Free The Gauntlet Assassin by LJ Sellers

She slowed and allowed herself a quick glance over her right shoulder. The young Amazon woman was headed away from her, backtracking from a dead end in the center. Lara was glad she’d avoided the middle beam, but she knew it was time to start making right-fork choices to work back toward the center.
    At the next junction, she didn’t step far enough and her heel missed the beam. Her body swayed and her heart skipped a beat. Lara threw herself forward, landing with her upper body on the beam and her legs dangling. She pressed her arms tight against the thick sides. The blow had knocked the wind out of her and she pulled in three long breaths, waiting for her heart to settle down. One at a time, she carefully lifted her legs back up on top of the wooden surface, then slowly brought her arms up until she had them under her chest. From there, she lifted her torso and brought her knees up together into a kneeling position. For the first time in her life, Lara was glad for her small frame.
    Still moving carefully, she raised herself into a standing position. Lara took another deep breath and assessed the situation. She was about three-quarters of the way across the water pit and Kirsten, off to her right, had pulled ahead. Lara started forward, picking up her pace and getting back into a rhythm. As she neared a tangle of forks, she heard Kirsten make a yelping sound. A split second later came the splash as her competitor hit the water.
    Lara felt no reprieve. They were close to the end, and a straight short swim might be just as fast as zigzagging through the maze. The waves were coming from this end of the pit, though, and the loud chop of the water below made her glad she was still on the beams.
    Sensing she was near the end, her body instinctively picked up the pace. Lara had to force herself to slow down, look ahead, and predict the dead ends. Finally, she cleared the last junction and the beam ahead provided a straight line to the edge. Twenty more feet! She held back a bit, not allowing herself to get sloppy.
    Relief washed over her as her feet hit solid ground. She’d survived the elevated maze. Lara glanced back to see if she could spot Kirsten in the water. Instead she saw her climbing a ladder off to the right. She sprinted for the door in the middle of the dividing wall, wondering what the hell she would encounter next.

Chapter 9
    Tunnels! Dread hit Lara like a punch to the stomach. The next wall, only fifteen feet away, sported three black holes about waist high, each with a circumference of about three feet. Fuck. The tunnels were new to the Gauntlet this year and she felt unprepared. She sprinted for the middle hole, making the snap judgment that it made no difference which path she took.
    She threw herself into the darkness, hoping like hell this section of the Challenge would be mercifully short. The height of the tunnel offered just enough space to crawl in a crouched position with her head down. Lara thought that Kirsten, with her long thighbones, might not have that option. A belly crawl would be slower, but Lara realized she would probably rotate between the two, depending on the pain and how long this section lasted. She listened for the sounds of her opponent in the tunnel behind her, but heard only her own labored breathing and a tiny humming noise.
    After a few minutes of crawling in total darkness, her knees began to ache, even though the tunnel was constructed of thick pliable PVC. Lara tuned out the pain and the closeness of the walls and kept plowing forward. She decided that not being able to see anything was marginally better than being constantly aware of the tight space and potentially endless duration.
    The pain in her knees forced her into a belly crawl. Once she was prone, she could lift her head and see out front a few feet. A tiny red light moved along the tunnel ahead of her. A motion-activated camera. The clever bastards didn’t want the viewers to miss this agony. Lara forced herself to