Page 76 of The Last True Hero

But so far, no sudden movements.

Only War Dog kept looking at him and curling his lip, but that might be more about the scent of him. Nothing more.

"Which ones are fighting tonight?" Adam asked.

"Through here," Rykker said, unbolting the next door and swinging it open to reveal a new row of cells. "Some are fresh, unblooded. Then there's our reluctant champion."

Adam stilled. He wasn't going through first.

Rykker bared his teeth in a smile. "What's wrong?"

"I trust you about as far as I can throw you." Rykker seemed just the sort to stab him in the back—or send him into a tunnel full of open warg cages and hungry wargs.

"Guess I'll just have to prove who's got the bigger balls," Rykker shot back, and entered ahead of him, dragging War Dog.

Adam gestured to Gnat. "Ugly first."

Gnat shook his head. "You sure know how to make friends."

"Like I said earlier: I wouldn't have called us friends."

Gnat strode ahead of him. The next section was crowded, and darker.

"Thought you might want to check out our champion first," Rykker called, kicking the bars on a cell. "Get up, you piece of shit."

"Make me, you cockstain."

That voice.Adam's head turned swiftly, his nostrils flaring.

Movement shifted in the cell. A man stepped forward out of the darkness, his face bisected by the shadows of the bars.

Adam had a feeling, even before he saw the man—his stomach free-falling, the bottom of it dropping through his toes—that fate had something horribly wrong in store for him.

And that was before Johnny Colton gripped the bars, melting out of the shadows. "McClain," he said in some surprise. "Long time, no see."