50 pages • 1 hour read
Lotus
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Prologue-Chapter 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section contains discussion of child abuse, suicidal ideation, graphic violence, sexual content, cursing, illness, and death.
Prologue Summary
An unnamed person frantically walks in the middle of the street while wearing a hazmat suit. Cars honk at them and call them names. The person unzips their suit and concludes Bradford (Raymond Bradley Ford) was right—”toxic fumes” blanket the outside world.
Someone finally helps the unnamed person. Before they collapse, the unnamed person mentions “Lotus” and “The Black Lotus.” In the following chapters, the reader learns that the unnamed person is 30-year-old Oliver Lynch and Bradford was his ostensible kidnapper.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Sydney”
Sydney Neville is a 29-year-old graphic designer and bartender with a passion for dark romance, painting, and the 1990s. Her “best friend” is Gabe Wellington. They grew up together. Gabe lived in the house next to hers with his stepfather, mother, and stepbrother Oliver. Gabe and Sydney gained ownership of their childhood homes through their respective families. Neither Gabe nor Sydney talks about Oliver, who went missing on July 4, 1998. Oliver and Sydney were supposed to see The Parent Trap (1998) together, and Sydney still hasn’t seen it out of respect for Oliver. Sydney accidentally spills coffee on her portrait of Oliver.
