Chapters 24–25 Summary
Roxy
While she is away at the Black Sea, Roxy gets an urgent message from Bernie’s wife, Barbara. Barbara asks Roxy to come home because her brother Ricky has been badly injured. When Roxy arrives, she finds that Ricky was gang raped by three women outside a club. As a result, he has sustained injuries to his genitals and thighs.
Using her connections, Roxy makes some calls until she discovers the identities and locations of the three women who attacked Ricky. Roxy reluctantly agrees to let her younger brother Darrell accompany her and the posse of women she has gathered to confront Ricky’s rapists. Roxy and her crew follow the intoxicated rapists to a public park after they leave a pub. The women climb onto a metal merry-go-round, creating the perfect opportunity to attack them. Two of the rapists are easily incapicitated, but the third taunts Roxy while attempting to flee, saying that Ricky asked for his assault and enjoyed it.
Darrell stupidly tries to hit this third rapist with the gun he brought, which the woman grabs ahold of and electrifies, stunning Darrell. Roxy must rescue Darrell, using her power to incapacitate the third rapist. While they are unconscious, Roxy maims all three of Ricky’s rapists so that they have permanent scars on their faces. She reasons that this is punishment enough, leaving the women passed out in the park. On the way home, Roxy admonishes Darrell for acting so foolishly.
Roxy tells Barbara what she has done to Ricky’s rapists. As a token of her gratitude, Barbara gives Roxy a hidden book with all of Bernie’s business connections, which he had been saving for Ricky. Barbara says that the book belongs to Roxy because Ricky will not want to take over the business after what has happened to him.
While perusing the names in the book, Roxy finds the name of a detective called Newland, which triggers Roxy’s memory. She recalls that when Primrose begged for his life, he claimed that Newland had said Roxy would not be home on the day her mother was murdered. Roxy tracks Newland to his retirement residence in Spain, taking Darrell with her as reinforcement. Roxy enjoys toying with the unsuspecting Newland when she finds him by a pool. When she asks him who she is, Newland seems clueless until Roxy mentions her father’s name.
Newland reveals that Bernie, Roxy’s father, is actually the one who ordered the hit on her mother. Newland only pretended to sell information to Primrose so that Bernie could stay out of the matter. Although Roxy believes him, she still kills Newland anyway, leaving him facedown in the pool. She reckons that those who find him will think he died of a heart attack.
When Roxy and Darrell return to London, they immediately go to see Bernie, who apparently has been anticipating their return now that Roxy has discovered the truth about her mother’s death. Bernie explains that he had to have Roxy’s mother killed because she was leaking information that got a few of his business partners in trouble. Roxy, who could easily kill her father, asks her father to retire and hand over the family business to her. She does not want the cycle of violence and revenge to continue. Bernie replies by calling her a “clever girl.”
Jocelyn
Jocelyn signs up to work for NorthStar camps for two years so that the company will pay for her college tuition. Margot is proud that both of her daughters have chosen to serve in the military (which supervises the camps). Maddy, her younger daughter, is already...
(This entire section contains 951 words.)
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one of the top students in her class.
Margot was successful in getting Jocelyn to break up with Ryan, after which Jocelyn started an experimental medication that evened out the problems she experienced with her inconsistent power. Though the medicine has helped, Jocelyn is still a social outcast, mostly because of her publicized relationship with an abnormal boy. Girls at school often tease her for being attracted to a “freak.”
One night while Jocelyn is on security detail, a perimeter alarm is triggered. Jocelyn and the few other girls on duty go to the fence around the camp, where they find three men armed with baseball bats entering through a cut hole in the fence. While two of the men escape after being shocked, the girls capture the third. The girl holding onto the man urges Jocelyn to shock him just to teach him a lesson while they wait for their superior officers.
When Jocelyn refuses, the girl taunts her, saying that Jocelyn is weak. The man also begins taunting Jocelyn. She lets a too-powerful burst travel through her fingertips and into the side of the man’s head. Realizing what she has done, Jocelyn begins to panic about how this will be judged. The man is dead, and when the superior finally arrives on the scene, they devise a plan that will keep NorthStar camps from suffering the bad press that would result from the death of an intruder.
The superior finds a handgun in the man’s jacket pocket. The superior tells Jocelyn that the official story will be that Jocelyn had to use necessary force when the man reached for his firearm. Jocelyn will say she saw the glint of the metal in his pocket, which prompted her to act. The other girls who witnessed what really happened immediately agree with the superior’s version of the story. Jocelyn knows this is a lie, yet she goes on to tell this story on national television programs, where she is hailed as a hero who thwarted a terrorist attack.
