The hope in me died. I saw a slick, featureless slope of rock, too steep to climb without a rope. The narrow s.p.a.ce through which I'd crawled was out of reach at the top of it. I could not get out the way I'd come in.

I scanned the light around the chamber again. There was only one other exit: a pa.s.sage through the rock into more darkness. Everything inside me rebelled at the idea of going farther into the cave, moving away from the light and the air, dropping deeper into the earth.

But what choice did I have?

Much as I wanted to, I couldn't leave the flashlight on. I had to preserve the battery. For another moment or two, I let the light play over the entrance to the underground corridor, trying to memorize the path between the rocks that would get me there. Then, reluctantly, I released the b.u.t.ton. The flashlight's beam vanished and the darkness was instantly complete again.

I began to edge forward, feeling my way along the wall of stone, trying to remember the path I'd seen in the light. Blind, utterly blind, I didn't dare to lift my feet, but shuffled slow-by-slow like an old, old man. Stubbing my toe on rocks, I felt my way around them. Now and then, I would shine the flashlight to see how far I'd come.

I reached the entrance to the corridor. I moved into it. Step by shuffling step, I made my way. Every few minutes, I would lift the flashlight again. Pierce the blackness with that narrow beam. I would memorize the next few steps and make sure there were no gaps or obstacles in my way. Then I would let the light die and shuffle forward, one hand clinging to the corridor wall.

I went on like that a long, long time. It seemed long, anyway. My clothes were damp and the cave was cold, and soon I was shivering, my teeth chattering. I had to force my mind away from the cold and from the pain all over my bodya"and from the hunger, too, sharp pangs of hunger that were now beginning to eat at my belly and make me weak.

Just concentrate on the movement, I told myself, shivering. Keep going. Never give in. But as I edged deeper and deeper into that suffocating blackness, I heard another voice inside. Alex's voice. It came to me as if from the heart of the darkness, a furious, sizzling whisper: It's all a lie. There's no hope. There's no sense trying. You're going to die down here, Charliea"down here in the dark where they'll never even find your corpse!

Gritting my teeth, I forced Alex's voice into silence. I stopped again to scan the area with the flashlight. My hands were shaking so badly now I could hardly hold the keychain, even using both hands. My thumb rested on the b.u.t.ton . . .

Then the flashlight slipped out of my grip!

It was an awful moment. So much had happened to me that daya"the torture chair and the fear and the gunfirea"but this was as bad as any of it. I heard the keychain hit the stone at my feet. Panicked, I crouched down after it. I moved my hand frantically over the stone floor. I couldn't find it. I could hear myself making a horrible whimpering noise. I didn't mean to, but it just came out of me.

"Please, please, please," I was saying.

Then there it was! I grabbed hold of the keychain as if it were a raft in the middle of the ocean. I stood up, trembling even worse than before, gripping that flashlight in my fist for dear life. For a long minute, I was afraid even to try again to find the b.u.t.ton.

But I had to. I was completely disoriented now. I had no idea which direction to move in. Carefullya"so carefullya" I moved my thumb back to the flashlight b.u.t.ton. I pressed it and shone the light in the dark.

I swallowed hard at what I saw. The corridor was narrowing down to nothing in front of me. No, not quite nothing. There was still a pa.s.sage through the stone, but it was so tight I wasn't sure I could fit into it. And if I did fit into it, I wasn't sure I would be able to get out again.

But there was no hope behind me, so I had to go on. So I did.

I kept shuffling forward along the corridor, feeling the walls of it closing and closing on either side of me. Then I reached that narrow crevice. I put the flashlight into my pocket for safekeeping. I put my shoulder to the crevice opening. I squeezed my way in.

It was suffocatinga"almost unbearable. The rock walls pressed tight against my back and my face. I slid myself in farther, and with every inch I moved, the s.p.a.ce got tighter. Soon I was gasping for breath as jutting rock pressed against my abdomen. It took an effort of both strength and willpower to keep cramming myself through the narrow s.p.a.ce.

I couldn't reach the flashlight anymore. I couldn't even move my hands down to my pockets. I was pressed there like a b.u.t.terfly in a book with no chance of breaking the stranglehold of the blackness. I couldn't see anything, not anything. I didn't know if the corridor would open again or simply end. And if it ended, I didn't know if I would be able to squeeze my way back out the way I came.

Stilla"stilla"I shoved my way deeper into that tomb of rock. And then, finally, it happened. I reached a pa.s.sage so narrow, so tight, that even if I managed to force my way through it, I knew I could easily be wedged in there forever.

I stopped moving, held fast, the stone pressed tight against my face, my arms pinned in position with the hands up by my head. I could hardly move at all anymore. I could hardly breathe. Anda"I don't like saying this, but I have to tell the trutha"I was now so terrified, so panicked, so frustrated and claustrophobic, that there were tears streaming down my face and I had to fight as hard as I could not to start blubbering like a child.

It was only a surge of anger that saved me. Anger and desperation that flared up from my belly. I didn't want to die! Not here! Not like this!

So I bit down and an ugly noise squeezed out between my teeth as I shoved and worked my body even deeper into that black and narrow s.p.a.ce. I was praying now, sort of a babbling, crazy prayer, snips and s.n.a.t.c.hes of the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm and anything else I could remember, anything that shone a light of hope through my panic. I shoved and twisted and struggled and groaned and babbled, and the walls pressed so tight I thought no, no, no, I couldn't go another inch.

And then I broke through. Just like that. I squeezed past the narrow spot and the rock tomb seemed to open and release me. The breath came rushing back into my lungs. I stumbled oncea"and I was out of the corridor.

Relief made my legs go weak. I sank to one knee on the stone. Shivering uncontrollably, I tried to get my hand into my pocket, to get the flashlight, but I couldn't do it. I kept missing the pocket, my hand snaking out of control.

I put my hands under my arms to warm them. I knelt there like that, breathing hard, staring into the blackness.

And I saw something!

At first, I wasn't sure it was real. Even when I was sure, I could hardly believe it. I stared and blinked and stared again and there, for sure, it was. A patch of gray. A faint patch of gray in the near distance.

I swallowed hard. I tried to stay calm. I tried not to get my hopes up too much. I told myself: Even if there's an opening, I might not be able to reach it. It might not be large enough for me to get through.

But all the same, my heart was hammering as I climbed back to my feet. This time, I willed my hands steady. I went into my pocket and found the flashlight. I brought it out.

The thin beam of white light picked out an open chamber. There were rocks strewn here and there, but the pa.s.sage across looked fairly easy. Even the chamber's ceiling was high, high enough so that I could walk without stooping. I jumped a little at a sudden fluttering noise. A bat had broken from its perch and flown to another. The beam picked out a whole cl.u.s.ter of the little creatures hanging up there in the dark.

I began to move again. Slow again. Preserving the flashlight battery. Picking out my path with the beam. Edging over the rock floor in the dark. I crossed the chamber. As I did, the patch of gray light on the far side grew nearer. As it grew nearer, it grew clearer and brighter, but still I couldn't see its source.

I kept moving toward it, inch by inch. My flashlight now picked out a jutting boulder. I put my hands on it and felt my way around it.

I don't think I have ever seen anything as beautiful as what I saw then. That circle of sunlight and blue sky. I thought it must've been something like what Lazarus saw when Death lost its hold on him. It felt like that to me, anyway. Like seeing a world of Life I thought I'd never see again.

It was another sinkhole in the cave ceiling, this one bigger than the one through which I'd come. A thin trickle of water was spilling over the edge of the gap. The droplets caught the light and twinkled as they fell. The sight of them was like visible music, like a song that you could see instead of hear. I laughed out loud at the sight. Or maybe I was weeping. I'm not really sure.

And the best thinga"the best thing of alla"was that the water was pouring down on what was almost a natural stairway formed by ledges and stones.

I moved toward that stairway wearily and began to climb up into the light.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Angeline

"Angeline!"

A clear, sweet woman's voice came to me as if through a mist.

"Angeline! Where are you?"

I was lying with my face planted in a thin carpet of damp leaves. I had climbed out of the cavea"I don't knowa"maybe fifteen minutes before. I was conscious, I guess, if you can call it that, but it was an awfully dim consciousness. Cold, exhausted, hungrya"so hungry it was like a high, annoying siren going off in my brain. I couldn't seem to muster the energy to move anymore. I felt empty, as if I'd been hollowed out, as if there were no more muscle or bone or sinew inside me to give me the strength I needed.

"Angeline, sweetheart!"

I couldn't tell at first if that voice was real or something in my imagination. It was all mixed up with the other things swirling around in my brain: memories of the karate demonstration and the talk with Beth and the argument with Alex and then the rest: going home to dinner, writing my paper, IM'ing with Josh, and talking on the phone with Rick and then going to bed, my own bed, for the last time . . .

"Angeline! Where'd you go to, you mouse?"

For another few seconds, I lay half-awake and confused. I guess there was a part of me sort of hoping that voice was my mother's voice. Maybe she was calling my sister, Amy, and soon she'd call me to wake me up for another day at school.

"Wow," I'd tell her. "I had the weirdest dream . . ."

But then I took a deep breath and lifted my head out of the leaves and looked around me.

I was still in the forest, but it was different here. The trees were farther apart. They were mostly birch trees with peeling white bark. The underbrush was not as dense. There were open s.p.a.ces covered with leaves. I could hear a brook bubbling happily nearby and birds chirping. The sun was low, but it wasn't blocked out of sight like it was before. I could see it clearly through the branches, a reddening ball among the clouds.

I turned my head to scan the areaa"and stopped.

There was a little girl standing there, gazing down at me.

She looked like she was about five years old. A solemn little creature with a pink woolen cap pulled down over her brown hair. She had a pink Windbreaker on and purple leggings marked with patches of dirt. She was holding a small ball in her hand. She was sort of turning the upper half of her body this way and that. She seemed mesmerized by the sight of me.

I stared at her as if she were a vision. I was half-afraid she was. Slowly, I pushed myself up onto my knees. I reached out to her. I wanted to touch her, to make sure she was real.

She just stood there, turning this way and that. She moved her gaze from my face and gazed at my reaching hand. She seemed fascinated by it, hypnotized.

I let my hand fall. I didn't want to frighten her. I didn't want her to run away. I tried to smile. It wasn't easy. My face felt encrusted in dirt and pain.

"h.e.l.lo," I managed to say. My voice sounded hoa.r.s.e and rasping. "My name is Charlie. Charlie West. What's yours?"

The little girl hugged her ball tighter. She tucked her chin down as if she wanted to shrink up and hide behind the ball. She swiveled her body this way and that.

I kept staring at her. She was real, all right. She was really real. And if there was a little girl here, there must be an adult nearby, someone who could help me.

"Is someone with you?" I asked her, unable to keep my voice from trembling with hope. "Is your mother here . . . or someone?"

The little girl didn't answer. Only now did it occur to my muddled brain that the voice I'd heard, the woman calling, must be . . .

"Angeline! There you are!"

I followed the sound of her voice and saw her. A tall, slender lady in her thirties. A kind, pretty face with pretty red hair falling to her shoulders. She was wearing a navy-blue overcoat and jeans. Having finally found her daughter, she was stepping toward her. She hadn't seen me yet.

Then she did. She spotted me. She froze in her tracks. She stared at me with wide blue eyes.

She looked at her daughter again. Very quickly, she said, "Angeline! Angeline, come here right now. Come to Mommy right now!"

That broke the spell. Angeline turned away from me and ran to her mother, her pink sneakers crunching on the dead leaves. Clutching her ball in one hand, she clung to her mother's overcoat with the other and tried to hide in the folds of it.

The red-haired lady licked her lips. Staring at me, she began to back away. She was leaving me! She was going to leave me here!

"No! No, wait!" I said.

I managed to get to my feet, reaching out a hand to her. The mother took another step away, pulling her child with her.

I called out, more harshly than I meant to: "No! Stop! Don't go!"

The mother froze at the tone of my voice. She clutched her daughter to her more tightly. Her eyes traveled over me.

I took a stumbling step toward her.

"Please," she said. She spoke in a near-whisper, as if she could barely get the words out. "Please don't hurt us."

I stopped moving. I'd been so desperate for help that it hadn't occurred to me what I must look like to her. A filthy, bloodstained, battered young mana"and with a gun stuck in the waistband of his pants! I must've looked like some kind of madman or escaped convict or a killer or something. The sight of me must've terrified the poor woman out of her witsa"but I hadn't thought of that.

"Hurt you?" I said, confused.

"Do you want money? I can give you some money. Please . . ."

"No, no . . ."

"Please. My daughter. She's just a child. You can do anything you want to me, but don't hurt her."

"Mommy!" the little girl cried out tearfully. She clutched her mother's coat tighter in fear.

Openmouthed, I stared at one of them and then the other. Finally, some understanding worked its way into my befuddled brain. My eyes misted over. I shook my head.

"No, no, no," I said. "Listen to me, listen. I swear to you, I swear: they could give me all the money in all the banks in all the world, and I wouldn't hurt a single hair on your head or on your daughter's. So help me. So help me."

She clutched her child even tighter. She took another step away, eyeing me suspiciously. "What do you want then?"

I stopped moving. I held up my hand to show I wouldn't come any closer. "Help. Please. I just need help."

The lady's lips trembled. Her eyes were swimming. She was so scared of me she was close to tears. I could see she was a nice lady, and it hurt my heart for her to be afraid of me. But I was desperate for her not to leave.

"What sort of help?" she asked. "I can give you some money. I don't have much. But I have some."

"Have you got a phone? If I could just call my mom and dad . . . They'll come and get me. They'll take me home. Please."

She licked her lips again. I saw her eyes go to the gun in my waistband. I put my hand on it.

The lady let out a cry of fear and turned her body to shield her daughter from a bullet.

"No, no, noa"here!" I said. I drew the gun out of my waistband. I took it by the muzzle and held the handle out to her. "Herea"take it."

There was another moment before she dared to turn around and look. Then she did. A look of surprise came over her face as she saw me holding the gun out to her.

"Take it," I said. "I would never hurt you. Never. You've gotta believe me. I just want to go home. Please. Take the gun."

I could see in her eyes that she was confused now. She didn't know what to think of me. She just stood there, staring at the gun, trying to figure out what to do, how to protect her little girl.

Finally, she edged toward me cautiously. She reached for the gun gingerly, as if she was afraid I was trying to trap her, lure her in and grab her or something. When her fingers touched the gun, she s.n.a.t.c.hed it quickly and leapt back out of my reach. She pointed the gun at me. It made me pretty nervous. It'd be just my luck today if I escaped from, like, a million guards and then got shot by a mom who pulled the trigger by mistake.

She just stood there, pointing the gun, not really knowing what to do next.