The Pact

The chapter alternates between Emily’s and Chris’s points of views. Emily grows increasingly uncomfortable around Chris and dislikes being physically intimate with him. Though the teens have not had sex together, Chris knows that his peers speculate that they have. One night, at the children’s amusement park where Chris works, Emily runs off after Chris tries to touch her intimately. She decides afterward that the two should take a break from dating. Meanwhile, their mothers discuss them, both assuming that the teens are having sex.

While they are broken up, Chris dates—and later has sex with—a teen named Donna DeFelice. Quickly, he realizes that he truly wants to be with Emily instead. When Emily learns that Chris and Donna are dating, she feigns illness in order to leave school. At home, she carves Chris’s initials into her wrist. Later, when she and Chris make up, Chris notices Emily’s cut.

Chris is imprisoned at a maximum-security prison with a cell to himself. He hopes to be moved down to medium security. In the first few days, Chris learns to keep his distance from the other inmates, who jeer at him and appear threatening. Chris meets with McAfee, who explains that he will need to decide whether to accept a plea bargain or to go to trial. Shortly after, Chris receives a cellmate.

Gus and James visit Chris. Chris becomes frustrated at Gus’s talk of the innocuous events outside of prison. He ends the visit early, asking James not to attend next time. Soon the inmates’ cells are searched, and a cigarette is found in Chris’s shoe. Chris is certain it was planted by Hector as a test; he refuses to confess his suspicions and accepts the punishment—five days in solitary lockdown. During the lockdown, Chris misses his first opportunity to appeal the move to medium security and his second visit with Gus. Protecting Hector, however, does earn Hector’s trust.

One night, Steve, Chris’s cellmate, cries in his sleep during a nightmare. Chris wakes him, and Steve says that he has heard Chris mention Emily’s name in his sleep at times. Steve tells Chris some details about the death of his infant son.

Meanwhile, Michael receives a phone call from a cousin to whom he is not close, offering to talk with him if he is interested. Michael recalls his cousin’s husband died by suicide two years ago.

This chapter is conveyed from Emily’s point of view. She grows increasingly uneasy and upset by Chris’s insistence that he wants to have sex with her. Though she prefers kissing him, Emily and Chris set aside a night to have sex for the first time, which subsequently takes place at the carousel in the amusement park.

Interspersed throughout the chapter are details from a nightmare Emily has of being attacked. The sexual nature of the attack suggests it is Chris Emily is dreaming of, but the final scene of the nightmare depicts Emily being sexually assaulted by a McDonald’s employee in the men’s bathroom, hearkening back to the dare Chris gave her when the two were nine.

Gus overhears gossip about Chris while she is shopping. An article in the Grafton County Gazette insinuates that evidence linking Chris to the site where Emily was shot means that Chris is guilty of her murder. Gus storms into the editor’s office, angry about the article’s tone.

On their next visit, Chris tells Gus that he planned to deter Emily from dying by suicide. The next day, Chris and Steve are moved to medium security.

Meanwhile, Jordan McAfee and his colleague Selena Damascus review the discovery material received from the attorney general. McAfee worries the case will be hard to win. Selena, however, suggest they speak with Michael Gold. Later, she visits him at a horse farm where he is working, and Michael agrees to speak with her. He admits that he did not regard Emily as at risk for suicide but is unsure whether this means that he missed any warning signs. Michael is uncertain of Chris’s role in Emily’s death. He and Selena agree to speak again in the future.

James attends a banquet at Bainbridge Memorial Hospital, honoring him for his teaching of medical students. Gus notices that Chris’s name is left out of the list of family members that James thanks in his acceptance speech.

The chapter ends with Melanie in Emily’s bedroom, removing photos of Chris and items that belong to him. She finds Emily’s diary and reads it. Its contents suggest Chris was not aware that Emily was pregnant. Because the state may use Chris’s knowledge of the pregnancy as motive for killing Emily, Melanie destroys the diary in the fireplace.