Chapter 88.
Alek allows herself a quick sideways glance at Carlos Lopez. She’s sure she can see a small smile playing across his lips. She’s also sure that today won’t be his first knife fight.
Fumio and Marcelo keep their eyes on each other, both of them breathing slow, conserving energy like this is a real match.
Gabrielle Fontaine, still appearing stunned that she is being asked to participate in a knife fight, is saying something quietly to Logan Bergeron.
Logan is nodding as he listens.
“How’s it going to work with guns, exactly?” Ant Tipton growls. “Twenty paces and turn and fire like it’s Aaron Burr trying to put one into Alexander Hamilton?”
But before he gets his answer, Logan and Gabrielle turn and walk in the direction of the double doors through which they’d all entered the ballroom.
Logan has his arm around her shoulders.
The Host’s head turns slightly, curious.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
Logan doesn’t stop.
“Out,” he says.
When they get to the doors, Gabrielle says something to Logan right before they turn and give The Host the finger.
Then they look at each other, lift their necklaces, and push their red buttons at the same moment.
Two clean clicks. Two quiet beeps.
“I ride bulls for a living. I know risk. I know pain,” Logan says. “But I have no intention of fighting another human being with a knife no matter how much money is on the table.”
Gabrielle then addresses the other competitors.
“Logan and I will still be alive at the end of this day,” she says. “I sincerely hope some of you can say the same.”
Then, she finds herself walking back across the auditorium until she is standing in front of The Host. For a second, the guards shift. The Host doesn’t.
“As for you, sir, you want blood. You won’t get it from me,” Gabrielle says.
She slaps The Host across the face, snapping his head to the side.
“Pourrir en enfer.”
Rot in hell.
The Host slowly turns his face back toward them.
He doesn’t look hurt. He looks . . . delighted.
Gabrielle and Logan don’t wait for the response. They’re through the doors and gone.
Alek thinks about following them. She really does. But stays right where she is.
They all do.
The Host touches his cheek with two fingers, tasting the moment. “Excellent,” he says.
Then, louder: “Now we begin.”
He looks at the ten remaining. “What are you?” he asks.
No one answers.
“Say it,” he urges.
Silence.
“From now on,” The Host says. “Only winners or losers.”
He pauses as he studies the ten competitors left out of the twelve who had shown up a few minutes before.
“What are all of you?” he asks.