A Game Most Dangerous Read Free Page A

sturdy leather belt. Zaroff clapped him on the back again. "You have until sunset to make yourself hard to catch. I'm assured you will be interesting prey, so don't disappoint, else I shall have to punish Vanya for lying to me."
    Rain looked at Zaroff, then Ivan, then back at Zaroff. He shrugged. "Sure, General. Do my best."
    "Well, you're so calm and haven't done any of that trite pleading or threatening, so I've hope for you. Good luck! If you manage to survive, we will, of course, take you home."
    "That would be nice. See you later, then," Rain replied and shrugged the backpack on as he walked off into the trees.
    He ditched the knife in a pond because he had way, way better to work with if it became necessary. After a couple of hours of wandering, he finally sat on a large boulder and opened the bag. Boring, boring, boring. It was the kind of crap Jamie insisted on eating when he dragged everyone along on one of his charity hiking trips.
    Munching resentfully on a granola bar that tasted like sawdust and old socks, he ditched the bag and the rest of the crap food in it. When he got really hungry, he'd just go back to the stupid mansion that time tried to forget.
    At least he'd shaved his head before this trip, though he wouldn't have minded a hat. Ah, well.
    He wandered aimlessly around the island, poking and prodding, occasionally staring out at the sea and daydreaming about being on a yacht, just him and Whitney and a never-ending pile of comic books. And copies of that dumb fantasy show Whitney watched just because he knew it offended Rain.
    Eventually he started yawning practically non-stop, and he gave up wandering in favor of climbing up to the highest sturdy branch of an enormous tree.
    Greatest hunters in the world, huh? Oh, he wished he could tell them how laughably wrong they were. Rain started the timer on his fancy, waterproof watch and settled back to watch the ocean until it grew too dark to see. He switched to stargazing through the gaps in the leaves.
    After two hours and eleven minutes, he finally heard some noise. They were awfully loud for people who were supposed to be good at this. Maybe it was just what Whitney called his unreasonable standards. He looked down, but it was another hour before the people making the noise finally showed up: Zaroff and Ivan.
    Zaroff examined every bit of dirt and every leaf, looked up, down, and all-around, but eventually shook his head and resumed moving.
    Rain shrugged and waited, but no one else came close to finding his hiding spot.
    In the morning, he washed up in a pond that smelled of clean water then resumed wandering.
    Eventually he heard someone tromping around nearby, could hear the man muttering. Rain found a large tree and just for the amusement, he crawled down to hide in the enormous roots. But much like Zaroff the night before, the man came close but never found him, instead carrying on as though he thought he was on a trail, even though Rain was way too lazy to go to that much effort.
    He spent most of the day following the hunters around, ducking out of sight occasionally but mostly never having to bother. If anything gave him away, it would be the moment he finally started laughing at them.
    Eventually he decided it was time for a nap and returned to a little cave he'd seen earlier in the day. By the time he woke up, evening was falling and everything was growing quiet. He crept through the trees, but could not hear any sign of the hunters. Maybe they'd gone in for dinner.
    Keeping ear and nose out, he explored more of the island. His interest was almost piqued when he came across quicksand. Looked like the whole southeast corner of the island was swampland, or at least most of it was. Man, his cousins would have loved it.
    He trekked carefully through the treacherous muck until he found a nice tree for his second night, then went to see about food since he was too far out for it to be worth it to trek all the way back to the creepy house.
    He'd just