Page 52 of The Most Dangerous Games

He scans the room—finds Rupert. Jack. Alek. Hannah. Wyatt.

“It’s them.”

A beat.

“And you don’t get to use my name to recruit good people . . . and then run this as a slaughterhouse.”

The Host lets that go.

“How about this?” The Host says. “Let’s end this. All of you quit. Right here, right now. In a few months we start all over again without any of you. Push your buttons! You will all be safe and you will all be done.”

The room goes still.

Hands hover near red pendants.

Nobody moves.

Not one.

“Interesting,” he says. “Good night.”

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.