Chapters 10-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence and harassment, graphic violence, sexual content, cursing, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Cecily”
Two weeks have passed since Jeremy kissed Cecily at the club, and he has vanished from her life. What was initially relief turns into nagging curiosity. Cecily’s academics suffer as she replays their encounter and checks his sparse Instagram profile again. His account features mostly bike photos and pictures with his friend Nikolai and other men, but no family. His sister, Annika, posts frequently; one childhood photo shows young Jeremy comforting her. Neither sibling shares images with their father, presumably because of his Mafia leadership.
On her feed, Cecily sees a post from her crush Landon kissing a statue with a caption about agalmatophilia. She reflects on his extreme sexual kinks, comparing them to paraphilias associated with serial killers. She used to feel hurt seeing his posts, and the flirtatious comments on them, but she now feels detached enough to like the post without heartbreak.
When their friends Remi, Bran, and Creighton drop by Cecily and Ava’s apartment, Cecily asks Annika whether Jeremy is controlling. Annika says he is protective because of their dangerous family. After three beers, Cecily drunkenly confides in Ava about the man who disappeared. Ava takes her to bed to sleep it off. Alone, Cecily DMs Landon asking to be chased and ambushed; he leaves the message on read. As she drifts off, she masturbates while sensing a presence, then opens her eyes to find Jeremy in her room, watching her and offering to show her how to touch herself.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Cecily”
Jeremy appears in Cecily’s bedroom while she is half-asleep and touching herself, making clear that he is really there and not part of a dream. He orders her not to hide, strips off her shorts and underwear, and forces her to keep eye contact while she obeys his instructions. He uses her own hand to penetrate her before performing oral sex on her.
Afterward, Jeremy reveals he intends to go further, but Cecily panics and pleads with him not to have vaginal intercourse because she is drunk. He ignores her objections and instead forces her to perform oral sex, directing her movements and threatening harsher acts if she does not comply. He becomes increasingly rough and possessive, saying he wants to corrupt her so thoroughly that no one, including Landon, will recognize her. After, he tells her there will be a next time and that she will be his to use as he pleases.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Jeremy”
After Cecily falls asleep, Jeremy stays in her room watching her and reflecting on how unusual his own behavior has become. He reveals the message she believed she sent to Landon earlier was actually sent to him, something he assumed was a mistake but acted on nonetheless. He studies her possessions, her manga-covered walls, her perfume, and her laptop, deliberately leaving signs that he has invaded her space. When he checks her browser history, he finds searches about rape fantasy, primal kink, paraphilias, and sexual shame, confirming that Cecily is deeply ashamed of her own desires and has been trying to pathologize them.
Jeremy becomes convinced that she is hiding some deeper wound beneath her controlled exterior and decides he wants to uncover it. Before leaving, he sees a text from Landon on her phone and replies while pretending to be Cecily. In the exchange, Landon warns that Jeremy is relentless and calls Cecily “my Ces,” which enrages Jeremy. He deletes the conversation, bites Cecily’s neck hard enough to leave a mark, steals one of her manga volumes, and leaves. Later, while checking the Heathens’ group chat, he hides the real reason for his abrupt disappearance from a strategy meeting, knowing the others would mock his growing fixation on Cecily.
His father calls and asks about a new guard he’s taken on—Ilya, the kid him and Nikolai caught working for the Serpents. Jeremy defends Ilya, saying he tested his loyalty, but his dad warns him to be cautious. After, he texts Cecily to meet him at a location at seven o’clock the next evening.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Cecily”
Cecily wakes with a severe hangover, soreness between her legs, and a large bite mark on her neck. She remembers enough of the previous night to know Jeremy came into her room, used her sexually, and saved his number in her phone. Although she tries to tell herself that sober Cecily would never have wanted any of it, she cannot stop thinking about the intensity of what happened.
During class, she rereads Jeremy’s message ordering her to meet him that evening. When she texts to ask what will happen, he taunts her, asks about her hangover, calls her “Lisichka,” and begins speaking graphically about what he did to her and how much he enjoyed it. Their exchange turns combative, but underneath her anger, Cecily realizes she cannot honestly claim that her drunken message to him was a mistake. Jeremy ends by ordering her to come that evening and reminding her that the safe word is “Smoke” and warning that if she hides, he will do things his way. Cecily is left torn between fear and desire.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Cecily”
At seven o’clock, Cecily arrives at the isolated property Jeremy sent her to, a sinister cottage surrounded by barbed wire and overgrown land. Though frightened by its ominous atmosphere, she forces herself to go inside. Once the fire in the room suddenly goes out, Jeremy appears behind her wearing his orange Heathens mask and presses a knife to her throat. He tells her she may run or hide, but if he catches her, he will fuck her, make her bleed, and ignore any pleas short of the safe word. Rather than leave, Cecily chooses to run.
She flees toward a lake behind the cottage and desperately tries to untie a boat, but Jeremy stalks her through the dark and catches her on the dock. He pins her down, slices through her clothes with the knife, and leaves her completely naked. He taunts her about the contrast between her innocent appearance and the darkness in her mind, then arouses her with his hands and the blunt side of the knife. When she hesitates and asks for more time, he ignores her, cuts her nipple, licks the blood, and penetrates her roughly, taking her virginity on the dock. The act is violent and painful, but Cecily’s pain gradually turns to pleasure, and she climaxes while Jeremy bites her neck before finishing as well.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Cecily”
Cecily regains consciousness slowly after the encounter at the cottage and initially believes she is trapped in one of her episodes of sleep paralysis. At the same time, she realizes Jeremy is performing oral sex on her while she lies immobilized. As she drifts closer to wakefulness, he tells her how much he craves her innocence, fear, and pain, admits he lost control enough not to use a condom, and says he wants to have sex with her again until there is nothing left of Landon in her mind.
Cecily weakly murmurs Landon’s name, intending to say Landon isn’t on her mind but failing to get the rest of the sentence out. Hearing only “Lan…,” Jeremy abruptly wraps his hand around her throat and chokes her before disappearing. Three days later, Cecily reflects on the aftermath: She woke alone in the cottage wearing Jeremy’s clothes, with painkillers and first-aid supplies nearby, which means he cleaned and cared for her before leaving. She cannot make sense of his tenderness followed by violence, and when she texts him with the excuse of asking about a manga he stole, he ignores her.
Soon afterward, Landon sends her a video of the Heathens’ mansion on fire and casually admits he used the intelligence she gathered to help the Serpents attack the Heathens. Horrified, Cecily realizes she contributed to Jeremy’s potential injury. She drives to the Heathens’ gate to check on Annika and Jeremy, and a pretty American woman who is also there for Jeremy insults her and tells the guards to get her off the property. Ilya arrives and tells her that Jeremy survived but inhaled too much smoke and was hurt escaping the fire.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Jeremy”
Jeremy goes jogging with Ilya despite strict orders to rest after the fire, which left him with smoke inhalation and a serious wound to his side. His mood darkens when Ilya reports that Cecily came to the Heathens’ gate during the chaos to ask first about Annika and then specifically about him. Jeremy tries to tell himself she was only worried about Annika, but Ilya notes that Cecily looked genuinely distressed and close to tears when asking after Jeremy.
Jeremy reflects on the cottage aftermath and insists to himself that he and Cecily are not lovers, even though his own behavior contradicts that claim. He remembers carrying her inside, cleaning her body, and massaging her back from a catatonic state before nearly choking her when she murmured Landon’s name.
Nikolai catches up with him, and he, Jeremy, and Ilya, discuss the fire and conclude that the Serpents must have had inside knowledge of the grounds and cameras. Nikolai suspects Ilya, but Jeremy defends him and focuses instead on planning revenge. Later, after checking on Annika and allowing her one supervised lunch outing with friends, Jeremy sees Cecily’s text asking if he is okay after the fire. Instead of pushing her away, he feels his possessiveness return and decides that if he wants her, he’ll have her.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Cecily”
A week and a half after the fire, Cecily joins Ava, Glyn, Remi, Bran, Creighton, and unexpectedly Landon for drinks at a pub. She is deeply uncomfortable with Landon’s presence now that she knows he used her intelligence for arson and feels no remorse for the danger he caused. When he dismisses the fire as trivial because no one died, and brushes off Jeremy’s injury as unimportant, Cecily finally sees him clearly as someone who treats real harm like a game.
While the others joke and argue around them, Cecily feels detached. Her old crush on Landon has dwindled into disillusionment, but she is equally troubled by the fact that she keeps checking her phone in the hope of hearing from Jeremy, who never replied to her message. Since the cottage, her sleep paralysis has worsened, and she has become frightened of sleep itself. Unable to bear the noise and strain inside the pub, she goes out to the parking lot and tells the girls she is leaving. There she notices Jeremy’s reflection in the car window just before he covers her mouth from behind. When she turns to confront him, she angrily tells him they are over. Jeremy coolly rejects that idea and tells her they are only just getting started.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Jeremy”
Jeremy reveals that he has been watching Cecily all night: first outside her dorm, where he saw her dissociate at the window for 15 minutes, and then at the pub, where he watched her interact with Landon. Seeing Landon smile at her and lean close to her enraged him enough that he fantasized about killing him. When Cecily finally left the group looking miserable, Jeremy followed her out and confronted her in the parking lot.
He studies her anger and defiance, then challenges her insistence that she wants nothing more from him. He points out that she canceled her kink-club membership and has not acted on her desires with anyone else, and he tells her bluntly that he can offer her what she wants sexually. He then weaponizes her shame by threatening to go into the pub and tell her friends—especially Ava—about her fantasies and the fact that she asked to be chased and raped. He argues that even if they did not believe him at first, the doubt would poison her friendships and reduce her to a deviant in their eyes. Cecily, terrified and humiliated, slaps him and says she hates him. Jeremy threatens her until she goes with him on his motorcycle back to the abandoned property. Once there, Cecily refuses to get off the bike, so Jeremy lifts her off and throws her over his shoulder.
Chapters 10-18 Analysis
These chapters explore The Duality of Public Persona and Private Desire through Cecily’s escalating internal conflict. Her public identity as the “prude nerd” and “good girl” is methodically deconstructed as her private fantasies, which she used to repress, become increasingly undeniable. This internal conflict manifests when, under the influence of alcohol, she messages her former crush Landon to act out a chase fantasy. Though her action is directed at a “safe” target, her unvoiced desire is answered when Jeremy appears in her room moments later; she actually texted him instead of Landon. This demonstrates how the truth of her sexual interests is becoming too present to ignore. Her internal monologue reveals a constant negotiation between shame and curiosity; by comparing Landon’s interests to the paraphilias of serial killers, she attempts to frame her own desires as psychological abnormalities to be studied rather than personal desires to be pursued. Jeremy’s duality is also pronounced; his public role as a gang leader contrasts sharply with his private, all-consuming obsession with Cecily. His secret surveillance culminates in his reading her journal and browser history, transforming a physical pursuit into a psychological conquest.
The narrative uses the theme of Violence as a Catalyst for Healing and Self-Discovery to propel Cecily’s character development. The consensual non-consent scene at the cottage is a pivotal moment where fantasy confronts reality. By running from Jeremy, she accepts his terms: “[I]f I find you […] You’ll bleed and scream and beg, but nothing will stop me from claiming you, breaking you, and tearing you apart” (187). The ensuing encounter forces her out of the realm of intellectual curiosity and into a visceral experience of her desires. The violence of the act, including Jeremy cutting her with a knife, is framed as a confirmation of her deepest fantasies rather than violence. This framework suggests that for Cecily, the enjoyment of being “ravaged, taken, taken, and taken” is a necessary rite of passage to accept the repressed parts of her identity (195). The experiences creates a space where she can exist without the self-imposed labels that have limited her. Jeremy’s subsequent act of nearly choking her after she murmurs Landon’s name establishes the dangerous precarity of their dynamic and forces Cecily to confront the real-world consequences of engaging with a “monster.”
The concept of Negotiating Trust in a World Without Rules is central to Cecily and Jeremy’s relationship. Their dynamic operates outside of conventional social boundaries, necessitating a unique system of trust. The introduction of a safe word, “Smoke,” is a critical narrative element that establishes a mutually acknowledged line that cannot be crossed, even amidst acts of extreme simulated violence. This single rule provides the foundational trust for Cecily to willingly participate in a “hunt” where she is bound and dominated. This trust, rooted in a shared understanding of desire, is juxtaposed with Landon’s deceitful friendship. His betrayal—using Cecily’s intel to orchestrate an arson attack—represents a profound breach of normative trust. By contrasting Landon’s deception with Jeremy’s adherence to their established rules, the narrative suggests that Jeremy’s transparently dangerous nature is more reliable than Landon’s benign persona, which masks manipulation and disregard for her well-being.
Surveillance permeates these chapters as a narrative device, functioning as a mechanism of control and a reflection of the characters’ psychological states. Jeremy’s physical stalking evolves into invasive technological surveillance as he hacks Cecily’s computer and phone. This act moves his control from the physical to the intellectual sphere; by reading her search history, he gains access to her deepest anxieties and desires, allowing him to manipulate her. Cecily’s awareness of being watched transforms from a source of fear into a state of anticipation, and she comes to feel that “[h]e’s everywhere and nowhere all at once” (142). Her own surveillance of his Instagram profile signifies a shift in the power dynamic, positioning her as an active participant in their mutual obsession. The motif underscores the complete erosion of privacy, suggesting that in their world, intimacy and control are achieved through the possession of another’s secrets.
The narrative structure, which alternates between Cecily’s and Jeremy’s points of view, provides a more complex understanding of their dynamic. Shifting to Jeremy’s perspective demystifies his actions, revealing the obsessive logic behind his cruelty. Jeremy empathizes with Cecily shame over her sexual interests, as he thinks when confronting her, “She must’ve learned […] that society doesn’t react well to those who are different. Society stomps on them, fills them with doubt, and throws them into a ditch where they rot and die” (238). His actions indicate that he wants her to move past these fears, as he has, refusing to allow his decisions to be dictated by public opinion. This is essential to Cecily’s character arc and journey toward sexual agency. However, he makes no attempts to change her mind in a kind or healthy way, claiming, “A better person would’ve given her affirmation and attempted to lessen the blow. But I’m not a good fucking person” (238). This demonstrates his character flaws and sets him up to develop over the course of the story by learning to engage with and support Cecily on her terms rather than forcing her to do as he demands, even if he’s demanding something ultimately positive for her.
Unlock all 59 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs