As the train rattled through the night to Alexandria, Yasmin huddled behind a menu in the dining carriage. This wasn’t any sort of hiding place but at least she wasn’t a sitting duck in her assigned seat.

‘Miss, can I take your order yet?’ a tired waiter asked. ‘These tables are for paying customers.’

‘Still deciding,’ she said, smiling apologetically. ‘Just another minute, OK?’

The man sighed and, with a backwards glance, attended to another table.

Yasmin’s phone vibrated in her pocket as it received a text. Imagining all sorts of horrible threats from Jackal, she couldn’t bring herself to look at it.

Instead, she jumped up and pushed past the waiter with a quick ‘sorry, not hungry’. She rushed into the next carriage. Every seat was filled. There was nowhere to hide. Sleepy passengers blinked as she hurried past them. Ahead of her, at the end of the carriage, a uniformed porter pushed a big trolley of suitcases to a baggage room. This was her chance! Yasmin crept up on him. When the porter unlocked the door, she weaved around him, slipped inside and ducked down behind a big crate. Not daring to breathe, she listened as the man arranged luggage. Yasmin didn’t exhale until he’d left and turned the key in the lock.

In the darkness, she finally dared to check her phone.

‘Oh, no.’ She gazed at her screen in shock. ‘Oh, no.’

What she saw wasn’t a taunting text from Jackal. It was far, far worse.

The meaning of the symbol was impossible to miss. Death.

Yasmin went to the Games Thinker website, and saw the new countdown and message.

The Second Sign? It was starting all over again! What was this diabolical game? She had no idea. But what was clear was that in just over a dozen hours there’d be another deadly attack somewhere in the world.

‘Call DARE Award winners,’ she whispered.

Soon all seven were linked up.

‘I got another symbol,’ Zander said, ‘right at the moment the clock went to zero. Did everyone else get one, too?’

Yasmin nodded.

‘This,’ she said softly, sharing the terrifying skull image, ‘is what I got.’

Their eyes widened as it hit their phones.

‘What did everyone else get?’ Yasmin asked.

Everyone shared theirs quickly.

‘The new message on the Games Thinker site,’ Dylan said. ‘Does it mean anything to anybody?’

‘Events for you as mind peace, you even dream of past since,’ JJ said. ‘Combining them sounds like a song lyric. Anyone know it?’

‘It sorta rhymes,’ Isabel said. ‘But no.’

‘I’ll keep trying,’ JJ said.

‘The symbols,’ Mila said, ‘does anyone know what is the meaning of theirs?’

‘Mine is obvious,’ Yasmin said, trying to keep the fear from her voice. ‘Death.’

‘I think mine’s a moon, as in Moon-day, Monday,’ JJ said. ‘That’s when the timer runs out.’

‘Mine looks like a No Right Turn sign,’ Andy said.

‘Mine looks like a bird,’ Mila observed.

‘Mine could be a clock,’ Dylan added.

‘The others?’ Yasmin asked.

‘I don’t know,’ JJ said. ‘And there are no coordinates to help figure out which order they go in.’

‘Andy,’ Isabel said, ‘have you told your dad yet?’

‘I’m about to,’ he replied, with a sideways glance at Dylan. ‘Things here have been complicated.’

Zander shook his head, as if he’d expected such an answer, before he turned a concerned frown to Yasmin. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘Hiding in the baggage room on the train to Alexandria,’ she whispered.

‘Hiding?’ he said. ‘Is that crooked cop still after you?’

Yasmin gulped and wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘I don’t know. But …’ She choked back a sob. ‘H-h-he killed a security guard right in front of me at the railway station.’

Her friends gasped.

Yasmin’s brown eyes shimmered. ‘I think he’s—’

She didn’t dare breathe. There were voices outside the baggage room!

‘I’m a detective,’ Jackal was saying just on the other side of the door. ‘I’m looking for a dangerous female who might’ve just stabbed a man at the station.’

Yasmin wanted to scream. Instead she set her phone to silent.

She had seconds to find a concealed spot.

‘I’m not allowed to open this for anyone,’ the porter protested outside the door.

‘But I’m not just anyone,’ Jackal said. ‘This is official police business. Give me the key and get out of here.’

Jackal slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He shone his flashlight around the dim room, over suitcases and boxes. Finally, the beam came to rest on the crate.

‘Yasmin, Yasmin, Yasmin,’ Jackal said. ‘I saw your name on the passenger list. Since I caught up with the train, I’ve searched every carriage. This is the last place left. So … out you come.’

The night air whipping around her, Yasmin peered down through the skylight. Jackal was directly beneath her. If he looked up, she’d be caught. But she was too scared to let go of the skylight frame and move farther along the carriage’s roof. At this speed, she’d be killed if she fell from the train. Just climbing up the shelves and pushing her way out here had taken every bit of courage she had.

Answered with silence, Jackal prowled around the crate. Yasmin heard him curse in frustration. A moment later, he started opening bigger suitcases, as though she might’ve tucked herself in among a stranger’s clothes. He let out a whistle when he found rings and a necklace in one bag and swiftly pocketed the jewellery. Just over his head, Yasmin hoped this score was enough to satisfy his greed.

It seemed to be because, after a final look around, Jackal left and closed the door behind him.

Yasmin was building up the courage to climb down through the skylight when she saw the baggage room door swing open again.

Beneath her, Jackal stepped back into the room.

He shone his torch at the shelves. She saw his grin in the glow of his flashlight.

Yasmin knew what he was looking at. She’d left dusty footprints on the shelves when she’d used them as a ladder to get to the skylight.

Jackal looked up and saw her peering down.

‘Hi, Yasmin,’ he said. ‘Mind if I join you?’