Demon recounts, in the form of local legend and overheard fragments, how Maggot’s mother Mariah Peggot ended up in prison. In Lee County, stories travel fast, even when Mrs. Peggot tries to shield Demon and Maggot from the worst parts.

Mariah, the youngest Peggot sister and not the celebrated “queen” type like her older sisters, falls hard for Romeo Blevins, an older, strikingly handsome mechanic with a mobile electronics-heavy auto business and an A-frame house outside Duffield. Mrs. Peggot warns Mariah that Romeo’s charm is dangerous, but Mariah sneaks around, becomes pregnant in high school, and moves in with Romeo.

Once Mariah is isolated, Romeo’s behavior turns openly cruel and violent. He cheats, beats her, and repeatedly ties her up—at times binding Mariah outside to the deck railing while leaving the front door open so Mariah can see baby Matty crying in his playpen inside. In winter, with Matty hungry and cold, Mariah prays in desperation and decides that being “mad is better than sorry,” planning to protect herself by keeping a hidden blade taped to her body.

When Romeo passes out drunk one day after escalating abuse, Mariah uses the blade to attack him while he is helpless, carving deep cuts into both cheeks to create a permanent “smile” and carving a heart into his chest. Mariah flees with Matty, believing Romeo will accept what he “deserved,” but Romeo instead hires a lawyer and reframes Mariah as a jealous, unstable stalker. With Romeo’s witnesses, his visible scars, and testimony that Matty had been brought to the doctor dehydrated, Mariah is disbelieved in court and convicted.

Demon explains that Mariah’s eighteenth birthday timing mattered: if she had left sooner, Romeo’s involvement with a minor might have changed the outcome and Mariah might not have been tried as an adult. Mariah receives a twelve-year sentence and is sent to Marion, a prison for the “deeply disturbed.” Over time, the town’s view shifts and Mariah’s story becomes accepted, while Mrs. Peggot bears the consequences of earlier warnings by raising Matty herself—changing his diapers and teaching him to tie his shoes.

Demon ends by connecting Romeo’s lasting, frightening “smile” to Demon’s own life: Romeo disappears to reinvent himself, but Demon keeps the image in nightmares and in waking anger, imagining a similar punishment for Murrell “Stoner” Stone. Demon concludes that living with cruelty breeds the urge to bite back.