CHARACTER
Dryby Jarrod Shusterman and Neal Shusterman

Henry Groyne

Henry Groyne

Quick Facts

Henry Groyne is a charismatic, opportunistic teen who treats the Tap-Out like a startup launch. First appearing in Chapter 18, he lives alone in his parents’ Dove Canyon home, bartering ÁguaViva bottled water for appreciating assets. His key relationships—often predatory or transactional—are with Alyssa Morrow, Kelton McCracken, Jacqui Costa, and Garrett Morrow.

  • Role: Antagonistic foil; embodiment of extreme self-interest
  • Base: Parents’ upscale Dove Canyon home; isolated, gated privilege
  • First Appearance: Chapter 18
  • Guiding Motto: “Wealth is a verb”—a creed he weaponizes to justify harm

Appearance

Henry is introduced as a “good-looking, well-groomed kid” (Chapter 18), always curated for status: a dark blue private-school letterman jacket over a polo in sweltering heat, “good hair,” and a sales-ready smile. He inks “words of the day” on his wrist—“Conflagration,” “Detritus” (Chapter 22)—broadcasting intellect the way others flash brands.

Who They Are

Henry is the story’s purest capitalist—someone who metabolizes catastrophe into opportunity. He turns charm into currency and people into assets, moving through the crisis with a pitchman’s poise and a shark’s hunger. When the main group enters his neighborhood looking for a vehicle, he angles himself into their journey through a mix of charm, deceit, and leverage, becoming a living stress test for the group’s emerging morality. He doesn’t just break rules; he reframes them, insisting that survival validates any tactic.

Personality & Traits

Henry’s polish masks a ruthless calculus: if people can be leveraged, they should be. The Tap-Out doesn’t change him; it clarifies his operating system.

  • Opportunistic and Capitalistic: He barters water not for food or medicine, but for “assets” like rare books and memorabilia, applying market logic to human suffering (Chapter 18). Even his uncle’s truck becomes a bargaining chip to buy himself a seat in someone else’s story (Chapter 21).
  • Manipulative and Deceptive: He secures a spot with Alyssa by promising to bring a box of ÁguaViva—then lies about what’s inside (Chapter 21). He also shields himself behind a false name, “Trent Roycroft,” and tailors his persona to each audience.
  • Intelligent but Lacking Common Sense: He quotes business and psychology, flexes vocabulary, and understands leverage, yet can’t locate a gas cap on a Tesla—textbook book-smart, field-dumb pragmatics.
  • Self-Preserving and Cowardly: The sight of body bags at the evacuation center shatters his cool; he trades the group’s “water” to a soldier to save himself (Chapter 25), then collapses into groveling when cornered by Jacqui and Kelton (Chapter 34).
  • Charismatic: He reads people quickly and flatters precisely, winning Garrett’s trust by playing “older brother” and nearly selling Alyssa on his “sparkling wit.”

Why it matters: Henry’s charisma and cunning expose how easily moral language can be repackaged as “strategy,” and how fragile communal ethics become when someone monetizes trust.

Character Journey

Henry begins as an apex predator in a gated micro-economy, insulated by wealth, information asymmetry, and a practiced smile. Joining the group forces him into uncurated reality: body bags, scarcity, and risk he can’t spreadsheet away. Panic detonates his brand. He betrays the group to save himself (Chapter 25) and is then unmasked, humiliated, and reduced to a captive—his “value” now negative. Yet the epilogue shows he hasn’t transformed; he has rebranded. Reinventing himself on television as a heroic “good Samaritan,” he learns the wrong lesson: not empathy, but scale. Influence replaces inventory; the con simply gets bigger.

Key Relationships

  • Alyssa Morrow: Henry treats Alyssa as both mark and lifeline, flattering her leadership to hitch his survival to hers. He toys with romantic chemistry to soften negotiations, but every tender gesture is transactional—his “crush” collapses the moment self-preservation demands it.
  • Kelton McCracken: From the start, Henry mocks Kelton as a “psychotic red-headed kid” and “doomsday dog,” underestimating him as socially awkward while Kelton pegs Henry’s risk profile immediately. Their clashes end with Kelton physically overpowering Henry—proof that real preparedness trumps performative confidence.
  • Jacqui Costa: Jacqui spots the salesman behind the smile. Calling him “Roycroft” and “infomercial with good hair,” she refuses his framing and meets manipulation with threat. She becomes the moral bouncer of the group, the first to put consequences behind her suspicions.
  • Garrett Morrow: Henry reads Garrett’s loneliness and makes himself an “older brother” and confidant, extracting intelligence about Alyssa and Kelton. The ease with which he weaponizes innocence is one of the book’s coldest illustrations of his ethics.

Defining Moments

Henry’s arc pivots on deals he thinks he’s closing—and on the consequences he can’t control.

  • The Barter for the Truck (Chapter 21): He trades his uncle’s truck to Alyssa on the condition he comes, then lies about the ÁguaViva box. Why it matters: It’s his masterstroke of leverage—buying passage with a promise he never intends to fulfill.
  • The Escape from the Evac Center (Chapter 25): Terrified by body bags, he rams the truck out and barters the group’s supposed water for the keys. Why it matters: Panic strips the polish; his creed is self-preservation at any cost.
  • The ÁguaViva Box Reveal (Chapter 32): In the Angeles National Forest, the “water” box holds only brochures. Why it matters: Hope implodes; Henry’s brand equity hits zero, and the group’s fragile trust fractures.
  • The Confrontation in the Woods (Chapter 34): Captured by Kelton and held at gunpoint by Jacqui, Henry begs for his life. Why it matters: The predator becomes property; power flips from salesmanship to accountability.
  • The Epilogue Interview (Chapter 56): On TV, Henry markets himself as Tustin’s “good Samaritan,” fabricating heroism. Why it matters: He doesn’t repent—he scales. Reputation becomes his new commodity.

Symbols & Meaning

Henry is a walking thesis on predatory capitalism and the theme of Human Nature: Civility vs. Savagery: when systems fail, he treats people as markets and narratives as assets. He is a dark mirror to characters like Charity, who embody communal care within Survival and Desperation. His “rich” vs. “wealthy” rhetoric reframes exploitation as hustle, turning moral compromise into a virtue of the efficient.

Essential Quotes

“Rich is an adjective, wealth is a verb.” (Chapter 18)
This credo is Henry’s ethical loophole. By casting wealth as action, he sanctifies exploitation as initiative, converting cruelty into productivity and absolving himself of guilt.

“I’ll bring this ÁguaViva box.” (Chapter 21)
A small sentence, a major fraud. He leverages the group’s thirst—literally their survival—into a binding contract, proving he understands that scarcity multiplies the price of trust.

“I just saved your lives! At least you could show some gratitude!” (Chapter 25)
Henry reframes his panic-driven escape as altruism, gaslighting the group in real time. It’s a salesman’s pivot: rebrand self-preservation as heroism to preempt blame.

“I never said there was water in that box. You just assumed.” (Chapter 34)
His defense is legalistic rather than ethical, a classic manipulator’s dodge. By exploiting ambiguity, he shifts responsibility to his victims, as if deception only counts when explicitly stated.

“I just did what anyone would do... In this life, you see what must be accomplished, weigh your options, and then embrace the opportunity.” (Chapter 56)
On television, Henry universalizes his behavior to normalize it, converting moral failure into common sense. The performance reveals his true evolution: not toward empathy, but toward a larger audience.