The Library at Mount Char

Several years ago, after 13 years in the Army and three combat tours in Afghanistan, Erwin Leffington decided he didn’t want to kill anymore. He taught middle school art while he worked through his trauma. Helping a bullied kid named Dashaen learn to stand up for himself proved incredibly healing. Erwin felt like himself again, ready to do what he was great at. Now, Erwin works as a Homeland Security agent. He’s also quite famous because of his heroic actions in the war. Someone wrote a book about him, which became a movie. He hates the fame and being asked about himself.

Erwin is visiting Steve Hodgson in jail. Steve, who’s been resurrected by Jennifer and has no idea that Carolyn killed him, is accused of killing Detective Miner. They meet in the jail chapel since the visitation room is full. Steve’s public defender, Larry Dorn, joins them, and they discuss his case. After hearing Steve’s account of what happened, Erwin tells him the woman was Carolyn Sopaski. Security footage of a bank robbery shows her and another woman—wearing a bathrobe and cowboy hat—stealing $327,000. Erwin found her childhood records, but nothing after age eight.

Gunshots and screams interrupt them. David comes in, covered in blood and entrails. He kills the guard and Dorn and is about to attack Erwin when he recognizes him as a war hero. David gives Erwin a sort of salute, then knocks Steve unconscious and carries him out. 

When Erwin exits the chapel, he finds the lobby destroyed and everyone dead. He goes back to the chapel for his file on Carolyn. He’d wanted to show Steve a picture of her in a water park at age seven. Behind her in the picture, there’s a 10-year-old boy who looks just like Steve. A painting on the wall grabs Erwin’s attention. In it, “Jesus—or whomever—held his hands out, keeping the dark things of creation at bay” (109-10). Erwin hears a rumble of thunder from the east, moving closer.

Marcus is a hip-hop mogul who recently bought an estate in Connecticut. He’s stepped away from the party he’s throwing to show off his lions to a Brazilian supermodel named Aliane. The large male is named Dresden, and the smaller female, Dresden’s cub, is Nagasaki, or Naga for short. Every night in his dreams, Dresden relives when he and Naga were captured from the wild and the horrors of captivity that followed. He wakes to find three humans in the pit. One speaks his language and calls him by his real name, Thorn of Dawn.

Michael says he heard about Dresden’s captivity while hunting with another pride. David and Carolyn are there with him. Dresden tells them he prays nightly to the Forest God, asking only for his daughter to know freedom. Meanwhile, outside the lion pit, Marcus brags to Aliane about capturing the lions. He admits that his hunting party shot and killed Naga’s mother because they were out of tranquilizer darts. 

It’s feeding time, and Marcus dangles a live chicken over the lion pit. Then he realizes the pit—supposedly impossible to escape—is empty. Before he and Aliane can get to safety, Dresden appears and kills Aliane. Marcus runs into a room for safety but finds the librarians inside. After taking Marcus’s gun and breaking his fingers, they explain that Dresden agreed to help them. In return, they’ll free Naga and let Dresden kill Marcus.

Steve wakes up at Mrs. McGillicutty’s house, where David brought him. He’s shocked when he sees Carolyn there among the other librarians. He asks why he shouldn’t kill her, since she framed him for murder and ruined his life. Carolyn promises to explain and says she’ll make his problems go away if he’ll do a small service for her. She introduces him to Rachel and three of her children, and then she calls the White House on speaker. She asks for the president and gives the day’s security codes, which she obtained from Rachel’s children. The White House Chief of Staff, Bryan Hamann, questions her authority to use codes that only three living people have access to. Carolyn alludes to extremely secret and dangerous information, which she’ll use against them if she’s not speaking to the president in one minute.

When the president takes the call, Carolyn tells him her Father is Adam Black, the Adam Black mentioned in the folder he received on his first day in office. The former president had made an agreement to ensure that the government would leave Father alone. Carolyn asks the president to pardon Steve. She lists the charges against him but says she knows he’s innocent because she killed Detective Miner. Carolyn adds that a secret file called Cold Home, which the president was briefed on, reveals what her Father is capable of. The president should know, therefore, how unwise it would be to refuse this request. The president agrees to pardon Steve.

That night, Carolyn gives Steve the duffel bag full of cash, saying it already belongs to him, but the librarians want him to move something for them. She explains what the token is and insists it won’t harm him, but Steve doesn’t believe her. Even though he calls her a “lying-ass liar,” Steve knows he doesn’t have any other options, so he agrees. Carolyn says he may need to protect himself against Father’s sentinels and gives him a gun. She also says if the sentinels are a problem, he’ll have help from Michael’s “friends,” the lions.