Page 130 of The Most Dangerous Games

Rot in hell.

The Host slowly turns his face back toward them.

He doesn’t look hurt. He looks . . . delighted.

Gabrielle and Logan don’t wait for the response. They’re through the doors and gone.

Alek thinks about following them. She really does. But stays right where she is.

They all do.

The Host touches his cheek with two fingers, tasting the moment. “Excellent,” he says.

Then, louder: “Now we begin.”

He looks at the ten remaining. “What are you?” he asks.

No one answers.

“Say it,” he urges.

Silence.

“From now on,” The Host says. “Only winners or losers.”

He pauses as he studies the ten competitors left out of the twelve who had shown up a few minutes before.

“What are all of you?” he asks.

89.

Four black-uniformed guards appear, laying down a mat that looks to be about the size that Zhi must have used for floor exercises in his gymnastic competitions.

Hannah, though, imagines it more as a boxing ring.

Just one without ropes.

She is on one side of the mat. Jack is on the other, not even wanting to look at her. Neutral corners, and he doesn’t want to come out of his.

Hannah walks over to him and puts out her hand.

“I am so sorry it’s come to this,” Hannah says. “With you of all people.”

Jack takes her hand—careful, like she’s made of glass.

“Not as sorry as I am,” Jack says. “I’ll try to go as easy on you as I can before somebody steps in and stops this stupid fight. I’m going to end this without hurting you.”

“You can’t promise that,” Hannah says.

Jack swallows. “Then I’m going to try.”

“If we were going to quit like Logan and Gabrielle, we would have done it already,” Hannah says. “Now we both have to do what we need to do.”

She turns and walks to the middle of the mat, waiting for Jack to join her when he’s ready. Hannah is taking slow breaths the way she has been taught as a way of calming herself.

But none of it helps to slow the crazy pounding of her heart.

She can hear her father’s voice inside her head now. The former policeman who became a self-defense trainer after retiring as a new way of protecting people. He is the one who made sure Hannah went through life as more than just a brain.