When Race rounded the corner onto the street he proceeded with caution, he didn't want Shadow to be aware that he was on their trail. Vaguely in the distance ahead he could make out the forms of Shadow and Doodles, him pulling her along. He was scared for her, more scared than he could ever have been if it was himself that was in danger. There were so many things that could go wrong…so many things that could happen if he wasn't careful. He clenched his fists determinately no matter what he would make sure Doodles got out safely, she was the only thing that mattered.

I tripped, walking across an uneven stone in the pavement. Shadow's grip tightened as he pulled me along, bruising my arm. I hated the feeling of helplessness that had overtaken me now. I just wanted to see Race again, see the others, to just be in the Lodging house right now away from Shadow. I was thinking hard, I had escaped Shadow before, it was possible to do again. But if he kept me tied up like this…what was I supposed to do then? There was no one coming to save me, nothing I could do to prevent Shadow from doing what he wanted with me. I was helpless to his whim…and the thought of what that might be frightened me more than I wanted to think about. The only thing I could do was to pray the others weren't harmed by the Crypts. "Just let Race an de oddas be ok…please…" I prayed inside my head as if hoping someone would hear me and respond.

I hadn't been paying attention to where we had been going and as familiar with Manhattan as I had come to be, I didn't recognize where we were right away. I began to pay attention and looked around as we went rather than just focusing inside on my fear and worry as I had been doing for the past minutes he had been leading me. The buildings, I know I had seen them before, the streets now quiet, had been busy, I remembered these things from the day that Race had taken me to the tracks. And that was, I realized the way we were headed towards Sheepshed Races. What was waiting for us there, I didn't know, and didn't want to find out.

Race as well, still following at a safe distance, had immediately recognized where they were heading. He practically lived at the tracks when he wasn't selling papes well, and before he met Doodles. He felt at home with her, somehow with her he felt right, like himself, whether that be Racetrack or Anthony Higgins. His jumbled past didn't confuse him when he was with her, she didn't expect anything from him as he expected from himself. With her all he had to do was just to be. That was why he was so drawn to the tracks. Something about them, the gamble, the excitement, the crowd made him feel right and some nagging memory from them had always itched at the back of his mind. He had never been able to put his finger on that. It was like trying to remember a dream you had, actually remembering it was just slightly out of reach.

Then snapping back into reality he looked ahead surprised. They were actually at Sheepshed now, "Why whudd Shadow come hea for…?" Race wondered soundlessly to himself. "Dats odd." The main entrance loomed ahead looking strange to him in the dark of night. He supposed all he could do was continue to follow and find out what secrets was behind the darkness of Shadow.

Unbeknownst to me I was wondering the same thing that Race was. What was at the tracks that Shadow had taken me there for? Shadow pulled me to the right and we veered away from the main entrance making our way around the side gate of the vast wall that surrounded the track within. For a minute we walked and then we came to a door in the wall and I heard a jingling noise. I looked down and saw Shadow had pulled a ring of keys from his pocket. It was just then that I remembered, the door being under a street light, I had never actually been able to look upon Shadow's face in the light. He was always enclosed by darkness. He was in front of me now, his face turned away from me as he turned the key in the lock. There was a click and he pulled the door open then pushed me through first. I turned my head, my curiosity about his face too much to take, just wanting one peek. Out of no where came his hand and it slapped me across the face.

"Ye'll turn around when I tells ye te, ye stinkin whore. Don worry, I'm sura any questions ye have'll be answered before de nights ova…" he growled out at me. Face stinging I defiantly marched ahead.

We had entered onto a wide walkway that went around the track and there were no lights to illuminate it. Shadow prodded me forwards, further into the darkness and I had no choice but to comply. Strangely I never heard the sound of the door shutting behind us. It was a fleeting thought before Shadow jerked me to one side and we started up a flight of stairs. They looked as though they led into the stands where the crowd was able to watch the races. Further on and on we went the silence close upon us. We passed aisles of seats and stairs leading down to the ground and up to another level of seats. Soon we reached a wall where the vast seats ended; it was halfway along the track. There was a door there and he pulled out his keys again and opened it. Through this door we went my arm numb from his grip by now and down a hallway lined with rooms. It seemed as though finally we had reached our destination for he used another key to open a door at the end of the hall and we were inside a room.

Leaving the door ajar he roughly pushed me down onto a cot in the corner of the small and dingy room. I looked around. Other than that there wasn't much else but a plain table and chair and a trunk set against the wall.

"So hea we are, me home sweet home. How de ye like id toots?" Shadow chuckled grimly. He was turned to the side so I could see his profile and his stance somehow looked familiar to me. I just couldn't place it but I shrugged it aside in my mind. There were more urgent issues, such as my life, I had to worry about.

"Ye live hea?" I asked trying to sound casual after finding my voice. I needed to be brave, hide my fear and anger so I wouldn't provoke him in any way.

"Sure I do, even a Crypt needs a day job. I woik at de tracks fer a livin as a custodian." I wasn't sure why he felt the need to tell me this but I just needed to keep him thinking about something other than me. I didn't know what he would do with me.

"Dats how I knew where te look fer ye dat day, de foist few afta I killed off yer mudda. I saw ye hea at de tracks, taggin along wid a newsie who comes hea a lot. Afta dat id wasn't so hard te figure dat ye'd be bunkin up wid dem and deir ratty little friends."

I felt a hot flash of anger at the casual way he mentioned killing my mother and then thought about how clueless we were that the whole time Shadow was so close. So many worse things could have happened to Race or any other of the newsies if they had come to the tracks more often. Then it hit me, did Shadow find out about the rally because of the day that we had met here to find Race?

"Thanks te ye an yer group of little friends, I found out about de rally. Ye should know deyres always someone listenin."

I somehow was able to find my voice, "Bu-but we neva said anythin about de rally hea…we went te Meddas."

"Well see deyres always someone watchin if yer not careful enough. I followed ye dere, ye call it Medda's place..? An den found out about de rally from dere. We've been one step ahead a ye de whole time. Ye an yer stupid friends were thinkin ye all wera so great. But ye cant escape me… not if I don want ye to."

"Why de ye keep comin afta me? Whudds de point anyhow? Im not gonna go te de bulls I swear, deyre'd be no point in id, dey don care about any small murder like me muddas…" tears stung my eyes at the injustice of it all but I wiped them away, refusing to let them fall in front of Shadow.

"Yea, yer right, de bulls don give a rats ass about any ol scum like yer mudda was," he spat on the floor after saying this. "An I knew nuthin bad would happen te me because a id…rape an murder ids almost nuthin te dem when deyres no way a findin out who did it. Dese things happen so much in New Yawk, no one really cares…"

"I care, ye fuckin bastard, she was me mudda! De only damn family I eva knew! De only poison I eva had dats been dere fer me my entia life!" I cried out, I was clenching my fists so hard my nails were biting into my palms. "Why? Why'd id haveta be her, whudd de hell did she eva do te ye!" I was shouting at him with all my pent up anger and grief.

"Ids her fault! She took away my family, took away de only people I had. Yea, she did plenty…id went too far when I realized dat she not only took away my woman, she took away sumthin from me, stole the fortune with just one little thing. Id took me a long time te find out where she was, I knew nuthin of her at de time…fer everythin she did te me, yea she desoived whudd she got."

"Whudd…whudd are ye talkin about?" I had no idea what that whole speech was supposed to mean. His woman? His fortune? It seemed as though I was missing a big part of the story, and I was about to find out what connection there was between me and Shadow.