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Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of sexual violence, rape, mental illness, child abuse and child sexual abuse, suicidal ideation, self-harm, animal cruelty, addiction, sexual content, cursing, death, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Kai”
Ever since his high school years, Kai Mori and his three friends Michael, Will, and Damon have called themselves the Four Horsemen. In their younger days, they engaged in violent, harmful pranks every October 30, which they called “Devil’s Night.” Now, Kai stands in the dojo across from the Pope Hotel, the abandoned hotel where many regrettable events of his past took place. Hidden, he stares at Rika (his friend Michael’s love interest), who sits in her car, looking at her phone as rain pours down around her. Kai dons his silver skull mask—his persona as one of the Horsemen—and watches as Rika comes into the building. He is standing on the second level, looking down at her, and he feels a perverse thrill when he notices her nervous fear. Rika calls out to Kai, knowing that he is there but unable to see him. When he appears in front of her, he challenges her, forcing her to realize that she cannot know for sure if he is the one behind the mask.
As a twisted form of self-defense training, Kai “pretends” to assault Rika, attacking her and forcing himself on her as she fights back. When Rika gives up and starts to cry, Kai calls her a “baby” and tells her to try harder. Rika manages to escape by prodding Kai in the eyes; she then accuses him of having enjoyed what he just did. Kai lectures Rika for being too sure of herself and for not being aware of the constant threat of danger, including the danger of being in his presence.
In these moments, Kai sometimes feels that he is becoming like Damon, his former friend who is now missing. (One year ago, Damon viciously attacked Rika when the Four Horsemen harassed, stalked, and assaulted Rika in a misguided act of revenge. They believed that she was the one who posted videos depicting their various crimes on Devil’s Night; the videos led to the arrest of Kai, Damon, and Will.) Now, one year later, Rika is engaged to Michael, but Kai takes this opportunity to “train” Rika in self-defense.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Kai, Six Years Ago”
The narrative shifts to six years in the past. On the day of the last Devil’s Night that Kai and his friends would ever have, Kai looked forward to the end of high school. Brimming with anticipation, he headed to the church to confess his sins, none of which he truly regretted. Kai liked going to church for the solace, but he hated the preaching aspect of it. Inside, Kai heard Damon talking to the priest, something that Damon was ordered to do every week because of his behavior.
Kai made his way to the confessional and sat down inside, believing that nobody was present on the other side of the screen. He began confessing that how he had lied to his parents, kept his true self secret from the world, and engaged in violence and sexual acts. Suddenly, a girl spoke from the other side of the screen, startling Kai. She urged him not to look at her, then told him a story about the mysterious 12th floor at the Pope Hotel. She revealed that the 12th floor cannot be accessed by the stairs or the elevator, and she claimed that a girl can often be seen dancing around the hotel at night. Kai was intrigued by the story, but he was more intrigued by the girl, who smelled like water and wind. He broke through the screen and touched her, stroking her throat and neck. The girl told Kai that he should attempt to hunt her, and she admitted to enjoying his stories about having sex with other women or watching people have sex. She hoped that she might one day “steal” Kai away from them. The girl hinted that she knew about Devil’s Night, then disappeared. (The narrative will later reveal that the mysterious girl is Nikova Banks, Kai’s love interest.)
Chapter 3 Summary: “Kai, Present”
The narrative returns to the present moment. Kai, Will, and Michael usually meet at Hunter-Bailey Men’s Club in the mornings to sit in the steam room. Today, Will is hungover as usual, and Michael is on edge after what Kai did to Rika. Kai insists that he was just trying to teach Rika to protect herself, but Michael claims that teaching Rika self-defense is his job; in retaliation, he threatens to assault Kai’s mother. Kai reminds Michael that Rika is supposed to be seen as an “equal” in the Four Horsemen’s group and should not be given special treatment. Kai reflects that Michael used to torment Rika when they were all children, but now that the two are a couple, everything has changed. When the subject of Damon is mentioned, the three men suddenly realize that because it is once again Devil’s Night, Damon is likely engaging in a plot against them. Kai suspects that Damon is hiding on the infamous 12th floor of the Pope Hotel, so he and his friends decide to drive to Damon’s house to talk to Damon’s father, Gabriel.
Damon’s family lives in Thunder Bay, where all of the friends grew up. Kai initially goes into the house alone and finds Gabriel gleefully abusing several dogs. Kai proposes that Gabriel sell him the Pope Hotel, and Gabriel demands his son back, calling Kai a criminal and accusing him of having weak loyalty. Gabriel then invites a woman to sit on his lap. He begins fondling her and instructs her to perform oral sex on Kai. Kai resists and declines. Michael and Will walk in, and the three friends are ushered to the terrace and told to wait for Gabriel’s assistant.
Kai tells Michael and Will that he hopes to buy the hotel for their corporation, Graymor Cristane. He leaves out the fact that he believes Damon to be hiding there, and he also refrains from telling them about the mystery of the 12th floor. Although Damon tried to kill Will the year before, Kai also believes that Will needs Damon in his life; Will’s excessive alcohol use makes Kai believe that Will is spiraling without Damon. The three friends agree to scope out the hotel buying it. As they talk, a girl comes out with a pitcher of water and accidentally spills it on Michael. She apologizes and leaves. When Kai hears her name (Banks), he suddenly feels on edge and in shock. He and the others know her, and they wonder if she remembers them. They also wonder how much she just overheard.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Kai, Six Years Ago”
In the past, Kai and his friends were playing basketball at high school when Kai’s father arrived. Knowing that Devil’s Night was that night and that Kai would be wreaking havoc with his friends, he told Kai to make better choices. Those words stuck with Kai, but not enough to stop him from riding out with his friends, fully masked and ready for whatever the night might bring. As everyone raced down the road, Damon nearly ran over a girl on her bike, but he kept going, thinking nothing of it. Kai, Michael, and Will both stopped to help the girl, but she told them to back off and leave her alone. Kai noticed that she was cold and was wearing ragged clothes.
Moments later, some men showed up and urged Kai and the others to leave. The girl hopped onto one of the men’s motorcycles and looked back at Kai, then asked him whether he was on his way to scare people tonight. Kai realized that she was the same girl from the confessional. Michael remarked on Kai’s interest in her, and although Kai did not argue this fact, he felt angry at the girl for having the upper hand and toying with him. He decided to commit a prank far more egregious than any he had pulled before, and he told a friend to clean out the trunk of his car.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Kai, Present”
In the present, Kai goes to the dojo to work off his tension, and Banks appears, along with a couple of Gabriel’s men. Kai has no idea why she is here, but when he goes over to talk to her, he is alarmed by her casual, confident demeanor. Banks has Kai take her to a private office, where she explains Gabriel’s proposition. In order to ensure that Kai will not hurt the family, Gabriel wants Kai to marry Damon’s cousin, Vanessa. Kai finds the idea ridiculous, but when Banks makes it clear that she has been watching him for days (if not weeks), Kai agrees to the proposition. (Privately, Kai’s true goal is merely to gain access to the hotel so that he can search for Damon and get revenge for Damon’s past betrayal.) Now, as part of the deal with Gabriel, Kai demands that Banks work for him until the day of the wedding. Banks doesn’t like the idea and is shocked that Kai has agreed to Gabriel’s proposition at all.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
Throughout the narrative, Douglas employs specific symbols and motifs to emphasize the novel’s embrace of morally ambiguous themes and attitudes. For example, the rain in the opening scene, which returns time and time again, serves as a cover for Kai, allowing him to act without scrutiny. It also adds a layer of mystery to the dark and ambiguous mood, infusing the narrative with a sense of underlying tension and uncertainty about the characters’ intentions. Kai states this idea explicitly when he muses, “The rain made me feel like I could do things I normally couldn’t” (3). Likewise, his act of donning the silver skull mask that he has historically worn during the Horsemen’s various Devil’s Night antics also conceals his identity and gives him a sense of detachment, allowing him to focus only on indulging his selfish desires. As he lurks in the shadows and watches the vulnerable Rika, his ostensibly benevolent purpose of helping her to learn self-defense is contradicted by the inherently threatening pose that he affects and the barely restrained violence of his faux-attack. In these moments, the conventions of the dark romance genre become particularly prominent as the characters engage in morally ambiguous actions that blur the boundary between mutual participation and violent assault.
To further illustrate the questionable ethics underlying the narrative, Douglas includes frequent religious motifs, deliberately casting her star characters in classically “diabolical” roles. By calling themselves the “Four Horsemen” and wearing masks that embody the concepts of famine, war, pestilence, and death, the four friends take on the complex connotations of these iconic biblical demons, a connection that is further enhanced by the violent acts they commit on the titular “Devil’s Nights.” These concepts also carry an implicit sense that the four are subject to judgment and guilty of “sin” in the Christian sense of the word, and the very fact that Kai first meets Banks in the context of a false confession further emphasizes this point. Similarly, the abandoned “Pope Hotel,” which invokes an image of the head of the Catholic Church, also comes to symbolize the characters’ ever-present awareness of their joint secrets and past traumas.
The narrative structure, which shows both Kai and Banks’s perspectives and skips between present events and strategic flashbacks, is designed to provide privileged insights into the characters’ minds. Douglas uses this tactic to illustrate Kai’s thoughts in particular, often revealing his internal struggles and desires. For instance, when he is caught up in the emotions of his more violent moments, he admits, “I didn’t want to stop myself. I wanted to slam through every wall in my head and race so fast I wouldn’t have time to think” (62). He is therefore presented as a complex character who often gives in to his tendencies toward manipulation and control. As he confesses, “I liked doing everything I did wrong” (18), and this admission highlights his willingness to embrace his darker desires. This dynamic is introduced with his callous, calculated attack on Rika, in which he stages an assault and deliberately scares her at the dojo. Although he professes to be helping her to learn self-defense, his visceral enjoyment of the faux-attack suggests that he delights in violating boundaries and imposing his will on those he sees as vulnerable.
Despite his morally ambiguous status, Kai also clearly values the strength of his friendships, and he passionately believes in Making Sacrifices for Love and Friendship alike. As he asserts, “My friends were simply mine. That was it. They were separate from what happened at home, in class, or even in my head sometimes. That’s what I liked about them. When we were together, we were a planet” (53). This metaphor emphasizes the idea that he and the other Horsemen—as well as their respective love interests—create a separate world for themselves, rewriting the rules of social normalcy and forging a complex array of emotional dynamics that highlight The Psychological Impact of Toxic Power Dynamics. As they continue to indulge in behaviors that conventional social standards would deem to be abusive and controlling, they must deal with The Long-Term Consequences of Traumatic Decisions that continue to haunt their thoughts. Notably, Kai continues to exhibit a desire to maintain full control, particularly in his interactions with women, and his problematic relationship with Banks is therefore tainted by a complex power dynamic in which both characters compete for dominance.
As Douglas methodically alternates between the present timeline and strategic flashbacks to the tumultuous events of six years ago, her retrospective focus on the events of Devil’s Night and its aftermath continue to flavor the group’s current dealings. Specifically, Kai’s first encounter with Banks in the confessional booth stands as a pivotal moment for both characters, initiating a complex relationship that the author reveals in fits and starts in between the events that drive Kai’s current vendetta against his former friend, Damon. Within this context, the revelation that Damon may be hiding in the Pope Hotel’s infamous and mysterious 12th floor adds an element of suspense and foreshadows the dramatic scenes that will soon unfold in that unique setting.
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