Last chapter, misery in the basement. This chapter, more of the same! The plot just speeds along, doesn’t it?

Cecily appears and gives her water.

“I hid in the hallway and heard them talking. They said your heart rate was through the roof. They thought it was going to be a heart attack,” Cecily says, and there’s sympathy in her voice. There’s something else, too. Remorse? Shame? She won’t quite meet my eyes.

Well you did tell her everything bad that ever happened was her fault, so yeah, she’s probably blaming herself for more things she didn’t do.

Rhine just says that For better or worse, Cecily will always be my sister wife. Nothing can undo what we’ve endured together. We will always be connected. so still no admitting that she was not actually the source of all evil, just that Rhine doesn’t have standards when it comes to people she knows. Which, admittedly, explains everything about her relationship with Rapist-chan.

“Oh, Rhine,” Cecily says. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done by coming back? You’ll never get out now. Not ever.”

Huh. I guess she was told it was willing, or at least willing-ish? Although given that no one seems to be clear on the whole “consent” business, maybe this just how people always talk.

“I have to go before Housemaster Vaughn catches me down here,” Cecily says. “I blackmailed an attendant I caught sleeping in the library, and he let me use his key card.

Interesting. This is perhaps the most balanced depiction of the wives’ power we’ve seen – they can get the other servants in trouble, and sometimes, that’s just enough to bend the rules for the wives.

I just—” She sniffles. “I had to come. I never thought I’d see you again.”

God, poor Cecily. She loved Rhine, she helped Rhine escape, and now Rhine’s back with her but in this horrible situation. She probably feels extra terrible for wishing Rhine was back before.

Rhine, incidentally, has been dealing with Cecily’s tears and misery by looking away – it’s so she doesn’t start crying too, but it means she’s reacting to Cecily by trying to ignore her, and in response to this admission she ignores Cecily harder, because avoiding tears is more important than reacting to a crying fourteen year old.

She doesn’t go right away. She runs fingers through my hair and whimpers and apologizes, muttering about things so long ago they don’t matter anymore. Or they aren’t her fault.

Rhine does not clarify if this means she’s finally admitting the stuff she said was Cecily’s fault wasn’t. We have no idea what, really, because Rhine continues to ignore Cecily as she does this. Then she starts hallucinating. Then she decides to talk about something other than reassuring the crying girl:

I finally manage to say words out loud. “Did Linden really denounce me?”

And she’s taken so long that Cecily’s already left.

I’m going to assume Rapist-chan has no idea, though. It makes no sense that Cecily wouldn’t be using what power she has to whine about why he’s being so mean to Rhine why doesn’t he just get kick her out or something if he’s so mad, and it makes almost as little for Evil Mad Scientist to be this open about her if it’s not true, but last book he didn’t realize crying girls weren’t happy volunteers and that the gunshots and screams as they drove away weren’t a celebration for his new brides. The fucker is, or will claim to be, innocent of all this somehow.

Cecily reappears earlier to argue with the attendants that they’re going to kill Rhine, which they ignore, and to demand to see her, threatening to scream and then doing it when they refuse. And she returns later to promise she’ll rescue Rhine somehow.

It’s good that their positions aren’t reversed, because we know Rhine wouldn’t save her.

She has tears in her eyes. She’s wearing a green bikini top, and her wet hair is dripping onto my arm.

I like this detail. She’s sneaking down to this horrible place while she’s pretending to be a carefree wife playing in the pool. And there’s always something almost sad about kids in bikinis, where they’re wearing something sexual and don’t really understand that, and it’s all the worse that Cecily actually does, that she’s not just had sex so young but is in a position where using sexuality is the only real power she has.

Rhine doesn’t believe it’s her, so she says she can prove she’s real because she knows the stories Rhine told her, which is rather absurd because Rhine certainly remembers that enough to hallucinate it. Rhine just says they were about her.

“I know that now,” she says. “I guess I always knew. And I was being selfish. I wanted you here with me. You, me, Jenna, and Linden.” She brushes the hair from my forehead. She smells like pool water and suntan lotion, prompting a memory of bright holographic guppies swimming through me. “If you stay here, you’ll die,” she says. “You don’t belong to me or Linden. You belong out there.”

But Cecily isn’t the one who did this! She’s not the one that was being selfish by confining Rhine or thinking she owned Rhine, she’s not the one who needs to realize this!

How the fuck can the author even write this?

“Linden doesn’t want me anyway,” I say. “He told his father that.”
Something like pain flashes in Cecily’s eyes. Or maybe it’s surprise. She can’t believe Linden would be so callous.

Or maybe it’s something else entirely, we really have no idea because Rhine’s just making things up from whole cloth at this point. Not only that, but we don’t even know Rapist-chan’s feelings – does he think his dad is helping his precious dolly?

Cecily does confirm Rapist-chan at least knows she’s there and told her not to see Rhine.

He thought it would only upset me. He’s very protective, you know. He thinks it’s better if we just forget you existed

We’re totally going to find out that he’d stop this if only he knew what was really going on, making it Cecily’s fault for not speaking up.

She kisses my forehead, ever the aspiring mother figure

Rhine never seems to grasp that Cecily’s attempts to be adult aren’t mockworthy, they’re really sad. And it’s not like she can be a kid. When she wants to play like a kid, she’s a nuisance. When she desperately needs to be protected and comforted by an adult, she’s shunned or outright attacked. No one does this for her, so she does it for other people instead.

On her way out, we learn that Rapist-chan has been fucking her lots more.

“We’re going to have another baby,” she says, not quite achieving the smile she’s trying for. “If it’s a girl, Linden says we can name her Jenna.”

How amazingly kind of Rapist-chan. I’m sure there’ll be no lack of babies to name after dead girls on his watch. Hey, maybe when Cecily eventually dies in childbirth, he can name that kid after her!

When next Rhine returns to what passes for lucidity in a character who’s an idiot, she lists things she knows:

It’s true that Linden gave me to his father.

Except for the part where you have no idea what happened, sure!

Vaughn still has his talons in my sister wife. She’s giving him another grandchild to experiment with.

No, I think what happened is Rapist-chan is still fucking his underaged property and that’s why she’s pregnant again.

I will not be able to protect her this time.

You don’t protect anyone, Rhine.

Rose’s baby was malformed. Vaughn killed it. Linden will never know.

You know, for the record, still don’t know he killed it either. Rhine seems to be assuming that malformed babies only die because of deliberate actions, but that’s absurd. And given Evil Mad Scientist doesn’t much care about the truth either way, it’s just as plausible he’d lie to say it was stillborn just because he failed to save it.

My brother will never know what happened to me.
Somewhere very far away, Gabriel woke up and realized I was gone. He will never know what happened to me either.

You could have fought back. You could have left some message, even just kicked off your shoe. You could have agreed to climb into the limo but screamed at the last moment so they’d look out and seen you vanish. You had so many options and you took none of them because you’re a passive lump.

Deidre reappears to remind us that Rhine’s suffering is nothing compared to other people. She throws up unpleasant green stuff on the floor, then slowly recovers, and then cleans it up herself so no one will know. Because this is the book, she says that Evil Mad Scientist will do even more terrible things to Rhine. I think getting single-digit girls pregnant until they bleed out is kind of topping the terrible chart, but hey, they’re not Rhine so obviously her suffering is a bigger deal. Rhine reminds us this is “her” “domestic” because that’s all the girl is, and also adds she looks so hopeless, but she won’t cry, maybe because she still has some fight left. so maybe artificial insemination doesn’t count as a de-virgining so unlike the sluts who had sex for money, Deidre is still sort of a person and not a soulless disgusting thing.

Still probably going to die since her womb isn’t pristine, though.

“I should have taken you with me,” I say. “Hidden you someplace he couldn’t find you.”

That’s a nice sentiment from Rhine, though.

Deidre says it’s pointless because Rhine had a tracker inserted into her thigh.

“You and your sister wives are his property. You’ll always belong to him.”

Creepy and yet so underwhelming. First off, they already were his property, the tracker just makes them easier to retrieve. Second…wait, he had a tracker in her and he still took that long to find them? How fucking lazy is he? She was at the carnival for at least a week and then she spends ages in the orphanage before he shows up there.

Because Rhine is useless, it doesn’t occur to her that the answer is that next time, escape then remove tracker then keep going. She could even stick it on a truck or something to just fuck with the guy. Nope, she’s obviously unable to escape ever now.

Then she runs off because Evil Mad Scientist is coming. Does no one notice the children running around the place?

“I know you’re awake,” Vaughn says. “That’s good. You’ll need to be conscious for this one.”
He pries my eyelid open, shines a flashlight at me. “Your pupils aren’t dilating the way they should. Somehow I suspect you’ve been tampering with your dosages.” He laughs. “You always were difficult, weren’t you?”

Little does he know that actually it’s everyone else who’s been yanking her IVs out. Evil Mad Scientist seems to mistake Rhine getting swept along by plot for actual initiative on her part. I don’t know if the author is deliberately trying to hide Rhine’s uselessness by having him act this way or if she’s actually just as oblivious.

But anyway he’s terrible because he’s going to do nasty stuff to her when she’s awake now. Previously he was terrible for her not being awake. Basically whatever he’s doing is worst thing ever.

“I much prefer you when you’re unconscious,” he says. “It’s just easier to keep track of you.

This is blackly funny, though it’s undercut by, as I just said, her actually being a useless lump no matter what.

Anyway, he says she’s going to start waking and sleeping normally, though she’ll have vivid dreams. Instead, she just sort of falls in and out of dreams. She should maybe tell him this, since he seems to have an interest in keeping her alive and in semi-decent condition and this sounds worrying. Then she starts hearing everything, though it’s not clear if this is real.

I hear every footfall within this mansion, every creaking floorboard, every trill of laughter from the kitchen, every murmur and sigh from my sister wife’s bedroom when Linden visits her.

Just want to remind you that yes, the world outside Rhine’s head continues to be vile.

One day during Evil Mad Scientist’s visits he mentions the orange blossoms are super pretty.

His eyes are very green today. They’re Linden’s eyes, I think. How did they find their way onto his father’s face?

Because they’re both terrible people Rhine when will you figure this out? You even believe Rapist-chan gave his dad a thumbs up on torturing you to death just because you dared run after he kidnapped you, and yet you still don’t get that he’s a monster.

“Wherever I go, you’ll find me, won’t you?”
“That’s neither here nor there,” he says as he taps the barrel of the syringe. “You’re not going anyplace.”

Oh, Evil Mad Scientist. You are evil, but you’re kind of funny in your cheerfulness about it, so, keep on doing that I guess.

Cecily promises an escape, but this, like everything, is out of her hands.

She’s the only reason you finally escaped last time.

That is best, I think. She would only endanger herself by coming down here. Better for her to live upstairs. She is always trying to take charge of things much too big for her; but how can I hold that against her? I’m the same way.

Fuck you, Rhine. Cecily loved you and you were cruel at every opportunity in return. What the fuck did you do at the mansion besides getting Jenna killed by involving her in your stupid plan to see your stupid boyfriend who was perfectly fine but no, he had to work in the basement, that was the worst thing ever and obviously you just had to see him no matter the cost, and then somehow it’s all Cecily’s fault Jenna’s dead and she’s the worst monster in the place.

I can hear the rush of air through the vents; the temperature in the basement is probably regulated. Sometimes I think I hear Rose crawling through the air ducts, but none of them lead her outside. She’ll never be free either.

As I said back at the beginning, the writing’s best when RHine slightly off, it’s when we get the best description. By and large this section of the book is overdosing on it, though. I guess I was wrong about it being better with Rhine kind of drugged. The author naturally tends toward dream descriptions, and adding in drugs just takes away the grounding that made that work instead of just being a string of nonsense.

Evil Mad Scientist finally confirms that yeah, her eyes are the most specialest.

“I made suggestions that day, but my son picked you out on his own. If he hadn’t, maybe things would have been easier.”

So…I guess he was there too, maybe? And he’d have picked her for himself – he explicitly confirms she wouldn’t have died.

Do you know much about heterochromia? Picture your genes like a mosaic,” he says. “All different pieces that don’t seem to blend together, but step back and you’ll find that those mismatched pieces make a coherent picture. They just take a more creative approach to making it.”
He’s losing me. But lately I have a hard time understanding even simple things. “I suspect that what you have is genetic mosaicism. Two different populations of cells, where the average person only has one. One blue eye; one brown eye.”

Oh my god it’s almost actual science. Let’s just ignore the part where he said her “genes” were the mosaic and call it a win.

What I keep thinking is that maybe somehow she and her brother have a mix of male and female cells, since otherwise why would they be the same, but also keep coming back to the fact there’s no reason that would really help, you’d either end up with them both dying at twenty when the female cells suicide or the two lifespans averaging together to make people die at 22 or something.

Although maybe half your cells “dying of virus” would be survivable, so instead of getting sick once and dying, you get sick twice and live. But I’m pretty sure the actual solution will have to be perfect.

Rhine then says she has no idea what the smart words mean but her brother would because he understood sciency sounds and in fact was so super smart maybe he knows already! All Rhine knows is she should keep her twinness a special secret, because obviously Evil Mad Scientist actually knows what he’s talking about regarding genes and might actually be on the way to a cure, and there’s no way any cure will be happening on Rhine’s watch!

“I could never have anticipated how much my son would love you,” Vaughn goes on. “I knew I couldn’t take you away from him.”

This is stupid because first, she was totally picked to be his replacement goldfish so that was obvious and second, he ignored the wives until Rose died so Evil Mad Scientist could totally have grabbed Rhine before that.

He doesn’t love me now,” I say.
“He absolutely loves you,” Vaughn says. “Love unrequited is violent. He loves you so much that he’s turned it into hate.”

That’s the kind of world this is, I admit. Even the highest expression of love from Gabriel was his promise to maim anyone who dared touch Rhine. Makes me long for the Japanese media with their idealistic talk of how what really matters is that the person they love is happy.

Hate. I try to picture it in Linden’s sullen face, but I can’t. Maybe it’s for the best that I don’t.

I can. He’s a spoiled and monstrous child who thinks he’s owed anything he wants. Even his mourning after Rose’s death was entirely self-centered.

When he leaves me, I hear Rose in the ceiling start to scream.

Well, it’s a good line to end with. It likely means nothing, unfortunately. The author hasn’t been using the dream bits to show Rhine misinterpreting events, they just jump between imaginary stuff and reality.