Chapter 56.
Mount Washington
They keep making slow progress. Ten inches at a time. Sometimes five. All of them are afraid—they wouldn’t be human if they weren’t.
But all of them are being brave, maybe as brave as they’ve ever been in their lives. They’ve been told, constantly, that they would be pushed to their own limits in this competition. Maybe even beyond them.
The wind is constant now—cold enough to bite through sweat-soaked layers, strong enough to make the rock feel alive beneath their hands.
Softly Reg Drummond says, “I’ve never felt more alive,” unsure whether the others can hear him or not.
To his surprise he hears Hannah say, “Same.”
“I get it,” Wyatt says, eyes fixed on the rock inches from his nose. “Maybe now more than ever.”
Reg almost smiles. “Get what?”
“All of it,” Wyatt says. “Why people do stupid things on purpose.”
Tipton doesn’t join the exchange. Tipton hasn’t joined anything all day. He’s been leading because he has the most experience, and because he cannot stand the idea of someone else being in control.
But he has something in his ear. Most of the time it’s silent. A faint click, then The Host’s voice—private, intimate, smiling right inside Tipton’s skull.
“Mr. Tipton,” it says. “A word.”
Tipton’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t acknowledge it. Just keeps climbing.
It happens then.
Tipton loses his grip.
He half-slides and half-tumbles until Reg manages to block his fall, probably saving them all. Those few terrifying moments last hours for Reg.
“Sorry,” Tipton says. “I could’ve killed us all.”
“Nah,” Reg says. “Buckley’s chance.”
“What does that mean?” Tipton says.
“An expression in Australia that means not a chance.”
“And why is that?” Tipton asks.
“Because,” Reg says, “it’s like I told Hannah: Nobody is dying up here today.”
Tipton barks out a laugh.
“You know, I may even end up liking you,” he says.
“Buckley’s chance,” Reg says again.
Already the temperature up here is 20 degrees cooler than it had been at the base of the mountain. It might be even cooler than that. The higher they get, the more the wind starts to pick up, making any progress, even ten yards at a time, vastly more difficult.
Another click. “You’re doing so well,” The Host murmurs. “Almost like you’ve done this before.”
Tipton’s fingers dig harder into the schist. His knuckles go pale.
They land on a slightly broader slab—one of the few places you can stand without feeling the mountain trying to shake you off—and then Reg speaks low enough that only Tipton can hear.
“You got someone talking in your ear?” Reg asks.
Tipton doesn’t answer.
Reg studies him for a second.
“You know what’s funny?” Reg says. “I used to think the scariest thing in my life was losing.”
Tipton finally glances at him. Suspicious. Almost . . . curious.
Reg keeps his eyes on the rock as he talks. “Then you win. You get the medal. You get the anthem. You get people telling you you’re special. And you wake up the next year and realize the scariest thing is being ordinary again.”
Tipton snorts, barely a sound. “World’s tiniest violin.”
Reg smiles without humor. “Yeah. That’s what I told myself too.”
Tipton looks away fast, like he’s seen something he doesn’t want to see.
The climb continues.
They can finally see the summit up ahead of them, after being on this mountain, making this slow climb, for more than half a day, at least.
With all that, Reg knows something that he wouldn’t even think about trying to articulate to the others:
Reg hasn’t felt this good—this exhilarated, really—since the Olympics, when he’d won gold medals and was the one on top of the world.
Only now he really is at the top of the world.
How could he explain this experience to someone else, that these games were changing him in ways he never anticipated?
Tipton pauses again, looks back over his shoulder, and asks if anyone wants to stop.
They all say no.
The summit is too close, almost close enough to reach up and touch.
But Tipton cautions them they can’t take a direct line to it, it’s not safe, this is no time to rush things, they need to traverse their way up there, first to the left, then back to the right, making the climb less steep, the last part of the ascent a little less dangerous.
“The mistake amateurs make is that they want to sprint to the finish line,” Tipton says. “That’s what can get them killed.”
When they begin to proceed in a straight line again, Reg lets Wyatt and Hannah get between him and Tipton, telling them that’s why they had him play fullback in rugby, so he could be the last line of defense.
A few minutes later, Tipton is the first to reach the ledge. They’ve reached the final summit. He pulls Hannah up first, then lets out a whoop of triumph. Hannah’s hands shake but her grip is iron. She gets up, breathing hard, eyes bright with something fierce.
He reaches down to pull up Wyatt, but suddenly releases Wyatt’s hand, as if he’s lost his grip.
“What the hell . . . ?” Wyatt shouts, grabbing only for air now.
Wyatt starts to slide back down the rock face, no way to get a handhold or a foothold, feeling as helpless as he ever has in his life.
No way to stop himself.
Or save himself.
Reg is the one who somehow manages to do that.
Somehow he grabs hold of the collar of Wyatt’s vest, then manages to get his arm around Wyatt’s neck almost in a choke hold, as he pushes him onto a smaller rock ledge ten feet short of the summit.
“Don’t let go,” Wyatt pleads to Reg.
“Don’t worry,” Reg says. “I won’t.”
Then: “Just move to the side a little so I can get next to you, then we’ll go the rest of the way together.”
“Okay . . . I guess,” Wyatt says.
Reg is reaching for the ledge when his feet give way.
And Reg is the one starting to slip-slide and tumble down rock that feels incredibly slick, incredibly smooth, making it impossible for him to get a grip, find any crevasse or knob. Find anything to stop his downward momentum.
Then Tipton reaches for Reg. Reg’s hand finds Tipton’s wrist. Tipton clamps down. Reg hauls himself up until his chest is level with the ledge—
And then Tipton hears the click. The Host again. Private.
“Now,” The Host says. “Let him go.”
Tipton’s eyes widen a fraction. He locks up.
Reg sees it.
In that split second—Reg hanging half on, half off the summit—Reg reads Tipton like he’s reading a play on a rugby field. Reg gives Tipton the briefest of nods.
Tipton’s throat bobs. His grip trembles.
The Host whispers, “Do it, or she’s gone.”
Tipton’s hand opens.
For a heartbeat Reg’s eyes stay on Tipton—no surprise, just a grim understanding.
Tipton lunges instantly, horror flooding his face, knowing the choice didn’t belong to him the second after he made it. He dives, arm shooting down, fingers clawing air.
He catches nothing.
His glove tears on rock. Skin rips underneath.
Hannah grabs Tipton’s belt and yanks him back from the edge, saving him from following Reg into the ravine.
Wyatt sees it all from ten feet below.
“Reg, take my hand!” Wyatt yells, reaching as far as he can without falling off the ledge himself.
It’s the same way he screamed when he was pulling Alek Andrich out of the hole in the ice that day; the way he did when he needed an extra burst of energy or speed or strength in the Olympics.
The way he had when he’d saved Hannah.
Only there is nothing to stop him.
Nothing to hold on to.
Nothing and no one to stop what is happening to him.
There is another gust of wind, even more powerful than the ones that had come before it.
Wyatt’s voice breaks. “REG!”
Hannah starts to cry. And Tipton—Ant Tipton, who has never looked shaken by anything—makes a sound like he’s choking. He says, barely audible into the wind: “Oh God.”
Reg Drummond is already a disappearing dot in space, swallowed by cloud and distance and the indifferent geometry of a mountain.
One last scream is trapped in his throat this time, as he drops helplessly toward the ravine thousands of feet below him.
Flying at last.