Mind Games

Twelve-year-old Thea Fox and her ten-year-old brother, Rem, travel with their parents, Cora and John, from Fredericksburg, Virginia, to spend the summer with their maternal grandmother, Lucy Lannigan, in Redbud Hollow, Kentucky. Thea anticipates the mountains, the animals, and the familiarity of Lucy's farm. She already possesses a psychic sensitivity that allows her to recognize things other people have not spoken aloud, a gift shared by women in her mother's family. Her mother is uneasy about it, while Lucy accepts it as part of their family.

John and Cora have built a successful design business and a loving home despite the disapproval of John's affluent parents, who look down on Cora and her Kentucky relatives. Lucy, by contrast, regards John as a son. The visit gives the children a sense of belonging that differs from their comfortable life in Virginia. Cora suggests bringing the wider family together for another gathering, looking ahead to years of ordinary visits. None of them knows this will be their last summer together.

After Cora and John return to their work in Virginia, Thea and Rem settle into life with Lucy. They tend animals and the vegetable garden, make food and household products, and help maintain Lucy's Mountain Magic soap and medicinal business. Thea values the independence and responsibility Lucy gives them. During a visit to a struggling household in the hills, Lucy treats a young child's ringworm and delivers practical supplies without humiliating the family. Her work demonstrates how people in Redbud Hollow depend on neighbors for help.

The children accompany Lucy to town to deliver her products, meet local residents, and enjoy simple treats. At home Thea uses her journal to develop the fantasy world of Endon, which she has dreamed and imagined over many years. The characters and landscapes interest her beyond ordinary storytelling and will later form the foundation of her career. This chapter remains rooted in the everyday summer routine, with a coming storm only part of the atmosphere; the murders have not yet occurred.

Back in Fredericksburg, Cora Fox finishes a successful business engagement, shops for a special dinner with John, and looks forward to seeing the children again. Eighteen-year-old Ray Riggs notices her expensive anniversary watch and follows her home. He has psychic abilities of his own, but uses them to identify vulnerabilities and satisfy his envy and desire for violence. He has already stolen the car he drives and committed other murders. He waits until the house is quiet, cuts through the glass of a sliding door, and enters with a gun.

Riggs studies the prosperous home with hostility, takes note of a photograph of Thea, and climbs to the sleeping couple's bedroom. From Kentucky, Thea experiences the attack through a terrifying psychic connection to Riggs, including details she could not witness physically. John and Cora are murdered, and the killer steals valuables, her watch, and Thea's photograph. Thea wakes distraught and seeks Lucy, who has also sensed the tragedy, though her perception is not identical to Thea's. They contact the local sheriff rather than assuming the nightmare is ordinary.

Sheriff Tate McKinnon and Deputy Alice Driscoll come to Lucy's home after Lucy reports what she and Thea perceived. Thea describes the violence and details of the intruder despite being hundreds of miles away. She knows that Riggs shot John through a pillow, forced Cora to reveal the safe's combination, then shot Cora. Her account includes the stolen jewelry and anniversary watch, the gun, and the murderer's face. The sheriff must coordinate with authorities in Virginia to establish the facts rather than rely on a psychic account alone.

Lucy struggles with her grief while remaining responsible for the children. She calls her adult sons, Waylon and Caleb, and protects Rem from learning the news in the middle of the night. Will McKinnon helps with morning chores. When Rem is finally told that his parents are dead, his denial and anger give way to devastating grief. Thea, who has already seen what happened, cannot spare him the truth. Lucy holds both grandchildren and resolves to keep their remaining family together.

As the investigation advances, Lucy assures Thea and Rem they will not be separated. John and Cora designated her as guardian in their wills, with provisions that will support the children. Police artist Mai Wu works with Thea on a composite image of the murderer. Thea can picture his face clearly and psychically identifies a motel near Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he has stopped on his intended trip toward the coast. Her descriptions give law enforcement actionable leads, although the authorities must recover conventional evidence.

The family plans for John and Cora to be buried in Redbud Hollow, where they wanted to be together. John's mother, Christine Fox, calls and attempts to dictate a California burial and the children's future, including boarding school. Lucy refuses to surrender the children or override the wills. Thea and Rem hear enough to understand that their paternal grandparents' money will not determine where they live. The chapter ends with the siblings sheltered by Lucy and the investigation moving toward Ray Riggs.

Police locate Ray Riggs in a Fayetteville motel and arrest him. Investigators recover Cora's anniversary watch, other stolen possessions, the firearm, and the photograph of Thea. The evidence confirms significant details of Thea's psychic account and links the suspect to the attack. Riggs is returned to Virginia to face charges, and authorities discuss how a guilty plea and life imprisonment could avert a capital trial.

Sheriff McKinnon and Deputy Driscoll bring the news to Lucy and the children. Riggs's capture removes the immediate fear that he remains at large, but does not undo the killings or the trauma of having witnessed them. Neighbors bring food and help with farm responsibilities. Lucy discusses the estate, the trust, and the importance of managing inherited money responsibly while making clear that the children will have a secure home. Thea and Rem begin to understand that their lives have permanently changed. Their community's practical help allows the family to grieve without abandoning ordinary responsibilities.

Virginia detectives Chuck Howard and Phil Musk visit Redbud Hollow to clarify how Lucy and Thea knew about the murders. Howard listens, while Musk's aggressive questions suggest that the family might have arranged the killings for the inheritance or coached Thea into her account. Lucy reacts fiercely to the accusation, especially its implication that her granddaughter was involved in her own parents' deaths.

Thea decides to demonstrate the reach of her gift. She tells the detectives private facts about their lives and family members that she could not have learned through the investigation. Her disclosures are deliberately intrusive, but she wants to protect Lucy from suspicion. The evidence forces a change in the detectives' attitude and helps establish a working relationship that will matter in later investigations. Afterward Lucy explains that Thea can learn to limit what she sees and reduce the pain of unwanted knowledge. She promises to help her develop that control. Her sensitivity is powerful, but does not mean she must allow constant access to other people's thoughts or suffering. The family continues making room for the children in Lucy's home.

The family completes arrangements to bring Cora and John home to Redbud Hollow for burial. Waylon and Caleb take part. When Thea worries about others' overwhelming grief, Lucy teaches her to imagine closing a window or locking a door to limit what she feels. Thea practices this mental protection before the funeral. The funeral is attended by relatives and neighbors who knew Lucy's daughter and son-in-law. The children see the affection surrounding their parents rather than the dismissive attitude of John's wealthy relatives. The grave and its shared memorial inscription establish a place the family will return to on anniversaries.

Thea is nervous about eventually attending a new school, but Maddy McKinnon reaches out as a friend and helps her feel less alone. After the services, ordinary family life continues with visits, food, remembrance, and arrangements for the Virginia house. Thea writes in her journal as a way to give form to her feelings. Nothing about the service resolves her psychic connection to the killer; the chapter instead establishes the relatives, friendships, and stable home that make a future possible for both Thea and Rem.

Imprisoned in a Virginia supermax facility, Ray Riggs discovers the humiliating limits of his new life. He can still sense other minds, but the effort and anger of reaching toward Thea produce headaches and other physical symptoms. He blames the girl who identified him for taking away his freedom and begins making her the focus of his fantasies of revenge. Thea senses his prison surroundings through involuntary and sometimes deliberate psychic contact.

As she learns more of his history, Thea identifies other people he killed before her parents, including couples and a teenage girl. She contacts Detective Howard and supplies details that help reopen and substantiate those cases. She also alerts the detectives to Riggs's thoughts about manipulating a prison guard and harming another prisoner. Howard and Musk visit the family and acknowledge that the information matters even though its source cannot be explained conventionally. Thea's assistance secures more knowledge about the victims, but it also sustains a dangerous connection: Riggs realizes another person can enter his mind, and his obsession with her intensifies.

Lucy converts the attic into the Foxes' Den, a private space for Thea and Rem with computers, games, and room for their interests. Thea worries about going to a new Kentucky school and fears being the outsider, but Lucy and her new friend Maddy encourage her to try it. The siblings make friends and gradually establish routines beyond their grief. Thea's interest in games, computers, and imaginative worlds continues developing while Rem displays his own practical and business-minded talents.

The narrative also moves beyond the first months after the murders. Teenage Thea is drawn to the rock band Code Red and especially its musician Tyler Brennan. Lucy takes her, Maddy, and Gracie to a Code Red concert in Louisville for Thea's sixteenth birthday. The anniversaries of her parents' deaths keep Riggs present in her thoughts even as she grows more independent. Her decision to look into his cell through her gift confirms he remains confined, but allows another unwanted point of contact between their minds. By the end of this part, Thea has built a real life in Redbud Hollow while the link to Riggs remains unresolved.

At the University of Kentucky, Thea is in her junior year studying game design. Her first year was difficult: after she disclosed her psychic gift to fellow student Asher Billings, whom she had trusted and dated, he reacted with hostility and spread private information. Thea withdrew socially and learned to guard her mental boundaries. She nevertheless continues to excel at school and develops a game from the Endon world she invented in childhood. Professor Cheng, impressed by her project, proposes sending it to an executive at Milken Entertainment.

Before Thea can celebrate at home, Detectives Howard and Musk seek her help finding Shiloh Durning, a fifteen-year-old abducted by a serial predator. Thea reluctantly opens herself to Shiloh's experiences through the girl's earrings. She identifies the captive's surroundings, the abductor, and evidence of his location, enabling authorities to rescue Shiloh and arrest Lawrence James Heberman before another murder. Thea's effort temporarily weakens the mental defenses she maintains against Riggs. She returns to Lucy with both her professional opportunity and the difficult knowledge that using her gift has saved a life.

Rem returns to Lucy's farm after serving as best man at Uncle Caleb's wedding. He and Thea both say they want Redbud Hollow to remain their home despite pursuing careers elsewhere. Lucy raises the possibility of buying adjoining land from their elderly neighbor, Leona. The siblings visit the property, imagine separate homes on five acres each, and agree to purchase it for a fair price. Their decision gives their future plans a physical location close to Lucy's farm.

Thea also tells Rem that Milken Entertainment is interested in her game Endon. She initially thinks of selling it, but Rem questions whether relinquishing ownership would serve her long-term interests. He proposes negotiating a license that preserves her creative interests and includes paid development work. Thea trusts his business judgment and asks him to represent her. Meanwhile Maddy is advancing toward her medical career and hopes eventually to practice in the community. By the chapter's end, Thea's childhood fantasy world and the land she loves both begin to become sustainable adult commitments.

Milken's offer confirms the commercial potential of Thea's Endon universe. She begins planning the sequel, Endon: Mog's Revenge, and designs Tye Smith, a half-human, half-elf warrior whose appearance reflects her adolescent fascination with Code Red musician Tyler Brennan. Thea continues developing the story and visual elements while Rem prepares to negotiate the business agreement. When Riggs intrudes into her imagined world, she forces him out, but his access to her mind has not ended.

At Milken, Thea and Rem secure a licensing arrangement that allows her to keep developing her games, work with the company, and retain her home base in Kentucky. She finishes college and continues building a career that includes the expanding Endon franchise and other projects. Family visits and professional travel do not change her choice of Redbud Hollow as home. On the five-acre parcel purchased from Leona, Thea eventually builds the cottage and work studio she designed for herself. Her professional independence and new house are major milestones, though Riggs remains a recurring threat at the edges of her mental life.

Leona lives another three years after Thea moves into her new home. When she dies, Thea senses the loss and misses the elderly neighbor whose house sits down the lane. Leona leaves her house and five-acre parcel to her great-grandson, who has been unable to attend the funeral because his child was sick. Thea tends her garden, works on games, and spends time with Lucy, but the annual anniversary of her parents' deaths continues to bring thoughts of Riggs and contact with his imprisoned mind.

A vehicle eventually arrives at Leona's house. Out walking Bunk, her large Bernese mountain dog, Thea encounters the new owner with his small son. He is Tyler Brennan, the former Code Red singer, songwriter, and her teenage celebrity crush. Thea has not followed his private life and is surprised by Braydon's presence. Ty is grateful for the kindness Thea and her family showed Leona. Thea offers help settling in, makes food for the neighbors, and confides her excitement to Maddy. At this stage she knows little about Ty's family history or whether he will stay.

Thea dreams that Ty is playing guitar on her porch until Riggs invades the scene. He shoots Ty in the constructed dream and tells Thea she cannot escape him. The violence feels real to her, but Ty has not been physically attacked. Disturbed, Thea tries to regain control through household work, exercise, sword practice, and game design. She considers an idea involving parallel worlds, but her immediate danger is Riggs finding gaps in her defenses.

Ty and Bray begin settling into Leona's house. The young boy is eager to visit Bunk and the chickens, and Thea welcomes them for lemonade. She helps Ty identify a pediatrician and other local resources. Ty learns that she is the designer behind video games Bray enjoys, including Endon and Dragon's Fire, and sees both her competence and her ease with his son. The encounter draws Thea toward her new neighbors even as the dream has made her afraid of the vulnerability of caring about Ty. She has not yet told him about her psychic abilities or the connection to her parents' killer.

Thea is reluctant to tell Lucy and Rem how persistently Riggs has intruded since Ty arrived. She continues working on an alternative game idea while maintaining a careful distance from Ty, even as Bunk and Bray become friends. After meeting Lucy and Rem, Ty and Bray share a lively meal at the farm. Ty finds the family's acceptance welcome while considering whether he and Bray might remain in Kentucky beyond their initial summer visit.

The fifteenth anniversary of Cora and John's murders brings Thea, Rem, and Lucy to the graves with hydrangeas. Thea explains that Riggs entered a dream and made her experience Ty's apparent death. She is certain Riggs remains physically imprisoned, but knows his mental access has become more disturbing. Rem wants information about the prison and proposes contacting Detective Howard. Lucy urges Thea to strengthen her protections and not confront the problem in isolation. The chapter contrasts a growing attachment to Ty's family with the way Riggs uses that attachment as material for a threat he knows she will feel.

Ty is learning to make a livable home for Bray in Leona's old house. Thea spends time with them, admits that the warrior Tye Smith in Endon was modeled after Ty's teenage rock-star image, and shares the painful story of the day her parents were killed. Ty listens and comforts her without demanding more than she wants to tell. The families make further plans to spend time together, and Thea begins to see Ty as a real person rather than an adolescent fantasy.

That night Thea uses her talent for creating game environments to construct a dream called Perilous Island. She deliberately brings Riggs into the scenario, where he must cross a violent island of traps and predators while Thea races for Sanctuary Island. His attempts to overpower her fail repeatedly, and the deaths and pain he experiences inside the dream frighten him. She uses the game to warn him to stay out of her mind and temporarily wins respite. This is an intentional psychic counterattack, not a physical journey or a permanent resolution; the violence of the exchange carries consequences for them both.

Ty takes Bray to Lucy's farm and welcomes the growing friendship with Thea's family. He is struggling with the labor of putting together a large play set for Bray, so Thea and Rem offer practical help. They work with him through the assembly, overcoming the task that Ty had been postponing. Bray's excitement when it is finished reinforces how much he has begun to settle into the house and the neighborhood.

Ty invites Thea to dinner; Lucy and Rem cannot stay, but Thea joins him and Bray. Maddy and her partner Arlo also visit, bringing more of the community into Ty's life. Conversation moves between Maddy's work at the clinic, the demands of caring for children, and the practical challenges of a house that might become a permanent home. Ty notices how naturally Thea treats Bray and how well she fits among the people who are becoming his friends. Their relationship remains exploratory, but both are making ordinary commitments that extend beyond the original plan for a brief summer in Kentucky.

By July, Thea is enjoying her work, her garden, and the quiet of Riggs's temporary retreat from her dreams. She, Lucy, and Rem spend an evening with Ty and Bray over grilled food. Ty plays music with the family and sings with Thea, who knows a Code Red song she once loved. He gives her a gentle first kiss. Thea has feelings for the adult man but is cautious because of Bray and because she does not know whether the two will remain in Kentucky.

Maddy encourages Thea to explore the relationship and talks about the future of her own relationship with Arlo. Thea is glad for her friend but remains careful about disclosing her psychic history. Conversations with Ty reveal how isolated he has felt since his career with Code Red changed and how much responsibility he carries as Bray's father. His music remains important to him even though the demands of touring are no longer compatible with the life he wants for his son. Thea's affection grows through his actions as a parent rather than through celebrity memories alone.

While Bray visits Lucy's animals, Thea tells Lucy what Ty has revealed about becoming a father. Bray's mother, Starla, had been a young woman connected with Ty's music circle. She later entrusted Bray to him while seriously ill and died from cancer, leaving Ty to raise the boy. Lucy admires Ty's decision to take full responsibility and sees why Thea is falling in love with him. Thea worries about telling Ty about her psychic gift after the humiliating experience with Asher and the ongoing danger from Riggs.

Nadine arrives at the farm with her children and visible bruises. Lucy and Thea sense that Nadine's husband Jed has abused her before. Lucy treats her injuries, offers food and soap, and discovers that Nadine is pregnant again. They know that confronting Jed directly could endanger Nadine further and respect her reluctance to leave. Thea later brings fresh vegetables to Ty's house, teaches him to cook them with Bray, and shares a deeper kiss with Ty. As she walks home and briefly opens her mind to him, Riggs exploits the opening to intrude and taunt her. She drives him back and warns him to stop.

Ty reluctantly enrolls Bray in preschool, accepting that his son needs friends and opportunities beyond their life together. With time alone in the house, Ty speaks to his manager and returns to composing music. Thea, meanwhile, continues designing Perilous Island with Rem as her exacting beta tester. His criticism of obstacles, including a snake pit, helps improve the game she intends to release commercially, a distinct version from the simpler and more violent dream game she used against Riggs.

During a hike, Thea visits Katie Roster, whose family has become more secure since her husband changed jobs. She then meets Ty carrying a tired Bray through the hills. She offers them water, carries the boy, and invites them to her house for food and rest. Rem quietly cautions Ty about hurting his sister, and the adults discuss work and the prospect of Ty staying through Christmas. Ty asks Thea to dinner. After watching Ty and Bray walk home, Thea admits to herself that she loves them both. She remains hesitant to draw them into the conflict with Riggs, whose intrusions have not entirely stopped.

Thea arrives for an August dinner with Ty and Bray, bringing a homemade cherry pie. Ty has successfully grilled chicken and followed Lucy's directions for roasted potatoes. The three enjoy a relaxed evening together, and Ty asks Thea to remain after he puts Bray to bed. Thea chooses to spend the night with him. Their first sexual encounter makes clear how deeply both have missed intimacy and how much their feelings have developed, even though Thea has not yet disclosed her psychic ability.

Bray discovers Thea in his father's bed the following morning and accepts the arrangement without distress, delighted that Bunk has slept in his room. While using Ty's toothbrush, Thea briefly receives an uninvited flash of Ty's past interactions with Bray and consciously shuts it out. The incident shows how her gift can intrude even when she has no intention of looking. She takes everyone to her house for breakfast, collects eggs with Bray, and lets him help make pancakes. The ordinary pleasure of their morning together convinces Ty that Thea genuinely enjoys being part of his son's life.

In a dream of a storm, Thea deliberately opens a mental window and enters Riggs's prison cell. He has been waiting for her. She confronts him about nearly sixteen years of confinement, but he produces a knife and cuts her shoulder before she escapes the psychic encounter. She wakes in her own bed to find an actual shallow, bleeding wound. The text does not establish a definitive supernatural mechanism for the injury. Thea immediately goes to Lucy and Rem, admits that she has concealed the frequency and danger of Riggs's mental attacks, and describes how she trapped him in an earlier Perilous Island dream. Lucy forbids her from entering his cell again, and Rem insists their family must face the threat together.

Thea also tells them she has begun a sexual relationship with Ty. Meanwhile Bray rides the school bus on his first day of preschool, leaving his anxious father to fill an unexpectedly quiet house with songwriting. Ty plays a new love song for Code Red bandmate Blaze, who encourages him to record it himself. By the end of the first school week, Ty realizes he has created a life in Redbud Hollow and visits Thea after she submits the commercial Perilous Island game for review.

After Milken approves Perilous Island, Thea takes a short vacation before resuming game development. Maddy announces her engagement to Arlo and asks Thea to stand beside her at a spring wedding. When Thea experiences sudden headaches and nausea during their conversation, Maddy insists on a medical workup. Examinations and an MRI do not reveal an ordinary physical cause. Arlo suggests acupressure for relief, while Thea believes resisting Riggs's incursions is responsible for the symptoms.

Riggs later invades a violent dream in which Thea's garden and chickens are destroyed and Bunk is threatened. Thea wakes standing at her real kitchen door, with her home undamaged. She continues her life and helps Bray plant autumn flowers. Ty visits Philadelphia to record music and returns to plan Bray's fifth birthday party. Walking with Lucy, Thea wonders whether she suffered the earlier shoulder cut because she believed Riggs's imagined attack was real, but this remains her hypothesis, not an established rule of the gift. During Bray's party, Ty recognizes that Kentucky is already home and commits to adapting Leona's house and building a recording studio.

Bray's fifth birthday party brings Lucy, Rem, Thea, and Ty together as an informal family. Ty realizes he is in love with Thea and wants her in his future. After celebrating Halloween together, Thea prepares breakfast at Ty's house. Bray becomes distraught because his remote-controlled Grave Digger truck has disappeared. Wanting to ease his distress, Thea spontaneously perceives that he left it in a box of books in Ty's unfinished library and tells him where to look.

Ty knows the box arrived when Thea was not present. Because past people exploited his fame and family for money, he concludes she has secretly entered the house and may be using Bray for photographs or publicity. He refuses to hear an explanation, orders her out, and forbids contact with Bray, Bunk, and her relatives. Thea is devastated, and Riggs exploits her distress to invade her thoughts and urge despair and self-destruction. She resists him, returns home, and talks with Lucy. Thea understands that she withheld an essential part of herself from Ty, but also recognizes that his accusations were unjustified.

For days Ty tries to keep Bray from asking about Thea and Bunk. He resolves to sell the house and return to Philadelphia, but five-year-old Bray is devastated because Redbud Hollow, his school, and his friends have become home. After Ty angrily announces the move, Bray slips out of the house while his father plays music and walks alone to Thea. She comforts him and immediately returns him. Ty is horrified by how easily his son could have been harmed and realizes that uprooting Bray because of his own anger would be another betrayal.

Ty visits Thea to thank her but still demands his house key and the removal of Bray's photographs. She has no key and shows him the pictures were intended as family gifts. She finally reveals her psychic abilities, proving what she knows with Ty's unspoken G minor seventh chord and a private childhood scar. Overwhelmed, she explains how she witnessed her parents' murders from Kentucky and how Riggs continues to attack her mentally. The confrontation triggers a severe headache and panic. Ty begins to understand her gift and his mistake, but the emotional damage requires more than an immediate apology.

Thea continues telling Ty how her gift has shaped her life. Lucy knew about the murders, and detectives initially doubted how Thea could identify Riggs. Thea explains that she went into his prison cell in her mind after his sentence and fears she strengthened their connection. Years later she helped Howard and Musk rescue the abducted Shiloh Durning by reading personal belongings, but opening herself so completely also increased her exposure to Riggs. Ty recognizes the sincerity and cost of her actions. He apologizes for treating her as a threat to Bray and confirms that he will not take his son away from the home he loves.

Thea still needs time to recover trust. She sends Bunk to visit Bray, works on her physical and mental self-control, and rejects Riggs's renewed threats. Ty and Bray send her a photograph, a handmade card, and other small gifts via the dog. Lucy visits both households, invites Ty and Bray to Thanksgiving dinner, and observes that the deliveries are a deliberate, patient courtship. Thea begins to consider allowing Ty back into her life without ignoring the damage from his accusations.

Ty comes to Thea's door with autumn flowers. Over tea, they examine their history of mistrust. Thea tells him how Asher's rejection made revealing her ability frightening; Ty describes how his high school sweetheart shared private experiences with the press after Code Red became famous. He accepts that Thea's gift is part of who she is. They have begun moving closer again, but are interrupted by Nadine, whose nearly five-year-old daughter, Adalaide, has gone missing after an argument about being denied school.

With Ty present, Thea holds the girl's stuffed bear and uses its emotional associations to locate her asleep under an oak near Katie Roster's home. She calls Katie, who finds and shelters the child, while Rem drives Nadine to collect her. The exertion briefly increases Thea's headache because it opens another path for Riggs. Witnessing her help a frightened parent despite that cost, Ty fully accepts her abilities and tells her he loves her. Thea reciprocates. She then admits she is developing a dangerous strategy to stop Riggs permanently and promises to tell Ty before acting.

Thea plans a final confrontation with Riggs as carefully as one of her games. She designs a two-person psychic contest built around the choices he has made throughout his life. She tells Lucy and Rem that she intends to visit him physically at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia, where he is kept largely in segregation. They fear for her life and gift, but come to understand that repeated temporary defenses cannot give her freedom from his attacks. Thea also fears that a future daughter might inherit the gift and become another target.

She tells Ty the plan. He insists on accompanying her to the prison, even though he cannot enter Riggs's interview room. Captain Phil Musk arranges a special monitored visit, with retired Detective Howard also attending. Thea worries that winning through violence may cost her own psychic power, a possibility neither she nor Lucy can establish in advance. On the appointed Monday she dresses like Cora on the day of the murder, wearing her mother's earrings and stolen-then-recovered watch. Maddy lends her a necklace with a key pendant, reminding her to choose her future. Ty drives her toward Virginia as Lucy, Rem, and Maddy support her from home.

At Red Onion State Prison, Captain Musk and retired Detective Howard escort Thea through security while Ty waits outside. Riggs is cuffed and shackled across from her, with a guard present. Wearing Cora's watch, Thea enters his mind and takes control of a deliberately constructed sequence drawn from his past. She makes him confront his childhood cruelty to animals, an assault on a vulnerable young woman, earlier murders, and the night he killed her parents. At each stage he chooses violence again. Within these mental scenes she wounds or kills him and makes him experience the consequences, repeatedly denying him the power to escape or control the story.

The strain causes Riggs to bleed, convulse, and suffer a stroke in the real interview room. Thea says she has stripped away his psychic gift and trapped what remains of his consciousness within a mental image of his segregation cell. His body survives the scene, but the novel presents the mental imprisonment as permanent. Exhausted, Thea leaves. During the drive Ty tests whether she retains her own gift with a silently imagined musical chord; she reads it correctly.

Ty stops at a secluded playground and plays Thea a song he recorded for her, I See Her. He reveals plans to build a recording studio at the old house, house visiting musicians there, and move with Bray into Thea's home. He asks her to make a family with them. Bray has already agreed, and Thea accepts. She adds that she wants two more children, recalling her teenage fantasy of marrying Ty and raising three. The book ends with Riggs contained and the couple choosing their shared future, not with a completed wedding or births.