Han­nah sens­es a grow­ing unease as the evening pro­gress­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the way John­no and the oth­er ush­ers behave when alco­hol flows freely. Their old pub­lic school cama­raderie car­ries an unset­tling under­cur­rent, as if beneath their row­dy laugh­ter and inside jokes, some­thing dark­er lurks. The Plus-One dynam­ic adds to her dis­com­fort, as she watch­es her hus­band, Char­lie, becom­ing absorbed in the crowd, laugh­ing too loud­ly, lin­ger­ing too long near Jules, and dis­play­ing an ener­gy that feels unfa­mil­iar. Char­lie is typ­i­cal­ly mild-man­nered, but alco­hol strips away his restraint, turn­ing him into some­one unpre­dictable, a ver­sion of him­self that Han­nah nei­ther trusts nor likes. The sight of him, swept up in the ener­gy of men who thrive on excess, leaves Han­nah torn between anger and con­cern, unsure if she should inter­vene or step back and let him make his own mis­takes.

Dun­can, one of the ush­ers, makes a sharp remark, teas­ing Han­nah about con­trol­ling Char­lie, a com­ment laced with the kind of casu­al cru­el­ty often dis­guised as humor. Instead of defend­ing Han­nah, Char­lie, clear­ly embar­rassed, choos­es to align him­self with the ush­ers, laugh­ing it off and drink­ing more as if prov­ing his alle­giance. Han­nah watch­es in silence, real­iz­ing that try­ing to pull Char­lie away would only push him deep­er into their influ­ence. The deci­sion is not hers to make—Charlie has cho­sen to engage, to drink, to step into their world of juve­nile brava­do, even at the cost of their rela­tion­ship. A part of her wants to warn him, to tell him that he doesn’t need their val­i­da­tion, but anoth­er part of her knows it would be use­less. As he clinks glass­es with them, already half-drunk­en­ly absorbed in their antics, Han­nah feels a sharp pang of detach­ment, as if the man she mar­ried has momen­tar­i­ly van­ished.

The ener­gy of the evening turns more chaot­ic as the ush­ers chant their old school mot­to, their voic­es ris­ing in drunk­en uni­son. What might have once been a nos­tal­gic call to youth­ful reck­less­ness now takes on a more men­ac­ing tone, an intox­i­cat­ing blend of arro­gance and dan­ger. The chant becomes a sig­nal for esca­lat­ing debauch­ery, their unin­hib­it­ed behav­ior tak­ing on a cult-like inten­si­ty that makes Hannah’s skin crawl. The night descends fur­ther into games meant to test lim­its, one par­tic­u­lar­ly vile chal­lenge forc­ing the losers to drink a grotesque con­coc­tion, more humil­i­a­tion than enter­tain­ment. The cru­el­ty of it, masked as harm­less fun, rein­forces the tox­ic dynam­ic of the group, where broth­er­hood is built on shared degra­da­tion. Han­nah watch­es, repulsed, her dis­com­fort mor­ph­ing into a silent resolve—she wants no part of this night, no part of this world that Char­lie seems so eager to belong to.

Need­ing an escape, she qui­et­ly slips away to the draw­ing room, crav­ing soli­tude, only to find Olivia already there. The ten­sion of the evening lifts slight­ly as they fall into con­ver­sa­tion, their inter­ac­tion tinged with the ease of teenage rebel­lion, as if escap­ing the chaos out­side has cre­at­ed an unspo­ken bond between them. For the first time that night, Han­nah feels a sliv­er of relief, the warmth of human con­nec­tion momen­tar­i­ly eas­ing the sharp edges of her dis­con­tent. Their moment of cama­raderie is short-lived, how­ev­er, as Angus, stum­bling and slur­ring, crash­es into the room, a reminder that the mad­ness out­side is still unfold­ing. The dis­rup­tion shat­ters their tem­po­rary refuge, pulling them back into the real­i­ty of the night’s unrav­el­ing.

The chap­ter cap­tures the dis­com­fort of watch­ing a loved one change under the influ­ence of peer pres­sure and alco­hol, the con­flict between inter­ven­tion and self-preser­va­tion. Han­nah and Olivia’s qui­et moment in the draw­ing room offers a brief reprieve, a stark con­trast to the chaos that defines the rest of the evening. Yet even in that solace, the night’s ten­sion lingers, a reminder that no one on this island is tru­ly escap­ing any­thing.