Took it from the hallway. I'm sure the girls' won't miss it." Arthur whispered, and handed over a large black piece of material. She soon worked it out, that it was a cloak. Perfect for concealing her identity on the trip there.

Slipping the garment on, she grateful for the anonymity it gave. Arthur then carefully lifted her onto the horse's back, clearly as anxious to leave as she was, he soon climbed up himself, wedging her small case of belongings just in front of him on the saddle.

"Let's go." Was the final hushed word he said, a few gentle nudges to the horse's side and a few quiet clicks; the large animal lurched forward into an active trot. The force of the movement caused her to clutch desperately onto Arthur in front of her, arms around his midsection for some stability.

Following the natural upwards slant of the dry dirt track, the horse's breath was all that could be heard whilst the pair took one final look back at Shady Belle.

It had been her prison, her palace and her hell – all rolled into one.

Lana was openly relieved to see it shrinking into the distance, disappearing into the night – whilst she felt bound for pastures greener.

A/N: ouch this felt kind of rushed I'm really sorry :(