Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 10 plunges the read­er into a har­row­ing encounter in the spring woods, where the pro­tag­o­nist and their com­pan­ion, Lucien, are stalked by an unseen, malev­o­lent enti­ty, known as the Bogge. This pres­ence is felt rather than seen, a void of cold that cir­cles them, whis­per­ing threats of vio­lence and urg­ing the pro­tag­o­nist to look direct­ly at it. How­ev­er, to look is to acknowl­edge it, and to acknowl­edge the Bogge is to make one­self vul­ner­a­ble to its dead­ly pow­er. This rule of unseen hor­rors adds a lay­er of psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ment to the phys­i­cal threat, as the pro­tag­o­nist strug­gles with the pri­mal urge to see their preda­tor, aware that to do so would mean death.

The Bogge’s whis­per­ings serve not only as a direct threat but also as a sym­bol of the fears that lurk just beyond our per­cep­tion, sug­gest­ing that the true hor­ror lies in the unknown and the unseen. The pro­tag­o­nist’s resis­tance, focus­ing instead on mem­o­ries and sen­so­ry dis­trac­tions, high­lights a human’s abil­i­ty to find com­fort in the famil­iar when faced with the incom­pre­hen­si­ble.

After the encounter, the con­ver­sa­tion between the pro­tag­o­nist and Lucien shifts to lighter top­ics, like Lucien’s age and abil­i­ties, cre­at­ing a tem­po­rary respite from the ten­sion. How­ev­er, this is short-lived, as the din­ner scene with Tam­lin rein­tro­duces the atmos­phere of unease and unre­solved ten­sion, exac­er­bat­ed by the day’s events and Lucien’s rev­e­la­tion that the Bogge was in the for­est. Tam­lin’s reaction—fury and destruction—underscores the dan­ger posed by such crea­tures and hints at the frac­tured state of their world, where even the might­i­est are left feel­ing vul­ner­a­ble.

The chap­ter weaves a tight nar­ra­tive of fear, for­bid­den knowl­edge, and the fragili­ty of safe­ty in a world filled with ancient and unpre­dictable dan­gers. At its core, it explores the pri­mal fear of the unknown, the human instinct for sur­vival, and the uneasy alliances formed in the face of shared threats, all set against the back­drop of a rich­ly imag­ined fan­ta­sy world.

I’m sor­ry, but I can’t help with that request.

encounter with Clem McCul­lough, and how she had rea­son to believe that he was plot­ting some form of ret­ri­bu­tion against her. Through­out her tale, Sven lis­tened, his con­cern deep­en­ing with every word she spoke. Margery had been in volatile sit­u­a­tions before, but some­thing about this inci­dent unnerved her more than usu­al. Per­haps it was the look in McCul­lough’s eyes or the ven­om in his voice when he’d told her he would­n’t for­get the pub­lic humil­i­a­tion she’d caused him. What­ev­er the rea­son, Margery was con­vinced that McCul­lough’s ret­ri­bu­tion was inevitable and poten­tial­ly dead­ly.

Sven tried to rea­son with her, sug­gest­ing they seek help from the sher­iff or even con­front McCul­lough direct­ly to clear the air, but Margery was adamant. “No,” she said, her voice laced with a steely resolve. “The law won’t touch Clem. And talk­ing won’t change a rat­tlesnake’s nature.” She revealed that she had begun car­ry­ing a Colt .45 for pro­tec­tion, much to Sven’s dis­may. He under­stood her fear and her dri­ve to pro­tect her­self, but the thought of Margery in a gun­fight with McCul­lough or his men ter­ri­fied him.

The con­ver­sa­tion shift­ed as they sat in the dim light of her cab­in, hud­dled togeth­er for warmth. Margery expressed her fatigue with the con­stant threats and chal­lenges they faced, liv­ing in a place where long-stand­ing feuds and vendet­tas dic­tat­ed life and death. “Some­times, I won­der if it’s worth stay­ing,” she con­fessed, her voice bare­ly above a whis­per. “But then, where would we go? This land, it’s part of who we are.”

Sven nod­ded, under­stand­ing her dilem­ma all too well. Despite the dan­gers, leav­ing would mean aban­don­ing their roots, their homes, and the very essence of their being. They were moun­tain peo­ple, tied to the land by gen­er­a­tions of blood and toil. “We’ll face it togeth­er, Marge. What­ev­er comes,” Sven said, squeez­ing her hand. In that moment, their resolve solidified—a com­mit­ment not just to each oth­er but to their life in the moun­tains, no mat­ter how fraught with per­il it may be.

As the night wore on, they devised a plan. Margery would con­tin­ue her rounds with the Pack Horse Library, deliv­er­ing books and infor­ma­tion through­out the com­mu­ni­ty, but she would not do so alone. Sven would adjust his shifts at the mine to ensure he could accom­pa­ny her on the more remote and risky routes. They also agreed to start a silent sig­nal sys­tem with near­by allies who could offer aid if trou­ble arose.

By the time Sven left Margery’s cab­in, the first light of dawn was break­ing over the moun­tains, cast­ing a soft glow on the frost-cov­ered ground. The chal­lenges they faced were daunt­ing, yet in fac­ing them togeth­er, they found a renewed sense of pur­pose and deter­mi­na­tion. The moun­tains had forged them, and they would meet its tri­als head-on, with courage and unwa­ver­ing sup­port for one anoth­er.

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.

TEN
A week lat­er, I come down to the liv­ing room and find Nina hold­ing a full
garbage bag. My first thought is: Oh God, what now?
In only a week of liv­ing with the Win­ches­ters, I feel like I’ve been here
for years. No, cen­turies. Nina’s moods are wild­ly unpre­dictable. At one
moment, she’s hug­ging me and telling me how much she appre­ci­ates hav­ing
me here. In the next, she’s berat­ing me for not com­plet­ing some task she
nev­er even told me about. She’s flighty, to say the least. And Cecelia is a
total brat, who clear­ly resents my pres­ence here. If I had any oth­er options, I
would quit.
But I don’t, so I don’t.
The only mem­ber of the fam­i­ly who isn’t com­plete­ly intol­er­a­ble is
Andrew. He is not around much, but my few inter­ac­tions with him have
been… unevent­ful. And at this point, I’m thrilled with unevent­ful.
Truth­ful­ly, I feel sor­ry for Andrew some­times. It can’t be easy being
mar­ried to Nina.
I hov­er at the entrance to the liv­ing room, try­ing to fig­ure out what Nina
could pos­si­bly be doing with a garbage bag. Does she want me to sort the
garbage from now on, alpha­bet­i­cal­ly and by col­or and odor? Have I
pur­chased some sort of unac­cept­able garbage bag and now I need to re-bag
the garbage? I can’t even begin to guess.
“Mil­lie!” she calls out.
My stom­ach clench­es. I have a feel­ing I’m about to fig­ure out what she
wants me to do with the garbage. “Yes?”
She waves me over to her—I try to walk over like I’m not being led to
my exe­cu­tion. It’s not easy.
“Is there some­thing wrong?” I ask.
Nina picks up the heavy garbage bag and drops it on her gor­geous
leather sofa. I gri­mace, want­i­ng to warn her not to get garbage all over the
expen­sive leather mate­r­i­al.
“I just went through my clos­et,” she says. “And unfor­tu­nate­ly, a few of
my dress­es have got­ten a tad too small. So I’ve col­lect­ed them in this bag.
Would you be a dear and take this to a dona­tion bin?”
Is that it? That’s not so bad. “Of course. No prob­lem.”
“Actu­al­ly…” Nina takes a step back, her eyes rak­ing over me. “What
size are you?”
“Um, six?”
Her face lights up. “Oh, that’s per­fect! These dress­es are all size six or
eight.”
Six or eight? Nina looks like she’s at least a size four­teen. She must not
have cleared out her clos­et in a while. “Oh…”
“You should take them,” she says. “You don’t have any nice clothes”
I flinch at her state­ment, although she’s right. I don’t have any nice
cloth­ing. “I’m not sure if I should…”
“Of course you should!” She thrusts the bag in my direc­tion. “They
would look amaz­ing on you. I insist!”
I accept the bag from her and nudge it open. There’s a lit­tle white dress
on top and I pull it out. It looks incred­i­bly expen­sive and the mate­r­i­al is so
soft, I want to bathe in it. She’s right. This would look amaz­ing on me—it
would look amaz­ing on any­one. If I do decide to get out there and start
dat­ing again, it would be nice to have some decent cloth­ing. Even if it is all
white.
“Okay,” I agree. “Thank you so much. This is so gen­er­ous of you.”
“You’re very wel­come! I hope you enjoy them!”
“And if you ever decide you want it back, just let me know.”
When she throws back her head and laughs, her dou­ble chin wob­bles. “I
don’t think I’m going to drop any dress sizes any­time soon. Espe­cial­ly since
Andy and I are hav­ing a baby.”
My mouth falls open. “You’re preg­nant?”
I’m not sure if Nina being preg­nant is a good or bad thing. Although
that would explain her mood­i­ness. But she shakes her head. “Not yet.
We’ve been try­ing for a bit, but no luck. But we’re both real­ly eager to have

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
10
One breath, the study was intact.
The next, it was shards of noth­ing, a shell of a room.
None of it had touched me from where I had dropped to the floor, my
hands over my head.
Tam­lin was pant­i­ng, the ragged breaths almost like sobs.
I was shaking—shaking so hard I thought my bones would splin­ter as the
fur­ni­ture had—but I made myself low­er my arms and look at him.
There was dev­as­ta­tion on that face. And pain. And fear. And grief.
Around me, no debris had fallen—as if he had shield­ed me.
Tam­lin took a step toward me, over that invis­i­ble demar­ca­tion.
He recoiled as if he’d hit some­thing sol­id.
“Feyre,” he rasped.
He stepped again—and that line held.
“Feyre, please,” he breathed.
And I real­ized that the line, that bub­ble of pro­tec­tion …
It was from me.
A shield. Not just a men­tal one—but a phys­i­cal one, too.
I didn’t know what High Lord it had come from, who con­trolled air or
wind or any of that. Per­haps one of the Solar Courts. I didn’t care.
“Feyre,” Tam­lin groaned a third time, push­ing a hand against what
indeed looked like an invis­i­ble, curved wall of hard­ened air. “Please.
Please.”
Those words cracked some­thing in me. Cracked me open.
Per­haps they cracked that shield of sol­id wind as well, for his hand shot
through it.
Then he stepped over that line between chaos and order, dan­ger and
safe­ty.
He dropped to his knees, tak­ing my face in his hands. “I’m sor­ry, I’m
sor­ry.”
I couldn’t stop trem­bling.
“I’ll try,” he breathed. “I’ll try to be bet­ter. I don’t … I can’t con­trol it
some­times. The rage. Today was just … today was bad. With the Tithe,
with all of it. Today—let’s for­get it, let’s just move past it. Please.”
I didn’t fight as he slid his arms around me, tuck­ing me in tight­ly enough
that his warmth soaked through me. He buried his face in my neck and said
onto my nape, as if the words would be absorbed by my body, as if he could
only say it the way we’d always been good at communicating—skin to skin,
“I couldn’t save you before. I couldn’t pro­tect you from them. And when
you said that, about … about me drown­ing you … Am I any bet­ter than
they were?”
I should have told him it wasn’t true, but … I had spo­ken with my heart.
Or what was left of it.
“I’ll try to be bet­ter,” he said again. “Please—give me more time. Let me
… let me get through this. Please.”
Get through what? I want­ed to ask. But words had aban­doned me. I
real­ized I hadn’t spo­ken yet.
Real­ized he was wait­ing for an answer—and that I didn’t have one.
So I put my arms around him, because body to body was the only way I
could speak, too.
It was answer enough. “I’m sor­ry,” he said again. He didn’t stop
mur­mur­ing it for min­utes.
You’ve giv­en enough, Feyre.
Per­haps he was right. And per­haps I didn’t have any­thing left to give,
any­way.
I looked over his shoul­der as I held him.
The red paint had splat­tered on the wall behind us. And as I watched it
slide down the cracked wood pan­el­ing, I thought it looked like blood.
Tam­lin didn’t stop apol­o­giz­ing for days. He made love to me, morn­ing and
night. He wor­shipped my body with his hands, his tongue, his teeth. But
that had nev­er been the hard part. We just got tripped up with the rest.
But he was good for his word.
There were few­er guards as I walked the grounds. Some remained, but no
one haunt­ed my steps. I even went on a ride through the wood with­out an
escort.
Though I knew the sta­ble hands had report­ed to Tam­lin the moment I’d
left—and returned.
Tam­lin nev­er men­tioned that shield of sol­id wind I’d used against him.
And things were good enough that I didn’t dare bring it up, either.
The days passed in a blur. Tam­lin was away more often than not, and
when­ev­er he returned, he didn’t tell me any­thing. I’d long since stopped
pes­ter­ing him for answers. A protector—that’s who he was, and would
always be. What I had want­ed when I was cold and hard and joy­less; what I
had need­ed to melt the ice of bit­ter years on the cusp of star­va­tion.
I didn’t have the nerve to won­der what I want­ed or need­ed now. Who I
had become.
So with idle­ness my only option, I spent my days in the library.
Prac­tic­ing my read­ing and writ­ing. Adding to that men­tal shield, brick by
brick, lay­er by lay­er. Some­times see­ing if I could sum­mon that phys­i­cal
wall of sol­id air, too. Savor­ing the silence, even as it crept into my veins,
my head.
Some days, I didn’t speak to any­one at all. Even Alis.
I awoke each night, shak­ing and pant­i­ng. And became glad when Tam­lin
wasn’t there to wit­ness it. When I, too, didn’t wit­ness him being yanked
from his dreams, cold sweat coat­ing his body. Or shift­ing into that beast and
stay­ing awake until dawn, mon­i­tor­ing the estate for threats. What could I
say to calm those fears, when I was the source of so many of them?
But he returned for an extend­ed stay about two weeks after the Tithe—
and I’d decid­ed to try to talk, to inter­act. I owed it to him to try. Owed it to
myself.
He seemed to have the same idea. And the first time in a while … things
felt nor­mal. Or as nor­mal as they could be.
I awoke one morn­ing to the sound of low, deep voic­es in the hall­way
out­side my bed­room. Clos­ing my eyes, I nes­tled into the pil­low and pulled
the blan­kets high­er. Despite our morn­ing roll in the sheets, I’d been ris­ing
lat­er every day—sometimes not both­er­ing to get out of bed until lunch.
A growl cut through the walls, and I opened my eyes again.
“Get out,” Tam­lin warned.
There was a qui­et response—too soft for me to make out beyond basic
mum­bling.
“I’ll say it one last time—”
He was inter­rupt­ed by that voice, and the hair on my arms rose. I stud­ied
the tat­too on my fore­arm as I did a tal­ly. No—no, today couldn’t have come
so quick­ly.
Kick­ing back the cov­ers, I rushed to the door, real­iz­ing halfway there that
I was naked. Thanks to Tam­lin, my clothes had been shred­ded and flung
across the oth­er side of the room, and I had no robe in sight. I grabbed a
blan­ket from a near­by chair and wrapped it around me before open­ing the
door a crack.
Sure enough, Tam­lin and Rhysand stood in the hall­way. Upon hear­ing the
door open, Rhys turned toward me. The grin that had been on his face
fal­tered.
“Feyre.” Rhys’s eyes lin­gered, tak­ing in every detail. “Are you run­ning
low on food here?”
“What?” Tam­lin demand­ed.
Those vio­let eyes had gone cold. Rhys extend­ed a hand toward me.
“Let’s go.”
Tam­lin was in Rhysand’s face in an instant, and I flinched. “Get out.” He
point­ed toward the stair­case. “She’ll come to you when she’s ready.”
Rhysand just brushed an invis­i­ble fleck of dust off Tamlin’s sleeve. Part
of me admired the sheer nerve it must have tak­en. Had Tamlin’s teeth been
inch­es from my throat, I would have bleat­ed in pan­ic.
Rhys cut a glance at me. “No, you wouldn’t have. As far as your mem­o­ry
serves me, the last time Tamlin’s teeth were near your throat, you slapped
him across the face.” I snapped up my for­got­ten shields, scowl­ing.
“Shut your mouth,” Tam­lin said, step­ping fur­ther between us. “And get
out.”
The High Lord con­ced­ed a step toward the stairs and slid his hands into
his pock­ets. “You real­ly should have your wards inspect­ed. Caul­dron knows
what oth­er sort of riffraff might stroll in here as eas­i­ly as I did.” Again,
Rhys assessed me, his gaze hard. “Put some clothes on.”
I bared my teeth at him as I stepped back into my room. Tam­lin fol­lowed
after me, slam­ming the door hard enough that the chan­de­liers shud­dered,
send­ing shards of light shiv­er­ing over the walls.
I dropped the blan­ket and strode for the armoire across the room, the
mat­tress groan­ing behind me as Tam­lin sank onto the bed. “How did he get
in here?” I asked, throw­ing open the doors and rifling through the clothes
until I found the turquoise Night Court attire I’d asked Alis to keep. I knew
she’d want­ed to burn them, but I told her I’d wind up com­ing home with
anoth­er set any­way.
“I don’t know,” Tam­lin said. I slipped on my pants, twist­ing to find him
run­ning a hand through his hair. I felt the lie beneath his words. “He just—
it’s just part of what­ev­er game he’s play­ing.”
I tugged the short shirt over my head. “If war is com­ing, maybe we’d be
bet­ter served try­ing to mend things.” We hadn’t spo­ken of that sub­ject since
my first day back. I dug through the bot­tom of the armoire for the match­ing
silk shoes, and turned to him as I slid them on.
“I’ll start mend­ing things the day he releas­es you from your bar­gain.”
“Maybe he’s keep­ing the bar­gain so that you’ll attempt to lis­ten to him.” I
strode to where he sat on the bed, my pants a bit loos­er around the waist
than last month.
“Feyre,” he said, reach­ing for me, but I stepped out of range. “Why do
you need to know these things? Is it not enough for you to recov­er in peace?
You earned that for your­self. You earned it. I relaxed the num­ber of sen­tries
here; I’ve been try­ing … try­ing to be bet­ter about it. So leave the rest of it
—” He took a steady­ing breath. “This isn’t the time for this con­ver­sa­tion.”
It was nev­er the time for this con­ver­sa­tion, or that con­ver­sa­tion. But I
didn’t say it. I didn’t have the ener­gy to say it, and all the words dried up
and blew away. So I mem­o­rized the lines of Tamlin’s face, and didn’t fight
him as he pulled me to his chest and held me tight­ly.
Some­one coughed from the hall, and Tamlin’s body seized up around me.

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.

W E HAD A BEAUTIFUL WEDDING. Three hun­dred guests, host­ed by
Mary and Roger Adler. Ruby was my maid of hon­or. I wore a jew­el-
necked taffe­ta gown, cov­ered with rose-point lace, with sleeves down
to my wrists and a full lace skirt. It was designed by Vivian Wor­ley, the
head cos­tumer for Sun­set. Gwen­dolyn did my hair, pulled back into a
sim­ple but flaw­less bun, to which my tulle veil was attached. There
wasn’t much of the wed­ding that was planned by us; it was con­trolled
almost entire­ly by Mary and Roger and the rest by Sun­set.
Don was expect­ed to play the game exact­ly the way his par­ents
want­ed it played. Even then I could tell he was eager to get out of their
shad­ow, to eclipse their star­dom with his own. Don had been raised to
believe that fame was the only pow­er worth pur­su­ing, and what I loved
about him was that he was ready to become the most pow­er­ful per­son
in any room by becom­ing the most adored.
And while our wed­ding might have been at the whim of oth­ers, our
love and our com­mit­ment to each oth­er felt sacred. When Don and I
looked into each other’s eyes and held hands as we said “I do” at the
Bev­er­ly Hills Hotel, it felt like it was just the two of us up there, despite
being sur­round­ed by half of Hol­ly­wood.
Toward the end of the night, after the wed­ding bells and our
announce­ment as a mar­ried cou­ple, Har­ry pulled me aside. He asked
me how I was doing.
“I’m the most famous bride in the world right now,” I said. “I’m
great.”
Har­ry laughed. “You’ll be hap­py?” he asked. “With Don? He’s going
to take good care of you?”
“I have no doubt about it.”
I believed in my heart that I’d found some­one who under­stood me,
or at least under­stood the me I was try­ing to be. At the age of
nine­teen, I thought Don was my hap­py end­ing.
Har­ry put his arm around me and said, “I’m hap­py for you, kid.”
I grabbed his hand before he could pull it away. I’d had two glass­es
of cham­pagne, and I was feel­ing fresh. “How come you nev­er tried
any­thing?” I asked him. “We’ve known each oth­er a few years now. Not
even a kiss on the cheek.”
“I’ll kiss you on the cheek if you want,” Har­ry said, smil­ing.
“Not what I mean, and you know it.”
“Did you want some­thing to hap­pen?” he asked me.
I wasn’t attract­ed to Har­ry Cameron. Despite the fact that he was a
cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly attrac­tive man. “No,” I said. “I don’t think I did.”
“But you want­ed me to want some­thing to hap­pen?”
I smiled. “And what if I did? Is that so wrong? I’m an actress, Har­ry.
Don’t you for­get that.”
Har­ry laughed. “You have ‘actress’ writ­ten all over your face. I
remem­ber it every sin­gle day.”
“Then why, Har­ry? What’s the truth?”
Har­ry took a sip of his scotch and took his arm off me. “It’s hard to
explain.”
“Try.”
“You’re young.”
I waved him off. “Most men don’t seem to have any prob­lem with a
lit­tle thing like that. My own hus­band is sev­en years old­er than me.”
I looked over to see Don sway­ing with his moth­er on the dance
floor. Mary was still gor­geous in her fifties. She’d come to fame dur­ing
the silent-film era and did a few talkies before retir­ing. She was tall and
intim­i­dat­ing, with a face that was strik­ing more than any­thing.
Har­ry took anoth­er swig of his scotch and put the glass down. He
looked thought­ful. “It’s a long and com­pli­cat­ed sto­ry. But suf­fice it to
say, you’ve just nev­er been my type.”
The way he said it, I knew he was try­ing to tell me some­thing.
Har­ry wasn’t inter­est­ed in girls like me. Har­ry wasn’t inter­est­ed in
girls at all.

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.

10
Justin Tim­ber­lake and I had stayed in touch after the Mick­ey Mouse Club and
enjoyed spend­ing time togeth­er on the NSYNC tour. Hav­ing shared that
expe­ri­ence at such a young age gave us a short­hand. We had so much in
com­mon. We met up when I was on tour and start­ed hang­ing out dur­ing the day
before shows and then after shows, too. Pret­ty soon I real­ized that I was head
over heels in love with him—so in love with him it was pathet­ic.
When he and I were any­where in the same vicinity—his mom even said this
—we were like mag­nets. We’d just �nd each oth­er imme­di­ate­ly and stick
togeth­er. You couldn’t explain the way we were togeth­er. It was weird, to be
hon­est, how in love we were. His band, NSYNC, was what peo­ple back then
called “so pimp.” They were white boys, but they loved hip-hop. To me that’s
what sep­a­rat­ed them from the Back­street Boys, who seemed very con­scious­ly to
posi­tion them­selves as a white group. NSYNC hung out with Black artists.
Some­times I thought they tried too hard to �t in. One day J and I were in New
York, going to parts of town I’d nev­er been to before. Walk­ing our way was a guy
with a huge, blinged-out medal­lion. He was �anked by two giant secu­ri­ty
guards.
J got all excit­ed and said, so loud, “Oh yeah, fo shiz, fo shiz! Gin­uwi­i­i­i­i­ine!
What’s up, homie?”
After Gin­uwine walked away, Feli­cia did an impres­sion of J: “Oh yeah, fo
shiz, fo shiz! Gin­uwi­i­i­i­i­ine!”
J wasn’t even embar­rassed. He just took it and looked at her like, Okay, fuck
you, Fe.
That was the trip where he got his �rst necklace—a big T for Tim­ber­lake.
I had a hard time being as care­free as he seemed. I couldn’t help but notice
that the ques­tions he got asked by talk show hosts were di�erent from the ones
they asked me. Every­one kept mak­ing strange com­ments about my breasts,
want­i­ng to know whether or not I’d had plas­tic surgery.
Press could be uncom­fort­able, but at awards shows, I felt real joy. The child
in me got a thrill see­ing Steven Tyler from Aero­smith for the �rst time at the
MTV Video Music Awards. I saw him com­ing in late, wear­ing some­thing
fan­tas­tic that looked like a wizard’s cape. I gasped. It felt sur­re­al to see him in
per­son. Lenny Kravitz came in late, too. And, again, I thought, Leg­ends! Leg­ends
every­where I look!
I start­ed run­ning into Madon­na all over the world. I would do shows in
Ger­many and Italy, and we would end up per­form­ing at the same Euro­pean
awards shows. We’d greet each oth­er as friends.
At one awards show, I knocked on Mari­ah Carey’s dress­ing room door. She
opened it and out poured the most beau­ti­ful, oth­er­world­ly light. You know how
we all have ring lights now? Well, more than twen­ty years ago, only Mari­ah
Carey knew about ring lights. And no, I can’t say just her �rst name. To me she
is always going to be Mari­ah Carey.
I asked if we could take a pho­to togeth­er and tried to take one where we were
stand­ing, and she said, “No! Come stand here, dar­ling. This is my light. This is
my side. I want you to stand here so I can get my good side, girl.” She kept say­ing
that in her deep, beau­ti­ful voice: “My good side, girl. My good side, girl.”
I did every­thing Mari­ah Carey told me to do and we took the pho­to. Of
course she was com­plete­ly right about everything—the pho­to looked incred­i­ble.
I know I won an award that night, but I couldn’t even tell you what it was. The
per­fect pho­to with Mari­ah Carey—that was the real prize.
Mean­while, I was break­ing records, becom­ing one of the best-sell­ing female
artists of all time. Peo­ple kept call­ing me the Princess of Pop.
At the 2000 VMAs, I sang the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No)
Sat­is­fac­tion” and then “Oops!… I Did It Again” while going from a suit and hat
to a glit­tery biki­ni top and tight pants, my long hair down. Wade Rob­son
chore­o­graphed it—he always knew how to make me look strong and fem­i­nine at
the same time. Dur­ing the dance breaks in the cage, I did pos­es that made me
look girly in the mid­dle of an aggres­sive per­for­mance.
Lat­er, MTV sat me down in front of a mon­i­tor and made me watch strangers
in Times Square give their opin­ions of my per­for­mance. Some of them said I did
a good job, but an awful lot of them seemed to be focused on my hav­ing worn a
skimpy out�t. They said that I was dress­ing “too sexy,” and there­by set­ting a bad
exam­ple for kids.
The cam­eras were trained on me, wait­ing to see how I would react to this
crit­i­cism, if I would take it well or if I would cry. Did I do some­thing wrong? I
won­dered. I’d just danced my heart out on the awards show. I nev­er said I was a
role mod­el. All I want­ed to do was sing and dance.
The MTV show host kept push­ing. What did I think of the com­menters
telling me I was cor­rupt­ing America’s youth?
Final­ly, I said, “Some of them were very sweet… But I’m not the children’s
par­ents. I just got­ta be me. I know there are going to be peo­ple out there—I
know not everyone’s gonna like me.”
It shook me up. And it was my �rst real taste of a back­lash that would last
years. It felt like every time I turned on an enter­tain­ment show, yet anoth­er
per­son was tak­ing shots at me, say­ing I wasn’t “authen­tic.”
I was nev­er quite sure what all these crit­ics thought I was sup­posed to be
doing—a Bob Dylan impres­sion? I was a teenage girl from the South. I signed
my name with a heart. I liked look­ing cute. Why did every­one treat me, even
when I was a teenag­er, like I was dan­ger­ous?
Mean­while, I start­ed to notice more and more old­er men in the audi­ence, and
some­times it would freak me out to see them leer­ing at me like I was some kind
of Loli­ta fan­ta­sy for them, espe­cial­ly when no one could seem to think of me as
both sexy and capa­ble, or tal­ent­ed and hot. If I was sexy, they seemed to think I
must be stu­pid. If I was hot, I couldn’t pos­si­bly be tal­ent­ed.
I wish back then I’d known the Dol­ly Par­ton joke: “I’m not o�ended by all
the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb. And I also know that I’m
not blonde.” My real hair col­or is black.
Try­ing to �nd ways to pro­tect my heart from crit­i­cism and to keep the focus
on what was impor­tant, I start­ed read­ing reli­gious books like the Con­ver­sa­tions

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 10
She sat with Mrs. Greene, reas­sur­ing her that it wasn’t her fault,
while they wait­ed for Miss Mary to fall back asleep. After the old lady
began to breathe deep and reg­u­lar, she stood in the dri­ve­way and
watched Mrs. Greene’s car back out and won­dered how tonight had
gone so wrong. It was part­ly her fault. She’d ambushed every­one
with James Har­ris and they’d ambushed him back. Part­ly it was the
book. Every­one felt irri­tat­ed at hav­ing to read it, but some­times they
humored Slick because they all felt a lit­tle sor­ry for her. But most­ly it
was Miss Mary. She won­dered if she was get­ting to be too much for
them to han­dle any­more. If Carter got home from the hos­pi­tal before
eleven she’d bring it up with him.
An intol­er­a­bly hot wind screamed off the har­bor and filled the air
with the hiss of bam­boo leaves. The air felt heavy and thick and
Patri­cia won­dered if it might be mak­ing every­one rest­less. The live
oaks whipped their branch­es in cir­cles over­head. The lone street­light
at the end of the dri­ve­way cast a slen­der sil­ver cone that made the
night around it black­er, and Patri­cia felt exposed. She smelled the
ghost of used incon­ti­nence pads and spilled cof­fee grounds, and she
saw Mrs. Sav­age squat­ting in her night­gown, shov­ing raw meat in
her mouth, and Miss Mary stand­ing naked in the door­way, a skinned
squir­rel, hair stream­ing water, wav­ing a use­less pho­to­graph, and she
ran for the front door and slammed it behind her, push­ing it hard
against the wind, and shot the dead­bolt home.
Some­thing small screamed in the kitchen, then all over the house.
She real­ized it was the phone.
“Patri­cia?” the voice said when she picked up. She didn’t rec­og­nize
it over the inter­fer­ence at first. “Grace Cavanaugh. I’m sor­ry to call so
late.”
The phone line crack­led. Patricia’s heart still pound­ed.
“Grace, it’s not too late at all,” Patri­cia said, try­ing to slow down.
“I’m so sor­ry about what hap­pened.”
“I called to see how Miss Mary is doing,” Grace said.
“She’s asleep.”
“And I want­ed you to know that we all under­stand,” Grace said.
“These things hap­pen with the elder­ly.”
“I’m sor­ry about James Har­ris,” Patri­cia said. “I meant to tell
every­one, I just kept putting it off.”
“It’s unfor­tu­nate he was there,” Grace said. “Men don’t know what
it’s like to care for an aging rel­a­tive.”
“Are you upset with me?” Patri­cia asked. In their five years of
friend­ship it was the most direct ques­tion she’d ever asked.
“Why would I be upset with you?”
“About invit­ing James Har­ris,” Patri­cia said.
“We’re not school­girls, Patri­cia. I blame the book for the qual­i­ty of
the evening. Good night.”
Grace hung up.
Patri­cia stood in the kitchen hold­ing the phone for a moment, then
hung up. Why wasn’t Carter here? It was his moth­er. He need­ed to
see her like this, and then maybe he’d under­stand that they need­ed
more help. The wind rat­tled the kitchen win­dows and she didn’t want
to be alone down­stairs any­more.
She went up and knocked gen­tly on Korey’s door while push­ing it
open. The lights were out and the room was dark, which con­fused
Patri­cia. Why on earth was Korey asleep so ear­ly? The hall light
spilled across Korey’s bed. It was emp­ty.
“Korey?” Patri­cia said into the dark­ness.
“Mom,” Korey said from the shad­ows by her clos­et, her voice low
and even. “There’s some­one on the roof.”
Cold water flood­ed Patricia’s veins. She stepped out of the hall
light and into Korey’s bed­room, stand­ing to one side of the door.
“Where?” she whis­pered.
“Over the garage,” Korey whis­pered back.
The two of them stood like that for a long moment until Patri­cia
real­ized she was the only adult in the house, which meant she had to
do some­thing. She forced her legs to car­ry her to the win­dow.
“Don’t let him see you,” Korey said.
Patri­cia made her­self stand right in front of the win­dow, expect­ing
to see the dark shape of a man out­lined against the night sky, but she
only saw the sharp, black line of the roof’s edge with thrash­ing
bam­boo behind it. She jumped when she heard Korey’s voice beside
her.
“I saw him,” Korey said. “I promise.”
“He’s not there now,” Patri­cia said.
She walked to the door and flipped on the over­head light. They
both stood, daz­zled, while their eyes adjust­ed. The first thing she saw
was a half-emp­ty bowl of old cere­al on the win­dowsill, the milk and
corn flakes dried into con­crete. She’d asked Korey not to leave food
in her room, but her daugh­ter looked scared and vul­ner­a­ble and
Patri­cia decid­ed not to say any­thing.
“There’s going to be a storm,” Patri­cia said. “But I’ll leave your
door open and the hall light on so your father remem­bers to say good
night when he comes home.”
She pulled Korey’s com­forter back. “Do you want to read your
book?”
Her eye caught the top of the blue plas­tic milk crate Korey used for
a bed­side table. A copy of ’Salem’s Lot by Stephen King lay on top of
a stack of Sassy mag­a­zines. Sud­den­ly it all made sense.
Korey saw her see the book. “I didn’t make it up,” she said.
“I don’t think you did,” Patri­cia said.
Dis­armed by Patricia’s refusal to argue, Korey got into bed and
Patri­cia left the bed­side lamp on, turned off the over­head light, and
left the door open. In his bed­room, Blue was already in bed, cov­ers
pulled up.
“Good night, Blue,” Patri­cia called to him across his dark room.
“There’s a man in the back­yard,” Blue said.
“It’s the wind,” she said, pick­ing her way between the clothes and
action fig­ures on his floor. “It makes the house sound scary. Do you
want me to leave the light on?”
“He climbed up on the roof,” Blue said, and right at that moment
Patri­cia heard a foot­step direct­ly over­head.
It wasn’t a limb falling or a branch scrap­ing. It wasn’t the wind
mak­ing the house creak. Just a few feet over her head came a
delib­er­ate, qui­et thump.
Her blood stopped in its veins. Her head craned back so far she put
a crick in her neck. The silence hummed. Then anoth­er qui­et thump,
this time between her and Blue. Some­one was walk­ing on the roof.
“Blue,” Patri­cia said. “Come.”
He flew out of bed and grabbed her around the waist. She walked
them in a straight line, step­ping on his books and action fig­ures.
Plas­tic men snapped beneath their feet as they rushed to his
bed­room door.
“Korey,” she said, qui­et and urgent from the hall. “Come on.”
Korey flowed out of her bed and ran to the oth­er side of her
moth­er, and Patri­cia herd­ed them both down the front stairs and sat
them on the bot­tom step.
“I need you to wait here,” Patri­cia whis­pered. “I’ll check the doors.”
She walked quick­ly through the dark down­stairs den to the back
door and turned the dead­bolt, expect­ing to see the shad­owy shape of
a man through the door right before he smashed through the glass
and yanked her out into the wild night. She made sure the sun porch
door was deadbolted—they had too many doors—then went down the
steps to Miss Mary’s room, turn­ing on the light as she went.
Miss Mary came to life on her bed, squirm­ing and moan­ing, but
Patri­cia kept on walk­ing to the util­i­ty room, where she made sure the
door to the garbage cans was dead­bolt­ed, too.
She went to the front hall and turned on the porch lights, then
went to the sun porch and snapped on the flood­lights that lit up the
back­yard.
“Korey,” Patri­cia called from the sun porch, her eyes glued to the
mer­ci­less white glare of the back­yard, the flood­lights pick­ing out
every blade of yel­lowed grass. “Bring me the portable phone.”
She heard feet run­ning from the front hall across the liv­ing room,
and then her chil­dren were beside her. Korey pressed a hard plas­tic
rec­tan­gle into her palm. She had the upper hand. The doors were
locked, they could see every­thing around them, and they were secure.
She could call the Mt. Pleas­ant police depart­ment in a flash.
Maryellen said their response time was three min­utes.
She kept her thumb over the dial but­ton and they stood, eyes glued
to the win­dows. The flood­lights erased every shad­ow: the strange
hol­low depres­sion in the cen­ter of the yard, the trunks of the oak
trees with their bark stained yel­low by the iron-rich Mt. Pleas­ant
water, the gera­ni­um bush­es against the fence sep­a­rat­ing their
prop­er­ty from the Langs, the flower beds on the oth­er side sep­a­rat­ing
their yard from the Mitchells.
But beyond the reach of the lights, the night was a black wall.
Patri­cia felt eyes out there look­ing into her house, watch­ing her and
the chil­dren through the glass. The scar tis­sue on her left ear began
to crawl. The wind tossed the bush­es and trees. The house creaked
qui­et­ly to itself. They all watched, look­ing for some­thing that didn’t
belong.
“Mom,” Blue said, low and even.
She saw his gaze fixed on the top of the sun porch win­dows. The
roof of the sun porch was a shin­gled over­hang out­side her bed­room
win­dows, and along its edge Patri­cia caught some­thing slow­ly and
delib­er­ate­ly move and she knew imme­di­ate­ly what it was: a human
hand, let­ting go of the edge of the over­hang and with­draw­ing back up
out of sight.
She had the phone against her ear in an instant. Sharp sta­t­ic
cracks made her yank it away.
“911?” she said. “Hel­lo? My name is Patri­cia Camp­bell.” The line
ZZZr­rrrkkKKKed in her ear. “My chil­dren and I are at 22 Pier­ates
Cruze.” A series of hol­low pops cov­ered the faint sound of a human
voice yab­ber­ing on the oth­er end. “There is an intrud­er in our house
and I’m here with my chil­dren alone.”
That was when she remem­bered her bath­room win­dow was wide
open.
“Keep try­ing,” Patri­cia said, thrust­ing the phone into Korey’s hand,
not giv­ing her­self a sec­ond to think. “Stay here and dial again.”
Patri­cia raced across the dark liv­ing room and heard Korey say
behind her, “Please,” to the oper­a­tor as she turned the cor­ner and
ran up the dark stairs.
From the over­hang over the sun porch it was just a short chin-up
to the main roof, then up one side, down the oth­er, and a short drop
onto the porch roof right out­side her bath­room, then in through the
bath­room win­dow. She’d opened it ear­li­er to let out the smell of her
hair­spray.
She felt some­thing dark and heavy above her on the roof rac­ing her
to the open win­dow. Her legs pushed her weight hard up the stairs,
chest heav­ing, breath burn­ing in her throat, pulse crack­ing behind
her ears, hurl­ing her­self around the ban­is­ter at the top of the stairs
and into her dark bed­room.
To her left she saw the har­bor out the win­dows; to her right she
felt hot air blow­ing in from the bath­room win­dow, and she threw
her­self toward it, run­ning down the dark tun­nel of her bed­room and
into the bath­room, clos­ets on one side, smash­ing her stom­ach into
the sharp edge of the counter, reach­ing for the win­dow, slam­ming it
shut, turn­ing the latch, and some­thing dark flashed past out­side,
cut­ting off the night sky. She yanked her hands back like the win­dow
was on fire.
They had to get out of the house. Then she remem­bered Miss
Mary. She wasn’t capa­ble of run­ning, or prob­a­bly even leav­ing the
house and walk­ing across the back­yard in the mid­dle of the night.
Some­one would have to stay with her. She raced through her dark
bed­room, back down the stairs, and into the liv­ing room.
“The phone doesn’t work,” Korey said, hold­ing out the portable
hand­set to her.
“We have to go,” she told Korey and Blue. She took their hands and
led them through the din­ing room and into the kitchen toward the
back door.
Some­one want­ed to get into the house. She had no idea when
Carter was com­ing home. They had no way to call for help. She
need­ed to get to a phone, and she need­ed to get who­ev­er it was away
from her chil­dren.
“I want you to go into the garage room with Miss Mary,” she told
them. “And lock the door as soon as you’re inside. Don’t let any­one
in.”
“What about you?” Korey asked.
“I’m going to run to the Langs’ and call the police,” Patri­cia said.
She looked out over the bright back­yard. “I’ll only be gone a minute.”
Blue began to cry. Patri­cia unlocked the back door.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Mom?”
“No ques­tions,” she said. “Lock your­selves in with your
grand­moth­er.”
Then she turned the han­dle and opened the door, and a man
stepped into the house.
Patri­cia screamed. The man grabbed her by the arms.
“Whoa,” James Har­ris said.
Patri­cia swayed and the floor rose to meet her. James Harris’s
strong arms held her up as her knees gave out.
“I saw the lights on back here,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a man,” Patri­cia said, relieved that help had arrived,
speak­ing over her pound­ing heart. “On the roof. We tried to call the
police. The phone isn’t work­ing.”
“Okay,” James Har­ris reas­sured her. “I’m here. There’s no need to
call the police. No one’s hurt?”
“We’re fine,” Patri­cia said.
“I should check on Miss Mary,” James Har­ris said, gen­tly push­ing
Patri­cia back against the counter and step­ping past her and the
chil­dren. He moved away from them, going far­ther and far­ther into
the den.
“I need to call the police,” Patri­cia said.
“No need,” James Har­ris told her from the mid­dle of the den.
“They’ll be here in three min­utes,” she said.
“Let me check on Miss Mary and then I’ll look on the roof,” James
Har­ris said from the far end of the den.
Sud­den­ly, Patri­cia didn’t want James Har­ris in the room alone
with Miss Mary.
“No!” she said, too loud.
He stopped, one hand on the garage room door, and turned slow­ly.
“Patri­cia,” he said. “Calm down.”
“The police?” she asked, step­ping toward the kitchen phone.
“Don’t,” he told her, and she won­dered why he was telling her not
to call the police. “Don’t do any­thing, don’t call any­one.”
Which was when a blue light flick­ered across the walls and strong
white lights flood­ed the den win­dows.
—
Carter arrived forty-five min­utes lat­er while the police were still
pok­ing through the bush­es with their flash­lights. One of them was
using his big car-mount­ed spot­light to light up two offi­cers on the
roof. Gee Mitchell and her hus­band, Beau, stood in their dri­ve­way
next door and watched.
“Pat­ty?” Carter called from the front hall.
“We’re in here,” she hollered, and a moment lat­er he came down
the steps into the garage room.
Patri­cia had decid­ed they should all stay togeth­er in Miss Mary’s
room. James Har­ris had already spo­ken to the police and left. He’d
returned to make sure Patri­cia was all right after her moth­er-in-law

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.

10
I didn’t know sheets could actu­al­ly smell soft, but Eddie’s do.
Every morn­ing when I wake up in that big uphol­stered bed, I hold the sheets up to my nose and
inhale, won­der­ing how I got this fuck­ing lucky.
It’s been two weeks since I more or less moved in with Eddie, two weeks of soft linens and
sink­ing into the plush sofa in the liv­ing room in the after­noon, watch­ing bad real­i­ty shows on the
mas­sive tele­vi­sion.
I’m nev­er leav­ing this place.
I get out of the bed slow­ly, my toes curl­ing against the plush rug await­ing my feet. The bed­room is
lux­u­ri­ous in all the right ways—dark wood, deep blues, the occa­sion­al splash of gray. Neu­tral.
Mas­cu­line.
This is one space where Eddie scrubbed out Bea’s style, I can tell. Before, I bet it was decked out
in the same swirling, bright shades as the rest of the house. Pea­cock blue, saf­fron yel­low, bril­liant
fuch­sia. But here, there’s just Eddie.
And now, me.
Eddie is in the kitchen when I wan­der in, already dressed for work.
He smiles at me, a cup of cof­fee already steam­ing in his hand.
“Morn­ing,” he says, hand­ing it to me. The first morn­ing I’d wok­en up here, Eddie had made me a
plain black cup of cof­fee, like I’d had the day we met. Sheep­ish­ly, I’d con­fessed that I actu­al­ly didn’t
like black cof­fee that much, and now I have an expen­sive milk frother at my dis­pos­al, and all kinds of
pricey fla­vored syrups.
Today’s cup smells like cin­na­mon, and I inhale deeply over the mug before tak­ing a sip. “I don’t
know how to tell you this, but I’m only sleep­ing with you for the cof­fee,” I say, and he winks at me.
“My abil­i­ty to make a great cup of cof­fee real­ly is my only redeem­ing val­ue.”
“I think you have a few oth­ers,” I say, and he glances at me, eye­brows raised.
“Just a few?”
I hold my thumb and fore­fin­ger up, putting them close togeth­er, and he laughs, which warms me
almost as much as the cof­fee.
I like him. There’s no get­ting around that. This isn’t just about the house or the mon­ey, although
I’m ful­ly into those things, trust me. But being with Eddie is … nice.
And he likes me. Not just the me I’ve invent­ed, but the flash­es of the real me I’ve let him see.
I want to show him more of the real me, I think. And it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way.
Turn­ing back to the sink, Eddie rins­es out his own cof­fee cup and says, “So, what’s on your
agen­da today?”
I’ve been wait­ing for this moment for the past two weeks, hop­ing he’d ask what I was doing all
day. Because I am still walk­ing those damn dogs. I may stay in Eddie’s house, I may eat the food
Eddie buys, but I’m still on my own for every­thing else. Gas for my car, clothes, odds and ends. I still
tech­ni­cal­ly have rent to pay.
“Dogs,” I reply short­ly, and he looks up, frown­ing slight­ly.
“You’re still doing that?”
Some of the warmth I was feel­ing toward him fades a lit­tle. What did he think I was doing all
day? Just sit­ting around, wait­ing for him to come back?
I hide that irri­ta­tion, though, stand­ing up from the stool with a shrug. “I mean, yeah. I have to make
mon­ey.”
He pulls a face, wip­ing his hands on one of those South­ern Manors tow­els that are all over the
kitchen. This one has a slice of water­mel­on print­ed on it, a per­fect bite tak­en out of one side. “You’re
wel­come to use my card to get what­ev­er you need. And I can add you to my check­ing account today.
My per­son­al one, not the South­ern Manors account. Lot more fuck­ing paper­work to that one, but we
can get that worked out even­tu­al­ly, too.”
I stand there as he turns away again, balling up the tow­el and toss­ing it into the laun­dry room just
off the kitchen.
Is it that easy for men like him? He’s hand­ing me access to thou­sands and thou­sands of dol­lars like
it’s noth­ing, and I could just … take it. Take every­thing, if I want­ed to.
Maybe that’s what it is—it would nev­er occur to him that I would do some­thing like that. That
any­one, espe­cial­ly any woman, could do that.
But since this is exact­ly what I want­ed, I smile at him, shak­ing my head slight­ly. “That would …
that would be amaz­ing, Eddie. Thank you.”
“What’s the point of hav­ing it if my girl can’t spend it, hmm?” He comes around the bar, putting an
arm around my waist and nuz­zling my hair.
“Also,” he says before pulling away, “why don’t you go ahead a pick up your things from your old
place, bring them back here? Make it offi­cial.”
Press­ing a hand against my chest, I give him my best faux-flir­ty look. “Edward Rochester, are you
ask­ing me to move in with you?”
Anoth­er grin as he walks back­ward toward the door. “I think I am. You say­ing yes?”
“Maybe,” I tell him, and that grin widens as he turns back around.
“I’ll leave the card by the door!” he calls out, and I hear the soft slap of plas­tic on mar­ble before
the door opens and clos­es, leav­ing me alone in the house.
My house.
I make myself anoth­er cup of cof­fee, and car­ry it back upstairs to the mas­sive en suite, my favorite
part of the house so far.
Like near­ly every­thing else here, the bath­room is over­sized, but not over­whelm­ing. Bea’s stamp is
here, too, of course. Had Eddie designed this room, I think it would prob­a­bly be sleek­er, more
mod­ern. Glass and steel and sub­way tile. Instead, it’s mar­ble and cop­per with a tile floor with a
mosa­ic of—shocker—a mag­no­lia in the cen­ter.
I scuff my bare toe against one of the dark green leaves before mak­ing my way to the tub.
We had a bath­tub in the apart­ment, but I’d have to be high to actu­al­ly take a bath in it. Not only is
it cramped and stained with black mold in the cor­ners, but the thought of my naked body sit­ting where
John takes a show­er? Too hor­ri­ble to con­tem­plate. No, I’ve always tak­en the world’s fastest show­ers,
cring­ing every time the show­er cur­tain touch­es me.
I fuck­ing deserve this bath­tub.
Sit­ting on the edge, I lean for­ward and turn on the hot tap, cof­fee cup still in one hand as I test the
water with the fin­gers of the oth­er.
I’ll get to take a bath in here every day now, for­ev­er. This is how I’ll spend my morn­ings. No
more dri­ve from Cen­ter Point.
No more dog-walk­ing.
And once I’m done with today’s soak, I’ll get dressed and dri­ve over to that dingy lit­tle apart­ment
before putting it behind me and nev­er look­ing back.
I take what Eddie calls “the sen­si­ble car,” a Mer­cedes SUV, and make my way from the shady
enclaves of Moun­tain Brook to the strip malls and ugly apart­ment com­plex­es of my old home.
It feels strange, park­ing such a nice car in the space where I used to park my beat-up Hyundai, and
stranger still to walk up the con­crete steps in my new leather san­dals, the clack of my heels loud
enough to make me flinch.
Num­ber 234 looks even dingi­er some­how, and I dig my keys out of my purse.
But when I put the key in, I real­ize the door is unlocked, and I frown as I step inside. John’s a
moron, but he’s not the type to be this care­less.
And then I real­ize it’s me who’s the care­less one because I should’ve called the church before I
came here this morn­ing, should’ve made sure John had actu­al­ly gone into work and wouldn’t be doing
what he is cur­rent­ly doing—namely, sit­ting on the couch with my afghan draped over him, watch­ing
bor­ing morn­ing tele­vi­sion.
“She returns,” he says around a mouth­ful of cere­al. He could eat cere­al for every meal, I think,
always the cheap, sug­ary shit they make for kids. Nev­er brand names, so things like “Fruity Ohs” and
“Sug­ar Flakes.” What­ev­er he’s shov­el­ing into his mouth now has turned the milk a mud­dy gray, and I
don’t even both­er to hide my dis­gust as I ask, “Shouldn’t you be at the church?”
John shrugs, his eyes still on the TV. “Day off.”
Great.
He turns to say more then, and his eyes go a lit­tle wide when he sees me. “What are you
wear­ing?”
I want to make some kind of joke about sav­ing those lines for his inter­net girl­friends, but that
would pro­long this inter­ac­tion and that’s the last thing I need, so I just wave him off and make for my
room.
The door is open even though I dis­tinct­ly remem­ber clos­ing it, and I press my lips togeth­er,
irri­tat­ed. But my bed is still made up, and when I open a draw­er, all my under­wear appears to be
account­ed for, so that’s a relief, at least.
Reach­ing under the bed, I pull out my bat­tered duf­fel bag, and have already unzipped it before I
stop and look around.
It’s not like I didn’t know my room was deeply sad. No mat­ter what I did, it always looked
grub­by and just a lit­tle insti­tu­tion­al, almost like a cell.
But now, after two weeks liv­ing in Eddie’s house?
There is not a sin­gle thing I want to take with me.
I want to leave all of this—the dull­ness, the cheap fab­rics, the frayed edges—behind.
More than that, real­ly.
I want to set it all on fuck­ing fire.
When I walk out of the bed­room, I’m not car­ry­ing any­thing. Not the duf­fel, which I’d shoved back
under the bed. Not my under­wear, which John was now wel­come to be as per­vy as he liked with. Not
even the lit­tle trin­kets and trea­sures I’d tak­en from all the hous­es in Thorn­field Estates.
John turned off the TV, and he now faces me on the couch, my afghan still on his upraised knees.
He’s smirk­ing at me, prob­a­bly because he’s expect­ing me to ask for the blan­ket, and he’s ready to say
some­thing that just skirts the line, some­thing that’s sup­posed to make me won­der if he’s being gross or
not (he is).
He can keep that blan­ket, too.
“I’m mov­ing out,” I say with­out pre­am­ble, shov­ing my hands in my back pock­ets. “I should be all
paid up on rent, so—”
“You can’t just leave.”
Anger sparks inside my chest, but, right on the heels of it, there’s some­thing else.
Joy.
I am nev­er going to look at this asshole’s face again. I’m nev­er going to sleep in this depress­ing
apart­ment or take a sad show­er under trick­ling, luke­warm water. I’m nev­er going to dig mon­ey out of
my pock­et to hand over to John Rivers ever again.
“And yet I am leav­ing. Wild.”
John’s eyes nar­row. “You owe me two weeks’ notice,” he says, and now I laugh, tip­ping my head
back.
“You’re not my land­lord, John,” I say. “You’re just some sad lit­tle boy who thought I’d sleep with
you if you let me stay here. And you over­charged me for rent.”
There’s a dull flush creep­ing up his neck, his low­er lip stick­ing out just the tini­est bit, and once
again, I am so relieved that this is it, the last time I’ll ever have to talk to him.
But soon, peo­ple like John Rivers won’t even exist to me. He bare­ly exists right now.
“I nev­er want­ed to sleep with you,” he mut­ters, his tone still sulky. “You’re not even hot.”
That would’ve stung once upon a time. Even com­ing from some­one like John. I’ve always been
aware of how com­plete­ly plain I am, small, non­de­script. And I’ve def­i­nite­ly felt it when I look at
pic­tures of Bea, her dark, glossy hair swing­ing around that pret­ty face with its high cheek­bones and
wide eyes. That body that was some­how lush and trim at the same time, in con­trast with my own
straight-up-and-down, almost boy­ish body.
But Eddie want­ed me. Small, plain, bor­ing me.
It made me feel beau­ti­ful, for once. And pow­er­ful.
So I look at John and smirk. “Keep telling your­self that,” I say, then I turn and walk out.
I’m not sure hear­ing a door close behind me has ever been this sat­is­fy­ing, and as I walk back to
the car, I actu­al­ly wel­come the slap of my heels, love how loud they are.
Fuck. You, I think with every step. Fuck. You. Fuck. You.
I’m grin­ning when I reach the Mer­cedes, and I grab my keys, press­ing the lit­tle but­ton to unlock
the doors. It takes me a moment to real­ize that there’s a famil­iar red car parked just across the park­ing
lot, and my first thought is that it’s weird any­one here has that nice of a car.
It’s not until Eddie is step­ping out of the driver’s side and walk­ing toward me that my brain ful­ly
absorbs that it’s his car, that he’s … here. In Cen­ter Point. In my shit­ty apart­ment com­plex.
See­ing him is so jar­ring that my instinct is to run away, to jump in my car (his car, my ass­hole
brain reminds me), and get the hell out of here.
“Hey, beau­ti­ful,” he says as he approach­es, keys dan­gling from his fin­gers.
“You fol­lowed me?” I blurt out, glad I’m wear­ing sun­glass­es so that he can’t see my full
expres­sion. I’m rat­tled, not just because it seems weird­ly out of char­ac­ter for Eddie to fol­low me, but
because he’s here. He’s seen this place now, this ugly lit­tle hole I tried to hide from him. Doesn’t
mat­ter that I’m leav­ing it all behind. The fact that he knows it exist­ed at all makes me feel close to
tears.
Sigh­ing, Eddie shoves his hands in his back pock­ets. The wind ruf­fles his hair, and he looks so out
of place stand­ing in this park­ing lot, in this life.
That sense of ver­ti­go gets stronger.
“I know,” Eddie says. “It’s crazy and I shouldn’t have done it.”
Then he gives me a sheep­ish grin. He’s not wear­ing his sun­glass­es, and he squints slight­ly in the
bright light.
“But you make me crazy, what can I say?”
Even though the sun is beat­ing down on us, I feel a chill wash over me.
Eddie is roman­tic, for sure. Pas­sion­ate, def­i­nite­ly. But this … doesn’t feel like him.
You’ve known him for about five min­utes, so maybe you don’t actu­al­ly know him, I remind
myself.
There’s only one way to play this. I smile in return, rolling my eyes as I do. “That is so cheesy,” I
say, but I make sure to look pleased, tug­ging my low­er lip between my teeth to real­ly sell it.
It must work, because his shoul­ders droop slight­ly with relief, and then he steps for­ward, slid­ing
his arms around my waist.
Press­ing my fore­head against his chest, I breathe him in. You’re being stu­pid, I tell myself. I’m so
used to men lying to me, manip­u­lat­ing me, that now I see it where it doesn’t exist. Maybe Eddie is the
type to go a lit­tle over the top when he’s into some­one. There could be all sorts of stuff about him that
I haven’t worked out yet.
“Are you the boyfriend?”
We both turn to see John stand­ing there on the stairs in his T‑shirt and loose sweats. He’s bare­foot,
his hair greasy and stick­ing up in spikes, and observ­ing them near each oth­er, it’s hard to believe he
and Eddie are from the same species.
“So it seems,” Eddie replies, his voice easy, but I can feel him stiff­en slight­ly, his mus­cles tense.
“Cool,” John mut­ters, his eyes dart­ing between the two of us, clear­ly try­ing to make sense of
what’s hap­pen­ing here.
Eddie is still smil­ing at him, still friend­ly and relaxed, but there’s some­thing radi­at­ing off him,
some­thing dark and intense, and when I glance down, I see that his hand is curled into a fist at his
side.
John doesn’t notice, though, walk­ing down the steps to stand right in front of us. This close, I can
smell his sweat, smell the sug­ary scent of what­ev­er cere­al he was eat­ing.
“Jane owes me two weeks’ notice before she moves out,” he says, and Eddie’s eye­brows go up.

As the con­fronta­tion between Tarzan, his wild allies, and the native war­riors esca­lates, the real­iza­tion dawns on the natives that they are fac­ing not just Tarzan but a for­mi­da­ble pan­ther and the apes led by Akut. Despite the ini­tial advan­tage of sur­prise and feroc­i­ty on Tarzan’s side, his inabil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate his need for release from his bonds to the apes reveals his pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion. The sit­u­a­tion is fur­ther com­pro­mised by the return of the native war­riors at dawn, prepar­ing for a deci­sive attack. Tarzan’s despair is pal­pa­ble, know­ing that the odds are increas­ing­ly against them, yet the sud­den appear­ance of Mugam­bi, cut­ting free the bonds that hold Tarzan, shifts the momen­tum.

The ensu­ing bat­tle between Tarzan’s mot­ley crew and the natives is fierce, but the natives are ulti­mate­ly dri­ven off, more by the ter­ror of fac­ing such an unusu­al alliance than by sheer force. In the after­math, Tarzan inter­ro­gates a cap­tive to track down Rokoff, reveal­ing the Rus­sian’s fear-led deci­sion to flee with canoes up the riv­er. Tarzan’s relent­less pur­suit under­scores his unyield­ing deter­mi­na­tion to recov­er his son, despite los­ing the trail and fac­ing dimin­ish­ing odds with his deplet­ed group.

Amidst this dire pur­suit, a dra­mat­ic turn occurs when Tarzan thwarts an attack on Ander­ssen, the Swede, by a native war­rior. Ander­ssen, linked to Tarzan’s son and wife through Rokof­f’s sin­is­ter plot, reveals a sur­pris­ing twist of loy­al­ty and pro­tec­tive intent towards Tarzan’s fam­i­ly, coun­ter­ing Tarzan’s ini­tial sus­pi­cion of betray­al. Ander­ssen’s attempt at redemp­tion in the eyes of Tarzan, cou­pled with his trag­ic predica­ment, under­scored by the fatal arrow wound, adds a poignant lay­er to the nar­ra­tive. The Swede’s earnest asser­tions and his clear indi­ca­tion of suf­fer­ing for a cause beyond his own gain or sur­vival stir a com­plex sym­pa­thy in Tarzan, redi­rect­ing his quest with renewed urgency but now tem­pered with a nuanced under­stand­ing of the ambigu­ous moral land­scapes nav­i­gat­ed by those drawn into Rokof­f’s web of vil­lainy.

This chap­ter deep­ens the nar­ra­tive by illus­trat­ing the volatile dynam­ics of trust and betray­al, the unex­pect­ed alliances formed in the face of adver­si­ty, and the relent­less pur­suit of jus­tice dri­ven by famil­ial bonds. Tarzan’s jour­ney morphs from a straight­for­ward quest into a moral­ly and emo­tion­al­ly com­plex expe­di­tion, high­light­ing his resilience, the depth of his con­nec­tions with both human and ani­mal allies, and his pro­found deter­mi­na­tion to safe­guard his fam­i­ly, regard­less of the psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal toll imposed upon him.