In Chap­ter 10, Salan­der decides to buy a car for con­ve­nience. She secures a park­ing spot at her old apart­men­t’s garage and pur­chas­es a bur­gundy Hon­da, pay­ing in cash. She gives the keys to Mim­mi for use with pri­or notice, as they park on the street until the garage is avail­able. While in town, Salan­der vis­its a shop to buy a print­er car­tridge and then dines at Café Hedon, where she observes Nils Bjur­man. Her feel­ings towards him are neu­tral; she sees his sur­vival as ben­e­fi­cial for her plans.

**Sum­ma­ry (278 char­ac­ters):** Salan­der buys a Hon­da and arranges park­ing at her old apart­ment. She observes Bjur­man at Café Hedon, feel­ing neu­tral but sees his sur­vival as use­ful for her plans.

In Chap­ter 10 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the scene opens with the pro­tag­o­nist, Saint, rid­ing her bicy­cle down Main Street in the town of Mon­ta Clare, which is nes­tled in a val­ley and sur­round­ed by vibrant green­ery. As she nav­i­gates the steep incline toward the impres­sive Mey­er house, she is struck by the vivid col­ors of Vir­ginia blue­bells, but­ter­fly weed, and oth­er flo­ra that embell­ish the wind­ing streets. The warmth ema­nat­ing from the grand homes cap­tures her atten­tion, but as the ascent becomes steep­er, she ulti­mate­ly aban­dons her bike, choos­ing to hike the remain­ing dis­tance.

Upon reach­ing the estate, Saint is con­sumed by a sense of urgency, won­der­ing about her friend Patch’s well-being. The grand archi­tec­ture of the Mey­er house, adorned with stuc­co and lead­ed glass, catch­es her eye, pro­vid­ing a stark con­trast to her con­cern for Misty, Patch’s daugh­ter. Just as she gath­ers her thoughts to knock, the door opens, reveal­ing Mr. Mey­er, who appears exhaust­ed and unfo­cused. Despite their pre­vi­ous con­nec­tions, it is evi­dent he is detached from the real­i­ty of his daughter’s life and her rela­tion­ship with Saint.

Their brief exchange is heavy, filled with under­ly­ing emo­tions; Mr. Meyer’s indif­fer­ent acknowl­edg­ment of Saint as Misty’s friend high­lights his emo­tion­al empti­ness. He men­tions that Misty is sleep­ing and advis­es Saint to return home. The atmos­phere thick­ens with the weight of loss, and Saint is remind­ed of what the Mey­er fam­i­ly has endured. Peer­ing out into the famil­iar trees, she recalls how Patch Macauley risked every­thing to save his daugh­ter, prompt­ing her own emo­tion­al tur­moil.

Saint implores Mr. Mey­er to allow her to speak with Misty, but he insists that she will need to talk to Chief Nix after rest­ing. The moment serves as a reminder that wealth does not equate to class, nor does anger sig­ni­fy strength. The door’s clo­sure leaves Saint con­sumed by Mr. Mey­er’s pal­pa­ble fear, mark­ing a poignant moment in their inter­ac­tion that encap­su­lates the com­plex emo­tions sur­round­ing loss and hope with­in the fam­i­ly.

In Chap­ter 10, the char­ac­ters find them­selves on a nar­row sail­boat. The cap­tain cau­tions them not to lean too far back to avoid tip­ping over, lead­ing to some light-heart­ed ban­ter, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Mar­la, who ques­tions the captain’s jok­ing. Mean­while, Lila remains com­posed, chat­ting com­fort­ably and seek­ing drinks called “Vaca­tions in a Cup.” This prompts a humor­ous debate regard­ing the prop­er way to plu­ral­ize the drinks, demon­strat­ing the ten­sions and friend­ships with­in the group. Mar­la, hav­ing a legal back­ground, argues over the cor­rect ter­mi­nol­o­gy, while the oth­ers share laugh­ter over shared mem­o­ries about their col­lege days, drink­ing stolen church wine.

As they rem­i­nisce, an awk­ward silence grows, reveal­ing Mar­la’s inabil­i­ty to read the room. Gary, Lila’s fiancé, attempts to soothe the ten­sion, reflect­ing the dynam­ics between Lila and Gary. Their rela­tion­ship seems har­mo­nious, yet beneath it lies Gary’s com­pli­cat­ed feel­ings stem­ming from past per­son­al strug­gles. The group’s humor con­tin­ues, par­tic­u­lar­ly with play­ful remarks involv­ing past expe­ri­ences and Marla’s relent­less need for val­i­da­tion in her pro­fes­sion.

Phoebe, an Eng­lish pro­fes­sor, finds her­self at the cen­ter of the con­ver­sa­tion when prompt­ed to clar­i­fy the gram­mat­i­cal debate. Her insights bring some clar­i­ty and comedic relief, win­ning her a moment of atten­tion among the group. This light­ens the mood, lead­ing to drink­ing and laugh­ter. How­ev­er, a dark­er cloud looms as Mar­la faces her own issues regard­ing an expired car reg­is­tra­tion which dis­tracts from the fun on the boat.

As the sto­ry unfolds, Phoebe grap­ples with her feel­ings of dis­con­nec­tion and recent trau­ma from los­ing her dog, Har­ry. Her jour­ney in try­ing to recon­nect with her iden­ti­ty and past joys con­trasts sharply with Mar­la’s strug­gles to main­tain her own sense of order and legal­i­ty. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in an emo­tion­al­ly charged moment where Juice, Gary’s daugh­ter, holds a vir­tu­al dog named Human Princess for a makeshift funer­al at sea, prompt­ing Phoebe to con­front her own loss. There’s a blend of lev­i­ty and poignan­cy as char­ac­ters nav­i­gate their rela­tion­ships, show­cas­ing both humor and the com­plex­i­ties of per­son­al grief amidst a cel­e­bra­to­ry occa­sion. Ulti­mate­ly, the chap­ter illus­trates a del­i­cate inter­play of joy and sor­row, friend­ship and rival­ry, laugh­ter, and the under­ly­ing weight of loss.

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

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

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.