On Jan­u­ary 6, 2021, Emi­ly (Em) and her hus­band, Rod­ney (Rod­dy), sit in their com­fort­able liv­ing room, watch­ing the chaos unfold on their tele­vi­sion screen as a mob storms the U.S. Capi­tol. The room is dim­ly lit, cast­ing long shad­ows on the walls as the flick­er­ing images of riot­ers break­ing win­dows and clash­ing with police reflect off the glass cof­fee table. In Chap­ter 13, Em out­ward­ly express­es shock at the scene, her voice tinged with just the right amount of dis­ap­proval, yet some­thing about the moment excites her in ways she would nev­er admit. She has always been drawn to moments of trans­for­ma­tion, upheaval, and the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of human behav­ior, though she ensures that no one—not even Roddy—knows the full extent of her fas­ci­na­tion.

Rod­dy, on the oth­er hand, watch­es with weary dis­in­ter­est, his fin­gers idly rub­bing at the joints in his hands, aching as they always do in the cold of win­ter. His con­cerns are more immediate—his arthri­tis, their care­ful­ly curat­ed rou­tines, and their next nec­es­sary action. While Em lets her­self be momen­tar­i­ly cap­ti­vat­ed by the unrav­el­ing of order, Roddy’s mind is else­where, focused on the prac­ti­cal­i­ties of their secret life. He lis­tens as his wife mur­murs some­thing about the way America’s mid­dle class is shift­ing, her words more obser­va­tion than opin­ion, but beneath her detached analy­sis, he knows there’s some­thing deeper—something far less aca­d­e­m­ic.

In the next room, Bon­nie Rae, their employ­ee and an unknow­ing pawn in their twist­ed exis­tence, sits with a lap­top, watch­ing the same his­toric moment unfold. She had been work­ing on a dig­i­tal assign­ment for Em, cre­at­ing hol­i­day greet­ings for a set of per­son­al con­tacts, but the sheer mag­ni­tude of what was hap­pen­ing on live tele­vi­sion had dis­tract­ed her. When Em enters the room, how­ev­er, the tele­vi­sion is abrupt­ly switched off with a sharp flick of the remote, and Bon­nie is direct­ed back to her work. Em feigns mild frus­tra­tion with tech­nol­o­gy, pre­tend­ing to need Bonnie’s assis­tance in han­dling the sim­plest of dig­i­tal tasks, but in truth, she enjoys the small pow­er dynam­ics of play­ing the intel­lec­tu­al­ly supe­ri­or but tech­no­log­i­cal­ly inept men­tor.

As the evening dark­ens, so too does the tone of their con­ver­sa­tion when Em returns to the liv­ing room and set­tles beside Rod­dy. Their small talk drifts toward their secret ritual—one they have prac­ticed for years under the guise of neces­si­ty. Em retrieves a small con­tain­er from the cof­fee table, unscrew­ing the lid to reveal a thick, creamy lotion with a faint­ly musky scent. With­out hes­i­ta­tion, she begins rub­bing it into Roddy’s hands, the mix­ture work­ing its way into his aging skin, sooth­ing the per­sis­tent ache in his joints. What they are doing is not just unconventional—it is hor­ri­fy­ing, but to them, it is sim­ply anoth­er part of their exis­tence.

The lotion, made from the ren­dered fat of their last vic­tim, Peter Stein­man, is some­thing they both believe in. Em insists it has restora­tive prop­er­ties, a nat­ur­al rem­e­dy for the pain that comes with age, a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that has allowed them to con­tin­ue their hor­rif­ic prac­tices with­out guilt. Rod­dy, though less philo­soph­i­cal about their meth­ods, accepts it for what it is—an advan­tage, a means of sur­vival, a secret too dan­ger­ous to aban­don. And now, they need more.

Their con­ver­sa­tion turns to the ques­tion of their next source. Bon­nie Rae is dis­cussed with eerie detach­ment, as if she were no more than a prob­lem to be solved rather than a per­son with hopes, dreams, and a life of her own. Em, ever prag­mat­ic, points out that Bonnie’s recent per­son­al struggles—a dif­fi­cult breakup, her estrange­ment from her moth­er, the work­place harass­ment she has endured—make her an ide­al can­di­date. She has few peo­ple who would imme­di­ate­ly come look­ing for her, no strong ties that would cause instant con­cern. They ratio­nal­ize her selec­tion the way oth­ers might delib­er­ate over which restau­rant to dine at—cold, cal­cu­lat­ed, and absent of empa­thy.

Rod­dy, though he ulti­mate­ly agrees, hes­i­tates slight­ly, not out of moral­i­ty but out of cau­tion. Their meth­ods have worked for years, but with tech­nol­o­gy and sur­veil­lance advanc­ing, each dis­ap­pear­ance pos­es a greater risk. Em dis­miss­es his con­cerns with qui­et con­fi­dence, point­ing out how pre­dictable human behav­ior is, how easy it is to manip­u­late cir­cum­stances in their favor. Peo­ple dis­ap­pear all the time, she reminds him, espe­cial­ly those who already feel invis­i­ble.

The evening stretch­es on, the tele­vi­sion now dis­play­ing some­thing mun­dane in the back­ground, but the true hor­ror is tak­ing place with­in the walls of their home. Em mas­sages anoth­er lay­er of the human-derived lotion into Roddy’s skin, her move­ments slow and delib­er­ate, her mind already plan­ning the details of their next steps. Their con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ues, marked by the casu­al­ness of dis­cussing some­thing as ordi­nary as week­end errands, yet the sub­ject mat­ter is any­thing but.

As the chap­ter draws to a close, the jux­ta­po­si­tion between the Capi­tol riots—a moment of pub­lic, chaot­ic violence—and the qui­et, cal­cu­lat­ed evil inside Em and Roddy’s home becomes strik­ing­ly clear. One is loud, dis­or­der­ly, and open­ly aggres­sive; the oth­er is method­i­cal, insid­i­ous, and hid­den beneath lay­ers of charm and civil­i­ty. Bon­nie Rae, sit­ting just a few rooms away, remains unaware that she is no longer just an employ­ee but a care­ful­ly select­ed tar­get. The deci­sion has already been made. She just doesn’t know it yet.