Page 110 of The Most Dangerous Games

Alek is the one who breaks the silence.

“What were you thinking, running into a burning building like that?” she asks Wyatt.

He grins at her. “Hey, I’m a New Yorker,” he says. “Kind of our thing.”

“She’s being serious, Wyatt,” Hannah says.

Wyatt looks at the girl in his arms, then at the ruined street.

His voice drops. “This is why I’m here.”

Not for the money. Not for the glory. For this.

Alek studies him and thinks Wyatt looks very grown-up right now. He looks like a winner.

“It’s why we’re all here,” he says. “I’m proud of that.”

He looks up at them and a wide grin breaks through again—because he can’t help himself. “And you have to admit,” he says, “that was kind of cool.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Hannah says.

But she doesn’t let go of his sleeve.

74.

Wyatt carries the young girl most of the way to the public hospital. When he occasionally gets too tired and has to stop, Jack wordlessly lets him hand the girl over. Hannah stays close and tells her not to worry, it’s going to be okay.

“I don’t know if you can understand me,” Hannah says, “but you couldn’t be in better hands.”

They are gradually making their way through the streets. Sirens wail somewhere, closer now.

As they make their way up to the hospital’s entrance, they see that members of the other group have beaten them here. Carlos Lopez’s forehead is bandaged. One eye is completely swollen shut. Lin Zhi holds the door open for Wyatt and the girl. No one stops to talk. They move her inside like she’s the last fragile thing left in the world.

Lopez starts to say something, but Jack and Alek and Wyatt push him aside, walk past him and into the triage unit that the lobby has become: gurneys, bloodstained sheets, doctors shouting, volunteers running.

“If this little girl didn’t die in that fire,” Alek says, “there is no way she’s dying on us now.”

A white-bearded doctor takes the girl from Jack, speaking a lilting English that bends around the words. Wyatt forces himself to explain.

“Found her in a bathroom,” he says. “Parents . . . in the living room.”

He doesn’t say what he saw. He doesn’t need to.

The doctor grips Wyatt’s shoulder—firm, grateful—and nods. “She goin’ be fine,” the doctor says.

The doctor affectionately places the girl on a gurney and pushes her through double doors.

“We did it,” Wyatt whispers to Alek.

“You did it,” Alek says quietly.

“No, we did,” Wyatt says. “We worked together when it mattered.”

Then Alek sees Hannah standing just inside the entrance. She’s staring down at something on the floor of the lobby. Her hand is covering her mouth.

After all the poise she had shown as they teamed up to save Wyatt and the girl, after the way she had calmly organized the team, Hannah is crying.

Jack is next to Hannah, slowly shaking his head, unable to hide his grief. It’s not like Jack, who usually hides everything so well.