In the park­ing lot of Emory Exec­u­tive Air­field, Rosie, Amy, and Steve watch as Eddie Flood­’s plane ascends into the bright blue sky. While Steve com­ments on Eddie’s upcom­ing trip to Hawaii, Rosie remarks that Eddie won’t have as much fun as Barb and her daugh­ter will. They now have Eddie’s iden­ti­ty, com­plete with a scan of his pass­port from Car­los Moss—he’s the man sent to kill Amy and is cur­rent­ly en route to a ten-hour flight, seek­ing a vaca­tion in a health retreat.

As they pre­pare for their own jour­ney, Steve retrieves his small ruck­sack and Rosie’s design­er suit­case is han­dled by Car­los. Eager for their next adven­ture, Rosie exclaims about head­ing to St. Lucia while plan­ning to research the local laws. Amy express­es grat­i­tude to Car­los, who informs them that a Fal­con jet has been refu­eled and is ready for them. Mean­while, Steve, dressed casu­al­ly in gym shorts and a T‑shirt, shows signs of per­spi­ra­tion as Rosie attempts to link arms with him, which he resists.

Car­los com­ments to Amy about Steve’s affec­tion for her, prompt­ing Amy to share her strug­gles with accept­ing love. Acknowl­edg­ing her feel­ings, she nods when Car­los advis­es her to work on this aspect of her­self. As a porter arrives to assist with their lug­gage, Car­los approach­es Steve for a hug, which Steve declines, lead­ing Car­los to embrace him instead. Despite his sweati­ness, Steve apol­o­gizes, but Car­los assures him that it’s sim­ply a hot day in South Car­oli­na.

After exchang­ing well-wishes—an urge for them not to get killed—Carlos bids farewell and Rosie, Steve, and Amy make their way towards the tar­mac. Amy sug­gests putting Car­los in one of Rosie’s books as a token of thanks, to which Rosie responds that Car­los was indeed fea­tured in one of her pre­vi­ous works. When Amy express­es curios­i­ty about his role, Rosie reveals that Car­los was por­trayed as an ex-Marine with whom the pro­tag­o­nist has an affair in her nov­el, “While You Were Dead.” The chap­ter con­cludes as Rosie directs the porter to their char­tered plane.

In Chap­ter 40 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Patch grap­ples with dis­ori­en­ta­tion and the com­plex­i­ties of his sur­round­ings. He is approached by a girl who embod­ies the essence of the out­side world, bring­ing a min­gling scent of sun lotion, cher­ry gum, and woodsmoke. She calms him, instruct­ing him to open his mouth and swal­low a pill, her smooth and warm hand guid­ing his actions. As she feeds him, she shares an unusu­al fact about shrimps, reveal­ing her philo­soph­i­cal views on love and life.

Patch strug­gles to find his voice, caught in the haze of con­fu­sion and a mix of emo­tions. The girl encour­ages him to express him­self, dis­miss­ing her iden­ti­ty by insist­ing on anonymi­ty due to the pres­ence of a loom­ing figure—the “big man.” She probes him about his well-being, out­lin­ing the basic pro­vi­sions and com­forts avail­able to him dur­ing his con­fine­ment and casu­al­ly inform­ing him that he has been there for ten sleeps.

Con­cerned, Patch asks about the time—an inquiry that leads to an expla­na­tion of the days named after ancient plan­e­tary influ­ences. Her com­fort­ing words jux­ta­pose with the unset­tling atmos­phere, and he ques­tions the real­i­ty of his sit­u­a­tion and the iden­ti­ty of the man she ref­er­ences. The girl phi­los­o­phizes that every­one is their own dev­il, hint­ing at deep­er exis­ten­tial themes.

As Patch feels the encroach­ing fever, she brush­es against him ten­der­ly, yet play­ful­ly reminds him of his­tor­i­cal pirates. He express­es a desire to return home, but the girl’s silence weighs heavy. When prompt­ed, she sug­gests he pray for sur­vival, empha­siz­ing a rela­tion­ship he is yet to grasp ful­ly. Her grip­ping advice echoes with urgency and an air of mys­tery, imply­ing there is a rea­son she remains among them while oth­ers have van­ished. This chap­ter inter­twines themes of uncer­tain­ty, sur­vival, and the exis­ten­tial strug­gle against an omi­nous pres­ence, show­cased through a rich inter­play of dia­logue and vivid imagery.

In Chap­ter Forty titled “Step Three: Dis­cov­er Your Hus­band is Pure Evil,” the nar­ra­tive esca­lates with Nina trapped in a room, sound­proofed to iso­late her from any poten­tial help. She spends ago­niz­ing hours attempt­ing to escape, to no avail. Her con­cern for her daugh­ter Cecelia ampli­fies her des­per­a­tion. Nina’s hus­band Andy reveals him­self to her through the door, show­ing a chill­ing­ly casu­al cru­el­ty by declar­ing her impris­on­ment pun­ish­ment for not main­tain­ing her hair to his stan­dards. Despite her pleas, Andy insists on a bizarre and demean­ing form of ret­ri­bu­tion: Nina must sur­ren­der a hun­dred strands of her hair pulled from the scalp as a penal­ty for show­ing her dark roots.

Nina cycles through waves of hope and despair, forced to adapt to her dire cir­cum­stances by using a buck­et for her needs and rationing the lim­it­ed water sup­ply she finds. As she con­fronts her sit­u­a­tion, mem­o­ries of her life pri­or to this imprisonment—when she only had to care for her­self and Cecelia under less lux­u­ri­ous but freer conditions—provide stark con­trast to her cur­rent predica­ment, high­light­ing her regret over mar­ry­ing Andy for the per­ceived secu­ri­ty and com­fort he offered.

Andy’s manip­u­la­tion extends beyond phys­i­cal con­fine­ment, delv­ing into psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse by with­hold­ing basic needs like food and water, and exert­ing con­trol over Nina’s appear­ance to the point of obses­sion. This pow­er dynam­ic reveals a dis­turb­ing aspect of their rela­tion­ship, where Nina is reduced to bar­gain­ing with her auton­o­my for her free­dom, demon­strat­ing the extent of Andy’s con­trol and the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the per­son she once was. The chap­ter paints a har­row­ing pic­ture of domes­tic abuse, where Nina’s fight for sur­vival and pro­tec­tion of her daugh­ter becomes entan­gled with Andy’s twist­ed visions of mar­riage and own­er­ship.

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
40
The mor­tal queens were a mix­ture of age, col­or­ing, height, and
tem­pera­ment. The eldest of them, clad in an embroi­dered wool dress of
deep­est blue, was brown-skinned, her eyes sharp and cold, and unbent
despite the heavy wrin­kles carved into her face.
The two who appeared mid­dle-aged were oppo­sites: one dark, one light;
one sweet-faced, one hewn from gran­ite; one smil­ing and one frown­ing.
They even wore gowns of black and white—and seemed to move in
ques­tion and answer to each oth­er. I won­dered what their king­doms were
like, what rela­tions they had. If the match­ing sil­ver rings they each wore
bound them in oth­er ways.
And the youngest two queens … One was per­haps a few years old­er than
me, black-haired and black-eyed, care­ful cun­ning ooz­ing from every pore
as she sur­veyed us.
And the final queen, the one who spoke first, was the most beautiful—the
only beau­ti­ful one of them. These were women who, despite their fin­ery,
did not care if they were young or old, fat or thin, short or tall. Those things
were sec­ondary; those things were a sleight of hand.
But this one, this beau­ti­ful queen, per­haps no old­er than thir­ty …
Her riotous­ly curly hair was as gold­en as Mor’s, her eyes of purest
amber. Even her brown, freck­led skin seemed dust­ed with gold. Her body
was sup­ple where she’d prob­a­bly learned men found it dis­tract­ing, lithe
where it showed grace. A lion in human flesh.
“Well met,” Rhysand said, remain­ing still as their stone-faced guards
scanned us, the room. As the queens now took our mea­sure.
The sit­ting room was enor­mous enough that one nod from the gold­en
queen had the guards peel­ing off to hold posi­tions by the walls, the doors.
My sis­ters, silent before the bay win­dow, shuf­fled aside to make room.
Rhys stepped for­ward. The queens all sucked in a lit­tle breath, as if
brac­ing them­selves. Their guards casu­al­ly, per­haps fool­ish­ly, rest­ed a hand
on the hilt of their broadswords—so large and clunky com­pared to Illyr­i­an
blades. As if they stood a chance—against any of us. Myself includ­ed, I
real­ized with a bit of a start.
But it was Cass­ian and Azriel who would play the role of mere guards
today—distractions.
But Rhys bowed his head slight­ly and said to the assem­bled queens, “We
are grate­ful you accept­ed our invi­ta­tion.” He lift­ed a brow. “Where is the
sixth?”
The ancient queen, her blue gown heavy and rich, mere­ly said, “She is
unwell, and could not make the jour­ney.” She sur­veyed me. “You are the
emis­sary.”
My back stiff­ened. Beneath her gaze, my crown felt like a joke, like a
bauble, but—“Yes,” I said. “I am Feyre.”
A cut­ting glance toward Rhysand. “And you are the High Lord who
wrote us such an inter­est­ing let­ter after your first few were dis­patched.”
I didn’t dare look at him. He’d sent many let­ters through my sis­ters by
now.
You didn’t ask what was inside them, he said mind to mind with me,
laugh­ter danc­ing along the bond. I’d left my men­tal shields down—just in
case we need­ed to silent­ly com­mu­ni­cate.
“I am,” Rhysand said with a hint of a nod. “And this is my cousin,
Mor­ri­g­an.”
Mor stalked toward us, her crim­son gown float­ing on a phan­tom wind.
The gold­en queen sized her up with each step, each breath. A threat—for
beau­ty and pow­er and dom­i­nance. Mor bowed at my side. “It has been a
long time since I met with a mor­tal queen.”
The black-clad queen placed a moon-white hand on her low­er bodice.
“Morrigan—the Mor­ri­g­an from the War.”
They all paused as if in sur­prise. And a bit of awe and fear.
Mor bowed again. “Please—sit.” She ges­tured to the chairs we’d laid out
a com­fort­able dis­tance from each oth­er, all far enough apart that the guards
could flank their queens as they saw fit.
Almost as one, the queens sat. Their guards, how­ev­er, remained at their
posts around the room.
The gold­en-haired queen smoothed her volu­mi­nous skirts and said, “I
assume those are our hosts.” A cut­ting look at my sis­ters.
Nes­ta had gone straight-backed, but Elain bobbed a curt­sy, flush­ing rose
pink.
“My sis­ters,” I clar­i­fied.
Amber eyes slid to me. To my crown. Then Rhys’s. “An emis­sary wears
a gold­en crown. Is that a tra­di­tion in Pry­thi­an?”
“No,” Rhysand said smooth­ly, “but she cer­tain­ly looks good enough in
one that I can’t resist.”
The gold­en queen didn’t smile as she mused, “A human turned into a
High Fae … and who is now stand­ing beside a High Lord at the place of
hon­or. Inter­est­ing.”
I kept my shoul­ders back, chin high. Cass­ian had been teach­ing me these
weeks about how to feel out an opponent—what were her words but the
open­ing move­ments in anoth­er sort of bat­tle?
The eldest declared to Rhys, “You have an hour of our time. Make it
count.”
“How is it that you can win­now?” Mor asked from her seat beside me.
The gold­en queen now gave a smile—a small, mock­ing one—and
replied, “It is our secret, and our gift from your kind.”
Fine. Rhys looked to me, and I swal­lowed as I inched for­ward on my
seat. “War is com­ing. We called you here to warn you—and to beg a boon.”
There would be no tricks, no steal­ing, no seduc­tion. Rhys could not even
risk look­ing inside their heads for fear of trig­ger­ing the inher­ent wards
around the Book and destroy­ing it.
“We know war is com­ing,” the old­est said, her voice like crack­ling
leaves. “We have been prepar­ing for it for many years.”
It seemed the three oth­ers were posi­tioned as observers while the eldest
and the gold­en-haired one led the charge.
I said as calm­ly and clear­ly as I could, “The humans in this ter­ri­to­ry seem
unaware of the larg­er threat. We’ve seen no signs of prepa­ra­tion.” Indeed,
Azriel had gleaned as much these weeks, to my dis­may.
“This ter­ri­to­ry,” the gold­en one explained cool­ly, “is a slip of land
com­pared to the vast­ness of the con­ti­nent. It is not in our inter­ests to defend
it. It would be a waste of resources.”
No. No, that—
Rhys drawled, “Sure­ly the loss of even one inno­cent life would be
abhor­rent.”
The eldest queen fold­ed her with­ered hands in her lap. “Yes. To lose one
life is always a hor­ror. But war is war. If we must sac­ri­fice this tiny ter­ri­to­ry
to save the major­i­ty, then we shall do it.”
I didn’t dare look at my sis­ters. Look at this house, that might very well
be turned to rub­ble. I rasped, “There are good peo­ple here.”
The gold­en queen sweet­ly par­ried with, “Then let the High Fae of
Pry­thi­an defend them.”
Silence.
And it was Nes­ta who hissed from behind us, “We have ser­vants here.
With fam­i­lies. There are chil­dren in these lands. And you mean to leave us
all in the hands of the Fae?”
The eldest one’s face soft­ened. “It is no easy choice, girl—”
“It is the choice of cow­ards,” Nes­ta snapped.
I inter­rupt­ed before Nes­ta could dig us a deep­er grave, “For all that your
kind hate ours … You’d leave the Fae to defend your peo­ple?”
“Shouldn’t they?” the gold­en one asked, send­ing that cas­cade of curls
slid­ing over a shoul­der as she angled her head to the side. “Shouldn’t they
defend against a threat of their own mak­ing?” A snort. “Should Fae blood
not be spilled for their crimes over the years?”
“Nei­ther side is inno­cent,” Rhys coun­tered calm­ly. “But we might pro­tect
those who are. Togeth­er.”
“Oh?” said the eldest, her wrin­kles seem­ing to hard­en, deep­en. “The
High Lord of the Night Court asks us to join with him, save lives with him.
To fight for peace. And what of the lives you have tak­en dur­ing your long,
hideous exis­tence? What of the High Lord who walks with dark­ness in his
wake, and shat­ters minds as he sees fit?” A crow’s laugh. “We have heard
of you, even on the con­ti­nent, Rhysand. We have heard what the Night
Court does, what you do to your ene­mies. Peace? For a male who melts
minds and tor­tures for sport, I did not think you knew the word.”
Wrath began sim­mer­ing in my blood; embers crack­led in my ears. But I
cooled that fire I’d slow­ly been stok­ing these past weeks and tried, “If you
will not send forces here to defend your peo­ple, then the arti­fact we
request­ed—”
“Our half of the Book, child,” the crone cut me off, “does not leave our
sacred palace. It has not left those white walls since the day it was gift­ed as
part of the Treaty. It will nev­er leave those walls, not while we stand against
the ter­rors in the North.”
“Please,” was all I said.
Silence again.
“Please,” I repeat­ed. Emissary—I was their emis­sary, and Rhys had
cho­sen me for this. To be the voice of both worlds. “I was turned into this—
into a faerie—because one of the com­man­ders from Hybern killed me.”
Through our bond, I could have sworn I felt Rhys flinch.
“For fifty years,” I pushed on, “she ter­ror­ized Pry­thi­an, and when I
defeat­ed her, when I freed its peo­ple, she killed me. And before she did, I
wit­nessed the hor­rors that she unleashed on human and faerie alike. One of
them—just one of them was able to cause such destruc­tion and suf­fer­ing.
Imag­ine what an army like her might do. And now their king plans to use a
weapon to shat­ter the wall, to destroy all of you. The war will be swift, and
bru­tal. And you will not win. We will not win. Sur­vivors will be slaves, and
their children’s chil­dren will be slaves. Please … Please, give us the oth­er
half of the Book.”
The eldest queen swapped a glance with the gold­en one before say­ing
gen­tly, pla­cat­ing­ly, “You are young, child. You have much to learn about
the ways of the world—”
“Do not,” Rhys said with dead­ly qui­et, “con­de­scend to her.” The eldest
queen—who was but a child to him, to his cen­turies of existence—had the
good sense to look ner­vous at that tone. Rhys’s eyes were glazed, his face
as unfor­giv­ing as his voice as he went on, “Do not insult Feyre for speak­ing
with her heart, with com­pas­sion for those who can­not defend them­selves,
when you speak from only self­ish­ness and cow­ardice.”
The eldest stiff­ened. “For the greater good—”
“Many atroc­i­ties,” Rhys purred, “have been done in the name of the
greater good.”
No small part of me was impressed that she held his gaze. She said
sim­ply, “The Book will remain with us. We will weath­er this storm—”
“That’s enough,” Mor inter­rupt­ed.
She got to her feet.
And Mor looked each and every one of those queens in the eye as she
said, “I am the Mor­ri­g­an. You know me. What I am. You know that my gift
is truth. So you will hear my words now, and know them as truth—as your
ances­tors once did.”
Not a word.
Mor ges­tured behind her—to me. “Do you think it is any sim­ple
coin­ci­dence that a human has been made immor­tal again, at the very
moment when our old ene­my resur­faces? I fought side by side with Miryam
in the War, fought beside her as Jurian’s ambi­tion and blood­lust drove him
mad, and drove them apart. Drove him to tor­ture Clythia to death, then
bat­tle Ama­ran­tha until his own.” She took a sharp breath, and I could have
sworn Azriel inched clos­er at the sound. But Mor blazed on, “I marched
back into the Black Land with Miryam to free the slaves left in that burn­ing
sand, the slav­ery she had her­self escaped. The slaves Miryam had promised
to return to free. I marched with her—my friend. Along with Prince
Drakon’s legion. Miryam was my friend, as Feyre is now. And your
ances­tors, those queens who signed that Treaty … They were my friends,
too. And when I look at you … ” She bared her teeth. “I see noth­ing of
those women in you. When I look at you, I know that your ances­tors would
be ashamed.
“You laugh at the idea of peace? That we can have it between our
peo­ples?” Mor’s voice cracked, and again Azriel sub­tly shift­ed near­er to
her, though his face revealed noth­ing. “There is an island in a for­got­ten,
stormy part of the sea. A vast, lush island, shield­ed from time and spy­ing
eyes. And on that island, Miryam and Drakon still live. With their chil­dren.
With both of their peo­ples. Fae and human and those in between. Side by
side. For five hun­dred years, they have pros­pered on that island, let­ting the
world believe them dead—”
“Mor,” Rhys said—a qui­et rep­ri­mand.
A secret, I real­ized, that per­haps had remained hid­den for five cen­turies.
A secret that had fueled the dreams of Rhysand, of his court.
A land where two dream­ers had found peace between their peo­ples.

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 OULD THE BABY BE RAISED by the both of you?” Celia asked. We
were lying in bed, naked. My back was lined with sweat, my hair­line
damp. I rolled over onto my stom­ach and put my hand on Celia’s chest.
The movie she was doing next was mak­ing her a brunette. I found
myself trans­fixed by the gold­en red of her hair, des­per­ate to know that
they would dye it back prop­er­ly, that she would return to me look­ing
exact­ly like her­self.
“Yes,” I said. “Of course. It would be ours. We’d raise it togeth­er.”
“And where would I fit into all of this? Where would John?”
“Wher­ev­er you want to.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means that we would fig­ure it out as we go.”
Celia con­sid­ered my words and stared at the ceil­ing. “This is
some­thing you want?” Celia asked final­ly.
“Yes,” I told her. “Very bad­ly.”
“Is it a prob­lem for you that I have nev­er  .  .  . want­ed that?” she
asked.
“That you don’t want chil­dren?”
“Yes.”
“No, I sup­pose not.”
“Is it a prob­lem for you that I can­not . . . that I can­not give you that?”
Her voice was start­ing to crack, and her lips were start­ing to quiver.
When Celia was on-screen and need­ed to cry, she would squint her
eyes and cov­er her face. But they were fake tears, gen­er­at­ed out of
noth­ing, for noth­ing. When she real­ly cried, her face remained
painful­ly still except for the cor­ners of her lips and the water brim­ming
in her eyes that stuck to her lash­es.
“Hon­ey,” I said, pulling her toward me. “Of course not.”
“I just . . . I want to give you every­thing you’ve ever want­ed, and you
want that, and I can’t give it to you.”
“Celia, no,” I said. “It’s not like that at all.”
“It’s not?”
“You have giv­en me more than I ever thought I could have in one
life.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m pos­i­tive.”
She smiled. “You love me?” she said.
“Oh, my God, what an under­state­ment,” I told her.
“You love me so much you can’t see straight?”
“I love you so much that when I some­times get a look at all the
crazy fan mail you get, I think, Well, sure, that makes sense. I want to
col­lect her eye­lash­es, too.”
Celia laughed and ran her hand across my upper arm as she stared
at the ceil­ing. “I want you to be hap­py,” she said when she final­ly
looked at me.
“You should know that Har­ry and I will have to . . .”
“There’s no oth­er way?” she asked. “I thought women were get­ting
preg­nant by men just using their sperm now.”
I nod­ded. “I think there are oth­er ways,” I said. “But I’m not
con­fi­dent in the secu­ri­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. Or, rather, I don’t know how
to ensure that no one finds out that’s how we did it.”
“You’re say­ing you’re going to have to make love to Har­ry,” Celia
said.
“You are the per­son I’m in love with. You are the per­son I make love
to. Har­ry and I are mere­ly mak­ing a baby.”
Celia looked at me, read­ing my face. “You’re sure about that?”
“Absolute­ly pos­i­tive.”
She looked back up at the ceil­ing. She didn’t talk for a while. I
watched her eyes as they moved back and forth. I watched her
breath­ing as it slowed. And then she turned to face me. “If it’s what
you want . . . if you want a baby, then . . . have a baby. I will . . . we will
fig­ure it out. I will make it work. I can be an aunt. Aunt Celia. And I’ll
find a way to be OK with it all.”
“And I’ll help you,” I said.

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

40
I could hear the screams already. Hun­dreds of peo­ple had gath­ered out­side. It
was an Octo­ber day in 2018, and there was a huge crowd out­side the new Park
MGM hotel in Las Vegas. Super­fans were dressed in match­ing clothes and
wav­ing �ags embla­zoned with the let­ter B. Dancers onstage were wear­ing T-
shirts that said BRITNEY. Announc­ers were livestream­ing, hyp­ing up their
fol­low­ers. Laser lights were �ash­ing. A giant screen was show­ing scenes from my
videos. Dance music blast­ed. A parade went by with marchers loud­ly singing
lyrics like “My lone­li­ness is killing me!”
The lights went down.
Mario Lopez, who was there to host the event, said into the mic, “We are here
to wel­come the new queen of Vegas…”
Dra­mat­ic music started—a ri� from “Tox­ic.” Crazy lights �ashed on the Park
MGM so it looked like the build­ing was puls­ing. Cue a med­ley of oth­er songs
and pro­jec­tions of a rock­et ship, a heli­copter, a cir­cus big top, and a snake in the
Gar­den of Eden. Fire blast­ed up from �re pits around the stage! I rose from the
�oor on a hydraulic lift, wav­ing and smil­ing in a tight lit­tle black dress with star
cutouts and tas­sels, my hair super long and blond.
“… Ladies and gen­tle­men,” Mario Lopez con­tin­ued, “Brit­ney Spears!”
I walked down the stairs in my high heels to “Work Bitch” and signed a few
auto­graphs for fans. But then I did some­thing unex­pect­ed.
I walked past the cam­eras.
I kept walk­ing until I got into an SUV and left.
I said noth­ing. I did not per­form. If you were watch­ing, you were prob­a­bly
won­der­ing: What just hap­pened?

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 40
“They’ll go away,” Maryellen whis­pered.
It rang again, twice in a row.
Mrs. Greene’s hands and feet went cold. Maryellen felt a headache
start at the base of her skull. Kit­ty whim­pered.
“Please go away,” she whis­pered. “Please go away…please go
away…please go away…”
The black plas­tic pack­ages crack­led in the bath­room. One of them
rolled off the pile and hit the floor with a THUMP. It began to squirm
towards the door.
“The lights are on,” Maryellen said. “We for­got to turn out the
lights. You can see them through the shut­ters. They’ll know he’s
home.”
The door­bell rang, three times in a row.
“Who’s the least of a mess?” Maryellen asked. They looked at each
oth­er. She and Mrs. Greene were encrust­ed in blood. Kit­ty only had
some bruis­es.
“Oh, mer­ci­ful Jesus,” Kit­ty moaned.
“It’s prob­a­bly one of the John­sons,” Maryellen said. “They must’ve
run out of beer.”
Kit­ty took three deep breaths, on the verge of hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing,
then walked out into the hall, down the stairs, and over to the front
door. Every­thing was silent. Maybe they’d gone away.
The door­bell rang, so loud­ly that she squeaked. She grabbed the
han­dle, flipped the dead­bolt, and opened it a crack.
“Am I too late?” Grace asked.
“Grace!” Kit­ty shout­ed, drag­ging her inside by the arm.
They heard her all the way up in the bed­room and came run­ning
down­stairs. Grace’s face went slack when a blood-splat­tered
Maryellen and Mrs. Greene appeared. She looked at them in hor­ror.
“That’s a white car­pet,” she said.
They froze and looked back at the stairs. Their bloody foot­prints
came right down the mid­dle of the car­pet. They turned back around
and saw Grace step­ping back from them, tak­ing in every­thing.
“You didn’t…” she began, but couldn’t fin­ish.
“Go see for your­self,” Maryellen said.
“I’d pre­fer not to,” Grace said.
“No,” Mrs. Greene said. “If you have doubts, you need to see. He’s
in the upstairs toi­let.”
Grace went reluc­tant­ly, fas­tid­i­ous­ly avoid­ing the blood­stains on
the stairs. They heard her foot­steps cross the bed­room and stop in
the bath­room door­way. There was a long silence. When she came
back down, her steps were shaky and she had one hand on the wall.
She looked at the three women, cov­ered in blood.
“What’s wrong with Patri­cia?” she asked.
They filled her in on what had hap­pened. As they talked, her face
got firm, her shoul­ders squared, she stood straighter. When they
fin­ished, she said, “I see. And what’s the plan to dis­pose of him?”
“Stuhr’s has a con­tract with Rop­er and East Coop­er Hos­pi­tal,”
Maryellen said. “To burn their med­ical waste in the cre­ma­to­ri­um
ear­ly in the morn­ing and late at night. I put a big box of bio­haz­ard
burn bags in my car, but…they’re mov­ing. We can’t take them in like
this.”
They all watched as Grace tapped her fin­gers against her lips.
“We can still use Stuhr’s,” she said, then checked the inside of her
wrist. “There’s less than half an hour left in the game.”
“Grace,” Maryellen said, the dried blood crack­ling on her face. “We
can’t take mov­ing bags of body parts to Stuhr’s. They’ll see them.
They’ll open them up and I can’t explain what they are.”
“Ben­nett and I have two colum­bar­i­um nich­es for our ash­es,” Grace
said. They’re in the back of the ceme­tery, on the east­ern side, fac­ing
the sun­rise. We’ll sim­ply put his head in one and the rest of his
remains in the oth­er.”
“But there’s a record,” Maryellen said. “On the com­put­er. And
what hap­pens when the two of you pass?”
“Sure­ly you can alter the records,” Grace said. “As for Ben­nett and
myself, hope­ful­ly it will be years before we have to cross that bridge.
Now, let’s see if he has some box­es some­where. Maryellen, you and
Mrs. Greene show­er in the guest room. Use dark tow­els and leave
them in the tub. Tell me you at least brought changes of clothes?”
“In the car,” Maryellen said.
“Kit­ty,” Grace said, “bring her car here. I’ll look for box­es. You two
clean your­selves up. We can only count on forty or so min­utes before
that street is full of peo­ple, so let’s be pur­pose­ful.”
Kit­ty brought the car around and helped Grace pack the
squirm­ing, plas­tic-wrapped body parts into box­es, and lugged them
down to the front door. Mrs. Greene and Maryellen didn’t clean
them­selves per­fect­ly, but at least they didn’t look like they worked in
a slaugh­ter­house any­more.
“How much longer is left in the game?” Grace asked as they
dropped the final card­board box onto the stack by the front door.
Kit­ty turned on the TV.
“…and Clem­son has called a time-out hop­ing to run out the
clock…” an announc­er brayed.
“Less than five min­utes,” Kit­ty said.
“Then let’s load the car while the streets are still clear,” Grace said.
They almost ran, sham­bling up and down the dark front stairs,
toss­ing the box­es into Maryellen’s mini­van. They could feel James
Har­ris mov­ing inside, like they were car­ry­ing box­es full of rats.
When they were fin­ished, they stood in the front hall and real­ized
that they had failed. The plan had been to wipe James Har­ris off the
face of the earth, leav­ing his house pris­tine, as if he’d sim­ply
dis­ap­peared into thin air, or packed his things and walked out the
door. But blood had pooled by the front door where they’d stacked
the box­es, the white car­pet­ed stairs were a mess of streaked gore,
there were blood smears up and down the walls, bloody fin­ger­prints
were dry­ing on the ban­is­ter, and even from down­stairs they could see
that the mess cov­ered the upstairs hall. And then there was the
mas­ter bath.
A huge roar rose up from the sur­round­ing hous­es. Some­one
acti­vat­ed an airhorn. The game was over.
“We can’t do this,” Maryellen said. “Some­one will come look­ing for
him and they’ll know he was killed the sec­ond they open that door.”
“Stop whin­ing,” Grace snapped. “You’re look­ing for colum­bar­i­ums
C‑24 and C‑25, Maryellen. I’m sure you can find those. You and Kit­ty
are the least messy, so you’re dri­ving to Stuhr’s.”
“What are you going to do?” Maryellen asked. “Burn this place
down?”
“Don’t be absurd,” Grace said. “Mrs. Greene and I will stay behind.
We’ve been clean­ing up after men our entire lives. This is no
dif­fer­ent.”
Head­lights snapped on up and down the street as drunk foot­ball
fans stum­bled to their cars, hol­ler­ing and call­ing to one anoth­er in
the dark. A ground mist lay low on the road.
“But—” Maryellen began.
“If ifs and buts were can­dy and nuts it would be Christ­mas every
day,” Grace said. “Now scoot.”
Kit­ty and Maryellen limped for the mini­van. Grace closed the door
behind them and turned to Mrs. Greene.
“It’s a lot of work,” Mrs. Greene said.
“Between us we’ve been clean­ing hous­es for eighty years,” Grace
said. “I believe we’re up to the chal­lenge. Now, we’ll need bak­ing
soda, ammo­nia, white vine­gar, and dish­wash­ing deter­gent. We’ll
need to get the sheets and tow­els in the wash­er, and spray the
car­pets first so they can soak while we work.”
“We should wash the tow­els and that duvet in the show­er,” Mrs.
Greene said. “Get it real hot and take a hard bris­tle brush to them
with some salt paste. Then put it in the dry­er with plen­ty of fab­ric
soft­en­er.”
“Let’s see if we can find some hydro­gen per­ox­ide for these
blood­stains in the car­pet,” Grace said.
“I pre­fer ammo­nia,” Mrs. Greene said.
“Hot water?” Grace asked.
“No, cold.”
“Inter­est­ing,” Grace said.
—
Around mid­night, Maryellen called them from a gas sta­tion pay
phone.
“We’re done,” Maryellen said. “C‑24 and C‑25. They’re sealed tight
and I’ll clean up the data­base in the morn­ing.”
“Mrs. Cavanaugh is just iron­ing the sheets,” Mrs. Greene said.
“Then we have to sham­poo the car­pets, put things away, and we’re
done.”
“How does it look?” Maryellen asked.
“Like no one ever lived here,” Mrs. Greene said.
“How’s Patri­cia?”
“Sleep­ing,” Mrs. Greene said. “She hasn’t made a sound.”
“Do you want me to come pick you up?”
“Go home,” Mrs. Greene said. “We don’t want peo­ple to think this
is a pub­lic park­ing lot. I’ll get a ride.”
“Well,” Maryellen said. “Good luck.”
Mrs. Greene hung up the phone.
She and Grace fin­ished iron­ing the sheets, put the duvet back on
the bed, and inspect­ed the house for any blood­stains they’d missed.
Then Grace walked home and got her car while Mrs. Greene hauled
Patri­cia down­stairs, switched off the radio, turned off the lights, and
used James Harris’s keys to lock the front door behind her.
Ben­nett had passed out on the down­stairs sofa, so they put Patri­cia
in Grace’s guest bed­room, and then Grace called Carter.
“She wound up watch­ing the game over here after vis­it­ing Slick at
the hos­pi­tal,” she told him. “She fell asleep. I think it’s bet­ter not to
wake her.”
“Prob­a­bly for the best,” Carter said. He’d had a lot to drink so it
came out pro­l­lyfer­the­bersh. “I’m glad you girls are friends again.”
“Good night, Carter,” Grace said, and hung up.
She drove Mrs. Greene home and let her out in front of her dark
house.
“Thank you for all your help,” Grace said.
“Tomor­row,” Mrs. Greene said, “I’m going to dri­ve up to Irmo and
bring my babies home.”
“Good,” Grace said.
“You were wrong three years ago,” Mrs. Greene said. “You were
wrong, and you were a cow­ard, and peo­ple died.”
They stood, con­sid­er­ing each oth­er in the glow of the car’s ceil­ing
light, as the engine idled. Final­ly Grace said some­thing she’d almost
nev­er said before in her life.
“I’m sor­ry.”
Mrs. Greene gave a small nod.
“Thank you for com­ing tonight,” she said. “We couldn’t have done
it alone.”
“None of us could have done this alone,” Grace said.
—
Grace sat by Patricia’s bed, doz­ing in her chair. Patri­cia woke up
around four in the morn­ing with a gasp. Grace smoothed her sweaty
hair back from her face.
“It’s over,” Grace said.
Patri­cia burst into tears, and Grace took off her shoes and crawled
into bed next to her and rocked Patri­cia while she cried her­self out.

On Jan­u­ary 10th, 1827, the nar­ra­tor recounts a dis­tress­ing evening where her hus­band, Mr. Hunt­ing­ton, invades her pri­va­cy by forcibly tak­ing and read­ing her jour­nal, despite her attempts to stop him. His sober state allows him a cru­el clar­i­ty in his actions. He demands the keys to her per­son­al spaces with a threat against their ser­vant, Rachel, show­ing a dis­turb­ing con­trol over every aspect of the nar­ra­tor’s life. Upon obtain­ing the keys, Mr. Hunt­ing­ton destroys the nar­ra­tor’s art sup­plies and works, an act sym­bol­ic of sti­fling her cre­ativ­i­ty and inde­pen­dence. He dis­miss­es the val­ue of her art and intends to reduce her to finan­cial depen­den­cy by set­ting a mea­ger allowance for her.

Mr. Hunt­ing­ton’s tyran­ni­cal behav­ior extends as he insults the nar­ra­tor, glee­ful­ly antic­i­pat­ing how he thwart­ed her plans to escape with their son to a life of dig­ni­ty, away from his cor­rupt­ing influ­ence. His mock­ery reveals his desire to crush her spir­it and keep her under his con­trol. The nar­ra­tor’s attempt to save her man­u­script from his scruti­ny is dri­ven by a des­per­ate need to pro­tect the rem­nants of her pri­va­cy and dig­ni­ty; the man­u­script con­tains her true feel­ings and expe­ri­ences, espe­cial­ly her dis­dain for him.

In this chap­ter, Anne Bron­të vivid­ly illus­trates the oppres­sive mech­a­nisms of a tyran­ni­cal hus­band exert­ing finan­cial, emo­tion­al, and psy­cho­log­i­cal con­trol over the pro­tag­o­nist, ren­der­ing her feel­ing help­less and trapped. The tyran­ny extends to the destruc­tion of per­son­al and cre­ative prop­er­ties that sym­bol­ize the nar­ra­tor’s inde­pen­dence and iden­ti­ty. The encounter leaves the nar­ra­tor in a state of despair, mourn­ing the loss of hope for a bet­ter future for her­self and her son, wish­ing for his nonex­is­tence rather than a life under the shad­ow of his father’s cor­rupt­ing influ­ence. This intense emo­tion­al tur­moil and sense of entrap­ment under patri­ar­chal oppres­sion are con­veyed with pal­pa­ble urgency and anguish.