Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 38 begins with the pro­tag­o­nist, engrossed in the grim task of scrub­bing the mar­ble floors of a long hall­way, try­ing des­per­ate­ly not to focus on the dark ink mark – a sym­bol of her servi­tude to Rhysand – on her left arm. The chal­lenge of the task is ampli­fied by the filthy water pro­vid­ed and the threat of severe pun­ish­ment from the red-skinned guards if she fails to com­plete it by sup­per. Trapped in this seem­ing­ly impos­si­ble sit­u­a­tion, she reflects on the unwinnable predica­ment, her bar­gain­ing with Rhysand, and the ter­ri­fy­ing prospect of being burnt at the stake as pun­ish­ment.

Amidst her des­per­a­tion, a sur­pris­ing encounter occurs with the Lady of the Autumn Court, who, acknowl­edg­ing a debt paid, pro­vides clean water, enabling the pro­tag­o­nist to fin­ish the task. This act of unex­pect­ed kind­ness con­trasts sharply with her sub­se­quent chal­lenge – sort­ing lentils from ash and embers in a fire­place, a task that appears as futile and demean­ing as the first. Left alone in a dark, mas­sive bed­room, she uses her keen eyes and deter­mi­na­tion in an effort to sort the lentils, a task that evokes both ridicule and the absur­di­ty of her sit­u­a­tion.

The chap­ter reach­es a cli­max when Rhysand appears, his pres­ence ini­tial­ly impos­ing and mys­te­ri­ous, stir­ring a mix of fear and defi­ance in the pro­tag­o­nist. Their inter­ac­tion is charged with ten­sion, as accu­sa­tions and hid­den truths about their respec­tive roles in Ama­ran­tha’s cru­el games come to light. Rhysand’s demeanor, both mock­ing and insight­ful, reveals the com­plex­i­ty of his char­ac­ter and the intri­cate dynam­ics of pow­er, loy­al­ty, and sur­vival in their enchant­ed but per­ilous world.

Rhysand’s trans­for­ma­tion, reveal­ing his talon-like fin­gers and the hint of his dark­er, more pow­er­ful form, under­scores the theme of hid­den strength and the dual nature of char­ac­ters in the sto­ry. Despite the oppres­sive­ness of their cir­cum­stances, moments of lever­age and under­stand­ing emerge, hint­ing at deep­er alliances and poten­tial strate­gies for over­com­ing their shared predica­ment.

The chap­ter art­ful­ly blends themes of pow­er, resilience, and the unex­pect­ed ways in which allies can reveal them­selves, set­ting the stage for fur­ther devel­op­ments in this rich­ly imag­ined and emo­tion­al­ly charged 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.

THIRTY-EIGHT
NINA
If a few months ago, some­one had told me I would be spend­ing tonight in a
hotel room while Andy was at my house with anoth­er woman—the maid!—
I wouldn’t have believed it.
But here I am. Dressed in a ter­ry cloth bathrobe I found in the clos­et,
stretched out in the queen-size hotel bed. The tele­vi­sion is on, but I’m
bare­ly aware of it. I’ve got my phone out and I click on the app I have been
using for the last sev­er­al months. Find my friends. I wait for it to tell me the
loca­tion of Wil­helmi­na “Mil­lie” Cal­loway.
But under her name, it says: loca­tion not found. The same as it has since
the after­noon.
She must’ve fig­ured out I was track­ing her and dis­abled the app. Smart
girl.
But not smart enough.
I pick up my purse from where I put it down on the night­stand. I dig
around inside until I find the one paper pho­to­graph I have of Andy. It’s a
few years old—a copy of the pho­tographs he had pro­fes­sion­al­ly tak­en for
the com­pa­ny web­site, and he gave me one of them. I stare into his deep
brown eyes on the shiny piece of paper, his per­fect mahogany hair, the hint
of a cleft in his strong chin. Andy is the most hand­some man I’ve ever
known in real life. I fell half in love with him the first moment I saw him.
And then I find one oth­er object inside my purse and drop it into the
pock­et of my robe.
I get up off the queen-size bed, my feet sink­ing into the plush car­pet of
the hotel room. This room is cost­ing Andy’s cred­it card a for­tune, but that’s
okay. I won’t be here long.
I go into the bath­room and I hold up the pho­to­graph of Andy’s smil­ing
face. Then I pull out the con­tents of my pock­et.
It’s a lighter.
I flick the starter until a yel­low flame shoots out of it. I hold the
flick­er­ing light to the edge of the pho­to­graph until it catch­es. I watch my
husband’s hand­some face turn brown and dis­in­te­grate, until the sink is full
of ash­es.
And I smile. My first real smile in almost eight years.
I can’t believe I final­ly got rid of that ass­hole.
How to Get Rid of Your Sadis­tic, Evil Husband—A Guide by Nina
Win­ches­ter
Step One: Get Knocked Up by a Drunk­en One-Night Stand, Drop Out
of School, and Take a Crap­py Job to Pay the Bills
My boss, Andrew Win­ches­ter, is ever so dreamy.
He’s not actu­al­ly my boss. He’s more like, my boss’s boss’s boss. There
may be a few oth­er lay­ers in there of peo­ple in the chain between him—the
CEO of this com­pa­ny since his father’s retirement—and me—a
recep­tion­ist.
So when I’m sit­ting at my desk, out­side my actu­al boss’s office, and I
admire him from afar, it’s not like I’m crush­ing on an actu­al man. It’s more
like admir­ing a famous actor at a movie pre­miere or pos­si­bly even a
paint­ing at the fine arts muse­um. Espe­cial­ly since I have zero room in my
life for a date, much less a boyfriend.
He is just so good-look­ing though. All that mon­ey and also so
hand­some. It would say some­thing about life just being unfair, if the guy
wasn’t so nice.
Like for exam­ple, when he went in to talk to my own boss, a guy at
least twen­ty years his senior named Stew­art Lynch, who clear­ly resents
being bossed around by a guy who he calls “the kid,” Andrew Win­ches­ter
stopped at my desk and smiled at me and called me by name. He said,
“Hel­lo, Nina. How are you today?”
Obvi­ous­ly, he doesn’t know who I am. He just read my name off my
desk. But still. It was nice that he made the effort. I liked hear­ing my
ordi­nary four-let­ter name on his tongue.
Andrew and Stew­art have been in his office talk­ing for about half an
hour. Stew­art instruct­ed me not to leave while Mr. Win­ches­ter was in there,
because he might need me to fetch some data from the com­put­er. I can’t
quite fig­ure out what Stew­art does, because I do all his work. But that’s
fine. I don’t mind, as long as I get my pay­checks and my health insur­ance.
Cecelia and I need a place to live, and the pedi­a­tri­cian says there’s a set of
shots she requires next month (for dis­eases she doesn’t even have!).
But what I mind a lit­tle more is that Stew­art didn’t warn me he was
going to ask me to wait around. I’m sup­posed to be pump­ing now. My
breasts are full and aching with milk, strain­ing at the clips of my flim­sy
nurs­ing bra. I’m try­ing my best not to think about Cece, because if I do, the
milk will almost cer­tain­ly burst through my nip­ples. And that’s just not the
kind of thing you want to hap­pen when you’re sit­ting at your desk.
Cece is with my neigh­bor Ele­na right now. Ele­na is also a sin­gle moth­er,
so we trade babysit­ting duties. My hours are more reg­u­lar, and she works
evening shifts at a bar. So I take Ted­dy for her, and she takes Cece for me.
We are mak­ing it work. Bare­ly.
I miss Cece when I’m at work. I think about her all the time. I had
always fan­ta­sized that when I had a baby, I would be able to stay home for
at least the first six months. Instead, I just took my two weeks of vaca­tion
and went right back to work, even though it still sort of hurt to walk. They
would have allowed me twelve weeks off, but the oth­er ten would have
been unpaid. Who could afford ten weeks unpaid? Cer­tain­ly not me.
Some­times Ele­na resents her son for what she gave up for him. I was in
grad­u­ate school when I got that pos­i­tive preg­nan­cy test, leisure­ly work­ing
on a Ph.D. in Eng­lish as I lived in semi-pover­ty. It hit me when I saw those
two blue lines that my eter­nal grad­u­ate school lifestyle would nev­er pro­vide
for me and my unborn child. The next day, I quit. And I start­ed pound­ing
the pave­ment, look­ing for some­thing to pay the bills.
This isn’t my dream job. Far from it. But the salary is decent, the
ben­e­fits are great, and the hours are steady and not too long. And I was told
there’s room for advance­ment. Even­tu­al­ly.
But right now, I just have to get through the next twen­ty min­utes
with­out my breasts leak­ing.
I’m this close to run­ning off to the bath­room with my lit­tle pump­ing
back­pack and my tiny lit­tle milk bot­tles when Stewart’s voice crack­les out
of the inter­com.
“Nina?” he barks at me. “Could you bring in the Grady data?”
“Yes, sir, right away!”
I get on my com­put­er and load up the files he wants, then I hit print. It’s
about fifty pages’ worth of data, and I sit there, tap­ping my toes against the
ground, watch­ing the print­er spit out each page. When the final page
fin­ish­es print­ing, I yank out the sheets of paper and hur­ry over to his office.
I crack open the door. “Mr. Lynch, sir?”
“Come in, Nina.”
I let the door swing the rest of the way open. Right away, I notice both
men are star­ing at me. And not in that appre­cia­tive way I used to get at bars
before I got knocked up and my whole life changed. They’re look­ing at me
like I’ve got a giant spi­der hang­ing off my hair and I don’t even know it.
I’m about to ask them what the hell both of them are star­ing at when I look
down and fig­ure it out.
I leaked.
And I didn’t just leak—I squirt­ed milk out like the office cow. There are
two huge cir­cles around each of my nip­ples, and a few droplets of milk are
trick­ling down my blouse. I want to crawl under a desk and die.
“Nina!” Stew­art cries. “Get your­self cleaned up!”
“Right,” I say quick­ly. “I… I’m so sor­ry. I…”
I drop the papers on Stewart’s desk and hur­ry out of the office as fast as
I can. I grab my coat to hide my blouse, all the while blink­ing back tears.
I’m not even sure what I’m more upset about. The fact that my boss’s boss’s
boss saw me lac­tat­ing or all the milk I just wast­ed.
I take my pump to the bath­room, plug it in, and relieve the pres­sure in
my breasts. Despite my embar­rass­ment, it feels so good to emp­ty all that
milk. Maybe bet­ter than sex. Not that I remem­ber what sex feels like—the
last time was that stu­pid, stu­pid one-night stand that got me into this
sit­u­a­tion to begin with. I fill two entire five-ounce bot­tles and stick them in
my bag with an ice pack. I’ll put it in the refrig­er­a­tor until it’s time to go
home. Right now, I’ve got to get back to my desk. And leave my coat on for
the rest of the after­noon, because I have recent­ly dis­cov­ered that even if it
dries, milk leaves a stain.
When I crack open the door to the bath­room, I’m shocked to see
some­one stand­ing there. And not just any­one. It’s Andrew Win­ches­ter. My
boss’s boss’s boss. His fist is raised in the air, poised to knock on the door.
His eyes widen when he sees me.
“Uh, hi?” I say. “The men’s room is, um, over there.”
I feel stu­pid say­ing that. I mean, this is his com­pa­ny. Also, there’s a
sten­cil of a woman with a dress on the door to the bath­room. He should
real­ize this is the women’s room.
“Actu­al­ly,” he says, “I was look­ing for you.”
“For me?”
He nods. “I want­ed to see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine.” I try to smile, hid­ing my humil­i­a­tion from ear­li­er. “It’s just
milk.”
“I know, but…” He frowns. “Stew­art was a jerk to you. That was
unac­cept­able.”
“Yeah, well…” I’m tempt­ed to tell him of a hun­dred oth­er instances
when Stew­art was a jerk to me. But it’s a bad idea to talk shit about my
boss. “It’s fine. Any­way, I was just about to grab some lunch, so…”
“Me too.” He arch­es an eye­brow. “Care to join me?”
Of course I say yes. Even if he wasn’t my boss’s boss’s boss, I would’ve
said yes. He’s gor­geous, for starters. I love his smile—the crin­kling around
his eyes and the hint of a cleft in his chin. But it’s not like he’s ask­ing me
out on a date. He just feels bad because of what hap­pened before in
Stewart’s office. Prob­a­bly some­one from HR told him to do it to smooth
things over.
I fol­low Andrew Win­ches­ter down­stairs to the lob­by of the build­ing that
he owns. I assume he’s going to take me to one of the many fan­cy
restau­rants in the neigh­bor­hood, so I’m shocked when he leads me over to
the hot­dog cart right out­side the build­ing and joins the line.
“Best hot­dogs in the city.” He winks at me. “What do you like on
yours?”
“Um… mus­tard, I guess?”
When we get to the front of the line, he orders two hot­dogs, both with
mus­tard, and two bot­tles of water. He hands me a hot­dog and a bot­tle of
water, and he leads me to a brown­stone down the block. He sits on the steps
and I join him. It’s almost comical—this hand­some man sit­ting on the steps
of the brown­stone in his expen­sive suit, hold­ing a hot­dog cov­ered in
mus­tard.
“Thank you for the hot­dog, Mr. Win­ches­ter,” I say.
“Andy,” he cor­rects me.
“Andy,” I repeat. I take a bite of my hot­dog. It’s pret­ty good. Best in the
city? I’m not so sure about that. I mean, it’s bread and mys­tery meat.
“How old is your baby?” he asks.
My face flush­es with plea­sure the way it always does when some­body
asks me about my daugh­ter. “Five months.”
“What’s her name?”
“Cecelia.”
“That’s nice.” He grins. “Like the song.”

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
38
Amren took the Book to wher­ev­er it was she lived in Velaris, leav­ing the
five of us to eat. While Rhys told them of our vis­it to the Sum­mer Court, I
man­aged to scarf down break­fast before the exhaus­tion of stay­ing up all
night, unlock­ing those doors, and very near­ly dying hit me. When I awoke,
the house was emp­ty, the after­noon sun­light warm and gold­en, and the day
so unusu­al­ly warm and love­ly that I brought a book down to the small
gar­den in the back.
The sun even­tu­al­ly shift­ed, shad­ing the gar­den to the point of frigid­ness
again. Not quite will­ing to give up the sun yet, I trudged the three lev­els to
the rooftop patio to watch it set.
Of course—of course—Rhysand was already loung­ing in one of the
white-paint­ed iron chairs, an arm slung over the back while his oth­er hand
idly gripped a glass of some sort of liquor, a crys­tal decanter full of it set on
the table before him.
His wings were draped behind him on the tile floor, and I won­dered if he
was also tak­ing advan­tage of the unusu­al­ly mild day to sun them as I
cleared my throat.
“I know you’re there,” he said with­out turn­ing from the view of the Sidra
and the red-gold sea beyond.
I scowled. “If you want to be alone, I can go.”
He jerked his chin toward the emp­ty seat at the iron table. Not a glow­ing
invi­ta­tion, but … I sat down.
There was a wood box beside the decanter—and I might have thought it
was some­thing for what­ev­er he was drink­ing had I not noticed the dag­ger
fash­ioned of moth­er-of-pearl in the lid.
Had I not sworn I could smell the sea and heat and soil that was Tar­quin.
“What is that?”
Rhys drained his glass, held up a hand—the decanter float­ing to him on a
phan­tom wind—and poured him­self anoth­er knuckle’s length before he
spoke.
“I debat­ed it for a good while, you know,” he said, star­ing out at his city.
“Whether I should just ask Tar­quin for the Book. But I thought that he
might very well say no, then sell the infor­ma­tion to the high­est bid­der. I
thought he might say yes, and it’d still wind up with too many peo­ple
know­ing our plans and the poten­tial for that infor­ma­tion to get out. And at
the end of the day, I need­ed the why of our mis­sion to remain secret for as
long as pos­si­ble.” He drank again, and dragged a hand through his blue-
black hair. “I didn’t like steal­ing from him. I didn’t like hurt­ing his guards. I
didn’t like van­ish­ing with­out a word, when, ambi­tion or no, he did tru­ly
want an alliance. Maybe even friend­ship. No oth­er High Lords have ever
bothered—or dared. But I think Tar­quin want­ed to be my friend.”
I glanced between him and the box and repeat­ed, “What is that?”
“Open it.”
I gin­ger­ly flipped back the lid.
Inside, nes­tled on a bed of white vel­vet, three rubies glim­mered, each the
size of a chick­en egg. Each so pure and rich­ly col­ored that they seemed
craft­ed of—
“Blood rubies,” he said.
I pulled back the fin­gers that had been inch­ing toward the stones.
“In the Sum­mer Court, when a grave insult has been com­mit­ted, they
send a blood ruby to the offend­er. An offi­cial dec­la­ra­tion that there is a
price on their head—that they are now hunt­ed, and will soon be dead. The
box arrived at the Court of Night­mares an hour ago.”
Moth­er above. “I take it one of these has my name on it. And yours. And
Amren’s.”
The lid flipped shut on a dark wind. “I made a mis­take,” he said. I
opened my mouth, but he went on, “I should have wiped the minds of the
guards and let them con­tin­ue on. Instead, I knocked them out. It’s been a
while since I had to do any sort of phys­i­cal … defend­ing like that, and I was
so focused on my Illyr­i­an train­ing that I for­got the oth­er arse­nal at my
dis­pos­al. They prob­a­bly awoke and went right to him.”
“He would have noticed the Book was miss­ing soon enough.”
“We could have denied that we stole it and chalked it up to coin­ci­dence.”
He drained his glass. “I made a mis­take.”
“It’s not the end of the world if you do that every now and then.”
“You’ve been told you are now pub­lic ene­my num­ber one of the Sum­mer
Court and you’re fine with it?”
“No. But I don’t blame you.”
He loosed a breath, star­ing out at his city as the warmth of the day
suc­cumbed to winter’s bite once more. It didn’t mat­ter to him.
“Per­haps you could return the Book once we’ve neu­tral­ized the Caul­dron
—apol­o­gize.”
Rhys snort­ed. “No. Amren will get that book for as long as she needs it.”
“Then make it up to him in some way. Clear­ly, you want­ed to be his
friend as much as he want­ed to be yours. You wouldn’t be so upset
oth­er­wise.”
“I’m not upset. I’m pissed off.”
“Seman­tics.”
He gave me a half smile. “Feuds like the one we just start­ed can last
centuries—millennia. If that’s the cost of stop­ping this war, help­ing Amren
… I’ll pay it.”
He’d pay with every­thing he had, I real­ized. Any hopes for him­self, his
own hap­pi­ness.
“Do the oth­ers know—about the blood rubies?”
“Azriel was the one who brought them to me. I’m debat­ing how I’ll tell
Amren.”
“Why?”
Dark­ness filled those remark­able eyes. “Because her answer would be to
go to Adri­a­ta and wipe the city off the map.”
I shud­dered.
“Exact­ly,” he said.
I stared out at Velaris with him, lis­ten­ing to the sounds of the day
wrap­ping up—and the night unfold­ing. Adri­a­ta felt rudi­men­ta­ry by
com­par­i­son.
“I under­stand,” I said, rub­bing some warmth into my now-chilled hands,
“why you did what you had to in order to pro­tect this city.” Imag­in­ing the
destruc­tion that had been wreaked upon Adri­a­ta here in Velaris made my
blood run cold. His eyes slid to me, wary and dull. I swal­lowed. “And I
under­stand why you will do any­thing to keep it safe dur­ing the times
ahead.”
“And your point is?”
A bad day—this was a bad day, I real­ized, for him. I didn’t scowl at the
bite in his words. “Get through this war, Rhysand, and then wor­ry about
Tar­quin and the blood rubies. Nul­li­fy the Caul­dron, stop the king from
shat­ter­ing the wall and enslav­ing the human realm again, and then we’ll
fig­ure out the rest after.”
“You sound as if you plan to stay here for a while.” A bland, but edged
ques­tion.
“I can find my own lodg­ing, if that’s what you’re refer­ring to. Maybe I’ll
use that gen­er­ous pay­check to get myself some­thing lav­ish.”
Come on. Wink at me. Play with me. Just—stop look­ing like that.
He only said, “Spare your pay­check. Your name has already been added
to the list of those approved to use my house­hold cred­it. Buy what­ev­er you
wish. Buy your­self a whole damn house if you want.”
I ground my teeth, and maybe it was pan­ic or des­per­a­tion, but I said
sweet­ly, “I saw a pret­ty shop across the Sidra the oth­er day. It sold what
looked to be lots of lacy lit­tle things. Am I allowed to buy that on your
cred­it, too, or does that come out of my per­son­al funds?”
Those vio­let eyes again drift­ed to me. “I’m not in the mood.”
There was no humor, no mis­chief. I could go warm myself by a fire
inside, but …
He had stayed. And fought for me.
Week after week, he’d fought for me, even when I had no reac­tion, even
when I had bare­ly been able to speak or bring myself to care if I lived or
died or ate or starved. I couldn’t leave him to his own dark thoughts, his
own guilt. He’d shoul­dered them alone long enough.
So I held his gaze. “I nev­er knew Illyr­i­ans were such morose drunks.”
“I’m not drunk—I’m drink­ing,” he said, his teeth flash­ing a bit.
“Again, seman­tics.” I leaned back in my seat, wish­ing I’d brought my
coat. “Maybe you should have slept with Cres­sei­da after all—so you could
both be sad and lone­ly togeth­er.”
“So you’re enti­tled to have as many bad days as you want, but I can’t get
a few hours?”
“Oh, take how­ev­er long you want to mope. I was going to invite you to
come shop­ping with me for said lacy lit­tle unmen­tion­ables, but … sit up
here for­ev­er, if you have to.”
He didn’t respond.
I went on, “Maybe I’ll send a few to Tarquin—with an offer to wear them
for him if he for­gives us. Maybe he’ll take those blood rubies right back.”
His mouth bare­ly, bare­ly tugged up at the cor­ners. “He’d see that as a
taunt.”
“I gave him a few smiles and he hand­ed over a fam­i­ly heir­loom. I bet
he’d give me the keys to his ter­ri­to­ry if I showed up wear­ing those
under­gar­ments.”
“Some­one thinks mighty high­ly of her­self.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You seem to have dif­fi­cul­ty not star­ing at me day and
night.”
There it was—a ker­nel of truth and a ques­tion.
“Am I sup­posed to deny,” he drawled, but some­thing sparked in those
eyes, “that I find you attrac­tive?”
“You’ve nev­er said it.”
“I’ve told you many times, and quite fre­quent­ly, how attrac­tive I find
you.”
I shrugged, even as I thought of all those times—when I’d dis­missed
them as teas­ing com­pli­ments, noth­ing more. “Well, maybe you should do a
bet­ter job of it.”
The gleam in his eyes turned into some­thing preda­to­ry. A thrill went
through me as he braced his pow­er­ful arms on the table and purred, “Is that
a chal­lenge, Feyre?”
I held that predator’s gaze—the gaze of the most pow­er­ful male in
Pry­thi­an. “Is it?”
His pupils flared. Gone was the qui­et sad­ness, the iso­lat­ed guilt. Only
that lethal focus—on me. On my mouth. On the bob of my throat as I tried
to keep my breath­ing even. He said, slow and soft, “Why don’t we go down
to that store right now, Feyre, so you can try on those lacy lit­tle things—so I
can help you pick which one to send to Tar­quin.”
My toes curled inside my fleece-lined slip­pers. Such a dan­ger­ous line we
walked togeth­er. The ice-kissed night wind rus­tled our hair.
But Rhys’s gaze cut skyward—and a heart­beat lat­er, Azriel shot from the
clouds like a spear of dark­ness.
I wasn’t sure whether I should be relieved or not, but I left before Azriel
could land, giv­ing the High Lord and his spy­mas­ter some pri­va­cy.
As soon as I entered the dim­ness of the stair­well, the heat rushed from
me, leav­ing a sick, cold feel­ing in my stom­ach.
There was flirt­ing, and then there was … this.
I had loved Tam­lin. Loved him so much I had not mind­ed destroy­ing
myself for it—for him. And then every­thing had hap­pened, and now I was
here, and … and I might have very well gone to that pret­ty shop with
Rhysand.
I could almost see what would have hap­pened:
The shop ladies would have been polite—a bit nervous—and giv­en us
pri­va­cy as Rhys sat on the set­tee in the back of the shop while I went
behind the cur­tained-off cham­ber to try on the red lace set I’d eyed thrice
now. And when I emerged, mus­ter­ing up more brava­do than I felt, Rhys
would have looked me up and down. Twice.
And he would have kept star­ing at me as he informed the shop ladies that
the store was closed and they should all come back tomor­row, and we’d
leave the tab on the counter.
I would have stood there, naked save for scraps of red lace, while we
lis­tened to the quick, dis­creet sounds of them clos­ing up and leav­ing.
And he would have looked at me the entire time—at my breasts, vis­i­ble
through the lace; at the plane of my stom­ach, now final­ly look­ing less
starved and taut. At the sweep of my hips and thighs—between them. Then
he would have met my gaze again, and crooked a fin­ger with a sin­gle
mur­mured, “Come here.”
And I would have walked to him, aware of every step, as I at last stopped
in front of where he sat. Between his legs.
His hands would have slid to my waist, the cal­lus­es scrap­ing my skin.
Then he’d have tugged me a bit clos­er before lean­ing in to brush a kiss to
my navel, his tongue—
I swore as I slammed into the post of the stair­well land­ing.
And I blinked—blinked as the world returned and I real­ized …
I glared at the eye tat­tooed in my hand and hissed both with my tongue
and that silent voice with­in the bond itself, “Prick.”
In the back of my mind, a sen­su­al male voice chuck­led with mid­night
laugh­ter.
My face burn­ing, curs­ing him for the vision he’d slipped past my men­tal
shields, I rein­forced them as I entered my room. And took a very, very cold
bath.
I ate with Mor that night beside the crack­ling fire in the town house din­ing
room, Rhys and the oth­ers off some­where, and when she final­ly asked why
I kept scowl­ing every time Rhysand’s name was men­tioned, I told her about
the vision he’d sent into my mind. She’d laughed until wine came out of her
nose, and when I scowled at her, she told me I should be proud: when Rhys
was pre­pared to brood, it took noth­ing short of a mir­a­cle to get him out of
it.
I tried to ignore the slight sense of triumph—even as I climbed into bed.
I was just start­ing to drift off, well past two in the morn­ing thanks to
chat­ting with Mor on the couch in the liv­ing room for hours and hours
about all the great and ter­ri­ble places she’d seen, when the house let out a
groan.
Like the wood itself was being warped, the house began to moan and
shudder—the col­ored glass lights in my room tin­kling.
I jolt­ed upright, twist­ing to the open win­dow. Clear skies, noth­ing—
Noth­ing but the dark­ness leak­ing into my room from the hall door.
I knew that dark­ness. A ker­nel of it lived in me.
It rushed in from the cracks of the door like a flood. The house shud­dered
again.
I vault­ed from bed, yanked the door open, and dark­ness swept past me on
a phan­tom wind, full of stars and flap­ping wings and—pain.
So much pain, and despair, and guilt and fear.
I hur­tled into the hall, utter­ly blind in the impen­e­tra­ble dark. But there
was a thread between us, and I fol­lowed it—to where I knew his room was.
I fum­bled for the han­dle, then—
More night and stars and wind poured out, my hair whip­ping around me,
and I lift­ed an arm to shield my face as I edged into the room. “Rhysand.”
No response. But I could feel him there—feel that life­line between us.
I fol­lowed it until my shins banged into what had to be his bed.
“Rhysand,” I said over the wind and dark. The house shook, the floor­boards
clat­ter­ing under my feet. I pat­ted the bed, feel­ing sheets and blan­kets and
down, and then—
Then a hard, taut male body. But the bed was enor­mous, and I couldn’t
get a grip on him. “Rhysand! ”
Around and around the dark­ness swirled, the begin­ning and end of the
world.
I scram­bled onto the bed, lung­ing for him, feel­ing what was his arm, then
his stom­ach, then his shoul­ders. His skin was freez­ing as I gripped his
shoul­ders and shout­ed his name.
No response, and I slid a hand up his neck, to his mouth—to make sure
he was still breath­ing, that this wasn’t his pow­er float­ing away from him—
Icy breath hit my palm. And, brac­ing myself, I rose up on my knees,
aim­ing blind­ly, and slapped him.
My palm stung—but he didn’t move. I hit him again, pulling on that
bond between us, shout­ing his name down it like it was a tun­nel, bang­ing
on that wall of ebony adamant with­in his mind, roar­ing at it.
A crack in the dark.
And then his hands were on me, flip­ping me, pin­ning me with expert skill
to the mat­tress, a taloned hand at my throat.
I went still. “Rhysand.” I breathed. Rhys, I said through the bond, putting
a hand against that inner shield.
The dark shud­dered.
I threw my own pow­er out—black to black, sooth­ing his dark­ness, the
rough edges, will­ing it to calm, to soft­en. My dark­ness sang his own a
lul­la­by, a song my wet nurse had hummed when my moth­er had shoved me
into her arms to go back to attend­ing par­ties.
“It was a dream,” I said. His hand was so cold. “It was a dream.”
Again, the dark paused. I sent my own veils of night brush­ing up against
it, run­ning star-flecked hands down it.
And for a heart­beat, the inky black­ness cleared enough that I saw his face
above me: drawn, lips pale, vio­let eyes wide—scanning.
“Feyre,” I said. “I’m Feyre.” His breath­ing was jagged, uneven. I gripped
the wrist that held my throat—held, but didn’t hurt. “You were dream­ing.”
I willed that dark­ness inside myself to echo it, to sing those rag­ing fears
to sleep, to brush up against that ebony wall with­in his mind, gen­tle and soft
…
Then, like snow shak­en from a tree, his dark­ness fell away, tak­ing mine
with it.
Moon­light poured in—and the sounds of the city.
His room was sim­i­lar to mine, the bed so big it must have been built to
accom­mo­date wings, but all taste­ful­ly, com­fort­ably appoint­ed. And he was
naked above me—utterly naked. I didn’t dare look low­er than the tat­tooed
panes of his chest.
“Feyre,” he said, his voice hoarse. As if he’d been scream­ing.
“Yes,” I said. He stud­ied my face—the taloned hand at my throat. And
released me imme­di­ate­ly.
I lay there, star­ing up at where he now knelt on the bed, rub­bing his
hands over his face. My trai­tor­ous eyes indeed dared to look low­er than his
chest—but my atten­tion snagged on the twin tat­toos on each of his knees: a
tow­er­ing moun­tain crowned by three stars. Beautiful—but bru­tal, some­how.
“You were hav­ing a night­mare,” I said, eas­ing into a sit­ting posi­tion. Like
some dam had been cracked open inside me, I glanced at my hand—and
willed it to van­ish into shad­ow. It did.
Half a thought scat­tered the dark­ness again.
His hands, how­ev­er, still end­ed in long, black talons—and his feet …
they end­ed in claws, too. The wings were out, slumped down behind him.
And I won­dered how close he’d been to ful­ly shift­ing into that beast he’d
once told me he hat­ed.
He low­ered his hands, talons fad­ing into fin­gers. “I’m sor­ry.”
“That’s why you’re stay­ing here, not at the House. You don’t want the
oth­ers see­ing this.”
“I nor­mal­ly keep it con­tained to my room. I’m sor­ry it woke you.”
I fist­ed my hands in my lap to keep from touch­ing him. “How often does
it hap­pen?”
Rhys’s vio­let eyes met mine, and I knew the answer before he said, “As
often as you.”
I swal­lowed hard. “What did you dream of tonight?”
He shook his head, look­ing toward the window—to where snow had
dust­ed the near­by rooftops. “There are mem­o­ries from Under the Moun­tain,

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.

D ID YOU EVER CALL HER on it?” I ask Eve­lyn.
I hear the muf­fled sound of my phone ring­ing in my bag, and I
know from the ring­tone that it’s David. I did not return his text over
the week­end because I wasn’t sure what I want­ed to say. And then,
once I got here again this morn­ing, I put it out of my mind.
I reach over and turn the ringer off.
“There was no point in fight­ing with Celia once she got mean,”
Eve­lyn says. “If things got too tense, I tend­ed to back off before they
came to a head. I would tell her I loved her and I couldn’t live with­out
her, and then I’d take my top off, and that usu­al­ly end­ed the
con­ver­sa­tion. For all her pos­tur­ing, Celia had one thing in com­mon
with almost every straight man in Amer­i­ca: she want­ed noth­ing more
than to get her hands on my chest.”
“Did it stick with you, though?” I ask. “Those words?”
“Of course it did. Look, I’d be the first per­son to say back when I
was young that all I was was a nice pair of tits. The only cur­ren­cy I had
was my sex­u­al­i­ty, and I used it like mon­ey. I wasn’t well edu­cat­ed when
I got to Hol­ly­wood, I wasn’t book-smart, I wasn’t pow­er­ful, I wasn’t a
trained actress. What did I have to be good at oth­er than being
beau­ti­ful? And tak­ing pride in your beau­ty is a damn­ing act. Because
you allow your­self to believe that the only thing notable about your­self
is some­thing with a very short shelf life.”
She goes on. “When Celia said that to me, I had crossed into my
thir­ties. I wasn’t sure I had many more good years left, to be hon­est. I
thought, you know, sure, Celia would keep get­ting work because
peo­ple were hir­ing her for her tal­ent. I wasn’t so sure they would
con­tin­ue hir­ing me once the wrin­kles set in, once my metab­o­lism
slowed down. So yeah, it hurt, a lot.”

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.

38
That third year in Vegas, I felt some­thing with­in me that I hadn’t felt in a real­ly,
real­ly long time. I felt strong. I knew I had to do some­thing.
Once I start­ed to return to myself, my body, my heart, my phys­i­cal­i­ty, and my
spir­i­tu­al self couldn’t take the con­ser­va­tor­ship any longer. There came a point
when my lit­tle heart said, I’m not going to stand for this.
For so long, my par­ents had con­vinced me that I was the bad one, the crazy
one, and it worked com­plete­ly in their favor. It hurt my spir­it. They put my �re
out. I under­val­ued myself for a decade. But inside, I was scream­ing about their
bull­shit. You have to under­stand the help­less­ness in that—the help­less­ness and
the anger.
After my shows, it made me so mad to see my fam­i­ly drink­ing and hav­ing a
great time when I wasn’t even allowed a sip of Jack and Coke. In the pub­lic eye, I
know I looked like a star onstage—I had cute tights on and high heels—but why
the fuck couldn’t I sin in Sin City?
As I became stronger and entered a new phase of my wom­an­hood, I start­ed
to look around for exam­ples of how to wield pow­er in a pos­i­tive way. Reese
With­er­spoon was a great exam­ple to me. She’s sweet and she’s nice, and she’s
very smart.
Once you start to see your­self that way—as not just some­one who exists to
make every­one else hap­py but some­one who deserves to make their wish­es
known—that changes every­thing. When I start­ed to think that I could be, like
Reese, some­one who was nice but also strong, it changed my per­spec­tive on who
I was.
If no one is used to you being assertive, they get very freaked out when you
start speak­ing your mind. I felt myself turn­ing into their worst fear. I was a
queen now, and start­ing to speak up. I imag­ined them bow­ing down to me. I felt
my pow­er surg­ing back.
I knew how to car­ry myself. I’d become strong, endur­ing that kind of
sched­ule. I real­ly had no choice but to be strong, and I think audi­ences per­ceived
that. It speaks vol­umes when you demand respect. It changes every­thing. And so
when I heard my con­ser­va­tors try­ing to tell me, once again, that I was stu­pid if I
tried to turn down a per­for­mance or �nd a way to give myself some more time
o�, I felt myself revolt. I thought, If you guys are try­ing to trick me into feel­ing
bad for say­ing no, I’m not going to fall for it again.
The res­i­den­cy was set to end Decem­ber 31, 2017. I couldn’t wait. For one thing,
I was so sick of doing the same show week after week for years. I kept beg­ging for
a remix or a new number—anything to break up the monot­o­ny.
I’d start­ed to lose the joy in per­form­ing that I’d felt when I was younger. I no
longer had the pure, raw love of singing that I’d had as a teenag­er. Now oth­er
peo­ple were telling me what to sing and when. No one seemed to care about
what I want­ed. The mes­sage I kept get­ting was that their minds mat­tered; my
mind was to be ignored. I was just there to per­form for them, to make them
mon­ey.
It was such a waste. And as a per­former who had always tak­en so much pride
in her musi­cian­ship, I can’t stress enough how mad I was that they wouldn’t even
let me change up my show. We had weeks in between each set of shows in Vegas.
So much fuck­ing time was wast­ed. I want­ed to remix my songs for my fans and
give them some­thing new and excit­ing. When I want­ed to per­form my favorite
songs, like “Change Your Mind” or “Get Naked,” they wouldn’t let me. It felt
like they want­ed to embar­rass me rather than let me give my fans the best
pos­si­ble per­for­mance every night, which they deserved. Instead, I had to do the
same show week in and week out: the same rou­tines, the same songs, the same
arrange­ments. I’d been doing this same kind of show for a long time. I was
des­per­ate to change it up, to give my won­der­ful, loy­al fans a new and elec­tri­fy­ing
expe­ri­ence. But all I heard was “no.”
It was so lazy it was actu­al­ly odd. I wor­ried about what my fans would think
of me. I wished I could com­mu­ni­cate that I want­ed to give them so much more.
I loved to go to stu­dios for hours at a time and do my own remix­es with an
engi­neer. But they said, “We can’t put remix­es in because of the time code of the
show. We would have to redo the whole thing.” I said, “Redo it!” I’m known for
bring­ing new things to the table, but they always said no.
When I pushed, the best they could o�er me, they said, was to play one of my
new songs in the back­ground while I was chang­ing.
They act­ed like they were doing me a huge favor by play­ing my favorite new
song while I was under­ground fran­ti­cal­ly tak­ing cos­tumes on and o�.
It was embar­rass­ing because I know the busi­ness. I knew it was total­ly
pos­si­ble for us to change up the show. My father was in charge, and it wasn’t a
pri­or­i­ty for him. That meant that the peo­ple who would need to make it hap­pen
just wouldn’t do it. Singing such old ver­sions of songs made my body feel old. I
craved new sounds, new move­ment. I feel now that it might have scared them for
me to actu­al­ly be the star. Instead, my dad was in charge of the star. Me.
When I did the videos for the sin­gles from Glo­ry, I felt so light and so free. Glo­ry
remind­ed me what it felt like to per­form new mate­r­i­al and how much I need­ed
it. When I was told I’d be receiv­ing the �rst-ever Radio Dis­ney Icon Award the
year after Glo­ry came out, I thought, This is great! I’ll take the boys and wear a
cute black dress, and it will be a lot of fun.
Well, as I sat in the audi­ence see­ing a med­ley of my songs per­formed, I had so
many feel­ings. By the time Jamie Lynn made a sur­prise appear­ance to do a bit of
“Till the World Ends” and to hand me my award, I was a ball of emo­tion.
The whole time I was watch­ing the show, I kept �ash­ing back to the con­cert
spe­cial I’d done for In the Zone. It was a remixed ABC spe­cial. I had rehearsed for
a week and sung sev­er­al new songs. They shot me so beau­ti­ful­ly. I felt like a kid.
Frankly, it’s some of my best work. There was a Cabaret vibe to a sul­try
ren­di­tion of “… Baby One More Time,” and then for “Every­time” I wore a
pret­ty white dress. It was just real­ly, real­ly beau­ti­ful. It had felt so incred­i­ble to

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 38
“Do you think Patricia’s all right?” Kit­ty asked, look­ing in the
rearview mir­ror.
They were parked in Maryellen’s mini­van at the far end of the
Alham­bra Hall park­ing lot. Maryellen sat in the driver’s seat with
Kit­ty rid­ing shot­gun. Mrs. Greene sat in the back.
“She’s fine,” Maryellen said. “You’re fine. I’m fine. Mrs. Greene,
are you fine?”
“I’m fine,” Mrs. Greene said.
“We’re all fine,” Maryellen said. “Everyone’s fine.”
Kit­ty let the silence last a full five sec­onds this time.
“Except Patri­cia,” she said.
No one had an answer to that.
“It’s sev­en,” Mrs. Greene said in the dark. No one moved. “Either
Mrs. Camp­bell has done it by now, or it’s too late.”
Clothes rus­tled, and the back door thun­ked open.
“Come on,” she said.
She got out of the mini­van and the oth­er two fol­lowed. Mrs.
Greene took the red-and-white Igloo cool­er out of the back, and Kit­ty
car­ried the Bi-Lo gro­cery bag. The cool­er clanked soft­ly as their tools
slid around inside. They wore dark clothes and walked quick­ly,
turn­ing onto Mid­dle Street, pre­fer­ring to take the risk of some­one
spot­ting them walk­ing rather than have an extra car parked out­side
James Harris’s house for three hours. Peo­ple in the Old Vil­lage had a
habit of writ­ing down license plate num­bers, after all.
Mid­dle Street was a long, black tun­nel lead­ing straight to his
house, lined with cars spilling out of dri­ve­ways. The cold wind tugged
at their coats. They put their heads down and forged for­ward,
walk­ing fast beneath the leaf­less trees and dead pal­met­tos rat­tling in
the wind.
“Have you bought your Christ­mas presents yet?” Kit­ty asked.
Mrs. Greene perked up at the men­tion of Christ­mas. Maryellen
gave Kit­ty a side­ways look.
“I get the big things dur­ing the after-Thanks­giv­ing sales,” Kit­ty
said. “But I start plan­ning people’s gifts in August. This year I’ve still
got more blanks than I nor­mal­ly do. Hon­ey is easy, she needs a
brief­case for job inter­views. I mean, it’s not that she needs it but I
thought it would be the kind of thing she’d want. And Parish wants a
trac­tor and Horse says we need a new one any­way, so that’s tak­en
care of. Lacy, I’m going to take to Italy as a grad­u­a­tion present next
year so she’ll get some­thing small for now and she’s fun to shop for
any­how, and as long as what­ev­er I give Mer­it is big­ger than what I
get for Lacy she’s thrilled. But I do not know what to buy for Pony.
It’s dif­fer­ent to shop for a man, and he’s got this new girl he’s see­ing,
and I don’t know if I have to get her a present or not. I mean, I want
to, but does that make me seem over­bear­ing?”
Maryellen turned to her.
“What on earth are you talk­ing about?” she asked.
“I don’t know!” Kit­ty said.
“Hush,” Mrs. Greene said, and they passed the last house before
James Harris’s and they all fell silent.
The huge white house loomed over them, dark and still. The only
light came from the liv­ing room win­dow. They stepped off the street
into his dri­ve­way then sat on the bot­tom step of his front stairs, took
off their shoes, and hid them under­neath. With Mrs. Greene lead­ing
the way, they stepped onto the cold boards and qui­et­ly climbed up to
his porch.
He’d left his porch lights off so they were con­cealed by dark­ness,
but Kit­ty still looked around ner­vous­ly, try­ing to see if any­one was
watch­ing them from their win­dows. A cheer drift­ed to them on the
wind, and they all froze for a moment. Then Kit­ty put down the
paper Bi-Lo bag around the cor­ner of the porch away from the liv­ing
room light, and Mrs. Greene care­ful­ly placed the cool­er in the
shad­ows next to it. Kit­ty pulled an alu­minum base­ball bat out of the
gro­cery bag and gave the sheathed hunt­ing knife to Maryellen, who
didn’t know how to hold it. She decid­ed it was just like a kitchen
knife and that made it eas­i­er.
“My feet are freez­ing,” Kit­ty whis­pered.
“Shhh,” Mrs. Greene said.
The rush­ing wind helped hide the sounds they made as Maryellen
care­ful­ly opened the screen door then tried the door han­dle while
Kit­ty held the bat down by her leg, just in case. Mrs. Greene stood on
Kitty’s oth­er side, hold­ing a ham­mer.
The door popped open, silent­ly and eas­i­ly.
They stepped inside fast. The wind want­ed to slam the door shut,
but Maryellen eased it gen­tly into its frame. They stood in the qui­et
down­stairs hall, lis­ten­ing, wor­ried that the howl­ing wind rush­ing
through the door had alert­ed James Har­ris. Noth­ing moved. All they
heard was a piano con­cer­to surg­ing soft­ly from a radio in the liv­ing
room to their left.
Mrs. Greene point­ed to the stairs lead­ing up into dark­ness, and
Kit­ty took the lead, palms sweat­ing on the rub­ber­ized grip of her
base­ball bat. She held it straight up by her right shoul­der and walked
side­ways, left foot first, right foot com­ing behind, one car­pet­ed step
at a time. Mrs. Greene walked in the mid­dle, Maryellen in the rear.
They need­ed to get him down before she could use the knife.
Every foot­step was soft, sound­less. Mrs. Greene jumped when a
plum­my man’s voice start­ed announc­ing the next selec­tion from
WSCI’s Clas­si­cal Twi­light down below them in the liv­ing room.
Every step took an hour, and any sec­ond they expect­ed to hear James
Harris’s voice from the top of the dark stairs.
They regrouped in the dark­ness of the upstairs hall. All around
them were closed doors. A CRACK echoed through every room in the
house and Maryellen almost screamed before real­iz­ing it was the
wind shift­ing the win­dow frames.
The mas­ter bed­room door­way stood dark in front of them and
from it they heard a soft, wet suck­ling sound. They crept toward it,
until they stood full in the door­way and the bright moon­light showed
what lay on the bed.
Patri­cia lay back, arms flung over her head, a car­nal half-smile on
her lips, naked, her legs spread, and between them, block­ing their
view, crouched a shirt­less James Har­ris, back mus­cles puls­ing. His
shoul­der blades spread and retract­ed like wings as he fed on Patri­cia,
his head by the join of her thighs, one large hand on her left thigh,
gen­tly push­ing it open, the oth­er on her stom­ach, fin­gers squirm­ing
on her pale flesh.
The sheer rav­en­ous hunger of the sight par­a­lyzed them. They
could smell it, thick and car­nal, fill­ing the cramped room.
Kit­ty recov­ered before either of the oth­er two women. She adjust­ed
her grip, took three steps for­ward, end­ing with her left foot almost on
James Harris’s right ankle, and brought the bat straight off her
shoul­der, swing­ing hard in a pow­er­ful line dri­ve.
The bat caught him in the side of the head with a metal­lic TONK,
like a sledge­ham­mer hit­ting stone, and Kit­ty let go with her lead
hand and let the bat come around in a full arc, almost pop­ping Mrs.
Greene in the chin. A gout of regur­gi­tat­ed blood pulsed once out of
James Harris’s mouth and splat­tered across Patricia’s pubic hair and
bel­ly, but oth­er­wise he kept suck­ing, unin­ter­rupt­ed.
Patri­cia moaned once in sex­u­al ecsta­sy, in heat, in pain, and Kit­ty
brought the bat around again, even though her left shoul­der ached.
This time she swung for the fences.
The sec­ond blow got his atten­tion, too much of it, in fact, and he
whirled in a crouch, eyes fer­al, blood pour­ing down his face and
drip­ping off some­thing that hung from his chin. Blood poured from
the wound in Patricia’s thigh. Kit­ty saw the mus­cles in James
Harris’s stom­ach and shoul­ders tense and the planes of his face
moved impos­si­bly, and the thing hang­ing there dis­ap­peared, and
Kit­ty thought, He’s going to, and even though she wasn’t a left-
hand­ed hit­ter she didn’t have a choice—that was the side the bat was
on and he wasn’t going to give her time to get her stance back or even
fin­ish her thought. She brought the bat back at him as hard as she
could but she knew it wasn’t hard enough.
James Har­ris caught the bat on his ribs with a meaty THWACK.
He brought his arm down and clamped it against his body, then spun
and sent it clat­ter­ing into the cor­ner. Patri­cia moaned in plea­sure,
mind­less­ly grind­ing her thighs togeth­er, and James Har­ris was up,
both hands grab­bing Kitty’s shoul­ders so hard she felt bone grind
against bone. He drove her back­ward into the open bed­room door,
brush­ing past Mrs. Greene and Maryellen, send­ing them spin­ning
aside, slam­ming Kit­ty into the door so hard the knob embed­ded itself
in the wall. Then he hurled her across the bed­room, send­ing her
stag­ger­ing toward the cor­ner by the win­dow, sprawl­ing over an
arm­chair on her way, tip­ping it over back­ward, as Mrs. Greene
brought the ham­mer down on his head.
It glanced off his skull, and he plucked it eas­i­ly out of her hand.
She screamed and stepped back­ward, pan­ick­ing, get­ting out of the
room, want­i­ng to get away from him as fast as pos­si­ble, shoul­der-
check­ing Maryellen, get­ting turned around and wind­ing up stand­ing
in the open door­way to the mas­ter bath instead.
Maryellen stood between James Har­ris and Mrs. Greene. She met
his eyes and wet her pants. Her numb hands seemed to belong to
some­one else, some­one far away, and her urine and the sheathed
hunt­ing knife hit the floor­boards at the same time.
James Har­ris shoved Maryellen out of the way and advanced on
Mrs. Greene. His pow­er­ful chest mus­cles stood out against his body
like white armor, his thick fore­arms flex­ing as his fin­gers formed
claws, and Mrs. Greene turned fast and tried to get into the
bath­room. If she could get the heavy porce­lain lid off the toi­let tank
she stood a chance. Instead, she tripped over the thresh­old where the
tile began and sprawled for­ward, crack­ing both knees on the floor.
Blood drooled from James Harris’s mouth and formed pat­terns on
his chest and flat bel­ly, and Mrs. Greene scrab­bled onto tile so cold it
burned, and then he had her right ankle in what felt like an iron
band. With no effort at all, he pulled her back into the bed­room. Mrs.
Greene rolled onto her back and brought her arms up to defend
her­self. When he got close she’d go for his eyes, but then she saw the
fury in his face and knew that her arms were twigs in the face of this
hur­ri­cane with teeth.
He leaned down, clawed fin­gers out­stretched, and Kit­ty hit him
from behind like a freight train, plow­ing into the small of his back,
legs pump­ing, push­ing him ahead of her all the way into the
bath­room, both of them step­ping on Mrs. Greene, feet bruis­ing her
stom­ach, one of them kick­ing her in the chin.
There was a loud SMASH and an oomph as James Har­ris took the
edge of the sink in his stom­ach and went face-first into the tile wall.
Kit­ty rode his back all the way to the floor. He land­ed with his arms
beneath him. He was stronger but she out­weighed him by fifty
pounds.
He tried to flip over but she rolled her hips and pressed him into
the floor. She grabbed his ears and smeared his face into the tiles. He
tried to get an arm beneath him but she slapped it away.
“The knife! The knife!” she screamed, but Maryellen just stood
numbly in the bed­room over a pud­dle of her cool­ing urine.
Mrs. Greene dragged her­self out of the bath­room and into the
safe­ty of the bed­room. She watched as James Har­ris and Kit­ty
wres­tled, dark shapes on cold tiles. James Har­ris got both legs under
him, lift­ing Kit­ty up on his hunched back as he stood.
“The knife, Maryellen! The knife!” Kit­ty shrieked, her voice
hys­ter­i­cal.
Mrs. Greene looked and saw Maryellen star­ing down at the knife
by her feet and real­ized she was too far away to grab it and James
Har­ris was too close to stand­ing up.
“Maryellen!” Mrs. Greene shout­ed, using her first name. “Throw
me the knife!”
Maryellen looked up, saw her, looked down, saw the knife, and
sud­den­ly squat­ted. She tossed it under­hand­ed to Mrs. Greene, who,
for the first time in her life, caught some­thing thrown to her. She
unsnapped the but­ton of the strap that held it in its sheath.
In the bath­room, Kit­ty wrapped a leg around James Harris’s right
leg, hooked his ankle, and kicked out. He went down on one knee,
crack­ing it hard against the tile with Kitty’s full weight on top of him.
She bore down on her hips, press­ing them into his but­tocks. He had
his left arm beneath him now, elbow braced against his ribs, so she
used her left hand to try to pull it out of posi­tion, but it was like
stone. In a des­per­ate move, she drove her fin­ger­tips up hard into his
wide-open left armpit and the shock made him lose his hold and
drop to the floor with the sound of a side of beef hit­ting the slab.
She couldn’t do this for much longer.
Kit­ty wrig­gled from side to side up his body, try­ing to keep her
cen­ter of grav­i­ty over his as he thrashed, and she reached out for
any­thing that might give her an advan­tage. She felt him mus­ter­ing
his strength again and sud­den­ly she was a piece of paper rid­ing a
wave that was about to break and she knew this time it would take
her under.
Some­thing hard knocked the back of her hand and she under­stood
what it was with­out the thought even con­scious­ly enter­ing her mind.
She grabbed it and turned it around, and there was one still, per­fect
moment when she saw the bowed back of James Harris’s white neck
and the ridges of his spine stick­ing out through his skin, per­fect­ly
out­lined in the moon­light com­ing through the mas­ter bath­room
sky­light. She held the hunt­ing knife with both hands and pushed the
tip down.
He screamed, a sound so loud in the tiny, echo­ing bath­room that
her right eardrum vibrat­ed. She felt the knife grind bone. She
dragged the point up and felt tis­sue give and she pressed down on
the han­dle again. He threw his head back and trapped the blade
between his ver­te­brae but she raised up her body so all her weight
came down on her wrists, push­ing the hilt down, and the steel tip of
the blade grit­ted and squealed and crunched slow­ly, inch by inch, as
she forced it deep­er and deep­er through his spine.
He tried to throw her off but his legs weren’t kick­ing as hard as
before, and he began squirm­ing on the floor as she rode the han­dle,
bear­ing down on the blade, and then his screams turned to gur­gles,

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.

38
The first few days at Emily’s are nice. I get a pret­ty guest room and Emi­ly orders take­out for me,
brings me more ice cream for my throat, and this con­coc­tion she makes out of pineap­ple juice and
sparkling water is actu­al­ly pret­ty deli­cious. And it’s nicer than I’d thought it would be, hav­ing Adele.
She sleeps on the foot of my bed every night, her pres­ence a warm, com­fort­ing weight.
So it’s fine in the begin­ning.
Real­ly, the shit doesn’t start until the fifth day I’ve been there, when I’m up and walk­ing around,
basi­cal­ly recov­ered from the fire.
It’s small at first.
Can I run into the vil­lage and pick up some crois­sants for her book club? Oh, and on my way
back, can I run into Whole Foods? She has a list!
And now here I am, three weeks after I left the hos­pi­tal, walk­ing Major the shih tzu through the
neigh­bor­hood.
As we walk, I won­der if I imag­ined the past six months. Maybe this was all just some kind of
extend­ed hal­lu­ci­na­tion, and I nev­er even met Eddie Rochester, nev­er lived in the house set back from
the road where, briefly, most of my dreams came true.
But our morn­ing walk reminds me that no, it hap­pened. There’s only an emp­ty lot where the house
Eddie and Bea built used to stand. Ash­es and crime scene tape, that’s all that’s left, but I take Major
there any­way, wait­ing for … what? A sign? Bea to mag­i­cal­ly appear wear­ing a veiled hat and
sun­glass­es, telling me it was all worth some­thing?
That’s not hap­pen­ing.
I’m just a girl who got caught up in oth­er people’s bull­shit. Who got to taste a dif­fer­ent life only to
have it tak­en away, because that’s how it always goes.
Still, it makes me sad to stand there, see­ing the spot where the house used to be, remem­ber­ing
how I’d felt, cook­ing in that kitchen, sleep­ing in that bed­room, soak­ing in that bath­tub.
Except that every time I think of that, I have to remem­ber that Bea was always there, shar­ing the
space with me. Wait­ing.
I’ve just turned to go back to Emily’s house, Major hap­pi­ly trot­ting along, when my phone buzzes
in my pock­et. It’s not a num­ber I rec­og­nize, but since it’s a 205 num­ber, which means Birm­ing­ham, I
answer.
“Is this Jane Bell?” a man asks.
He sounds like what I’d imag­ine a bas­set hound would sound like if it could talk, his voice deep
and drawl­ing, and I tug at Major’s leash as I say, “Yes?”
“I’m Richard Lloyd. Edward Rochester’s lawyer.”
I remem­ber that name, remem­ber Eddie hand­ing Richard’s busi­ness card to John, and my grip
tight­ens on my phone.
“Okay,” I say, and he sighs.
“Could you come down to my office this week? The soon­er the bet­ter, real­ly.”
I want to tell him no. What good can come of meet­ing with lawyers?
But then I look back at the ruin of what was Eddie’s house and remem­ber that day­dream I’d had,
Bea strid­ing out of the ash­es to hand me some­thing, some reward for every­thing I’d been through.
“Sure,” I tell him. “I can be there tomor­row.”
The office is exact­ly what I thought it would be. Expen­sive, mas­cu­line leather fur­ni­ture, pic­tures of
dogs with dead ducks in their mouths, mag­a­zines about hunt­ing, fish­ing, and golf lit­ter­ing the cof­fee
table in front of me.
And when a slight­ly florid-faced man in an ugly suit walks into the lob­by and says, “Miss Bell?”
he’s exact­ly what I was expect­ing, too.
There was none of Tripp’s air of dere­lic­tion around him, but they were clear­ly from the same
genus, South­er­nus drunk­us.
I imag­ine he walks over to the pub I saw on the cor­ner for lunch every day, orders the same thing,
has at least two beers before com­ing back to sex­u­al­ly harass the pret­ty col­lege stu­dent cur­rent­ly
answer­ing phones.
But I make myself give him that tremu­lous smile Eddie had liked as I stand up, tak­ing his
prof­fered hand and shak­ing it. “Please,” I say, “call me Jane.”
“Jane,” he repeats. “Don’t meet many Janes these days.”
I just keep the same insipid smile on my face and let him lead me to his pri­vate office.
More leather here, more pic­tures of hunt­ing, only now they are pho­tographs of this man, smil­ing
broad­ly in a bright orange vest, hold­ing up the head of a deer, its eyes glassy, its tongue lolling out.
Not for the first time, I think to myself that I am going to be relieved to get out of this place. The
cod­dled bub­ble of Thorn­field Estates has been nice, but every­thing else around here is pret­ty fucked.
“Now,” he says as he set­tles behind his mas­sive desk. “I have to admit, I was a lit­tle sur­prised
when Eddie want­ed to change his will so soon after get­ting engaged to you. Hon­est­ly, I actu­al­ly tried
to talk him out of it. No offense.”
“None tak­en,” I say, but I can hard­ly hear him over the ring­ing in my ears.
Eddie put me in his will.
Did he think Bea might get out one day? That she’d kill him? Was this his way of pre­emp­tive­ly
say­ing sor­ry, or was it just anoth­er play in their sick game? A way of putting her own for­tune out of
her reach, by giv­ing it to me?
I’ll nev­er know.
“In any case, he had con­trol over all of Bea’s finances after she dis­ap­peared. Her shares in the
com­pa­ny, all of that. And now,” he says, hand­ing a thick leather port­fo­lio across the desk to me, “it’s
yours.”
My fin­gers are numb as I place it in my lap, feel­ing the weight of it on my legs.
“The com­pa­ny is yours as well, of course,” he goes on, writ­ing some­thing on a legal pad.

Chap­ter 38 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të is steeped in the mount­ing tragedies and moral tur­moils of its char­ac­ters, illu­mi­nat­ing the bleak­ness of a soci­ety wed­ded to appear­ances and the silent suf­fer­ings of those ensnared with­in it. On the fifth anniver­sary of her mar­riage, Helen reflects on her resolve to leave her hus­band, Arthur Hunt­ing­ton, and the derelict life he rep­re­sents. This chap­ter fore­grounds Helen’s inter­nal con­flict and deter­mi­na­tion, jux­ta­posed against the back­drop of a soci­ety par­ty that brings togeth­er the same indi­vid­u­als as before, includ­ing Mrs. Har­grave and Lady Low­bor­ough, hint­ing at the upcom­ing storm.

Helen warns Lady Low­bor­ough of reveal­ing her affair with Arthur if it con­tin­ues, a con­fronta­tion that lays bare the lim­its of her influ­ence and the duplic­i­ty of those around her. Lord Lowborough’s dis­cov­ery of his wife’s betray­al and his sub­se­quent agony mark a turn­ing point in the nar­ra­tive. His anguish and the res­o­lu­tion to endure, rather than seek­ing revenge, high­light a depth of suf­fer­ing and moral resilience that con­trasts sharply with Arthur’s cal­lous­ness and the gen­er­al moral bank­rupt­cy of their social cir­cle.

Dur­ing a tor­ment­ed night, Lord Low­bor­ough grap­ples with sui­ci­dal impuls­es, a tes­ta­ment to his despair. The destruc­tive rela­tion­ships and the soci­etal norms that fos­ter such betray­als and mis­ery are laid bare, with Helen, despite her own painful cir­cum­stances, feel­ing a pro­found empa­thy for Lord Lowborough’s plight.

The depar­ture of Lady Low­bor­ough with her apa­thet­ic hus­band the next morn­ing leaves Helen in qui­et con­tem­pla­tion of the ruinous nature of their soci­ety, where rep­u­ta­tions are teth­ered to appear­ances, and gen­uine suf­fer­ing is often belit­tled or ignored. Arthur’s mock­ing farewell to Lord Low­bor­ough under­scores his moral degen­er­a­tion and fore­shad­ows the con­tin­u­ing descent into chaos at Grass­dale.

This chap­ter paints a vivid por­trait of a world where integri­ty and despair coex­ist close­ly, where the soci­etal façade of pro­pri­ety masks deep-seat­ed vices and per­son­al ago­nies. Anne Bron­të uses these events to fur­ther cri­tique the soci­etal norms that bind indi­vid­u­als to unhap­py fates and the per­son­al resolve need­ed to con­front and, pos­si­bly, escape them.