Ophelia turned to find that two young men had stopped only a few feet away, lingering before a newspaper stand at the entrance of a barbershop, their heads together over the gazette. “Only twenty-seven? I thought there were almost a hundred who entered?” one of them said. The other man shrugged. “Most contestants tap out before they die. The smart ones do anyway.” His companion scoffed. “The smart ones don’t enter in the first place.”

