Chapter 37.
As they’re all filing out of the ballroom, everybody more off-balance than ever after what they’ve just seen and heard from Jimmy and The Host, Wyatt finds Hannah.
“Walk?” he asks. “Before the next nightmare drops?”
Hannah hesitates, then nods. “Yes.”
Maybe as a way of trying to regain her balance, if only for a few minutes. They move down a gravel path that cuts through darkness and manicured fields. The property feels endless.
After a minute Hannah says, “He almost challenged The Host.”
“Jimmy?” Wyatt says. “That wasn’t almost. That was him drawing a line.”
“And The Host didn’t care,” Hannah says.
Wyatt snorts softly. “The Host cares. He just cares about control.”
“Were you worried that Jimmy was about to pull the plug?” Hannah asks.
“Nobody’s followed him more closely than I have,” Wyatt says. “That was never happening.”
Hannah’s eyes lift to the main house behind them. Lights glowing. Windows like watchful eyes.
“Who is he? The Host,” she whispers.
Wyatt thinks of the voice. The calm. The way it never strains.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But he talks like someone who’s never been told no.”
They walk in silence for a while, out into grounds that seem to go forever.
“How many acres do you think this place is?” she asks.
“A billion?” Wyatt says.
She laughs. A nice laugh. But then everything about this girl is nice.
As they make their way down the hill and away from the main house, they can see Jack and Elena walking away in the opposite direction—close, heads bent toward each other, like they’re trying to steal a normal moment inside an insane week.
Hannah watches them, then says, “That’s going to get dangerous.”
“I know they haven’t known each other for very long,” Wyatt says. “None of us have. But it’s obvious.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” Hannah asks.
Wyatt says, “The way I look at it, sometimes you just feel things whether you want to or not.”
“Even in a situation like we’re all in?” Hannah says.
“Maybe because we’re in a situation like this,” Wyatt says.
She seems much older than eighteen, and not just because she’s the smartest girl Wyatt has ever been around. There is this naturalness about her, a beauty inside and out. He still can’t believe how close he came to losing her in McMurdo Sound.
But at the same time he tells himself now not to analyze his feelings for her too much, because he’s never been any good at talking about feelings. Hannah, though, is different, just off some of the long conversations they’ve had already, mostly on planes. She’s more an open book.
Not me, Wyatt thinks.
Not even close.
They pass what looks like a horse corral. Empty. Wind moving through it like it’s waiting for something.
Wyatt thinks about taking Hannah’s hand.
He doesn’t.
What would she think about me if she knew my story?
What would they all think?
They continue walking down the hill. The farther they get from the main house, the more they feel they’re putting the scene they just witnessed in the ballroom behind them.
Just the two of them, now, alone in the half-light between day and night, a whole world between them and the cold of Antarctica and everything that happened there.
And, Wyatt knows, it’s more than the weather:
This feels like the first chance he’s had since Antarctica to exhale.
None of this is normal, he knows that. His life hasn’t been normal for a long time. Even his closest friends don’t know his whole story. But this—what he’s feeling tonight—does feel normal.
He’s worried about what Hannah just said.
How any relationship, no matter how innocent, might be a bad idea.
“It’s weird, right? We don’t even know what the scoreboard is.”
“I hate that,” Hannah says. “I hate being measured and not knowing how.”
Wyatt looks at her. “You do great on every test.”
“That’s exactly why I hate it,” she says. “Because this one isn’t a test. It’s a trap.”
They stop at the fence line and look out at the property. Stars are beginning to show.
“Who do you think owns this place?” Hannah asks.
“Maybe The Host dude,” Wyatt says.
There is another silence between them, just not an uncomfortable one. So many girls he’s known, even the ones he liked, felt like they had to be talking all the time, filling up every silence.
Not this particular girl.
Hannah’s voice drops.
“Why are you here, really?”
Wyatt smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
He says, “I guess the best answer I can give you is that I want to see if I can do something great on my own, maybe some heroic feat like Luca’s. He was a good dude. I know it’s different with me, obviously, on account of me having a lot handed to me in my life.”
“By your parents, you mean?”
Hannah watches him, and Wyatt gets the uncomfortable feeling she’s already reading the parts of him he keeps locked away. He wants to tell her the truth about that. But he knows he can’t, at least not yet and maybe not ever. He wants this girl to like him as much as he likes her.
He is trying to be honest with her. Just not as honest as he could be. Even though this night does feel normal, so is lying for Wyatt Jordan.
“And you?” he says, turning it back on her. “MIT at your age? I mean, are you being serious? I figure you’re halfway to world domination no matter what happens. Why are you here?”
“World domination because I’m German?” she asks.
Nice going, Wyatt.
Smooth, no kidding.
“No, no, no,” he says, fast and loud. “I didn’t mean it that way at all. I was just messing with you, but in a good way.”
“I know that,” she says. “I already know you better than you think, Wyatt Jordan.”
No, you don’t.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says.
Hannah exhales.
“Because I don’t think we survive as a species if we keep doing what we’re doing,” she says. “That’s not drama. It’s data.”
Wyatt shifts, trying to find something lighter.
“So you’re basically here to save Earth. Casual.”
Hannah almost smiles.
“Something like that.”
They’re standing too close. Not touching. But close.
She stares up at the stars already appearing in the sky.
“Could you believe how beautiful it was in Antarctica?” she says, spinning around wanting to see the whole sky at once.
“You could have been killed there!” Wyatt says. “We all could have!”
“Danger hides in beauty and beauty hides in danger,” Hannah says. “A woman named Belva Plain wrote that. You want a fun fact about her? She didn’t write her first novel until she was sixty-three years old. A late bloomer.”
Silence, knowing it’s time to turn around and head back, nightfall coming fast now. But even with that, Wyatt has the sense that neither one of them is in any hurry for this night to end, especially since they have no idea about what craziness The Host has in store for them in the morning.
“If she’s a late bloomer,” Wyatt says, “that makes her the opposite of you.”
Just like that.
Wyatt doesn’t plan it.
Neither does she.
They’ve pulled each other into a kiss. They both decided to do it at the same time.
When they finally pull back, both of them look as surprised as they are happy at what just happened. Hannah’s eyes flicker, sharp again—like she remembers the cameras.
“Bad idea,” she whispers.
“I don’t know about you,” Wyatt says. “But it felt as wise to me as it felt good.”
“A good kiss, you mean?” Hannah asks, smiling again.
“Good, period,” he says.
“No,” she whispers.
Wyatt swallows. “Why?”
Hannah looks past him, up toward the house.
“Because everything here gets used,” she says. “Everything.”
She steps back first.
“Let’s go,” she says. “Before we do something else we can’t take back.”
Wyatt follows her up the hill. He does feel good, about the kiss, about being with her, all of it.
And more scared than ever that things between them can only end badly.