When Demi wakes up in the morning, Daphne is there. She tells Demi that she needs to get ready for work and rips dead skin off of Demi’s lips, causing her to bleed. After Daphne leaves, Bradley arrives. He asserts that Demi is guilty and that even if she isn’t, she must act as if she is in order to survive. Demi says that taking the job was a mistake. As they walk through the house, he reminds her that her contract was for four years and that she can’t leave. Bradley also seems upset at Conrad for not giving Demi more time with the contract and distracting her while she read it. Demi wonders if dying is the only way to leave.

Demi gets her hair and makeup done by a woman named Becca. When Demi asks, Becca says that she’s been working at the house for two years as a “keeper and beauty expert” (125). Prior to that, she lived in a group home. Becca warns Demi against questioning the Ivory family and directs her to the bathroom where her outfit, a white dress and lingerie, is laid out. Demi puts on some lip balm, finds her cleaning cart where Becca said it would be, and goes toward the peony garden.

In the garden, Demi finds a living woman who looks like and claims to be Misha. There are no traces of blood. The replacement Misha tells Demi that she should mop, dust with a boar brush, and never talk to the caged girls. Demi thinks that Misha is referring to dogs, and Misha thinks this is funny. She kisses the top of Demi’s head and leads her to the Ossis wing. There, Misha gives Demi a keycard, which opens the door to the wing.

Inside, Demi mops and is surprised to see a popcorn machine. Inside an office, Demi finds explicit romance novels with passages highlighted. Bradley then comes in and demands to know what Demi is doing. She is angry at him for accusing her of murder and says that she’s leaving that night. Bradley says that she can only leave in a hearse, and Demi says that she’s not property. She looks for a way out and pulls back a curtain, revealing a woman in an all-white room behind a pane of glass. Demi says that the Ivory family is committing crimes and collapses, crying. She realizes that the caged girls are not dogs after all.

Bradley tells Demi to dust and says that he’ll then take her to clean other cages. He says that she can escape this life if she becomes “the favorite girl” (137). Bradley continues, explaining that the girls are part of a study receiving psychiatric treatment. However, he admits that Ian eats popcorn while watching the girls. Demi starts to panic, and Bradley tells her that she can’t afford to break down. He insists that if she follows the rules, she can become the favorite girl and leave; however, he doesn’t explain what “the favorite girl” means. Bradley explains that he’s been at the house for 13 years and was a felon before he started working there.

She continues to cry, and he tries to calm her by asking what she dreams of having. Demi replies that she dreams of Nike shoes and tells him about drawing the Nike logo on a cheap pair of shoes. He says that she should have bigger dreams, and she replies that dreams are not for poor people like her. Bradley tells her to dust the odd wall with off-white pieces. Demi puts the duster in Bradley’s hair and tells him to leave so that she can work. He admits that the wall is made of human bone pieces. She cries and vomits into a trash can.

Conrad comes in and tells Bradley to leave. Demi insults Conrad, and he tells her that she’s lucky that it was him, not someone else, watching the surveillance cameras because he noticed that she isn’t working. She notices that his eyes are a different color. He tells her not to turn around, and when she does, she sees the girl in the cage come up to the glass, put her hands on it, and smile.

Demi screams at the sight of the girl, and Conrad puts his hands over her mouth. He warns her to calm down before his parents see her on the surveillance cameras. Then, he tells her to not talk to the woman in the cage. Conrad claims that she is a psychiatric patient and that the experiments in the cages are FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved. When Demi is quiet and calm, Conrad tells her that Raina has arrived for a visit and takes her back to her room.

Alone in her room, Demi changes into another white outfit that was left for her and takes her hair down. When she comes out, Conrad takes her to the main room, where Raina is waiting. Raina used to babysit Conrad. Demi takes Raina outside to talk privately; she asks Raina to help her leave the Ivory Estate. When Demi talks about the girl in the cage and Misha’s death, Raina responds as if Demi is hallucinating. Raina promises to visit and invites Demi to visit her. Then, Raina reiterates the lie that the women are being treated for psychiatric conditions by Ian. Demi doubts that she saw what she saw.

Back in the house, Daphne gives Demi some freshly baked cookies. Daphne recounts how she was Ian’s favorite girl and grew up in poverty. When she turns to take cookies out of the oven, Daphne trips and falls, revealing that she is wearing a wig over a shaved head. This makes Demi think about the caged girl’s shaved head. Daphne claims to be suffering from chronic hair loss and tells Demi to go to her room. After she leaves, Bradley arrives.

He walks her down the hall and then pushes her against a wall, trapping her there. Bradley says that Ian “wants to get rid of [her]” and that this doesn’t mean firing her (159). Without going into specifics, he warns Demi to do what she’s told and then releases her. Demi cries and admits that she’s hungry. Bradley says that there’s food waiting in her room. Once he is gone, Demi eats and showers. She plans to follow the rules the next day.

Demi struggles to sleep and thinks about escaping. In the morning, Bradley collects her, says that she’s cleaning the Ossis wing, and leaves her with Becca to get ready. Becca tries to cut Demi’s hair so that it will more easily fit in a wig, but Demi stops her. With a lot of effort, Becca gets the blonde wig on over Demi’s natural hair. When they are done, Bradley returns and leads Demi to a cage where a woman is imprisoned in an all-white room. Demi starts to have a panic attack, and Ian enters the cage. Once outside of it, he reprimands Demi while physically restraining her, and he asserts that his work is legal. He demands that she dust the cage and releases her.

Back in the cage, Demi notices that the woman is wearing a blindfold and headphones. Demi mops and dusts the room. Then, Bradley comes in with white rice and plain yogurt for the woman to eat. When he takes off her blindfold and headphones, she smiles at Demi. In the next white cage, the woman is only wearing headphones but looks at the wall while Demi cleans. Bradley points out how Demi needs to empty the buckets of human waste into a concealed compartment in her cart. Demi gags at the smell. Behind Bradley, the woman mouths the word “[r]un” (173).

After they leave the cage, Demi asks what is going on. Bradley says that they will put Demi in a cage if she doesn’t do her work and follow the rules. She cleans the other cages while planning to call the police that night.

When she is finished cleaning, Demi goes back to her room, takes off her wig, and showers. She tries to leave and look for a phone, but her card won’t open the door of her room. Demi decides to sleep and drinks the peony tea that was left for her before climbing into bed. At three o’clock in the morning, she is woken up by Ian pinning her down in the bed. He covers her mouth with his hand and threatens to put an IUD in Demi before their new doctor arrives. Ian says that he just visited his “lovely birds” (179), the caged girls, and checked Demi’s cleaning. He produces a hair that she lost, demanding that she use a roller on her clothes before working. Then, he demands that she cut and dye her hair. She asks to leave, and he says that she can only be released like a bird when he decides. He leaves her room.

Demi is unable to get back to sleep. When her alarm goes off, she showers and dresses. Bradley arrives, and Demi tells him that she is leaving because Ian assaulted her. He says that she’ll die trying and that the only way out is to become “the favorite girl” (183). Then, Bradley takes her to a doctor, Dr. Cowell. The doctor examines Demi, saying that she is “pure,” and inserts an IUD. Demi thinks about her sister.

Bradley collects Demi after the doctor’s appointment. As Bradley takes her to Becca, Demi remembers taking a plane from India to the US with her sister after being sold by their parents. Becca cuts Demi’s hair into a bob and dyes it blonde. After she’s done, Becca says that Demi’s lips look chapped and points at a scar that Demi received when she tried to escape imprisonment at 17. Becca says that she was in an abusive relationship before she came to the Ivory Estate and that she believes Ian and Daphne saved her. Becca also says that the caged girls are in recovery from substance addiction. Demi doubts that the “complete sensory deprivation” that the women endure helps cure their addictions (191). Then, Becca tells Demi that Ian and Daphne are looking for a new favorite girl to be Conrad’s wife.

After the appointment, Bradley compliments Demi’s new look and says that he’s going to feed the caged girls their usual meal of white rice and yogurt. Demi is to clean Daphne’s room. There, she sees a collection of bleach-blonde wigs that are labeled with the names of women and their original hair colors. Bradley comes into the room and tells Demi that she needs to brush the wigs. She thinks they came from the imprisoned women and struggles to brush them, but she completes the task.