She jumped back, her mind racing. Recalibrating. For the first time all day, she felt completely lost, with no idea what to do next. Only one thing stood out in her mind. One person.
She needed to get to Alex. Now.
It was as though the wind caught her; looking around, she saw the free weight lying on the floor where she’d dropped it. Reaching for it, she crawled back under the desk, and raising it high, smashed it into the laptop. Hard. Over and over.
Pieces of plastic, keys, wires went flying in all directions. When she was sure it was unsalvageable, she stood up, breathing hard. She picked up the smashed laptop and placed it on the desk in front of the monitors.
Pulling the lighter out of her pocket, she balanced it carefully on top, the letters RM facing forward.For Raya.
Fuck Hunt. He didn’t get to own their confessions. He didn’t get to control them, to show the world their secrets. He didn’t get to win his own game. For the first time in a long time, Ana smiled. She turned to the corkboard and pulled Karl’s photo off, folding it in half. Reaching over to the desk, she carefully nudged a gray pen into the fold and wrapped it up, slipping the package into her back pocket.
It was time to get the hell out of there.
Clambering down into the small opening behind the crate, she army-crawled through the tight tunnel back to the hatch. In the time she’d spent trapped in the bunker, the fire must have burned out. The heavy hatch lid was already open, the metal warped and blackened by flames. The keypad had completely melted—Hunt wasn’t going to be able to lock himself safely away in the bunker again. Ana climbed into the smoke-damaged shack above. Shoving debris out of the way, she leaped over still-smoldering bits of furniture, finally finding her feet on free ground and taking off in a sprint.
There was no hesitation or thought. She knew what she needed to do and where she needed to be.
Rounding the corner of the pool fence, Ana ran as fast as her legs would carry her. Straight to the death machine.
40
Ellis
17:41
What’s wrong with me?Ellis wondered. There was no emotion. No horror, no fear, no remorse. He was sitting on an upturned tractor, holding a metal wheel that could end the life of one of his classmates—his ex-friend, and yet he felt nothing.
Did that make him a sociopath? No, a sociopath would be enjoying this. Lacking in empathy? Probably.
Ellis released the wheel and flexed his hands, opening and closing them. Something was wrong with his hands. Ever since Caden had crossed the line, his palms had felt tight, uncomfortable, as though ants were crawling under the skin. He shook them out.
Alex was panting for breath. He was lying awkwardly, hands over the line, pulled tight by the rope. His body was stretched out behind him in the red dirt, still safe inside the circle. That’s where Ellis left him hanging.
Ellis watched as Alex struggled to hold himself up, struggled to holdon. Alex seemed very invested, pulling against the ropes, trying to twist himself upright. It reminded Ellis of an animal caught in a trap, trying to gnaw its own leg off to escape, to survive.
Well, it wasn’t going to be Alex’s choice. The hour was almost up. They had sat here baking in the lowering rays of late afternoon sunlight, waiting, just in case Ana was still alive. Just to be sure. If she didn’t show up soon, Ellis was going to call it.
Of course, she was probably dead.
The last he’d seen of Ana was her dark outline through the heavy smoke in the outbuilding. She was low to the ground, coughing. It should have been so easy—he’d reached out to grab her, but his hand closed on empty air, just as the fire took hold and a section of shelving collapsed over them. He had barely got out of the way in time. Ana had almost certainly died in the fire, trapped under those shelves. But as the flames had forced him out before he could be certain, there was always a slight possibility that she had somehow escaped—either snuck out of the burning building before him, or (and this was where he felt a little nervous) she’d made it through the hatch.
Ellis was all too aware of the risks if Ana had survived. He wasn’t afraid of a confrontation. One on one, he would easily win. What he was desperately afraid of was that she would stay hidden until the final hour was up. They would both die, and all of this, all the things he’d done, would be for nothing. He wouldn’t put it past her—to sacrifice herself just to make sure he didn’t walk away. Especially after the next hour ended and Alex took his one-way ride on the red truck.
No, most likely she was toast. If he’d had time to sift through the ashes of the outbuilding, he would have found her under some burned-out shelf, or what was left of her. But even if every instinct told him that she was dead, he would anticipate the worst, right up until this wasover—that there were three of them still alive, still playing the game. That the game was still very far from won.
“How much time is left?” It was the first thing Alex had said in a while.
“Enough,” Ellis said, his eyes flicking over to where his phone was lying propped up on the tractor. Just over sixteen minutes. Good.
So close. He should wait until the very end—just leave enough time to drag Alex over the line with a small margin for error. Then maybe that would be it. No more countdowns or trucks. Maybe this whole thing would be over, once and for all. Ellis pushed the thought away. He didn’t deal in hope—it made you careless. Hope was for losers. As far as Ellis was concerned, your destiny was in your hands, make of it what you will.
A pale violet color tinted the distant mountains—the first hint that this hellish day was coming to an end. The wind had a refreshing coolness to it at long last. The desert looked the way it had when the bus had first arrived. Had it only been twenty-four hours? It felt like a miserable lifetime.
Damn it; what was going on with his hands? The fingers kept seizing up as though he was cramping or something. He rubbed them together forcefully, trying to shake it off.
There they went again—his fingers locking into a claw shape.
It was ten times worse after Raya went. She’d really struggled. Even though she was tied up and he could easily lift her, it had been brutal forcing her over the line.
