Free The Gauntlet Assassin by LJ Sellers Page A

stop scowling. She needed fans and thumbs-up voters.
    Her hand touched something soft and oily. The thing moved and she suppressed a vocal reaction. A snake. They’d put a fucking snake in the tunnels—likely more than one. Lara paused for a brief moment, hoping it would slither away. It’s harmless, she told herself, crawling forward. They wouldn’t use poisonous snakes . Knowing it was ahead of her somewhere made her move a little slower.
    A moment later, the floor began to slope downward. Lara tried to focus on the ease of the descent rather than the feeling that she was crawling down into hell. The tunnel curved to the right, then ten feet later, she came to a fork, barely discernable in the dark. Oh crap! Another maze. Lara chose left again, acting on impulse. In the blackness, there was no logic to apply, no pattern to analyze.
    Forearms aching, she pushed back onto her knees and picked up speed. With her head down, she didn’t see the dead end and slammed straight into it, sending a shock of pain down her neck and spine. The bastards! They’d made the event more difficult this year as well as more physically punishing. With no room to turn around, she had no choice but to crawl backward to the fork.
    She hadn’t practiced this skill at the National Guard training camp, but it made no difference. She would conquer whatever they threw at her. As she neared what she hoped was the fork, she heard clomping sounds somewhere in the tunnel behind her. Oh no . If Kirsten had passed the fork, then she was in the same branch tunnel and would have to back out too. In that case, her opponent would reach the fork first and take the lead.
    Lara pushed herself harder, hoping Kirsten was still in the main tunnel. As she huffed backward, the clomping sound grew closer. A moment later, Lara’s foot came in contact with Kirsten’s head, and the big woman let out a startled sound.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    “It’s a dead end,” Lara called out. She hated to assist her competition but she had no choice.
    Kirsten backed away without a word. Lara backed up too, keeping pace. A worst-case scenario played out in her mind. What if Kirsten, out front after they made the turn, ran into a snake and froze up or got injured and couldn’t go any farther? Was there more than one correct path to the other side? Or would they both be disqualified for not completing the course?
    Behind her, Lara heard Kirsten make the turn and crawl off to the right. She followed and quickly caught up. Forearms and knees aching, Lara cursed herself for going left. If she’d made the correct decision, she would have a healthy lead by now.
    Moments later, the crawling body ahead of her stopped. Another fork? Lara’s brain scrambled to sort out her options. If she followed Kirsten to the end, her competitor would finish first, earning big points. Or if Kirsten hit a dead end, they would both have to back out and Lara would be in the lead again. If she took a different tunnel, the outcomes were more divergent. She would either take the lead, get lucky, and win by a good margin—or hit a dead end, while Kirsten finished way ahead of her. Those were only the best-case scenarios. They could each encounter more forks, more doubling back.
    A soft pressure on the back of her ankle made Lara cringe. She kicked and sent the snake on its way.
    Her opponent began to move, and Lara learned by feel that Kirsten had gone to the right, leaving the left tunnel open to her. Even though she never gambled with money, Lara was a natural-born risk taker. She crawled to the left, preferring to win or lose by a wide margin than to follow Kirsten through the tunnels like a coward, hoping to hit a dead end.
    After five minutes, she dropped back to her stomach and belly crawled along the sloping, curving tunnel. Her muscles ached from the strain, the darkness was oppressive, and anxiety started to build. What if she hit another dead end and had to back all the way out? How