Haunting Adeline

Zade Meadows, referred to in the text as “the Shadow,” Z, or Adeline’s stalker, is the secondary protagonist of the novel, as the novel is constructed to be a “duet” between Zade and Adeline. Zade claims he had a normal childhood, though his parents were killed in an accident when he was 17 years old, and he went to college for computer science. He is an expert hacker, but, when he began to find information on government secrets relating to child trafficking, he started his own organization, Z, to investigate and disrupt trafficking operations around the world. He is in Washington State because of a specific trafficking ring located in Seattle called the Society.

Zade’s obsession with Adeline begins when he sees her image outside the bookstore where she is holding a book signing. He thinks about kidnapping her, which develops into him stalking her at her home, Parsons Manor. He leaves Adeline red roses in imitation of a plastic rose his mother gave him to represent her unending love for him. As he continues to stalk Adeline, he begins breaking into her home and sexually assaulting her. From his perspective, he and Adeline are meant to be together, and so he expects that Adeline will eventually fall in love with him. While he is stalking Adeline, he also infiltrates the Society, using videos of blood rituals to locate the government officials involved, including Mark Williams, and saving victims of child trafficking.

Zade’s purpose in the novel is to blur the line between predation and romance, mixing elements of both immoral behavior, such as sexual assault, torture, and murder, with romantic elements of devotion, protection, and sexuality. The instances of torture and murder are largely constrained to child traffickers, which converts them into moral rather than immoral actions, but Zade’s assaults on and torture of Adeline, prior to gaining her consent later in the novel, are explicitly immoral, and Zade himself admits as much. In essence, Zade is meant to be precisely what Adeline describes him as, which is a man that she should not fall in love with, but whom she cannot avoid falling in love with.

Daya Pierson grew up with Adeline, and she is her lifelong best friend. She went to school for computer science, like Zade, and, also like Zade, she became a hacker working against the government-sponsored human trafficking that Zade investigates. In fact, Daya works for Z, the organization that Zade runs though she is not involved in Zade’s investigation of the Society. Daya is not only characterized as fun-loving with Adeline, but she also proves to be solemn and takes her work seriously, largely because the content of her work involves investigating violent acts against children. Daya also has connections with other members of the underground network of hackers and professionals who are able to assist her and Adeline’s investigation into Gigi’s murder. Her penchant for socialization balances out Adeline’s aversion for social activity, though it also gets the two into dangerous situations, such as the encounter with Arch and Max early in the novel.

Daya’s role in the novel is as a mirror to Adeline, forming the perfect friend in the sense that she does not judge Adeline, but also becoming an enabler as Daya is unwilling to step in as Adeline makes poor decisions. When Adeline initially tells Daya about Zade sexually assaulting her, Daya is repulsed, but, once Adeline makes it clear that she may have enjoyed the assault, she quickly becomes supportive of Adeline’s affair with her abuser. As the novel progresses, Daya continues to support Adeline, despite her knowledge that Adeline is likely putting herself in danger. At the end of the novel, it is not revealed whether Daya or someone else texts Adeline, but the fact that the texts that lure Adeline into her own kidnapping come from Daya’s number, at least, shows how Daya’s influence on Adeline is not always positive.