Corrupt

The narrative flashes back to three years earlier.

Three years earlier, Rika asks her best friend Noah to go with her to the Winterfest dance. Noah jokes that Trevor will be upset, but eventually he agrees to go with her. Before heading to class, Noah tells Rika that she is beautiful and that any guy would be lucky to date her. Rika self-consciously places a hand over the scar on her neck, a result of the car accident that killed her father when she was 13.

Rika heads to her math class and settles in for their weekly pop quiz. The other students are buzzing, and someone tells Rika, “They’re here” (18). Initially confused, she soon realizes that it’s October 30, also known as Devil’s Night, which means the Four Horsemen will be causing chaos in Thunder Bay. Suddenly, loud music begins to play over the intercom. The students see the Four Horsemen—Damon Torrance, Kai Mori, Will Grayson III, and Michael Crist—enter the room wearing their signature masks. They begin collecting students, primarily basketball players. Several girls lie to the teacher so they can leave with the Horsemen. The teacher doesn’t challenge the Horsemen because they are revered in town due to their familial connections and basketball prowess. As the Horsemen prepare to leave, Michael looms over Rika. Rika is scared of him but realizes she enjoys being scared. Michael leaves without saying a word.

After the Horsemen leave, Rika realizes she wants to go with them. She decides to sneak out, telling her teacher she needs to go to the bathroom so she can catch up with the guys. She runs out to the parking lot and jumps into Michael’s car, hoping no one sees her in the chaos of their leaving.

The narrative returns to the present.

Erika arrives at her new apartment building in Meridian City. The doorman shows her to her apartment, which is massive and very luxurious. The apartment is furnished and has multiple bedrooms, which surprises her since she thought she was renting an unfurnished, one-bedroom apartment. The doorman explains that her original apartment was already rented, so the building owners upgraded her to one of the penthouses at the original price she signed a lease for. She is frustrated that everything is already perfect in this apartment since she had been planning on buying furniture and taking care of things herself for the first time. She assumes that Mrs. Crist has had a role in stocking and furnishing her new apartment.

Rika wakes up to a knock in the middle of the night. She continues to hear some noise coming from the other vacant apartment on her floor. Exiting through her apartment’s back door, she goes to listen at the neighboring apartment’s door. She hears someone having sex and is shocked when the woman begins to scream and struggle. She tries to go back into her apartment, but the door is locked. She continues to hear thuds, which scare her and cause her to drop the knife she brought with her for protection. She hears the neighboring apartment’s door open, so she sprints down the stairs to the lobby. Suddenly, she slams into a man, who she realizes is Michael Crist.

Michael is with a beautiful woman with brown hair. When Rika asks what he’s doing in the apartment building, he tells her that he lives in the building. Rika realizes that not only does Michael live in the penthouse above her, but that the Crist family owns the apartment building. Michael sends his date up to his apartment and gets a key from the front desk to unlock Rika’s apartment. When they get back into the apartment, Rika emphasizes that she doesn’t need help from him, to which Michael scoffs. As he leaves, he calls Rika “Little Monster” (46), a nickname she hasn’t heard in three years.

The narrative switches to Michael’s point of view.

Michael berates himself for being alone with Rika, which is the one rule he tries not to break. He thinks about how Rika often plays the victim role and desperately wants Michael to pay attention to her.

When Michael returns to his apartment, he finds his date, Alex, naked on a chair. He tells her to stay where she is, and he goes to take a shower. As he showers, he thinks about Rika and gets an erection. Michael gets out of the shower and watches Rika through his window. She is beginning to paint her apartment. Alex attempts to initiate sex with Michael, but he turns her down, telling her to go home. The elevator dings, indicating that people are coming upstairs, and Michael urges Alex to leave before they arrive for her own safety.

Damon, Will, and Kai arrive. Damon takes Alex to a bedroom to have sex with her after it is revealed that she is a sex worker. Michael asks his friends if they were in the apartment next to Rika’s, and they admit to bringing some girls back to the apartment in the hopes that Rika would hear them. Michael becomes frustrated with his friends, telling them to be patient when it comes to Rika. It is revealed that Kai, Damon, and Will have been in prison for the last three years, and they blame Rika for sending them there.

Kai and Michael discuss how prison changed Damon and Will. They agree that they must go along with the plan: to destroy Rika’s life.

The narrative flashes back to three years ago and switches back to Rika’s point of view.

After a long car ride, Rika realizes they have driven to St. Killian’s, an abandoned cathedral. After everyone goes inside, Rika follows. She enters the cathedral and sees everyone partying inside. Kai is engaged in a fistfight with another partygoer. Suddenly, Michael appears and tells Rika that she is not supposed to be there. She tells him that she wanted to see what was going on, and he doesn’t respond.

After seeing some partygoers enter the catacombs of the cathedral, Rika asks Michael what they are doing down there, and he responds, “other kinds of fun” (64). He taunts Rika, telling her he knows she watches him and that she is not the innocent schoolgirl everyone believes she is. He suddenly blindfolds her, promising, “[Y]ou’ll see more with your eyes closed” (65). Rika is scared by the chaos in the room but is determined to keep her blindfold on. Michael asks her to keep the blindfold on and abandons her. Annoyed and wanting to get away from Damon, who has begun to flirt aggressively with her, Rika begins to head down to the catacombs. Michael meets up with her and guides her downstairs. In the catacombs, Rika can hear people having sex. Rika wonders why everyone wants to watch them have sex, and Michael teases that she also wants to watch them have sex.

Michael and Rika bicker with each other, leading Rika to want to leave. Michael corners her and tells her that she is like him, looking for freedom. He tells Rika to “own” (83) who she is and to never apologize for it. Rika begins to flirt with Michael, but Trevor interrupts. He drags her out of the catacombs and tells Michael to stay away from her.

The narrative returns to the present.

Rika wakes up to several missed phone calls and realizes that she has overslept and is now late to meet with her new college advisor. She scrambles out of the house and rushes to meet with her advisor. After selecting her courses, she goes to the bookstore to buy her textbooks. Trevor calls to check on her, and Rika tells him that she wishes his mother hadn’t set her up in one of the Crist family apartment buildings. Trevor is surprised and angry that she is living in the apartment building and tells her to find a new place to live. She refuses, and Trevor hangs up on her. Rika soon realizes that Trevor doesn’t want her to live in the apartment building because it means that she will be close to Michael.

Rika loves to fence, and she decides to go to the only place in town that has a fencing club. Michael sees her at the facility and tells her that it’s a gentleman’s club and that women aren’t allowed. Michael becomes annoyed with her questions and goes to leave, but stops when he sees Rika dash inside the facility. As she runs through the gym, Michael chases her. In the locker room, she sees Damon, and when Michael catches up with her, she asks him why she wasn’t aware that his friends had been released from prison. He snaps at her, and Rika tries to remind him that he used to enjoy talking to her. Michael’s anger and rudeness cause Rika to cry and run out of the locker room, where she runs into Kai, leading her to wonder if all of Michael’s friends have been reunited in Meridian City.

Michael orders Rika to get into his car, and after fighting with him, she gets in while crying. Michael asks what she wants, and Rika does not answer him, realizing she wants freedom from both Crist boys, who treat her poorly. She gets out of the car and walks home.

The narrative switches to Michael’s point of view.

Michael walks into a nightclub but is distracted by his previous encounter with Rika. He struggles to understand why Rika cares so much about his opinion and hates how she distracts him when he needs to be focused on seeking revenge against her. He meets Kai at the bar, and Kai asks him why he is wavering on their plan to destroy Rika’s life. Michael thinks about how all of his friends changed in prison and how he feels more distant from them now than he did when they were imprisoned.

Michael asks his friends if they are ready to handle Rika’s mother as part of their plan. They hope to find Rika’s mother, who has struggled with alcohol addiction since her husband died, intoxicated, but they plan to bring along drugs to make her pliant.

Several days later, Michael takes a shower after basketball practice. Content with how they handled Rika’s mother, Michael reflects that he needs to distance himself from Rika because he finds her too tempting. He gets an erection thinking about her. Michael receives a phone call from Trevor. Trevor and Michael fight about Rika, and Trevor accuses Michael of being interested in her. Trevor promises his brother that if he sleeps with Rika, he’ll make Rika’s life a nightmare.