Chap­ter 6 of All the Col­ors of the Dark opens with Saint filled with anx­i­ety as she spends an entire hour search­ing the woods around her home. She hopes, with all her heart, that her miss­ing bees have mere­ly relo­cat­ed and are not harmed or lost. The peace­ful, qui­et woods offer no answers, and her wor­ry deep­ens. As she emerges onto Main Street, her face flushed and her braid slight­ly undone from the effort, sweat drips from her fore­head, evi­dence of her rest­less search. With a sense of urgency in her steps, she heads toward the small police sta­tion, intent on con­fronting the author­i­ties and demand­ing action against Mr. Lewis, whom she sus­pects of steal­ing the bees. Just as she is about to enter the sta­tion, her atten­tion is pulled in a dif­fer­ent direction—Misty Mey­er stands before an offi­cer, vis­i­bly trem­bling and shak­en.

Misty looks much younger than her years, pale and out of breath, a sign that she’s been through some­thing trau­mat­ic. The scraped skin on her knees only adds to the sense that some­thing awful has hap­pened to her. As she col­laps­es into a chair, the offi­cer, a calm fig­ure amidst the grow­ing ten­sion, gen­tly helps her sit down and urges her to catch her breath. Misty is too caught up in her own fear to respond, her wide eyes glued to the street out­side. With a voice bare­ly above a whis­per, she mut­ters that some­one “saved” her, though she can­not seem to describe who or what that per­son might be. The offi­cer tries to offer some reas­sur­ance, attempt­ing to com­fort her, but Misty insists that there was some­one who helped her—a fig­ure who inter­vened when she need­ed it most.

As the con­ver­sa­tion unfolds, Misty’s dis­tress only grows stronger, and she begins to recount her har­row­ing expe­ri­ence. She describes a “pirate kid” who faced off with a much larg­er man, fur­ther deep­en­ing the mys­tery sur­round­ing her ordeal. The ten­sion in the room ris­es as Saint, unable to remain a pas­sive observ­er, feels a ris­ing sense of dread that tight­ens in her chest. Her heart begins to race as Misty con­tin­ues her sto­ry, describ­ing in more detail the actions of the young boy who came to her aid. Saint’s mind starts to con­nect the dots as Misty men­tions that the boy who inter­vened was none oth­er than Joseph Macauley—this name instant­ly grabs Saint’s atten­tion.

Saint’s instinct kicks in, and her small frame seems to con­trast sharply with the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. She steps clos­er to Misty, her con­cern pal­pa­ble, and press­es for more infor­ma­tion about Joseph’s involve­ment. The offi­cer, aware of the weight of the con­ver­sa­tion, also leans in, pay­ing close atten­tion to Misty’s words. Saint’s mind begins to whirl as she recalls the sud­den death of her grand­fa­ther, a loss that had left her grap­pling with con­fu­sion and shock. Now, stand­ing in this tense moment, Saint feels the same bewil­der­ing emo­tions, real­iz­ing that the cri­sis unfold­ing in front of her is con­nect­ed to some­thing far big­ger than just her miss­ing bees. Her need for clar­i­ty grows as she tries to make sense of every­thing that’s hap­pen­ing.

Misty, still shak­en, remains qui­et, her eyes dis­tant and unfo­cused, as the offi­cer wraps a jack­et around her shoul­ders for warmth and com­fort. Saint, how­ev­er, can­not quell her grow­ing anx­i­ety. The need for answers gnaws at her, and she press­es hard­er, des­per­ate to know if Joseph is in dan­ger and if there is some­thing she should be doing. Final­ly, after a long pause, Misty, her voice bare­ly a whis­per, men­tions a clear­ing near the old rail­road. This piece of infor­ma­tion sends a jolt of real­iza­tion through Saint. She knows that the clear­ing could hold the key to under­stand­ing every­thing that has been happening—and the thought of Joseph being in harm’s way fills her with urgency.

With­out a sec­ond thought, Saint bolts out of the police sta­tion, her deter­mi­na­tion push­ing her for­ward. The moment she hears about the clear­ing, every­thing shifts for her. No longer is this about her miss­ing bees or the frus­tra­tions of the day—this is some­thing far more press­ing, and her focus is entire­ly on find­ing Joseph. She rush­es toward the woods, the knowl­edge that dan­ger is close pro­pelling her for­ward with a sense of urgency. As she makes her way toward the clear­ing, Saint is ful­ly aware that some­thing cru­cial is unfold­ing, and her once peace­ful world is now caught in the tur­moil of uncer­tain­ty and fear. She doesn’t know what lies ahead, but one thing is certain—everything has changed. The pur­suit of the truth and the desire to find Joseph becomes her only focus now, a need to pro­tect those she cares about dri­ving her through the unknown.

The chap­ter clos­es with a height­ened sense of antic­i­pa­tion, as Saint races toward the woods, the weight of the rev­e­la­tions she has just uncov­ered begin­ning to sink in. The dis­ap­pear­ance of the bees, Misty’s encounter, and the involve­ment of Joseph Macauley are all pieces of a much larg­er puz­zle that Saint is deter­mined to solve. The inten­si­ty of her emo­tions, the fear for Joseph’s safe­ty, and the knowl­edge that some­thing dan­ger­ous looms just ahead push Saint into action. The chap­ter leaves read­ers on the edge of their seats, won­der­ing what Saint will uncov­er next and whether she can make it to Joseph in time to pre­vent what­ev­er threat may be lurk­ing. Through the course of this chap­ter, the ten­sion between the char­ac­ters and the grow­ing mys­tery con­tin­ues to build, set­ting the stage for even more intense con­fronta­tions and rev­e­la­tions.