Last time on Fever, Rapist-chan saves the day with his property rights.

Rhine wakes up to see Rapist-chan waiting for her. He is duly horrified to learn she had a tracker in her leg.

“Your father found me all the way in Manhattan with it,” I say.
Linden raises his eyes to me. The brighter, kinder version of his father’s eyes.
“So that’s where you went,” he says, and looks away. There’s a long pause before he asks, “Why?”
“That’s my home,” I say. Or, it was my home. There’s nothing left for me in that charred house now.

Cue Rhine talking about how he’s such a sweetie:

he can’t stand to look right at me. I don’t blame him. He should hate me for my betrayal, and I can see him struggling with this, because hate has never been a part of who he is. When we were first married, I thought he must have been the most heartless, hateful man I’d ever known, but he was just as much a prisoner as I was. Where Vaughn imprisoned me with walls, he imprisoned his son with ignorance.

And yet even as she says this, he remains silent and shows us what a lie this is. He doesn’t ask why her house is gone. He doesn’t say anything about how didn’t she want to leave her home, isn’t that why she signed up to be a bride? If there’s any ignorance in him, it’s willful.

And when I struggle to sit up, he turns and watches me, not helping, not cooing words of encouragement. Gone are my days of taking his love for granted. There is emptiness where that love once thrived. I was wrong about Linden’s abandoning me; he wouldn’t have given me to his father to be a guinea pig. But that’s because he’s kind, and compassionate, and not at all because he has any love left for me.

This book is unspeakably vile.

Rhine says she needs to go home. Rapist-chan brushes this off saying she’s safe from his father now, and she explains that no, she has a home with people who don’t know she’s even still alive.

“Oh, yes,” Linden says. “That attendant.”

…

Rhine at least still has some of her spine left to her, because while she tells us this is so so justified by Rapist-chan, she’s justified in wanting to leave too because it wasn’t her choice.

And yet still, we dance around Rhine forcing him to actually acknowledge what happened.

“Do you even know what it feels like to lose someone you loved?” he asks.
“I lost everyone I loved,” I tell him. I wait for him to look at me, and then I add, “The day I met you.”
As soon as I’ve said the words out loud, I regret them. Linden shifts his weight in the chair, averts his eyes, and asks no more questions.

Why would you regret anything? If he showed some actual concern, I could see it, I could see the idea that he was totally innocent in this, but he doesn’t. He responds to everything she says that’s off-script by ignoring it. He either knows enough of what she’s saying to want to hide from it, or he gives absolutely no fucks regardless so all he cares is that his doll is doing something besides tell him how great he is.

Because he is so wonderful he keeps up his bedside vigil. That’s really what I look for in a kidnapping rapist, his insistence on not leaving his property alone.

I lie in the hospital bed and stare at the muted television. They’re running some story about infants. The caption reads: Doctor believes he has duplicated virus symptoms.
That brings me out of my haze. This story is about Vaughn. The newscaster, with her cheerful young face and windswept blond hair, can’t imagine the horrible extremes

It does not occur to Rhine, of course, that this means her precious Rapist-chan has done nothing. That he not only hasn’t turned the man in for what he’s done, but hasn’t even gotten him to stop. That the other girls are still in the basement, that he can go out any time he likes to get more.

Rhine at least is able to still blame Evil Mad Scientist, though. She assumes Rapist-chan just has no idea of the rest. So she tells him. He looks disbelieving, so she says Cecily can tell him the same because she was there too.

“Yes, and she should have told me,” Linden says. “She didn’t until it was almost too late. And I will deal with her when the time comes

How can someone write this?

Rhine doesn’t care, of course. Rhine never cares about the terrible things he says or does. She just insists that he needs to go back to Cecily because she’s not safe either, so, at least she’s finally trying to protect her.

“I won’t justify my father’s actions. He nearly killed you. He didn’t tell me that you’d come back, probably because he knew I would never allow testing on someone against their will.” So that’s it. Cecily lied to me. She never told Linden that I was in the basement. I would have expected as much from Vaughn, but maybe I overestimated my sister wife. It wouldn’t be her first deception. And it’s proof that Vaughn still has his hooks in her.

You know, it’s not really surprising and yet even knowing it’s coming it’s just something you can’t brace yourself for.

This is honestly what I expected the whole book to be, though, so I guess it’s better than I thought it’d be, mostly filler and only just a few chapters of this horror.

“He took things too far,” Linden goes on. “Sometimes he doesn’t realize how dangerous his treatments can be. If he’d told me, I wouldn’t have agreed—”

A little while ago it was “no unwilling subjects” but already Rapist-chan has slipped into admitting he means unwilling use of his property, not the property’s feelings on the matter. You’ll notice his complete lack of concern for her claim his father is torturing other girls.

“He killed Jenna,” I cry. “He almost killed me. You think Cecily is safe? He keeps Rose’s body in the basement. I saw it! He lied about her ashes—”
“Enough!” Linden bellows, and it’s so frightening coming from him that I shut my mouth. “Do not,” he growls. “Do not bring Rose into this. Not ever. You know nothing about her. Or my father. What right do you have to say these things to me?”

And Rhine is so sorry she made him mad, and I hate myself for what I say next. “Linden, he killed your child.”

Shockingly, her explanation about the first baby just provokes more of Rapist-chan’s rage. It’s almost like he’s a horrible person who responds with violence when he’s told something he doesn’t like.

Why are you saying these things? I—” He shakes his head, disgusted with me. “Why are you being so—” He grits his teeth and can’t bring himself to look at me. His voice fades when he adds, “So awful. You’re awful.”
When he paces toward my bed, I reach out to touch him but think better of it and withdraw.
“Every word out of your mouth,” he pants, “has been a lie, hasn’t it?”
“No,” I say softly. “Not everything.”
“What about your name?” he says. “Is your name even Rhine?”

And do you know what she thinks? She thinks she deserves it. She tells us that he’s so sweet and noble he’s fighting with his own instincts to believe her and it’s all her fault he doesn’t because she’s so awful.

But at least it makes her talk. She tells him it’s her real name and she was forced to marry him and she just wanted to go home and Jenna helped her and that’s why she was killed.

And he believes her…

And the way his mouth twists—like he wants to sob or shout something horrible at me—makes my body ache with longing. It’s an old instinct from all our nights together, so many of which were spent grieving our separate losses. I want to hold him.

By the way, no, he’s not going to go rescue Cecily. Even though he seems to believe her. All he cares is his toy said stuff he didn’t want to know.

“Don’t you care about Cecily?” I ask. “If it were Rose, you know you’d go back.” Once I’ve said it, I fear it’s going to make him angry. But his face goes distant, his tone practical. “I love Cecily,” Linden says, “whether or not you believe it. Not in the same way I loved Rose, or you. But what should that matter? I’ve loved all of my wives differently.”

And Rhine sees nothing wrong with this statement. She just says he never loved Jenna, and he says he did so, they had an understanding, by which he means they fucked without talking so they didn’t have to think about bad stuff.

When we were together, we wouldn’t feel or think anything at all. In a way, it rid us of loneliness for a while.”

Which is, of course, not true. Jenna let him fuck her because she didn’t want whatever horrible things his dad threatened to happen.

I think that’s still true, because the first thing Rhine thinks is that Jenna knew how to take away a man’s loneliness and how she was deceptive – positively described, at least.

Rhine sadly does not respond with the fact it’s his fault her sisters died. She just says that Jenna would agree with her that he needs to go save Cecily. Rapist-chan agrees this is totally what Jenna would say. Also, he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t slam the door behind him, but it somehow feels that way.
I slump against the pillows, heartsick with guilt.

It’s all Rhine’s fault Rapist-chan is terrible.

It’s true that Linden has no reason to believe me. But I saw the belief in his eyes.

So even the book’s come to admit that he knows full well what’s happening. But still, Rhine’s terrible and it’s all her fault (except for how much is Cecily’s) and Rapist-chan is the real victim here.

at least I am sure that no amount of hatred would cause him to allow his father near me. He’ll come back, or he’ll tell the doctors to release me.

Those are the things she expects from her precious Rapist-chan. He’ll keep her because he wants to or he’ll kick her out because he hates her. Willing? As if that matters.

Anyway. The news is on and they’re interviewing the pro-naturalist “rebels” and wow, we must really not have a government any longer if they aren’t calling those people terrorists.

One of them takes the microphone from her hand, and he’s speaking so angrily that she leans back. The camera pans in on him, the matted hair, bloodied cheek. His eyes, though, are bright and eager. And if not for them, I wouldn’t recognize him at all. Because those eyes are exactly like mine. I open my mouth to speak, and only a cry escapes. I cover my mouth, wait for the joy and fear and shock to become manageable, then try again.
“Rowan.”

And we’re done! Well, that was disappointing, terrible, more terrible and then abruptly over.