Corrupt

Rika goes to study with Alex and her friends at a coffee shop. Kai and Will appear and make Rika come home with them because Michael is worried about her. She eventually goes with them, and Kai helps her remember how angry she is at Trevor and how dangerous he is.

When they arrive back at her apartment, Kai comes up to check for danger. He flirts with her, trying to see if she will have sex with him again, and she calls his bluff. He admits to trying to test her loyalty to Michael. He tells her that they all are worried about her, not just Michael. Exhausted, Rika goes to bed as soon as Kai leaves.

Rika wakes up in the middle of the night to a loud noise. She calls out for Michael and then goes to get a snack. She sees that the apartment’s back door is open and a hooded figure in a white mask is standing in the door. She assumes it’s Michael and speaks cooly to him until the figure drives a knife into the wall. She quickly realizes that the figure is actually Damon. Damon attacks her and covers her mouth with a chloroform-soaked rag, which causes her to pass out.

Rika wakes up on the Crists’ yacht. Damon is in the room with her, and then Trevor joins them. Trevor slaps Rika hard before Damon carries her into a bedroom, where he ties her up. She asks for Michael, and Damon says he’ll be there shortly, which makes Rika feel a strong sense of unease. Damon acts like he is going to sexually assault Rika, but Rika calls his bluff. He admits to being angry at her for getting in between the Four Horsemen, whom he considers to be his only family. He appears to be defeated and heartbroken at losing his friends.

Trevor enters the bedroom and explains that Damon hates women because his mother sexually abused him and that Rika took away the only family he had left. Rika corrects him and says that Trevor took that from him. Trevor berates Rika for always pining after Michael and admits to his part in uploading the incriminatory videos. Trevor explains he plans to kill Rika and Michael to get her inheritance. Rika hears the sound of a speedboat approaching and realizes it’s Michael.

The narration switches to Michael’s point of view.

Michael, Will, and Kai are on a speedboat toward the Crist family yacht. When Michael went to check on Rika in her apartment, he found a note with the name of the yacht on the floor and soon realized Trevor had taken the boat out. As they travel toward the yacht, Michael regrets not telling Rika he loves her and hopes she will be okay.

When they reach the yacht, Michael instructs Will to stay on the speedboat and blow the horn if he notices anything suspicious. Michael and Kai split up to search the yacht. Michael quickly finds Rika, whose hands are bleeding. She broke some glass above the headboard to try to cut the ropes binding her. Will blows the horn. Rika warns Michael that Damon and Trevor want him to find her and that they need to escape.

When they return to the speedboat, Will is nowhere to be seen. Michael soon finds Will in the water. Trevor has attached two cinder blocks to his feet and is waiting to push them into the water. Trevor begins to taunt Michael, and Damon joins in. Damon sneers at Michael for choosing Rika over his friends. He begs Michael to abandon Rika and let everything “go back to the way it was in high school” (420). Trevor agrees and asks Michael to trade Rika for his friends. Unable to make a decision, Michael begs Trevor to stop and asks why he is doing this. Trevor admits that he wants to see Michael feel helpless. He pushes the blocks into the ocean, and Michael shoots him three times before he jumps into the water after Will. He grabs Will, but the two men quickly sink. Michael works at the rope that binds Michael, and it eventually loosens, allowing the men to resurface. As Michael looks up, he sees his brother injured but still able to push Rika into the ocean with blocks attached to her. Michael dives back under to try to save her, but he cannot find her anywhere. Kai jumps in to assist in finding her. Suddenly, Rika surfaces and reveals she cut herself free with one of the glass shards she got from the bedroom earlier. Will reveals that Damon escaped on the speedboat.

When they get back on the boat, Trevor is dying in a pool of blood. He begs Michael to take the boat into the harbor to get help, but no one moves to help him. Michael pushes his brother into the water, and Rika warns him that he will have to live with his decision to kill Trevor for the rest of his life. Michael tells her he had to do it because she never would have been safe if Trevor were still alive.

Michael takes Rika into the bathroom to get her cleaned up and dotes on her. He tells her he loves her.

Rika and her mother arrive at the Crists’ home for Thanksgiving. Her mother looks much healthier after her successful rehab treatment. Mrs. Crist is happy to see them and has decorated the house extravagantly to distract herself from Trevor’s death. Rika reveals that Michael decided to bring Trevor’s body back to land so he could tell his mother the truth and spare her the pain of never knowing what happened to Trevor. Now that Trevor is dead, Mr. Crist has turned all his attention to Michael. He tells Michael that he’d like to discuss Rika’s fortune with him, and Michael tells him he put everything in Rika’s name and that he’ll need to talk to her instead. Mr. Crist is dumbfounded.

Michael and Rika go to talk to Will and Kai. Kai reveals that he has located Damon in St. Petersburg, Russia. Kai and Will want to go after him, but Rika and Michael encourage them to let it go. Michael asks his friends to delay dinner while he goes to show Rika something.

Michael takes Rika to St. Killian’s, which he tells her he is having restored into a house they can live in together. He then proposes to her with the diamond ring that she stole on Devil’s Night three years earlier. He reveals that he returned all the jewelry, but bought the ring. Rika worries that they won’t be able to keep up their level of passion for each other, and Michael assures her they will. Rika says yes to his proposal.

The narration switches to Michael’s point of view.

Michael wakes up as Rika showers. As he watches her, he reflects that their love story started years before Devil’s Night.

The narration flashes back in time. Michael goes to pick Rika up from soccer practice because his mother is unable to do so. When Rika gets in the car, he notices she has been crying. She tells him some girls made fun of her scar. As they drive, someone hits a dog, and Michael stops to see what happened and if he can help. Michael tells the passersby that he’ll try to find a veterinary office that can help the dog. Knowing the dog will die regardless, Michael strangles it. Rika sees him do it and is furious. In the car, they fight about it, and Michael calls her weak and tells her she won’t be able to find a rich husband to care for her because of her scar. Upset, Rika jumps out of the car and runs to the cemetery to see her father’s grave. Michael takes the dog’s body to bury it at St. Killian’s. After burying the dog, Michael realizes he was too hard on Rika and decides to go find her. He finds her asleep on her father’s grave. He apologizes to her and tells her that her scar isn’t ugly. He tells Rika he’s constantly afraid of his father and his expectations and that no one sees him outside of his relation to his father. Rika rebukes this, telling him she always notices him. She encourages him to do what makes him happy, even if it means standing up to his father.

Michael takes Rika to his house and puts her in his bed. He suggests to his mother that Rika should have a bedroom at the house and then chastises her for calling Rika “fragile” (453). He then calls his friends and asks if they still have their paintball masks. He suggests they wear them and do “Whatever we want” (454) on Devil’s Night.