Page 77 of The Most Dangerous Games

Elena Torres—who grew up visiting the Nerja caves near Málaga, and thought those were frightening until this.

Rupert Chadwick—the fourteen-year-old Brit asked now to be as adult as he’s ever been.

Conner Lynch—native of Kentucky. Former all-American receiver at West Point. Former Rhodes Scholar. Retired Golden Boy congressman from his state once considered to be a possible presidential candidate until he became disillusioned. He left government so publicly that half the country called him a coward and the other half called him honest.

At the age of fifty, Conner had begun hosting a wildly popular podcast, in the hope that he might do more good for the country there.

“Lyndon Johnson, a proud Texan, once said it was better to have J. Edgar Hoover inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in,” Conner had said to Jack on the bus. “Well, I’m outside pissing in now.”

All they know in advance is that there is a surprise waiting right before they see daylight again.

“But for now,” The Host had said on their ride in, “your challenge is simple: get to that daylight without falling.

“There are more than four hundred miles officially mapped out in the Mammoth Cave system, mostly near Mammoth Cave National Park. But the only people who have attempted to map out the route you’re about to take work for me. Well, the ones who survived.”

No phones. No watches. No GPS. Only small flashlights and the hard little security earpiece in each of their ears—The Host’s voice, if he decides to use it.

“How will we know when we’ve reached the finale?” Conner asks. “Or end zone, or whatever you want to call it?”

“Oh, you’ll know, Congressman,” The Host says. “Trust me, you will know.”

They proceed slowly, without any sense of time. They make their way carefully along the walls, feeling their way in the semi-darkness, afraid to look past the end of the short beams of their flashlights or down into the deep caverns below them. The caves are both forbidding and beautiful at the same time. All of them move cautiously, afraid that one misstep, one bad slip, and they disappear into the darkness.

Their flashlight beams cut through dust and darkness and make everything look closer than it is—right until you glance down and realize the floor is not a floor at all.

It’s a drop.

A void.

Jack takes point. Conner asked him to.

“All I had was an intelligence assignment after West Point,” Conner tells him. “I defer to a man who served in a forward zone.”

“I feel I’m back in the many caves during various missions,” Jack says, “almost always walking into a trap.”

“But you’re still here, aren’t you?” Conner says. “I’ll take my chances following you, Jack. We all will.”

Jack keeps one hand on the wall as much as he can, testing each step, watching for loose rock and slick mud.

“Segunda,” Elena Torres says.

Jack takes a moment to lock eyes with her. They smile at each other. The warm and familiar smile of a growing affection. Maybe even young love.

Jack tells Rupert to stay directly behind him.

“Jack,” Rupert whispers to him at one point. “I’m so afraid.”

“Hey, pal,” Jack says. “We all are.”

“You don’t understand,” Rupert swallows. “The thing I’m most afraid of in the whole world is the dark.”

Jack stops the line with a raised fist. They freeze.

He crouches in front of Rupert, close enough that the boy can see his face inside the weak cone of light.

“You’re doing great,” Jack says.

“I’m really not,” Rupert says.