Grace tells Patch that dawn is coming and urges him to keep breathing, stay brave, and remain a pirate. Patch drifts in and out of consciousness, imagining impossible rescue routes through a trapdoor into woods or a strange city street. Even in his delirium, Patch worries less about himself than about losing Grace and being unable to survive without her.

When Grace tells Patch not to sleep, she tries to keep him anchored by describing places he still has not seen, including Baldy Point and the water at Lake Altus-Lugert. Patch asks for something real, so Grace shifts from fantasy to memory and describes the big white house where she grew up, the rented rooms, the travelers who passed through, and the look of the driveway, trees, shutters, balcony, and flower beds. Her stories become a way to hold Patch in the world as his body weakens.

Grace makes Patch finish his water and then kisses him. When Grace asks whether Patch wants to pray, Patch refuses, and Grace dismisses prayer as empty forgiveness. Instead, Grace reveals a harder belief: sometimes healing requires making a deeper wound in the person who caused the harm, showing that Grace is thinking beyond endurance toward retaliation.

Patch says he is tired, and Grace tries again to keep him present by claiming she can hear a smile. In response, Patch tells Grace that even in darkness he will always find her, protect her, and put her first. Grace hears the truth in his words, but Patch soon collapses fully out of awareness.

After that point, Patch remembers nothing clearly. He does not remember Grace's plan, her attempts to wake him, the gunshots outside the door, the smell of smoke, the heat of the fire, or the moment he let Grace go. The chapter ends with captivity breaking into violence and fire, while Patch's memory fails at the most critical moment.