In sober living, Demon covers house fees with social security and a Walmart produce job, spending free time at the library. There he meets Lyra, a tattooed librarian who helps him with email, scanning art, and studying toward a GED. He keeps romance at arm’s length to protect his recovery, channeling energy into drawing and reading.

Reconnecting with Tommy, Demon resumes productive collaboration on their strip, but they decide to stop when their lives diverge. Tommy moves to Allentown, marries Sophie, and starts a family. Demon, newly inspired by adult and online comics Lyra shows him, launches a personal website under his Demon Copperhead alias to publish new work beyond Red Neck’s style.

He develops Neckbones and The Incapables, a bleak, funny strip about addicted teens, gaining a small paid audience. Friends and teachers cheer him on: Angus reports from college, Maggot reconnects from a PetSmart job and new relationship, and Annie and Mr. Armstrong post enthusiastic feedback. Then Tommy calls with a thesis about a long-running conflict between land-based people and money economies, from the Whiskey Rebellion onward, urging Demon to make a graphic history.

Demon begins High Ground, serializing chapters online. Interest grows until a New York publisher inquires. Annie proposes helping him craft a submission, prompting Demon to consider traveling back to see her. He acquires a used Chevy after his old Impala is totaled, and his sober-living privileges now allow travel, but he is terrified of being “obliterated” by returning home.

Under Dr. Milka Andresen’s guidance, Demon explores the fear, resists an idealized assignment about visiting supportive friends, and is urged to start a private recovery journal to reclaim his narrative. The chapter closes with Demon facing his origin and trauma timeline, poised between the promise of publication and the peril of going back to Lee County.