Page 127 of The Most Dangerous Games

“He’s trying to turn you against each other,” Jimmy says. “He’s tested everything else, now he wants to test your loyalty. For himself. He wants you to break.”

Jack says, “He wants to see if we’ll kill each other to win.”

“Exactly,” Jimmy says. “So don’t give him the show. Don’t become the thing he wants.”

Wyatt says, “Easy advice when you’re not the one in the ring.”

Jimmy doesn’t flinch.

“Fair,” he says. “I think you have to keep trusting each other. If this is about loyalty and friendship, you guys have already won. Keep your heads. And if it comes to a choice you can’t live with—remember you still have one button that’s yours. We just have to trust it still applies.” Another pause. “When I think about the people we’ve lost . . . well, the stakes are higher than ever. Because now we owe them our very best.”

Alek closes her eyes. “We owe the dead better than becoming monsters.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy says. “We do.”

Jimmy has covered his phone, if only momentarily.

“I have to go,” he says. They can hear the urgency in his voice. “I’ll be in touch when I have another update and hopefully tell you more of the truth than I can tonight.”

“The truth about what?” Alek asks.

The call drops.

87.

A few minutes after eight the next morning they arrive as instructed at a huge ballroom. Bright chandeliers. Polished floors. A room meant for weddings and fundraisers.

Hannah hasn’t slept very well. She feels as nervous and as anxious—and filled with dread—as she had been on the boat that first day in Antarctica.

But she hasn’t quit.

None of them have.

“I know I’ve been scared before,” Hannah had said to Alek on their way to the ballroom. “But not like this.”

Alek had squeezed her hand and said, “You won’t fight me. I won’t fight you.”

Jack had said, “There were lines I didn’t cross even with enemies.”

Wyatt had said, “He wants us to become enemies. It’s crazy.”

“No,” Hannah says quietly.

One more time she reaches for Alek’s hand.

“It’s sick,” Hannah says.

“I’ve never fired a gun in my life,” Alek says.

“And knives?” Hannah says. “I was horrified when Tipton went after Jack with that knife he grabbed off the table.”

“This whole idea is sick,” Hannah says again.

The Host is waiting for them in the ballroom.

“I will be brief, as there is much for you all to do this morning,” he says. “This is the day when you learn even more about each other than you already have.”

He surveys the twelve people in front of him. Hannah thinks: It’s like we’re waiting to hear a jury verdict.