Page 104 of The Most Dangerous Games

“Help him,” Hannah says, and her voice is small in a way that scares Alek more than screaming would. “He’s not breathing.”

It takes both Jack and Wyatt to slowly and painstakingly lift the heavy steel plate.

“Slowly,” Jack says to her. “His neck.”

When Hannah crawls free, she doesn’t stand. She stays on her knees beside Conner and presses two fingers to his throat like she’s been taught first aid and knows exactly what she’s not going to find.

Jack checks anyway. Pulse. Nothing. Breath. Nothing.

Jack gets close to his face, hoping for any sign—heat, movement, a flutter.

Hannah’s right.

He’s not breathing.

The way Elena wasn’t in the water.

“He can’t be dead,” Hannah whispers. “He can’t be—”

Softly Jack says his name. No response.

Alek kneels beside Hannah and tries to pull her up. Hannah doesn’t move. Then her arms go around Alek with sudden force, her body shaking, grief finally allowed out.

“He died for me,” Hannah says into Alek’s shoulder.

They can’t hear her sobs any longer, just see her back rising and falling as Alek rocks her gently back and forth, back and forth.

It’s Jack who breaks the terrible silence now that the bombs have stopped falling.

“Selfless service,” he says, almost talking to himself. “So that others may live.”

69.

The soldiers don’t let them stay.

A man with exhausted eyes and a rifle held like it’s welded to his hands says, “We move. Now. Not safe here.”

They’re going to lead them back through the tunnels, then escort them across the city to a temporary barracks that has been set up near the National Museum.

“We have to move,” one of them says in crisp English. “This shelter is compromised.”

“We’re not leaving him,” Jack snaps.

The soldier tries to convince the group to go. They promise to come back for the body of Conner Lynch, but the rest of them have to get moving, because it’s clear they’re defenseless down here if more bombs and missiles hit.

Tipton appears at Jack’s shoulder, dusted with ash, eyes hard. “He comes with us,” Tipton says.

Jack doesn’t like agreeing with Tipton.

But Jack likes leaving Conner less.

“I’ll take the legs,” Tipton says, voice hard.

Jack takes Conner’s arms and they lift him together. They carry him through the broken tunnels and up into dawn.

The bombing has temporarily stopped, though there is no way of knowing for how long. The skies are empty of planes and drones. In the eerie half-light the war looks like it’s already over and they’ve lost, badly. Smoke hangs low. Buildings are cracked open, rooms exposed like dollhouses. Sandbags pile up around doorways that won’t matter if the next hit lands right.

They all pass one bombed-out building after another, walk slowly and in formation past what is left of a church that’s been here for a thousand years.