The threat that hung before him was suddenly palpable.

That's when the unbelievable happened. A woman-a well-dressed woman-appeared between two of the men. She seemed to know them-Jeff was certain he saw two of them exchange a greeting with her.

She wasn't tall, but exuded an aura of authority, and she appeared utterly unafraid of the dangerous-looking men around her. Something about her looked familiar-he was sure he'd seen her before. And when she looked at him, he saw a flicker of recognition in her face.

Hope once more surged within him and he stepped toward her, raising his hand. "Please… help me-call the police… They won't let me out. They-"

The woman's eyes locked on his. He knew she could hear him; he could see the comprehension written clearly on her face.

But she said nothing-made not even the slightest gesture toward him.

Instead, she turned away.

She wasn't going to help!

But that wasn't possible-the woman wasn't like the men around her. She wasn't one of them-couldn't possibly be!

He opened his mouth to speak-to cry out-to beg her to help him, but it was already too late. She was gone, as quickly as she'd appeared.

The men who had flanked her closed ranks.

He stood as if rooted to the ground, staring at the three men who blocked the way to the platform. They made no move toward him, nor any threatening gestures. Yet their message was clear: he would not be allowed to pass.

The low rumbling of an approaching train broke the moment, and when he saw his own shadow cast ahead of him by the fast-approaching beam of the train's headlight, he turned away, stumbling back toward the dark refuge of the passage from which he'd emerged. As the train rushed by, he slumped against the wall.

He'd failed.

He'd found no water to slake his thirst or ease the pain of Jagger's burns, let alone a means of escape from the vast prison in which they were held.

Unconsciously obeying the demands of his stomach, his hand went to the pocket of his jacket and his fingers closed around one of the hot dogs he'd rescued from the slime beneath the grating. He didn't look at the wiener-tried not to think what might have been in the muck from which he'd plucked it. Wiping it as clean as he could, he held his breath, put it in his mouth, and bit a piece off.

A foul taste filled his mouth, and his stomach contracted violently. He struggled against his erupting gorge, and when his mouth filled with bile and acid, he refused to spit it out. Instead he made himself chew up the single bite of food and force it down his throat. Then he tried to eat a second bite, but this time his stomach won and he dropped the rest of the hot dog back into his pocket.

He wasn't dead yet, and he wasn't beaten. If it truly was a game he'd been thrown into, then there had to be a way to win. And if there was a way, he'd find it. Turning his back on the false hope the station had offered, he started back to where he'd left Jagger, all the turns he'd taken-and the number of steps between each turn-firmly etched in his mind.

He was about halfway to the alcove, moving through a utility tunnel, when he saw it. He'd barely even been aware that his eyes were scanning the floor of the tunnel, and if the object hadn't been white, it might not have caught his eye at all.

A discarded coffee cup, the paper kind that was so thin you burned your fingers if you picked it up when it was freshly filled.

He paused.

Why was it standing upright?

Next to it was a crumpled piece of paper-the kind in which a sandwich might once have been wrapped.

If a workman had been eating his lunch here and just walked away…

Squatting, his fingers trembling, Jeff reached for the cup, silently praying that this hope, too, would not instantly be ground to dust. His fingers closed on the cup and he lifted it up.

Not empty!

He stared into it, gazing at the quarter cup of dark liquid as if it were pure gold, then raised the cup to his lips and let a little of the cold, bitter fluid flow through his lips.

His mouth welcomed it as if it were a perfect wine, aged to perfection.

He was about to drink again, but didn't.

Jagger was every bit as thirsty as he.

His own thirst cried out to him, begged him to drain the cup. What if he couldn't find the alcove again?

What if Jagger was gone?

Almost of its own volition, his hand raised the cup to his lips again, but just as the paper touched his lips, he recalled a train hurtling toward him, and Jagger throwing them both out of its path only an instant before he would have been crushed.

He lowered the cup.

Straightening, he saw a flicker of movement a few yards down the passage, back toward the subway tunnel from which he'd just retreated. He froze, his eyes scanning the tunnel. He knew his eyes had not deceived him-something, or someone-was there, concealed among the pipes, or hidden behind one of the pilasters that supported the low ceiling of the tunnel.

One of the men from the subway platform?

Or one of the skulking predators from the lower depths?

He listened, but heard only the sound of a faraway train, its roar muted to a faint whisper. He held perfectly still, holding his breath as he searched the darkness and listened to the silence.

Two choices: he could either attempt to slip away in the darkness, and risk being followed, or confront whatever lay hidden behind him, and directly face whatever danger awaited. But there was really no choice, for he knew he could never elude whatever was following him, that it would only keep its distance, stalking him until the moment it chose to attack.

"I know you're there," he said, his voice echoing loudly in the darkness as he started toward the place from which the brief movement had caught his eye. "You might as well show yourself."

For a moment nothing happened, but just as Jeff was about to move closer, a small figure stepped out from behind one of the pilasters.

"It's okay," a girl's voice said. "It's just me." The figure stepped forward, and enough light from one of the dim bulbs overhead fell on her face for Jeff to recognize her as the girl at Tillie's. "I've been looking for you," Jinx said. "I-" She faltered, then went on. "I know you didn't do anything to Cindy Allen."

The words hung in the air. What could Jinx possibly know about that? Jeff wondered. How did she even know Cindy Allen's name?

A trick. That was it-it had to be some kind of a trick.

"How do you know?" he asked, his voice cold.

"Because I was there that night," Jinx replied. Then, as Jeff listened mutely, she recounted to him everything that had happened that night in the 110th Street station.

Recounted it exactly as he remembered it himself.

When she finished, there was a long silence, which Jeff finally broke. "How did you find me?" he asked.

"The herders in the Fifty-third Street station. They told me which way you went."

"Herders?" Jeff echoed.

Jinx nodded. "They work for the hunters. It's their job to keep you in the tunnels until the hunters can track you down."

Jeff's eyes narrowed. "And what's your job?"

"Sort of a messenger. Sometimes I pick up the money the herders get paid with, and sometimes 1 pass it out. Sometimes I just spread the word that a hunt is on."

She made no move either to come closer or to run away, and Jeff could sense that she wasn't afraid of him, but was waiting to see what he would do. "Who are the hunters?" he finally asked.

"Men from outside," Jinx replied. "They're only supposed to hunt for criminals. But you didn't do anything."

"So you're not going to tell them you found me?"

Jinx shook her head. "I'm going to help you get out."

Heather flattened herself against the hard concrete, turned her head away, and instinctively clamped her eyes shut. But she could still hear the train thundering past no more than twelve inches from her face, feel the rush of filthy air. That was the first thing she'd noticed after she followed Keith Converse off the platform and into the subway tunnel itself-not the darkness that stretched ahead of her, but the fetid odor that seemed to seep directly into her pores. Though they'd been in the tunnels for only half an hour, she already felt saturated with grime. Her skin itched, her eyes stung, and though her sense of smell had finally become somewhat accustomed to the foul odors that permeated the tunnel, her stomach had not. It wasn't just the air that was making her nauseous, but the terror that tightened its grip on her as she proceeded in the tunnel.