Rosabelle narrates encountering James leaning in her doorway after group therapy. His physical presence and beauty trigger an intense, involuntary reaction in her, contrasted by his cold, closed-off demeanor. She recalls his panic and apologies from the prior day and fears his voice will haunt her like Clara’s. As she steadies herself, she reorients to her objective—the black-liquid vial—and speculates that James might possess it, even contemplating the possibility she may need to kill him again.

James asks if she is coming and tells her to lead the way to her room. Alarmed, Rosabelle guides him through the underground facility, noting its prisonlike qualities disguised as a campus. She continues mapping the environment and judging the rebels’ security choices, finding their unpredictability dangerous.

At her door, Leon, Rosabelle’s unstable neighbor, appears and obsessively repeats her name, making invasive, unsettling remarks. James reacts immediately, shoving Leon back into his room and slamming the door, then follows Rosabelle inside her room. The confined space heightens Rosabelle’s anxiety that James might touch her, but he deliberately keeps his distance.

James scans the room and comments on Rosabelle’s perfectly made bed. Internally, Rosabelle panics because she did not sleep there. She recounts spending the night in heightened surveillance mode: consuming her food and water, scouring the bathroom and furniture for hidden monitoring, and finding nothing. The absence of obvious surveillance drives her to near-madness. She flashes back to her mother’s advice about patience or creativity, then to her mother’s death, which forced Rosabelle into adult roles and ultimately into killing at a young age.

James notes that Rosabelle dissociated for more than two minutes after his bed comment. He briefly leaves, returns with a chair, and sits at a distance, telling her to sit on the bed. When she asks what he is going to do to her, he says he is going to talk to her, not interrogate her. His even approach and attention unsettle her further.

Rosabelle fights rising panic and self-reprimands to remain numb, but then experiences a sudden clarity: James is the variable disrupting her control. She realizes that after years of feeling dead inside, James makes her feel alive, which she recognizes as a profound and dangerous shift.