Wait­ing ai

In Chap­ter 35, the pro­tag­o­nist wakes up in a dun­geon, dis­ori­ent­ed and injured, with a bro­ken nose and swollen face. As they regain con­scious­ness, they real­ize they have been impris­oned by Ama­ran­tha, in a cell devoid of their weapons and filled with the dull light of torch­es from beyond the bars. Try­ing to assess their injuries and main­tain their com­po­sure, they vow not to pan­ic, despite the dire cir­cum­stances.

A vis­it from Lucien brings some relief and a dim glim­mer of hope. Lucien heals the pro­tag­o­nist’s nose par­tial­ly, leav­ing enough signs of injury to avoid sus­pi­cion from the guards. He explains that the guards will soon change, urg­ing the pro­tag­o­nist to keep their spir­it alive for the tri­als ahead. Lucien’s abil­i­ty to heal, despite being weak­ened by Ama­ran­tha’s curse, sig­ni­fies his loy­al­ty and sug­gests that some of his pow­ers remain. The men­tion of oth­er High Lords being sum­moned and restrict­ed by Ama­ran­tha under­scores her con­trol and the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion.

Despite being phys­i­cal­ly weak­ened, the pro­tag­o­nist remains men­tal­ly fierce, deter­mined not to suc­cumb to despair or the fears that the harsh envi­ron­ment and Amarantha’s cru­el­ty instill. They briefly reflect on their own cul­pa­bil­i­ty in cur­rent events, moti­vat­ed by love and a des­per­ate wish to right wrongs. This intro­spec­tive moment high­lights their resilience and resolve to face the chal­lenges Ama­ran­tha has set before them.

Amarantha’s throne room scene fur­ther empha­sizes the pro­tag­o­nist’s des­per­ate sit­u­a­tion. Con­front­ed by Ama­ran­tha, the pro­tag­o­nist is forced to reveal their name under the threat of Lucien’s safe­ty. This act reveals the pro­tag­o­nist’s sac­ri­fi­cial nature and their will­ing­ness to risk every­thing for those they care about. Lucien’s sup­port, despite the dan­ger it presents to him, illus­trates the deep bonds formed between char­ac­ters, even amidst the back­drop of treach­ery and deceit.

Ama­ran­tha presents the pro­tag­o­nist with a rid­dle, offer­ing free­dom as the reward for its solu­tion. The rid­dle, loaded with impli­ca­tions of grace, brav­ery, and the elu­sive nature of true vic­to­ry, sets the stage for the protagonist’s men­tal prowess to be test­ed. This scene crys­tal­lizes the strug­gle not just for phys­i­cal sur­vival, but for intel­lec­tu­al and emo­tion­al resilience against the capri­cious cru­el­ty of Ama­ran­tha’s court.

In sum­ma­ry, Chap­ter 35 paints a vivid pic­ture of despair, resilience, and the com­plex­i­ties of pow­er. Through phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing, men­tal for­ti­tude, and emo­tion­al depth, the pro­tag­o­nist nav­i­gates the treach­er­ous waters of Ama­ran­tha’s dun­geon and court, set­ting the stage for a bat­tle that is as much about wits and willpow­er as it is about phys­i­cal strength.

Chap­ter THIRTY-FIVE fol­lows the nar­ra­tor, seem­ing­ly Mil­lie, as she strives to find nor­mal­cy and inde­pen­dence despite the com­pli­ca­tions of her cur­rent life. Ignor­ing advice from Andrew not to work for the house­hold, she seeks solace in activ­i­ties like gro­cery shopping—an act she finds lib­er­at­ing com­pared to the con­straints pre­vi­ous­ly imposed by Nina, whose metic­u­lous gro­cery lists she no longer has to abide by. Mil­lie rel­ish­es in mak­ing her own choic­es, a stark con­trast to her past restric­tions. This sim­ple plea­sure is inter­rupt­ed by a call from a blocked num­ber, which has been try­ing to reach her through­out the day, and an unex­pect­ed encounter with Patrice, a woman from Nina’s cir­cle. Patrice, under the guise of casu­al con­ver­sa­tion, inad­ver­tent­ly reveals to Mil­lie that Nina has been track­ing her through a phone app, a fact that vis­i­bly shocks Mil­lie. She had been under the impres­sion that Nina’s over­sight extend­ed only to benign text mes­sages, not real­iz­ing the extent of Nina’s mon­i­tor­ing was so inva­sive.

This chap­ter skill­ful­ly por­trays Mil­lie’s awak­en­ing to the real­iza­tions of con­trol and sur­veil­lance exert­ed over her by Nina, osten­si­bly for safe­ty or over­sight but clear­ly inva­sive. The encounter with Patrice at the gro­cery store serves as a piv­otal moment, shift­ing Mil­lie’s under­stand­ing of her sit­u­a­tion. Her inner thoughts and reac­tions pro­vide insights into her grow­ing desire for auton­o­my against the back­drop of a con­trol­ling envi­ron­ment orches­trat­ed by Nina. The chap­ter clos­es on a cli­mac­tic note with Mil­lie’s resolve vis­i­bly shak­en upon dis­cov­er­ing the true breadth of Nina’s con­trol over her life, pro­pelling the nar­ra­tive towards an antic­i­pa­to­ry ten­sion about how she will nav­i­gate this new­found knowl­edge. The inter­ac­tion, imbued with Patrice’s faux con­cern and Mil­lie’s dawn­ing real­iza­tion, encap­su­lates themes of sur­veil­lance, inde­pen­dence, and manip­u­la­tion that run through­out the nar­ra­tive.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER
35
Two days passed. Every moment of it was a bal­anc­ing act of truth and lies.
Rhys saw to it that I was not invit­ed to the meet­ings he and Amren held to
dis­tract my kind host, grant­i­ng me time to scour the city for any hint of the
Book.
But not too eager­ly; not too intent­ly. I could not look too intrigued as I
wan­dered the streets and docks, could not ask too many lead­ing ques­tions
of the peo­ple I encoun­tered about the trea­sures and leg­ends of Adri­a­ta.
Even when I awoke at dawn, I made myself wait until a rea­son­able hour
before set­ting out into the city, made myself take an extend­ed bath to
secret­ly prac­tice that water-mag­ic. And while craft­ing water-ani­mals grew
tedious after an hour … it came to me eas­i­ly. Per­haps because of my
prox­im­i­ty to Tar­quin, per­haps because of what­ev­er affin­i­ty for water was
already in my blood, my soul—though I cer­tain­ly was in no posi­tion to ask.
Once break­fast had final­ly been served and con­sumed, I made sure to
look a bit bored and aim­less when I final­ly strode through the shin­ing halls
of the palace on my way out into the awak­en­ing city.
Hard­ly any­one rec­og­nized me as I casu­al­ly exam­ined shops and hous­es
and bridges for any glim­mer of a spell that felt like Tar­quin, though I
doubt­ed they had rea­son to. It had been the High Fae—the nobility—that
had been kept Under the Moun­tain. These peo­ple had been left here … to
be tor­ment­ed.
Scars lit­tered the build­ings, the streets, from what had been done in
retal­i­a­tion for their rebel­lion: burn marks, gouged bits of stone, entire
build­ings turned to rub­ble. The back of the cas­tle, as Tar­quin had claimed,
was indeed in the mid­dle of being repaired. Three tur­rets were half
shat­tered, the tan stone charred and crum­bling. No sign of the Book.
Work­ers toiled there—and through­out the city—to fix those bro­ken areas.
Just as the peo­ple I saw—High Fae and faeries with scales and gills and
long, spindly webbed fingers—all seemed to be slow­ly heal­ing. There were
scars and miss­ing limbs on more than I could count. But in their eyes … in
their eyes, light gleamed.
I had saved them, too.
Freed them from what­ev­er hor­rors had occurred dur­ing those five
decades.
I had done a ter­ri­ble thing to save them … but I had saved them.
And it would nev­er be enough to atone, but … I did not feel quite so
heavy, despite not find­ing a glim­mer of the Book’s pres­ence, when I
returned to the palace atop the hill on the third night to await Rhysand’s
report on the day’s meetings—and learn if he’d man­aged to dis­cov­er
any­thing, too.
As I strode up the steps of the palace, curs­ing myself for remain­ing so out
of shape even with Cassian’s lessons, I spied Amren perched on the ledge
of a tur­ret bal­cony, clean­ing her nails.
Var­i­an leaned against the thresh­old of anoth­er tow­er bal­cony with­in
jump­ing range—and I won­dered if he was debat­ing if he could clear the
dis­tance fast enough to push her off.
A cat play­ing with a dog—that’s what it was. Amren was prac­ti­cal­ly
wash­ing her­self, silent­ly dar­ing him to get close enough to sniff. I doubt­ed
Var­i­an would like her claws.
Unless that was why he hound­ed her day and night.
I shook my head, con­tin­u­ing up the steps—watching as the tide swept
out.
The sun­set-stained sky caught on the water and tidal muck. A lit­tle night
breeze whis­pered past, and I leaned into it, let­ting it cool the sweat on me.
There had once been a time when I’d dread­ed the end of sum­mer, had
prayed it would hold out for as long as pos­si­ble. Now the thought of end­less
warmth and sun made me … bored. Rest­less.
I was about to turn back to the stairs when I beheld the bit of land that
had been revealed near the tidal cause­way. The small build­ing.
No won­der I hadn’t seen it, as I’d nev­er been up this high in the day
when the tide was out … And dur­ing the rest of the day, from the muck and
sea­weed now gleam­ing on it, it would have been utter­ly cov­ered.
Even now, it was half sub­merged. But I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.
Like it was a lit­tle piece of home, wet and mis­er­able-look­ing as it was,
and I need only hur­ry along the mud­dy cause­way between the qui­eter part
of the city and the mainland—fast, fast, fast, so I might catch it before it
van­ished beneath the waves again.
But the site was too vis­i­ble, and from the dis­tance, I couldn’t defin­i­tive­ly
tell if it was the Book con­tained with­in.
We’d have to be absolute­ly cer­tain before we went in—to war­rant the
risks in search­ing. Absolute­ly cer­tain.
I wished I didn’t, but I real­ized I already had a plan for that, too.
We dined with Tar­quin, Cres­sei­da, and Var­i­an in their fam­i­ly din­ing room—
a sure sign that the High Lord did indeed want that alliance, ambi­tion or no.
Var­i­an was study­ing Amren as if he was try­ing to solve a rid­dle she’d
posed to him, and she paid him no heed what­so­ev­er as she debat­ed with
Cres­sei­da about the var­i­ous trans­la­tions of some ancient text. I’d been
lead­ing up to my ques­tion, telling Tar­quin of the things I’d seen in his city
that day—the fresh fish I’d bought for myself on the docks.
“You ate it right there,” Tar­quin said, lift­ing his brows.
Rhys had propped his head on a fist as I said, “They fried it with the
oth­er fishermen’s lunch­es. Didn’t charge me extra for it.”
Tar­quin let out an impressed laugh. “I can’t say I’ve ever done that—
sailor or no.”
“You should,” I said, mean­ing every word. “It was deli­cious.”
I’d worn the neck­lace he’d giv­en me, and Nuala and I planned my
clothes around it. We’d decid­ed on gray—a soft, dove shade—to show off
the glit­ter­ing black. I had worn noth­ing else—no ear­rings, no bracelets, no
rings. Tar­quin had seemed pleased by it, even though Var­i­an had choked
when he beheld me in an heir­loom of his house­hold. Cres­sei­da,
sur­pris­ing­ly, had told me it suit­ed me and it didn’t fit in here, any­way. A
back­hand­ed compliment—but praise enough.
“Well, maybe I’ll go tomor­row. If you’ll join me.”
I grinned at Tarquin—aware of every one I offered him, now that Rhys
had men­tioned it. Beyond his giv­ing me brief, night­ly updates on their lack
of progress with dis­cov­er­ing any­thing about the Book, we hadn’t real­ly
spo­ken since that evening I’d filled his glass—though it had been because
of our own full days, not awk­ward­ness.
“I’d like that,” I said. “Per­haps we could go for a walk in the morn­ing
down the cause­way when the tide is out. There’s that lit­tle build­ing along
the way—it looks fas­ci­nat­ing.”
Cres­sei­da stopped speak­ing, but I went on, sip­ping from my wine. “I
fig­ure since I’ve seen most of the city now, I could see it on my way to vis­it
some of the main­land, too.”
Tarquin’s glance at Cres­sei­da was all the con­fir­ma­tion I need­ed.
That stone build­ing indeed guard­ed what we sought.
“It’s a tem­ple ruin,” Tar­quin said blandly—the lie smooth as silk. “Just
mud and sea­weed at this point. We’ve been mean­ing to repair it for years.”
“Maybe we’ll take the bridge then. I’ve had enough of mud for a while.”
Remem­ber that I saved you, that I fought the Mid­den­gard Wyrm—forget
the threat …
Tarquin’s eyes held mine—for a moment too long.
In the span of a blink, I hurled my silent, hid­den pow­er toward him, a
spear aimed toward his mind, those wary eyes.
There was a shield in place—a shield of sea glass and coral and the
undu­lat­ing sea.
I became that sea, became the whis­per of waves against stone, the
glim­mer of sun­light on a gull’s white wings. I became him—became that
men­tal shield.
And then I was through it, a clear, dark teth­er show­ing me the way back
should I need it. I let instinct, no doubt grant­ed from Rhys, guide me
for­ward. To what I need­ed to see.
Tarquin’s thoughts hit me like peb­bles. Why does she ask about the
tem­ple? Of all the things to bring up … Around me, they con­tin­ued eat­ing. I
con­tin­ued eat­ing. I willed my own face, in a dif­fer­ent body, a dif­fer­ent
world, to smile pleas­ant­ly.
Why did they want to come here so bad­ly? Why ask about my trove?
Like lap­ping waves, I sent my thoughts wash­ing over his.
She is harm­less. She is kind, and sad, and bro­ken. You saw her with your
people—you saw how she treat­ed them. How she treats you. Ama­ran­tha did
not break that kind­ness.
I poured my thoughts into him, tint­ing them with brine and the cries of
terns—wrapping them in the essence that was Tar­quin, the essence he’d
giv­en to me.
Take her to the main­land tomor­row. That’ll keep her from ask­ing about
the tem­ple. She saved Pry­thi­an. She is your friend.
My thoughts set­tled in him like a stone dropped into a pool. And as the
wari­ness fad­ed in his eyes, I knew my work was done.
I hauled myself back, back, back, slip­ping through that ocean-and-pearl
wall, reel­ing inward until my body was a cage around me.
Tar­quin smiled. “We’ll meet after break­fast. Unless Rhysand wants me
for more meet­ings.” Nei­ther Cres­sei­da nor Var­i­an so much as glanced at
him. Had Rhys tak­en care of their own sus­pi­cions?
Light­ning shot through my blood, even as my blood chilled to real­ize
what I’d done—
Rhys waved a lazy hand. “By all means, Tar­quin, spend the day with my
lady.”
My lady. I ignored the two words. But I shut out my own mar­veling at
what I’d accom­plished, the slow-build­ing hor­ror at the invis­i­ble vio­la­tion
Tar­quin would nev­er know about.
I leaned for­ward, brac­ing my bare fore­arms on the cool wood table. “Tell
me what there is to see on the main­land,” I asked Tar­quin, and steered him
away from the tem­ple on the tidal cause­way.
Rhys and Amren wait­ed until the house­hold lights dimmed before com­ing
into my room.
I’d been sit­ting in bed, count­ing down the min­utes, form­ing my plan.
None of the guest rooms looked out on the causeway—as if they want­ed no
one to notice it.
Rhys arrived first, lean­ing against the closed door. “What a fast learn­er
you are. It takes most dae­mati years to mas­ter that sort of infil­tra­tion.”
My nails bit into my palms. “You knew—that I did it?” Speak­ing the
words aloud felt too much, too … real.
A shal­low nod. “And what expert work you did, using the essence of him
to trick his shields, to get past them … Clever lady.”
“He’ll nev­er for­give me,” I breathed.
“He’ll nev­er know.” Rhys angled his head, silky dark hair slid­ing over
his brow. “You get used to it. The sense that you’re cross­ing a bound­ary,
that you’re vio­lat­ing them. For what it’s worth, I didn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoy
con­vinc­ing Var­i­an and Cres­sei­da to find oth­er mat­ters more inter­est­ing.”
I dropped my gaze to the pale mar­ble floor.
“If you hadn’t tak­en care of Tar­quin,” he went on, “the odds are we’d be
knee-deep in shit right now.”
“It was my fault, anyway—I was the one who asked about the tem­ple. I
was only clean­ing up my own mess.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t feel
right.”
“It nev­er does. Or it shouldn’t. Far too many dae­mati lose that sense. But
here—tonight … the ben­e­fits out­weighed the costs.”
“Is that also what you told your­self when you went into my mind? What
was the ben­e­fit then?”
Rhys pushed off the door, cross­ing to where I sat on the bed. “There are
parts of your mind I left undis­turbed, things that belong sole­ly to you, and
always will. And as for the rest … ” His jaw clenched. “You scared the shit
out of me for a long while, Feyre. Check­ing in that way … I couldn’t very
well stroll into the Spring Court and ask how you were doing, could I?”
Light foot­steps sound­ed in the hall—Amren. Rhys held my gaze though as
he said, “I’ll explain the rest some oth­er time.”
The door opened. “It seems like a stu­pid place to hide a book,” Amren
said by way of greet­ing as she entered, plop­ping onto the bed.
“And the last place one would look,” Rhys said, prowl­ing away from me
to take a seat on the van­i­ty stool before the win­dow. “They could spell it
eas­i­ly enough against wet and decay. A place only vis­i­ble for brief moments
through­out the day—when the land around it is exposed for all to see? You
could not ask for a bet­ter place. We have the eyes of thou­sands watch­ing
us.”
“So how do we get in?” I said.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

I T IS THREE IN THE morn­ing by the time I get home. Eve­lyn had
downed four cups of cof­fee and appar­ent­ly felt wired enough to keep
talk­ing.
I could have bowed out at any point, but on some lev­el, I think I
wel­comed the excuse not to go back to my own life for a lit­tle while.
Being wrapped up in digest­ing Evelyn’s sto­ry means I don’t have to
exist in my own.
And any­way, it’s not my place to go mak­ing the rules. I picked my
bat­tle. I won. The rest is up to her.
So when I get home, I crawl into bed and will myself to fall asleep
quick­ly. My last thought as I go to sleep is that I am relieved I have a
valid excuse for why I haven’t respond­ed to David’s text yet.
I’m wok­en up by my cell phone ring­ing, and I look at the time. It’s
almost nine. It’s Sat­ur­day. I was hop­ing to sleep in.
My phone shows my mother’s face smil­ing at me. It’s not quite six
her time. “Mom? Is every­thing OK?”
“Of course it is,” she says, as if she’s call­ing at noon. “I just want­ed
to try to catch you and say hi before you head­ed out for the day.”
“It’s not even six A.M. where you are,” I say. “And it’s the week­end.
I’m most­ly plan­ning on sleep­ing in and tran­scrib­ing some of my hours
of Eve­lyn record­ings.”
“We had a small earth­quake about a half hour ago, and now I can’t
go back to sleep. How is it going with Eve­lyn? I feel weird call­ing her
Eve­lyn. Like I know her or some­thing.”
I tell her about get­ting Frankie to agree to a pro­mo­tion. I tell her
that I got Eve­lyn to agree to a cov­er sto­ry.
“You’re telling me you went up against the edi­tor in chief of Vivant
and Eve­lyn Hugo both with­in twen­ty-four hours? And you came out

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

35
I loved the dry heat of Las Vegas. I loved the way every­one believed in luck and
the dream. I had always enjoyed it there, even back when Paris Hilton and I were
kick­ing o� our shoes and run­ning through casi­nos. But that felt like a life­time
ago.
My res­i­den­cy start­ed right after Christ­mas in 2013. The boys were sev­en and
eight. In the begin­ning, it was a great gig.
Being onstage in Vegas was thrilling at �rst. And no one let me for­get that my
res­i­den­cy was a land­mark deal for the Strip. I was told my show drew young
peo­ple back to Sin City and changed the land­scape of enter­tain­ment in Las
Vegas for a new gen­er­a­tion.
The fans gave me so much ener­gy. I became great at doing the show. I got so
much con�dence, and for a while, every­thing was good—as good as it could be
when I was so tight­ly con­trolled. I start­ed dat­ing a TV pro­duc­er named Char­lie
Eber­sol. To me, he seemed like mar­riage mate­r­i­al: He took great care of him­self.
His fam­i­ly was close. I loved him.
Char­lie worked out every day, tak­ing pre-work­out sup­ple­ments and a whole
bunch of vit­a­mins. He shared his nutri­tion research with me and start­ed giv­ing
me ener­gy sup­ple­ments.
My father didn’t like that. He knew what I ate; he even knew when I would
go to the bath­room. So when I start­ed tak­ing ener­gy sup­ple­ments, he saw that I
had more ener­gy onstage and that I was in bet­ter shape than I had been. It
seemed obvi­ous that Charlie’s reg­i­mens were a good thing for me. But I believe
my father start­ed to think that I had a prob­lem with those ener­gy sup­ple­ments,
even though they were over-the-counter, not pre­scrip­tion. So he told me I had to
get o� them, and he sent me to rehab.
He got to say where I went and when. And going to rehab meant that I
didn’t get to see my kids for a whole month. The only con­so­la­tion was that I
knew it was just for a month and I’d be done.
The place he chose for me was in Mal­ibu. That month, for hours a day, we
had to do box­ing and oth­er exer­cis­es out­side, because there was no gym.
A lot of peo­ple at the facil­i­ty were seri­ous drug addicts. I was scared to be
there by myself. At least I was allowed to have a secu­ri­ty guard, who I’d have
lunch with every day.
I found it di�cult to accept that my dad was sell­ing him­self as this amaz­ing
guy and devot­ed grand­fa­ther when he was throw­ing me away, putting me against
my will into a place with crack and hero­in addicts. I’ll just say it—he was
hor­ri­ble.
When I got out, I start­ed doing shows again in Vegas like noth­ing had
hap­pened. Part of that was because my father told me I had to get back out there,
and part of it was because I was still so nice, so eager to please, so des­per­ate to do
the right thing and be a good girl.
No mat­ter what I did, my dad was there watch­ing. I couldn’t dri­ve a car.
Every­body who came to my trail­er had to sign waivers. Every­thing was very, very
safe—so safe I couldn’t breathe.
And no mat­ter how much I diet­ed and exer­cised, my father was always telling
me I was fat. He put me on a strict diet. The irony was that we had a butler—an
extravagance—and I would beg him for real food. “Sir,” I would plead, “can you
please sneak a ham­burg­er or ice cream to me?”
“Ma’am, I’m sor­ry,” he would say, “I have strict orders from your father.”
So for two years, I ate almost noth­ing but chick­en and canned veg­eta­bles.
Two years is a long time to not be able to eat what you want, espe­cial­ly when
it’s your body and your work and your soul mak­ing the mon­ey that everyone’s
liv­ing o� of. Two years of ask­ing for french fries and being told no. I found it so
degrad­ing.
A strict diet you’ve put your­self on is bad enough. But when some­one is
depriv­ing you of food you want, that makes it worse. I felt like my body wasn’t
mine any­more. I would go to the gym and feel so out of my mind with this
train­er telling me to do things with my body, I felt cold inside. I felt scared. I’ll be
hon­est, I was fuck­ing mis­er­able.
And it didn’t even work. The diet had the oppo­site e�ect of what my father
want­ed. I gained weight. Even though I wasn’t eat­ing as much, he made me feel
so ugly and like I wasn’t good enough. Maybe that’s because of the pow­er of
your thoughts: what­ev­er you think you are, you become. I was so beat­en down
by all of it that I just sur­ren­dered. My mom seemed to go along with my dad’s
plan for me.
It was always incred­i­ble to me that so many peo­ple felt so com­fort­able talk­ing
about my body. It had start­ed when I was young. Whether it was strangers in the
media or with­in my own fam­i­ly, peo­ple seemed to expe­ri­ence my body as pub­lic
prop­er­ty: some­thing they could police, con­trol, crit­i­cize, or use as a weapon. My
body was strong enough to car­ry two chil­dren and agile enough to exe­cute every
chore­o­graphed move per­fect­ly onstage. And now here I was, hav­ing every calo­rie
record­ed so peo­ple could con­tin­ue to get rich o� my body.
No one else but me seemed to �nd it out­ra­geous that my father would set all
these rules for me and then go out and drink Jack and Cokes. My friends would
vis­it and get their nails done at spas and drink fan­cy cham­pagne. I was nev­er
allowed into spas. My fam­i­ly would stay in Des­tin, a pret­ty beach town in
Flori­da, at a ridicu­lous­ly beau­ti­ful con­do that I bought for them and eat good-
tast­ing food every night while I was starv­ing and work­ing.
Mean­while, my sis­ter was turn­ing her nose up at every gift I’d giv­en the
fam­i­ly.
I called my mom one day in Louisiana and said, “What are you doing this
week­end?”
“Oh, the girls and I are going to Des­tin tomor­row,” she said. Jamie Lynn had
said so many times that she nev­er went there, that it was one more of those
ridicu­lous things I’d bought the fam­i­ly that she’d nev­er want­ed, and it turned
out my mom went there every week­end with Jamie Lynn’s two daugh­ters.
I used to love buy­ing my fam­i­ly hous­es and cars. But there came a point when
they start­ed to take things for grant­ed, and the fam­i­ly didn’t real­ize that those
things were pos­si­ble because I’m an artist. And because of how they treat­ed me,
for years I lost touch with my cre­ativ­i­ty.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER 35
Patri­cia fell on her daugh­ter, shak­ing her shoul­ders, slap­ping her
cheeks.
“Korey!” she screamed. “Korey! Wake up!”
Obscene­ly, they kept going, latched togeth­er, puls­ing like an
engorged sack of blood. Korey gave a small mew of plea­sure and one
hand drift­ed down, ghost­ing light­ly across her stom­ach, toward her
pubic hair, and Patri­cia grabbed her wrist and yanked it away and
Korey began to squirm, and Patri­cia had to get James’s head out
from between her daughter’s legs, and she looked down at him, and
her stom­ach gave a warn­ing flop. She was going to throw up.
She clamped her lips togeth­er, let go of Korey’s fever­ish wrist, and
tried to haul James away by the shoul­ders, but he strug­gled to stay
latched to her daugh­ter. Feel­ing like an idiot, Patri­cia grabbed a
soc­cer cleat from the floor and hit him in the head with its heel. Her
first blow was a sil­ly, inef­fec­tu­al tap, but the sec­ond was hard­er, and
the third made a knock­ing sound when the cleats hit bone.
As she struck him in the head with Korey’s shoe over and over
again she heard her­self repeat­ing, “Get off! Get off! Get off my lit­tle
girl!”
A suck­ing slob­ber­ing noise ripped through the qui­et of the room,
the sound of raw steak being torn in two, and James Har­ris looked
up at her like a coun­try cousin, mouth hang­ing open, some­thing
black and inhu­man hang­ing from the hole in the bot­tom of his face,
drip­ping vis­cous blood, eyes glazed. He tried to focus on Patri­cia, the
shoe held back by her ear, ready to bring it down again.
“Uh,” he said, dul­ly.
He belched and a line of bloody drool drib­bled from the cor­ner of
the pro­boscis hang­ing beneath his chin. Then it began to curl back up
on itself, retract­ing slow­ly into his gore-slimed mouth.
My God, Patri­cia thought, I’ve gone insane, and she brought the
cleat down again. James Har­ris rose, seiz­ing her wrist in one hand,
her throat in the oth­er, and he threw her against the far wall. She
took the impact between her shoul­der blades. It punched all the air
out of her lungs. It loos­ened the root of her tongue. Then he was on
her, breath hot and raw, fore­arm across her throat, stronger than
her, faster than her, and she went limp in his grip like prey.
“This is all your fault,” he said, voice thick and slurred with liq­uid.
Blood coat­ed his lips, and hot specks of it sprin­kled her face. And
she knew he was right. This. Was. All. Her. Fault. She had exposed
her chil­dren to this dan­ger, she had invit­ed it into her house. She had
been so obsessed with the chil­dren in Six Mile and Blue that she
hadn’t seen the dan­ger to Korey. She had dri­ven both her chil­dren
right into James Harris’s arms.
She saw a lump move down, down, down his throat as he
swal­lowed what­ev­er appa­ra­tus it was he used to suck their blood.
Then he said, “You said this was between us.”
She remem­bered say­ing that in the car ear­li­er, and she had only
meant to stall him, to buy more time, to keep his guard down, but
she had said it, and to him it had been anoth­er invi­ta­tion. She had
led him on. She deserved this. But her daugh­ter didn’t.
“Korey,” was the best she could man­age through her con­strict­ed
wind­pipe.
“Look what you’re doing to her,” he hissed, and wrenched her head
to the side so she could see the bed.
Korey had pulled her arms and legs in on them­selves, retract­ing
into a fetal posi­tion, mus­cles twitch­ing, going into shock. Blood
spread on the mat­tress beneath her. Patri­cia closed her eyes to let the
nau­sea pass.
“Mom?” Blue called from the hall.
She and James Har­ris locked eyes, him total­ly nude, his front a bib
of blood, her in her night­gown, not even wear­ing a brassiere, the
door stand­ing a quar­ter of the way open. Nei­ther of them moved.
“Mom?” Blue called again. “What’s going on?”
Do. Some­thing, James Har­ris mouthed at her.
She reached up and touched her fin­ger­tips to the back of the hand
that held her throat. He let go.
“Blue,” she said, step­ping through the door and into the hall. She
prayed that the flecks of Korey’s blood she felt on her face wouldn’t
show. “Get back into bed.”
“What’s wrong with Korey?” he asked, stand­ing in the hall.
“Your sister’s sick,” Patri­cia said. “Please. She’ll be bet­ter lat­er. But
she needs to be alone right now.”
Hav­ing deter­mined that this was noth­ing that required his
atten­tion, Blue turned with­out speak­ing, went back into his
bed­room, and closed the door. Patri­cia stepped back into Korey’s
room and turned on the over­head light just in time to see James
Har­ris, naked, squat­ting on the win­dowsill. He held his clothes
balled up against his bel­ly like a lover flee­ing an angry hus­band in
some old farce.
“You asked for this,” he said, and then he was gone and the
win­dow was just a big black rec­tan­gle of night.
Korey whim­pered on the bed. It was the sound of her hav­ing a
night­mare that Patri­cia had heard so many times before, and in
sym­pa­thy she made the same sound back. She went to her daugh­ter
and exam­ined the wound on her inner thigh. It looked swollen and
infect­ed, and it wasn’t the only one. All around it were over­lap­ping
bruis­es, over­lap­ping punc­tures, all their edges torn and ragged.
Patri­cia real­ized this had hap­pened before. Many times.
Her head was full of bats, shriek­ing and bump­ing into each oth­er,
tear­ing all coher­ent thought to tat­ters. Patri­cia didn’t even know how
she found the cam­era or took the pic­tures, how she got to the
bath­room, how she stood in front of the sink run­ning warm water
onto a wash­cloth, how she bathed Korey’s wound and put on
bac­i­tracin. She want­ed to ban­dage it, but she couldn’t, not with­out
let­ting Korey know she’d seen this obscene thing. She couldn’t cross
that line with her daugh­ter. Not yet.
Every­thing seemed too nor­mal. She expect­ed the house to explode,
the back­yard to fall into the har­bor, Blue to walk out the door with a
suit­case to move to Aus­tralia, but Korey’s room was as messy as
usu­al, and when she went down­stairs the sail­boat lamp burned on
the front hall table like nor­mal, and Rag­tag raised his head from
where he napped on the den couch, tags jin­gling, like nor­mal, and
the porch lights clicked off when she flipped the switch like nor­mal.
She went into her bath­room and washed her face, hard, with a
wash­cloth, scrub­bing and scour­ing, and she tried not to look in the
mir­ror. She scrubbed until it was red and raw. She scrubbed until it
hurt. Good. She reached up and pinched her left ear until it hurt,
twist­ing it, and that felt good, too. She got into bed and lay in the
dark, star­ing at the ceil­ing, know­ing she would nev­er sleep.
It was all her fault. It was all her fault. It was all her fault.
Guilt, and betray­al, and nau­sea churned in her gut and she bare­ly
made it to the bath­room before she threw up.
—
She made every effort not to treat Korey dif­fer­ent­ly the next
morn­ing, and Korey seemed no dif­fer­ent than she was every
morn­ing: sullen and uncom­mu­nica­tive. Patricia’s hands felt numb as
she packed Korey and Blue off to school, and then she sat by the
phone and wait­ed.
The first call came at nine, and she couldn’t bring her­self to pick
up. The machine took it.
“Patri­cia,” James Harris’s voice said. “Are you there? We need to
talk. I have to explain what’s going on here.”
It was a cloud­less, sun­ny Octo­ber day. The bright blue sky
pro­tect­ed her. But he could still call. The phone rang again.
“Patri­cia,” he said to the machine. “You have to under­stand what’s
hap­pen­ing.”
He called three more times, and on the third, she picked up.
“How long?” she asked.
“Come down and lis­ten to me,” he said. “I’ll tell you every­thing.”
“How long?” she repeat­ed.
“Patri­cia,” he said. “I want you to be able to see my eyes, so you
know I’m being hon­est with you.”
“Just tell me how long?” she asked, and to her own sur­prise her
voice broke and her fore­head cramped and she felt tears in the hinge
of her jaw. She couldn’t close her mouth; there was a howl inside that
want­ed to get out.
“I’m glad you final­ly know,” he said. “I’m so tired of hid­ing. This
doesn’t change any­thing I said last night.”
“What?”
“I val­ue you,” he said. “I val­ue your fam­i­ly. I’m still your friend.”
“What have you done to my daugh­ter?” she man­aged.
“I’m sor­ry you had to see that,” he said. “I know you must be
con­fused and fright­ened but it’s no dif­fer­ent than my eyes—it’s just a
con­di­tion I have. Some of my organs don’t work prop­er­ly and from
time to time I need to bor­row someone’s cir­cu­la­to­ry sys­tem and fil­ter
my blood through theirs. I’m not a vam­pire, I don’t drink it, it’s not
any dif­fer­ent than using a dial­y­sis machine, except it’s more nat­ur­al.
And I promise you there’s no pain. In fact, from what I can tell it
feels good to them. You have to under­stand, I would nev­er do
any­thing to hurt Korey. She agreed to do this. I want you to know
that. After I told her about my con­di­tion she came to me and
vol­un­teered to help. You have to believe I would nev­er make her do
some­thing against her will.”
“What are you?” she asked.
“I’m alone,” he said. “I’ve been alone for a very long time.”
Patri­cia real­ized it wasn’t repen­tance in his voice, it was self-pity.
She’d heard Carter feel­ing sor­ry for him­self too often to mis­take it for
any­thing else.
“What do you want from us?”
“I care for you,” he said. “I care for your fam­i­ly. I see how Carter
treats you and it makes me furi­ous. He throws away what I would
trea­sure. Blue thinks the world of me already, and Korey has already
done so much to help me that she has my eter­nal grat­i­tude. I’d like to
think we could come to an under­stand­ing.”
He want­ed her fam­i­ly. It came to her in an instant. He want­ed to
replace Carter. This man was a vam­pire, or as close to one as she
would ever see. She remem­bered Miss Mary talk­ing in the dark all
those years ago.
They have a hunger on them. They nev­er stop tak­ing. They
mort­gaged their souls away and now they eat and eat and eat and
nev­er know how to stop.
He’d found a place where he fit in, with a near­by source of food,
and he’d become a respect­ed mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty, and now he
want­ed to have a fam­i­ly because he didn’t know how to stop. He
always want­ed more. That knowl­edge opened a door inside her mind
and the bats flew out in a ragged black stream, leav­ing her skull
emp­ty and qui­et and clear.
He had want­ed old Mrs. Savage’s house, so he took it from her.
Miss Mary had endan­gered him with her pho­to­graph, and he’d
destroyed her. He had attacked Slick to pro­tect him­self. He would
say any­thing to get what he want­ed. He had no lim­its. And she knew
that the moment he sus­pect­ed she knew what he want­ed, her
chil­dren would be in dan­ger.
“Patri­cia?” he asked in the silence.
She took a shud­der­ing breath.
“I need time to think,” she said. If she got off the phone fast he
wouldn’t hear the change in her voice.
“Let me come there,” he said, his tone sharp­er. “Tonight. I want to
apol­o­gize in per­son.”
“No,” she said, and gripped the phone in her sud­den­ly sweaty
hand. She forced her throat to relax. “I need time.”
“Promise you for­give me,” he said.
She had to get off the phone. With a thrill of joy she real­ized she
had to call the police right away. They would go to his house and find
the license and search his attic and this would all be over by
sun­down.
“I promise,” she said.
“I’m trust­ing you, Patri­cia,” he said. “You know I wouldn’t hurt
any­one.”
“I know,” she said.
“I want you to know all about me,” he said. “When you’re ready, I
want to spend a lot of time with you.”
She was proud of the way she kept her voice calm and steady.
“Me, too,” she said.
“Oh,” he said. “Before I go, the damnedest thing hap­pened this
morn­ing.”
“What?” she asked, numb.
“I found Francine Chapman’s driver’s license in my car,” he said,
his voice full of won­der. “Remem­ber Francine? Who used to clean for
me? I don’t know how it got there, but I took care of it. Strange,
right?”
She want­ed to dig her nails into her face, and rake them down, and
rip off her skin. She was a fool.
“That is strange,” she said, no life left in her voice.
“Well,” he said. “Lucky I found it. That could have been hard to
explain.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I’ll wait to hear from you,” he said. “But don’t make me wait too
long.”
He hung up.
Her one job as a par­ent was to pro­tect her chil­dren from mon­sters.
The ones under the bed, the ones in the clos­et, the ones hid­ing in the
dark. Instead, she’d invit­ed the mon­ster into her home and been too
weak to stop it from tak­ing what­ev­er it want­ed. The mon­ster had

After flee­ing from Eddie and his vio­lent tendencies—marked by an attack with a pineapple—our pro­tag­o­nist finds her­self face-to-face with Bea Rochester, a woman pre­sumed dead but very much alive, locked away by Eddie. Bea, unsur­pris­ing­ly unboth­ered by recent events, declares her need for a drink, lead­ing them to the kitchen in search of wine, gloss­ing over the chaos with an eerie calm­ness. Their inter­ac­tions are charged with ten­sion, a mix of awk­ward­ness and under­ly­ing strength, as they nav­i­gate their new dynam­ic. Bea appears as a pil­lar of com­po­sure, select­ing wine with the famil­iar­i­ty of the home­’s true own­er, under­scor­ing a stark dif­fer­ence between her and our pro­tag­o­nist, who feels out of place and an imposter in the lav­ish­ly eerie set­ting.

The din­ing room scene is set with an almost goth­ic eeri­ness, where the two women, look­ing like “medieval queens,” dis­cuss their next moves over wine amidst the storm rag­ing out­side. The con­ver­sa­tion reveals Bea’s knowl­edge of Eddie’s infi­deli­ties and sug­gests a deep­er, more com­plex rela­tion­ship between all char­ac­ters involved than ini­tial­ly per­ceived. Bea hints at Eddie hav­ing ensnared both women in a sin­is­ter plot, with our pro­tag­o­nist caught in a web of decep­tion and mur­der sur­round­ing Eddie’s affair with Blanche. Their dia­logue unwraps lay­ers of betray­al, with Bea weav­ing a nar­ra­tive of Eddie’s machi­na­tions lead­ing to Blanche’s sup­posed mur­der and Bea’s own impris­on­ment. The pro­tag­o­nist strug­gles with these rev­e­la­tions, ques­tion­ing the truth and grap­pling with a sense of iden­ti­ty amid the chaos.

As they delve deep­er into con­ver­sa­tion, Bea’s com­posed veneer flick­ers, reveal­ing cracks in her sto­ry that the pro­tag­o­nist keen­ly observes, chal­leng­ing Bea’s account of events. The pro­tag­o­nist’s sus­pi­cion grows, rec­og­niz­ing the poten­tial false­hoods in Bea’s nar­ra­tive. It’s clear that there are secrets yet to be unveiled, point­ing towards a twist­ed love and a com­plex web of lies bind­ing Eddie, Bea, and the events lead­ing up to the present moment. The chap­ter teas­es an unrav­el­ing mys­tery, leav­ing read­ers ques­tion­ing the true nature of the rela­tion­ships and events described, set­ting the stage for a con­fronta­tion with the harsh truths lurk­ing beneath the sur­face of the Rochesters’ seem­ing­ly per­fect facade.

Chap­ter 35 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të, titled “Provo­ca­tions”, cap­tures the esca­lat­ing ten­sions and emo­tion­al tur­moil expe­ri­enced by the pro­tag­o­nist, Helen. As Lady Low­bor­ough’s depar­ture approach­es, her behav­ior grows more bold and inso­lent towards Helen, espe­cial­ly in her inter­ac­tions with Helen’s hus­band, Arthur. The chap­ter illus­trates Helen’s inner con­flict and strug­gle to main­tain dig­ni­ty and com­po­sure in the face of betray­al and provo­ca­tion.

Lady Low­bor­ough’s overt dis­plays of affec­tion towards Arthur, in Helen’s pres­ence, are designed to con­trast with Helen’s sup­posed indif­fer­ence, incit­ing Helen’s jeal­ousy and anger. Despite the urge to react, Helen strives to remain indif­fer­ent, rec­og­niz­ing that show­ing her dis­tress would only grat­i­fy Lady Low­bor­ough and Arthur. This dynam­ic inten­si­fies Helen’s inter­nal con­flict, her dis­dain for Lady Low­bor­ough, and her waver­ing feel­ings toward Arthur, whom she could for­give if he showed repen­tance.

Helen’s resolve is test­ed fur­ther when Lady Low­bor­ough direct­ly con­fronts her, arro­gant­ly claim­ing that she has done Helen a ser­vice by reform­ing Arthur’s habits. Helen man­ages to con­tain her fury, rely­ing on her self-con­trol to avoid lash­ing out.

The chap­ter also intro­duces Mr. Har­grave, who makes veiled advances towards Helen. Despite his pro­fes­sions of sym­pa­thy and admi­ra­tion, Helen remains guard­ed, rec­og­niz­ing the poten­tial com­pli­ca­tions his atten­tions could bring.

In her deal­ings with both Lady Low­bor­ough and Mr. Har­grave, Helen exem­pli­fies the strug­gles of a woman fight­ing to uphold her prin­ci­ples and auton­o­my against soci­etal expec­ta­tions and per­son­al betray­als. Her efforts to nav­i­gate these rela­tion­ships, while main­tain­ing her integri­ty and self-respect, reflect the nov­el­’s broad­er themes of gen­der, moral­i­ty, and resis­tance against oppres­sion.

Through “Provo­ca­tions”, Bron­të delves into the com­plex­i­ties of human emo­tions, social con­straints, and the quest for per­son­al redemp­tion. The chap­ter sets the stage for Helen’s con­tin­ued resilience and deter­mi­na­tion to cre­ate a life defined by her val­ues, despite the chal­lenges she faces.