57 pages • 1-hour read
Hideaway
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Chapters 12-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide features depictions of sexual violence, rape, dubious consent, child abuse and child sexual abuse, addiction, sexually explicit content, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Banks, Present”
Banks’s father, Gabriel, urges her to have Kai sign the contract, but Banks knows that Kai will never do it. To prevent Kai from finding out that she is Gabriel’s daughter, Banks starts to cover all the links to her past. To this end, she goes to her mother’s apartment, only to find it in total disrepair. Her mother is present, along with two strange men. A camera has been set up there. Banks destroys the camera and orders the men to leave, then reminds her mother that she pays for the woman’s drugs and anything else that her mother needs. Banks gives her mother what little money she has and then leaves, enraged. She knows that her mother will only feel guilty about the exchange for a moment.
Kai find Banks walking in the rain and picks her up. They go to the dojo, and Kai takes her to the shower, where they stand in the hot water together. Banks does all she can not to smile at this intimate moment between them. Afterward, Kai tells his friend Alex to bring fresh clothes for Banks; Alex brings a sports bra and leggings. Banks is surprised to find that the leggings are comfortable, but she hates the feeling of exposure she gets upon wearing the sports bra. Alex can sense that Banks isn’t used to being touched, and he tells Banks to close her eyes and imagine the person she wants to be intimate with. Alex touches her all over her body; believing that Kai is touching her, she starts to moan with arousal, but she suddenly realizes that Alex, not Kai, is touching her. Afterward, Banks makes efforts to obtain a sweater or jacket to wear, but her every attempt is thwarted.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Banks, Six Years Ago”
In this past moment, Banks went into Damon’s room and sat down on the bed, only for someone to lie down beside her and begin touching her. At first, she thought it was Damon, but she soon realized that it was Michael. Despite her protests, Michael grabbed her and brought her to the Pope Hotel for a game of “hide and seek” on the holiday known as the Day of the Dead. In this game, the girls hid, and the boys sought them out. A boy who found a girl then had the opportunity to enjoy 15 minutes alone with her.
Banks managed to hide well by curling up behind the pillows on one of the beds, but she was eventually forced to reveal herself when two people started having sex on the same bed. It was then that Kai found her and began chasing her. Eventually, he found her behind some drapes in the ballroom. Kai and Banks shared a deeply intimate moment and had sex with their clothes on. Afterward, they saw the figure of a woman dancing on the stage.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Kai, Present”
Now, Kai gives Banks a set of keys to the dojo, showing her a level of trust, then heads to the Pope Hotel. On the way, he finally hears from Damon, who calls, threatening to kill Kai. Damon also declares that Banks belongs to him alone. Kai challenges Damon to meet him so that they can settle the matters that stand between them, but Damon doesn’t take the invitation. Instead, he reminds Kai of his secret. (In the previous novel, Damon convinced Kai that Kai was the one who killed Damon’s mother.) Kai knows that this is the most shameful aspect of his past, and before hanging up, he threatens to kill Damon if he ever tells anyone.
Kai witnesses Banks sneaking into a back entrance of the Pope Hotel and follows her. He discovers that she has access to the elevators and to the elusive 12th floor. When Kai tries to reach the same floor, he can’t get there, but he then decides to try pressing the 11th and 13th buttons simultaneously. When he does, a panel opens up on the elevator wall; it requires a code that Kai doesn’t know. Suddenly, a door opens into a penthouse suite to reveal a shocked Banks standing there. Kai demands to search the penthouse. He finds evidence that Damon was there, but Damon is not currently present. Kai knows that he can use Banks to get to Damon and find out where Damon buried his mother’s body. However, Kai is torn between that goal and his desire to be with Banks.
Kai demands that Banks beg him to leave Damon alone, but Banks refuses. She slaps Kai, and this act of violence arouses him. He grabs her and plunges his mouth onto hers, then takes her shirt off and is startled to see that she is wearing bindings around her chest. He quickly cuts the bindings off and exposes her breasts. Assuming that Banks has been sexually active with several men, including Damon, Kai feels a surge of jealousy. He takes her over to the bed and penetrates her but is startled when she starts yelling in pain. He suddenly realizes that before he violated her, Banks was a virgin, so he stops his sexual assault of her. Afterward, she almost laughs at him for being so presumptuous.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Banks, Present”
Kai feels guilty for raping Banks and for failing to realize that she was a virgin. Banks angrily tells him to get off of her. Kai urges Banks to calm herself and to remember their first moments in the confessional, when it was just the two of them present, with no one to interfere. He pulls Banks on top of him and begins touching her between her legs, and she succumbs to his seduction. Soon, the two are naked together, and this time, Banks gives Kai permission to enter her again. Her pain is brief and soon gives way to pleasure, and the encounter marks their most passionate moment yet. Afterward, Kai asks Banks why she waxed herself if she wasn’t sexually active, and Banks confesses that she never wanted to grow up or to become a woman.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Banks, Six Years Ago”
In this past moment, Kai and Banks stared at the woman on the stage, and Banks suddenly recognized her as Damon’s abusive mother, Natalya, who had gone missing three years before. Banks tried to sneak away with Kai, but Natalya spotted them both, and Banks couldn’t help but question Natalya over her presence at the hotel. Natalya responded by asking after Damon’s whereabouts. Banks, who was already aware of Natalya’s history of sexually abusing Damon from a young age, tried to tell Natalya to stay away from Damon. Seeing Natalya again in this setting reminded Banks of all the times that she would hold the young Damon as he cried; during those moments he would often ask her to hurt him in order to distract him from the greater pain of his mother’s abuse.
Moments later, Damon appeared near the stage, angry and confused as to why Banks, Kai, and his mother were even there. Natalya started talking to Damon, cooing at him and lusting after him in an attempt to convince him to sexually abuse Banks. Damon started to fall under Natalya’s “spell,” staring stared at Banks in a way that he never had before. At that point, Kai intervened, hitting Natalya and causing her to fall. Damon broke out of his trance, and Banks hurried to help him. She held him and bit into his neck to give him the painful sensation that he craved in that moment. Afterward, Kai tried to take Banks with him when he left, but she decided to remain with Damon. However, Damon had plans to deal with Natalya first.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Banks, Present”
In the present, Banks heads over to the men’s club to find Kai and present him with Gabriel’s contract yet again. Kai continues to resist signing it, so Banks forges his signature and threatens to take the contract to Gabriel if Kai doesn’t make a decision. Kai orders Banks to go to the dojo, where she spends the day cleaning and doing minor repairs. Despite the harsh conditions and Kai’s mistreatment, Banks still prefers her new position, as Kai pays her much more than Gabriel ever did.
At one point, Michael calls the dojo and asks to talk to Kai, but Kai isn’t there, so he asks Banks for some business advice. Banks refuses. Later, when she spots Kai and Rika flirting and touching, she grows enraged at Rika.
Banks later confronts Rika, threatening to fight her. When she implies that Rika is promiscuous and unfaithful to Michael, Rika punches her. The two tussle for several minutes, until Kai finds them and intervenes. Kai asks Banks if she is jealous of Rika, and he takes her somewhere private to talk.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Banks, Present”
Banks is told to meet Alex at a department store in an unfamiliar part of town. When she finds the location, she also finds Alex, who takes her inside after the store closes, all with the help of a security guard. Alex takes Banks up a floor to the lingerie section and starts picking things out for her; Banks can hardly stand this attention. She moves to leave, but Will appears and explains that her appearance and wardrobe do not adequately represent Graymor Cristane. Banks succumbs to the shopping spree and eventually even develops an interest in it.
However, on the way home, she receives a phone call from Damon, who tells her that he plans to find Kai at the cathedral and kill him in punishment for becoming romantically involved with Banks. Panicking, Banks asks Will to head straight for the cathedral.
Chapters 12-18 Analysis
In these chapters, Banks’s dysfunctional emotional bond with Damon is explored as she deals with The Long-Term Consequences of Traumatic Decisions that she has made either on his behalf or at his behest. For example, she reflects on her long labor of helping him to cope with the trauma of his mother’s abuse, and she knows that her support was the only thing that gave him a sense of security during that time. As she states, “So many kids who suffer abuse don’t like to be touched, but when Damon was spiraling out, he couldn’t get close enough to me. Like he just wanted to crawl inside my head, where he knew it was safe” (295). Thus, their early experiences of intimacy are defined by the joint dynamics of survival and emotional dependency. Because Banks provided a rare source of safety for Damon, she now feels obligated to continue supporting him even though his adult behavior is deeply dangerous and destructive to her and the people she is growing to love, such as Kai.
While the novel frequently presents Kai as a healthier, more empathic alternative to the increasingly erratic Damon, Kai’s own behavior continues to demonstrate The Psychological Impact of Toxic Power Dynamics, especially when he sexually assaults and rapes Banks in a moment of unrestrained lust. Although the narrative plays up his guilt upon realizing that Banks was a virgin when Kai violated her, the reason for his remorse is grossly misplaced; he is sorry for the fact that her first sexual experience was violent rather than romantic, but he does not fully acknowledge the reality that he raped her, and the narrative itself quickly hurries past this issue entirely. This glaring silence in the source text stands as a prime example of the often twisted dynamics that dominate the dark romance genre. Because Kai follows up his sexual assault with a more tender, loving approach, the initial violation is implicitly excused and forgotten, and Banks proceeds as if Kai is a viable romantic prospect rather than an abuser. By framing a rape as a precursor to a genuinely loving relationship, the novel actively normalizes sexual abuse and presents it as a borderline acceptable practice: a highly problematic stance.
As Banks grows closer to Kai, their relationship continues to reflect an edgy element of violence that is implicitly tied to sexual arousal. For example, Kai is drawn to her stubbornness, and when she slaps him, he becomes even more aroused at the toxicity that builds between them. His sexual desire is tightly linked to the dynamics of control, and this issue explains his intense jealousy upon contemplating the possibility that Banks may have slept with Damon or with other men. Only when he discovers that she is a virgin does his jealousy fade away into vague regret and a new, possessive tenderness, but this shift is only inspired by his newly certain knowledge that he is the first person to ever have sex with her. The prominent elements of domination therefore taint the pair’s interactions as they test each other’s boundaries rather than respecting them. Although their connection grows deeper, all of their scenes together are complicated by unstable power shifts as Kai repeatedly attempts to assert his dominance over Banks in a variety of toxic ways. She doesn’t explicitly tell him to stop, but she is clearly caught in a power dynamic that blurs the boundary between abject compliance and genuine desire.
In order to create a deeper explanation for the complex inner currents that pull Banks into maladaptive relationships, Douglas uses sensory imagery to depict the intense emotional realities that exist between her and her mother, who remains addicted to drugs and depends upon her daughter’s financial support to persist in her substance abuse. When Banks returns to her mother’s apartment, the scene is filled with pain and neglect, and the descriptions of “scattered” clothing and the “stench of cigarettes” (210) create a visceral sense of the hovel that serves as her mother’s only shelter. Because her mother’s current circumstances hint at the conditions that must have dominated Banks’s upbringing, the scene is designed to illustrate Banks’s reasons for maintaining a tough exterior and refusing to trust others in her adult life.
Ultimately, these chapters also serve to advance the tension that drives the narrative forward, and as Damon’s jealousy of Kai advances, he becomes increasingly erratic and possessive of his sister. This issue becomes abundantly clear when he calls Kai and demands to know if Kai has “fucked” Banks yet; his vulgar question is worsened when he then insists that Banks “belongs” to him and threatens to kill Kai outright. This rising sense of violence foreshadows the crises that will dominate the novel’s climax.
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