Chap­ter 33 of All the Col­ors of the Dark presents a chill­ing encounter between Saint and Eli Aaron, a large, impos­ing man whose appear­ance per­fect­ly match­es his seclud­ed life in the woods. Clad in a plaid shirt, rugged boots, and torn jeans, Eli car­ries him­self with an air of some­one well-acquaint­ed with soli­tude and sur­vival. Saint, though intrigued, feels a grow­ing sense of cau­tion as she ner­vous­ly asks him if he can make her a mod­el. Eli, how­ev­er, doesn’t respond as she expects, instead ques­tion­ing her about walk­ing alone in the woods, while casu­al­ly warn­ing her of the pres­ence of wild snakes. As their con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ues, a pal­pa­ble sense of unease hangs in the air, as Saint feels that some­thing about Eli’s demeanor is far from ordi­nary. Her instinc­tu­al response mir­rors what New York Detec­tive Roger Gable often described as “the feel”—an unset­tling sen­sa­tion of hid­den dan­ger beneath a seem­ing­ly harm­less exte­ri­or.

Eli’s response to her inno­cent ques­tion about being a mod­el is filled with sub­tle jeal­ousy as he stud­ies the poster she holds, his gaze lin­ger­ing longer than nec­es­sary. Through­out their inter­ac­tion, Saint care­ful­ly con­ceals her true inten­tions, sens­ing that she is in a dan­ger­ous envi­ron­ment but unsure how much she can trust Eli. In a bid to mask her grow­ing dis­com­fort, she lis­tens as Eli reveals frag­ments of his life—stories of his grand­moth­er, his thoughts on the eco­nom­ic strain caused by ris­ing gas prices, and his griev­ances about glob­al issues like embar­goes and the Israel con­flict. Yet despite his attempts to seem open and casu­al, Saint remains wary. His remarks, while offer­ing insight into his char­ac­ter, do lit­tle to put her at ease. Instead, his words leave her with a grow­ing aware­ness that there is more to him than meets the eye, and not all of it feels safe.

As Saint is led deep­er into Eli’s home, the atmos­phere becomes even more unset­tling. She notices the walls, lined with dark-framed pho­tographs that depict haunt­ing, des­o­late scenes, each image exud­ing a somber beau­ty that feels out of place. The pres­ence of a large cru­ci­fix on the wall only adds to the heavy air of iso­la­tion that seems to per­me­ate every cor­ner of the room. Saint, instinc­tive­ly dis­tanc­ing her­self from him, begins to process the dis­ar­ray sur­round­ing her. The clut­tered room, filled with old books, dirty dish­es, and a grimy mat­tress, paints a por­trait of some­one entrenched in lone­li­ness and tur­moil. Despite her grow­ing sense of dis­com­fort, she remains cau­tious, learn­ing that Eli is famil­iar with Misty Mey­er, a girl from her school. This rev­e­la­tion leads Saint to steer the con­ver­sa­tion toward Misty’s fate, hop­ing for some clar­i­ty. Eli, how­ev­er, responds with a dis­qui­et­ing mem­o­ry of observ­ing bears dur­ing the salmon sea­son, a seem­ing­ly harm­less top­ic that does lit­tle to ease Saint’s appre­hen­sion.

Although the con­ver­sa­tion flows with­out direct con­fronta­tion, the under­ly­ing ten­sion con­tin­ues to build with­in Saint. She begins to feel the weight of her deci­sion to come here, her instincts urg­ing her to leave but her curios­i­ty forc­ing her to stay. Eli even­tu­al­ly leads her to his dark­room, a space that only inten­si­fies her fears. Inside, the clut­tered machin­ery and omi­nous red light­ing cast an eerie glow over the room, mak­ing it feel suf­fo­cat­ing and dis­ori­ent­ing. The con­stant hum of the gen­er­a­tor, com­bined with the dark, shad­owed cor­ners, cre­ates an atmos­phere of dread that Saint can­not ignore. With every pass­ing moment, her anx­i­ety esca­lates as she feels more and more trapped in Eli’s world—a world where noth­ing is quite as it seems.

By the end of the chap­ter, Saint’s real­iza­tion of the dan­ger she’s in becomes unavoid­able. What ini­tial­ly appeared to be an inno­cent meet­ing with a curi­ous stranger turns into a deeply unset­tling encounter that reveals a dark­er real­i­ty. The sense of unease that has been grow­ing through­out their exchange solid­i­fies into a ter­ri­fy­ing aware­ness: she has entered a sit­u­a­tion that is far more per­ilous than she could have ever antic­i­pat­ed. What had start­ed as a sim­ple explo­ration of the woods has now trans­formed into a life-threat­en­ing predica­ment, as Saint comes to under­stand that the dan­ger sur­round­ing her is real and immi­nent. In that moment, she ful­ly grasps that she has entered a world of vio­lence, deceit, and fear—a world from which escape may be far hard­er than she imag­ined.