53 pages • 1 hour read
Noelle W. IhliGray After Dark
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapter 52-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Four Weeks Later”
Part 2, Chapter 52 Summary: “Miley”
When Hamish points his gun at Brent, Miley claims that Brent and Wes are hikers they came across while looking for Annabelle. Brent plays along, saying they will pack up their stuff and go. However, Hamish shoots Wes, killing him. Brent lies that he is part of a large search party looking for Miley. He charges at Hamish, who fires straight at him.
Part 2, Chapter 53 Summary: “Miley”
Part 2, Chapter 54 Summary: “Miley”
Miley fakes gratitude toward Hamish for protecting them. She suggests he should fetch Fred while she and Mary remove all evidence of Brent and Wes’s presence. As soon as Hamish is gone, Miley checks on Brent, discovering he is alive but struggling to breathe due to a punctured lung. She instructs him to control his breath by counting each one while Mary helps her tape the wound. Mary is in shock, observing that Wes “was a good person” (303). Declaring her name is Rayna and that “Mary is dead” (303), she says she wants to go home and have babies and her own chickens.
Part 2, Chapter 55 Summary: “Miley”
Miley takes the biathlon rifle and tells Rayna they must return to the cabin to save Brent’s life. As Miley and Rayna near the cabin, they see Fred and Hamish preparing to flee with supplies. Mary reveals that, to reach their usual “bugout spot,” Fred and Hamish will pass Brent in the clearing. Miley persuades Rayna to be Mary one last time.
Part 2, Chapter 56 Summary: “Brent”
Brent focuses on controlling his breathing, knowing this is vital to survive his collapsed lung. He begins to lose consciousness but revives when he sees Wes standing over him, urging him not to fall asleep. Brent thinks Wes is alive but then notices that he has shaved his beard and his dandelion t-shirt is intact. Wes tells Brent, “Hang on […]. She’s got you” (310).
Part 2, Chapter 57 Summary: “Miley”
Part 2, Chapter 58 Summary: “Miley”
Dusk falls as Miley waits behind a tree, waiting for Fred and Hamish to appear. Finally, Fred steps out of the cabin, and Miley kills him with one shot. She anticipates that Hamish will rush to his father’s body, providing another clear target. However, he runs to Rayna, holding his pistol to her head. Miley communicates a secret message to Rayna by singing, “Run, Rabbit Run!” Rayna understands, kneeing Hamish in the groin before dropping to the ground. Miley shoots Hamish in the arm, but he continues running toward her, returning fire.
Part 2, Chapter 59 Summary: “Miley”
Miley can hear Hamish in the undergrowth but cannot see him as they both move closer to Brent’s camp. Miley sees a flame and realizes Rayna has lit a fire. She shouts a warning, and the fire goes out.
Part 2, Chapter 60 Summary: “Miley”
Miley hears the explosion of an aerosol followed by Hamish screaming. She reaches Brent’s camp to see Hamish thrashing on the ground and Rayna holding Wes’s bear spray. Miley points the rifle at Hamish but hesitates. When Rayna urges her to shoot, she pulls the trigger.
Part 2, Chapter 61 Summary: “Miley”
Miley tells Brent, “I’ve got you” (331). Rayna gives her a headlamp, the key to Brent’s ATV, and her boots to run in. Miley tells Brent she loves him, although she does not know if he can hear her.
Part 2, Chapter 62 Summary: “Miley”
Running through the night, Miley follows Wes’s neon-yellow trail of t-shirt strips. She paces herself and controls her breath, as if she is in a biathlon race. As dawn approaches, Miley reaches the alpine lake and Brent’s ATV.
Part 2, Chapter 63 Summary: “Miley”
Miley reaches Hidden Springs Resort, and Jennifer calls emergency services. In a helicopter, Miley guides the pilot toward the campfire that Rayna has lit to mark Brent’s location.
Epilogue Summary: “Miley”
In the aftermath of her ordeal, Miley focuses on the miracle that she and Brent survived rather than the press coverage of her abduction. Some newspaper headlines glorify Fred and Hamish as resourceful survivalists who captured an “Olympic belle.”
Four years later, Miley and Brent are married and receive their silver medals on the podium at the Milano Cortina Olympics. Wes’s mother is watching, with Miley and Brent’s two-year-old daughter Jane. Rayna, who is eight months pregnant, stands at the front of the crowd with her brightly dyed lavender hair. She pulls out a rabbit pendant from her parka, reminding Miley of the identical necklaces Rayna gave her and Brent before the race for luck.
Part 2, Chapter 52-Epilogue Analysis
The narrative tension peaks in these chapters as the story’s central conflict leads to Wes’s death, and Brent’s life hangs in the balance. The novel’s climax features classic tropes of the survival thriller, including a stake-out scene as Miley waits for Fred and Hamish, followed by a shoot-out. The narrative’s circular structure emerges as Chapter 58 returns to the action from the Prologue. By this point, the events hold new meaning for readers who understand the scene’s context and what is at stake. Earlier occurrences are also echoed in Miley’s return to civilization. She relies on Wes’s yellow t-shirt strips to guide her, which are like “a fluorescent beacon against the darkness” (334); this echoes Brent and Wes’s journey following Miley’s golden strands of hair. The repetition of these elements creates a sense of narrative symmetry and cohesion.
The theme of Balancing Survival Instincts and Moral Integrity returns in this section of the novel as Miley turns to saving Brent. Her quick thinking in high-stakes scenarios is illustrated in the aftermath of Brent’s critical injury as she claims that he is dead and resumes her role as “Ruthie Sue.” By prioritizing Brent’s survival, Miley reinforces her humanity even as she operates under extreme duress. Miley’s actions in these chapters subvert traditional gendered expectations of the survival genre as she is depicted as both a survivor and a savior. Significantly, although Brent sets out to rescue Miley, she ultimately saves him. Brent’s repeated mantra, “I’ve got you” (331), becomes Miley’s promise. Even in the direst situations, her capacity to care for and protect others—like Brent and Rayna—proves that Miley never compromises on her humanity in her quest for self-preservation.
The novel’s recurring biathlon symbolism recurs in the final chapters. Miley’s skills as a biathlete and her increased ability to wait for her shot are tested in a situation where the “penalty lap” is death. The image of the Olympic flame appears in this moment as Miley reflects: “Today I was the torch” (313). The observation underlines Miley’s sense of empowerment as her athletic training and discipline come to the fore. Brent’s biathlon skills also become crucial, as he can control his breathing with a collapsed lung, and this ultimately saves his life.
These chapters also explore the theme of Navigating Toxic Power Dynamics as the former hierarchy of control is turned on its head. Miley, who was once the captive, has the upper hand as she waits to kill her captors. She easily dispatches Fred, the primary aggressor. However, by failing to check his father’s body, Hamish behaves unpredictably, thwarting Miley’s attempts to manipulate and kill him. His surprising resourcefulness indicates that Hamish temporarily takes on Fred’s mantle before his death. This shift in the characters’ power dynamics is reflected in the changed associations of the predator and prey motif. The song “Run, Rabbit Run!” is appropriated by Miley and Mary as a secret signal to use against Hamish. The characters’ lucky rabbit pendants at the end of the novel underline their ultimate triumph over their human predators.
Mary undergoes significant character development in the final chapters. She reverts to her former identity of Rayna, prompted by the shock of witnessing Wes’s death. As a former friend, Wes provides Mary with a tangible reminder of her life as Rayna—an existence she has dissociated from as a defense mechanism. Also, Hamish’s unprovoked killing of Wes causes Mary to confront the moral bankruptcy of her captors. As Rayna, her character demonstrates surprising bravery and resourcefulness, incapacitating Hamish with bear spray and lighting a campfire to guide the rescue helicopter to Brent. Notably, when Miley hesitates to kill Hamish as he lies helpless, it is Rayna who urges her to shoot, illustrating that any empathy with her captors has been extinguished. Earlier roles are reversed as Miley persuades Rayna to resume her role as Mary one last time. Her reluctance to do so signals the finality of her transformation from Mary back to Rayna.
The Epilogue marks the narrative’s resolution as Miley, Brent, and Rayna are shown to have survived and flourished in the aftermath of their ordeal. The details of Miley’s dream in captivity have become a reality as she has married Brent, had a baby daughter, and earned an Olympic medal. Rayna’s pregnancy indicates that she, too, has fulfilled her dreams in the outside world. Rayna’s vibrant hair and clothing signal that she is no longer willing to meekly fade into the background.
