Page 165 of The Most Dangerous Games

“Nerve and vascular repair,” the doctor says, making it sound so pedestrian.

“We need to put you back under,” the nurse says.

The needle in her hand looks as big to Zhi as a carving knife. He struggles in vain to get loose. But both his hands and feet are secured.

The nurse leans forward and swabs alcohol on his bare upper arm.

“Stop,” Zhi says, too sharply, voice cracking.

He knows this is a form of madness he’s dealt with his whole life, but he can’t do anything to combat it in the moment. Or stop it himself.

Zhi is convinced these people aren’t here to help him. They’re here to inject him with something and kill him.

Do what the bullet hadn’t done.

The nurse has the needle touching Zhi’s arm now.

“We know this is torture for you, Mr. Zhi,” she says in a soothing voice. “But all of us in this room know there’s a way to end it, don’t we?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Zhi’s eyes dart to the syringe. Then the scalpel on the tray. Then back to the syringe.

“Don’t we?” she repeats.

Zhi forces air into his lungs. “Yes,” he whispers.

“Would you like for us to help you off this table, so you can walk out of this chamber?” the doctor says. “And walk out of your nightmare?”

Zhi focuses on the nurse’s needle again, then on the scalpel in the doctor’s hand. But then he tells himself—hears his own voice screaming at him inside his head—how close he is to winning.

Despite the full-blown terror he is feeling.

“No,” he says, louder now—like he can scare the fear away with volume. “No!”

He squeezes his eyes shut just as he feels the tip of the needle puncture his arm.

Zhi keeps screaming—through the panic, through the humiliation, through the flooding terror—until the room tilts and the lights smear and his mind finally lets go.

Patrick Arrasmith

114.

Ant was going to outlast them all.

He just was.

He was supposed to win in the end, that was his deal with The Host, back at the beginning, before he knew Ward Hillshire’s true identity. He would spy on the other contestants. Not that he ever learned very much. From the start they’d all kept their distance from him.

And ultimately, Ant would act as The Host’s henchman that day up on Mount Washington.

“My money’s on you,” The Host had told him when they’d struck their deal. “Quite a lot of money.”

“Why?” Tipton had asked.

“Because we’re very much alike,” The Host had said.

“In what way?” Ant had asked.

“Kill or be killed,” The Host had said that day.