Page 131 of The Most Dangerous Games

He had trained Hannah in self-defense from the time she started going to school, to the point where Hannah eventually believed she could have taught his courses herself.

“If you are about to be attacked,” her father would always remind her, “the first thing to do is create as much distance as you can. And be as loud as you can as a way of distracting your opponent.”

Then this, always:

“But if you determine that your life is truly in danger, mein Liebling, sometimes the best and only weapon is escape.”

Only she knows there is no escaping what is about to happen. She has to stand and fight, even if the opponent is Jack McHenry.

The Host joins them in the middle of the mat.

“Are you both ready?” he asks.

Hannah and Jack nod.

“Rules are simple,” he says, almost casual.

He gestures at the red buttons around their necks.

“A fight ends when someone is unable to continue . . . or when someone chooses to end their run.”

Jack’s eyes narrow. “So you’re not even pretending this is about skill.”

The Host smiles.

“Skill is part of it,” he says. “But will is the real currency.”

He steps back.

“Begin,” he says.

He takes a seat in a folding chair set against the wall, casually crossing his legs. The other competitors have already been escorted out of the ballroom. Hannah wondered, as she watched them leave, which ones she might see again.

“I really am so sorry it’s come to this,” Jack says.

He steps away from Hannah. Then he sighs almost sadly and raises his hands into a boxer’s pose and stance.

Hannah Wagner spins around—as taught—as soon as he does. She doesn’t square up like a fighter. She moves with problem-solver-style precision.

When she comes back around and is facing him again, she steps toward him. Then her right hand flashes out before Jack has a chance to react, and Hannah drives two fingers into his left eye—not a strike to injure, a strike to blind.

I’m sorry, too.

Jack staggers back a couple of steps, his hands going to his eye. But Hannah is already moving in, having been taught by her father to seize any opening, especially against a bigger opponent. She delivers a knee to his midsection, doubling him over and nearly putting him down.

He doesn’t go down.

The former Ranger gets some air into him, forces himself to straighten up, looking at Hannah warily now, as if she’s a stranger. He gives a quick shake to his head, gathering himself. Trying to shake off everything that has just happened to him.

“Okay, then,” he says. Hannah isn’t sure whether he’s talking to himself, or her. “Okay,” Jack says.

He reluctantly starts to draw back his right fist. But even after the blows Hannah has just delivered, he hesitates again, he still can’t force himself to deliver a blow to his friend’s face.

Jack changes his mind and bull-rushes her instead, getting his arms around her, lifting her into the air at the same time.

He squeezes so much air out of her in the process.

Just not all.