Demon reflects on how ruin begins, blaming the hard Lee County code that prizes Friday-night football over anything gentler or safer. During a late-October home game against Powell Valley, a defensive end Demon calls “Ninety-Six” hits Demon low on a sweep play, trapping Demon under bodies and twisting Demon’s knee into an unnatural bend. Demon tries to treat the pain like background “weather” and insists Demon can keep playing, but the injury overwhelms Demon and Demon is carried off as the team eventually loses.

The hours afterward blur as Demon cycles through ringing pain, shame, and desperation to get back in. Coach Winfield and Angus help Demon into the house, and Demon breaks down at the stairs, forced onto a downstairs sofa bed. Overnight Demon’s knee swells and darkens; Demon has nightmares of cutting the leg off and wakes to the sound of Demon’s own noises. Team doctor Dr. Watts examines Demon, talks about ACL and meniscus damage, and says Demon needs X-rays in Norton and later an MRI in Tennessee; Watts prescribes pain pills that quickly become Demon’s anchor.

Demon misses school for a week, living by alarms and doses, washing pills down with lime Gatorade and drifting in and out of sleep. Angus brings home wild rumors about Demon’s condition and then pushes back against Demon’s fear of being unwanted if Demon can’t play. Demon insists Demon is only in Coach’s house because Demon is valuable to the team, refusing to believe Coach’s care could be anything more; Demon also clings to the idea that without football Demon becomes “nobody” again.

June visits and immediately fixates on Demon’s pill bottle, challenging Coach about who prescribed it. June examines Demon’s knee, criticizes the radiology report, and warns that the injury may involve the growth plate and won’t be fixed by hope or by masking pain. When Demon asks about playing next Friday, June gently makes clear Demon is likely out for the rest of the season; she and Coach argue, and June bluntly labels Kent Holt a “hired killer,” linking the opioid push to a wider crisis. June urges Demon to treat pain as a protective signal and to think long-term, but Demon resents being treated like a child and believes playing through pain is part of Demon’s future.

When Demon finally sees an orthopedic specialist, the doctor echoes June’s doubts about the first X-ray and says surgery is indicated even before the MRI, recommending stabilization, casting, and physical therapy. The doctor renews Demon’s pain prescription, and Coach avoids talking about a return date. Wanting to prove independence, Demon goes alone into the pharmacy to pick it up, only to see “OxyContin” stapled to the bag; on the way out Demon collides with a man whose empty eye sockets and service dog leave Demon shaken, repeating the word “blind” as the chapter ends.