Page 66 of The Most Dangerous Games

Just not right now.

They sit there.

Minutes pass.

Then more.

Wyatt tries small talk once—about Go, about how he thought he had control until he didn’t—then stops. Alek’s eyes are on nothing. His words can’t reach her.

Finally she whispers, barely audible, “I’ve never felt so helpless.”

Her phone rings.

All three of them flinch.

Alek answers, voice shaking.

“Please give me good news,” she says in English.

She listens quietly for a long time, answering her mother’s friend in their native language. Alek waits and then listens again, her face fierce with concentration. Wyatt and Reg stand nearby and listen.

They hear her soften and say, “I’m here, Mama,” before nodding and listening all over again.

Finally, almost out of nowhere, a smile begins to form. Not much of one, Wyatt thinks. But whatever she’s hearing can’t be terrible news, that much is quite clear.

Before the call ends, Alek Andrich laughs heartily, laughs so hard Wyatt is almost afraid she might start crying again. He feels closer to her than ever. He’s certain Reg feels the same way. Feels this is one of those special moments that continue to make the whole competition worthwhile, even after what happened this morning with Hannah, something he’s still trying to process. He’s been given a whole new reason for being here.

At last Alek puts the phone away. She wipes her face with the back of her hand and looks at them.

“Broken arm,” she says. “Four cracked ribs. A concussion. She’s going to be in some pain for a while, the doctors tell her, especially with the ribs. But they say she’s going to be fine.”

Wyatt finally exhales. “I’m so glad,” Wyatt says. “For your mother, of course. But also for you.”

“She wouldn’t even hear of me coming home,” Alek says.

Wyatt says, “You have to tell us what she said that made you laugh so hard.”

“My sweet, gentle mother,” she says, voice steady, “told me to stop whining . . . and go kick some ass.”

46.

Ant Tipton’s cottage sits higher than most of the others. Whoever assigned them knew exactly what he’d prefer.

Distance. Sightlines. Control.

He stands at the second-floor window and looks down at the front steps of Alek Andrich’s cottage.

Drummond is there, big and steady, like the world can’t move him unless he agrees. The rich kid from New York—Jordan—is there too, all long limbs and nervous loyalty. Alek sits between them with her phone in her hands, no longer shaking.

Alek’s crisis is over. For now.

Not that Tipton cares about her feelings in this moment, one way or the other.

He’s not worried about her, and he’s certainly not worried about some kid from a fancy private school who he knows could be taken down by a strong breeze.

Alek’s crisis did one thing he knew would make things harder: It solidified them as a unit. Cemented a bond. A visible bond. People who would bleed for each other without being asked.

That’s the real threat in these games. Not strength. Not brains. Not even courage.