Demon continues to clash with U-Haul Pyles through football season. Even as the team reaches the state semifinals at Longwood, U-Haul’s contempt and controlling behavior taint the high point, including policing the players at the motel. Demon also gets dragged on errands, including uncomfortable trips involving U-Haul’s mother, who pries for gossip and status talk (including barbs about Ms. Annie and her marriage). When Demon refuses to keep going, U-Haul threatens him with personal surveillance—claiming to know Demon’s phone calls and weed stash—and warns that complaining to Coach could cost Demon his home.

After the season, Demon spends a cold February Saturday with Maggot and Emmy at the Peggots’ place, sent outside while adults talk. The teens dissect the blowup between Emmy’s mother June and Kent: June challenges Kent’s pill-selling work and organizes a town pushback, while Kent accuses June of being cruel to people in pain. The fight escalates enough that June waves a kitchen knife while trying to make supper, and the relationship ends violently in words; June even has Hammer Kelly stay over with a rifle in case Kent returns.

Soon after, May Ann casually tells Demon that her sister Linda Larkins got married suddenly at the courthouse. Linda specifically asked May Ann to tell Demon, which humiliates him and makes the phone-sex relationship feel like a void—something that consumed him but left no public trace and no closure. Demon hides this from Angus out of shame, but the emotional crash bleeds into his mood.

On a celebratory trip after Angus gets her license, Angus drives Demon to Murder Valley to visit Miss Betsy at the house tied to Angus’s late mother. Demon snaps at Angus’s teasing about his love life, and the fight leaves an unfamiliar silence between them. At the visit, Miss Betsy pushes them to think about their futures: Angus confidently plans for college and leaving Jonesville, while Demon, unprepared, falls back on a possible football scholarship and is told not to let sports interfere with school.

The conversation leaves Demon feeling betrayed and terrified of being left behind just as he is starting to feel real and rooted—with Coach, Angus, the Peggots, and the town’s approval. On the drive home, Angus chatters about faraway colleges and even the ocean, while Demon retreats into bitter memories of his earlier, desperate trek to Murder Valley and the places where he slept hungry and lost everything, wondering what it would take to stop feeling hollow.