In Chap­ter 121 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” we find Saint nav­i­gat­ing a stark, sun­lit prison envi­ron­ment. As she stands in an emp­ty cham­ber momen­tar­i­ly filled with silence, she steels her­self before meet­ing Tooms, who is shack­led at the hands and feet. Despite his grim sit­u­a­tion, Tooms man­ages to smile, remind­ing Saint of their past con­nec­tion. She recalls receiv­ing a let­ter that sum­moned her, under­scor­ing the grav­i­ty of his request.

As they con­verse, Saint notices Toom­s’s sig­nif­i­cant weight loss and dull appear­ance, a stark con­trast to the man who once com­fort­ed her dur­ing a child­hood mishap. Their dia­logue reveals ten­sion and under­ly­ing pain, as Tooms men­tions he has received her let­ters but ignored them, sug­gest­ing a com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship shaped by their respec­tive pasts. He reflects on mem­o­ries, express­ing wist­ful­ness about a life they both seem to have lost, espe­cial­ly ref­er­enc­ing Saint’s mar­riage to Jim­my Wal­ters and her past hap­pi­ness.

Saint press­es him about Joseph, the miss­ing boy, and learns that Joseph has been writ­ing to Tooms from var­i­ous loca­tions, with the lat­est note com­ing from Baton Rouge, indi­cat­ing his search for some­one important—potentially a girl he lost. Saint’s con­cern deep­ens as she rec­og­nizes Joseph’s des­per­a­tion, not­ing that he’s dying with­out this con­nec­tion.

Tooms reveals his guilt tied to pre­vi­ous deci­sions he made regard­ing Joseph’s med­ical care, haunt­ed by the eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of his past role as a physi­cian. Saint implores him to help Joseph find clo­sure, hold­ing Tooms account­able for the pain caused by his actions. Despite Toom­s’s emo­tion­al strug­gle, evi­denced in his plea, he bat­tles with the notion of his per­ceived guilt and the blood on his hands.

In a moment filled with urgency and ten­sion, Saint urges Tooms to dis­close what he knows about the miss­ing girl, Grace. She sug­gests that com­pas­sion is still pos­si­ble for him. How­ev­er, Toom­s’s over­whelm­ing despair leaves him uncer­tain about break­ing his silence, lead­ing to an emo­tion­al­ly charged cli­max. Saint is left reel­ing from the grav­i­ty of his rev­e­la­tions, feel­ing faint and unsteady as she rush­es out, unable to con­tain her tur­moil, cul­mi­nat­ing in a vis­cer­al reac­tion out­side the prison walls.