Summary
Frick narrates his part in Buck’s story, explaining that to become a Dark Suns member you have to rob someone, beat someone, or kill someone. Frick’s initiation into the gang involved robbing Buck, who was known in the neighborhood for wearing flashy, expensive jewelry. When Frick confronted him with a gun, Buck laughed. Buck took a swing at Frick, even though he held a gun, and Frick got scared: he pulled the trigger, killing Buck.
Frick explains that Shawn followed the Rules and avenged Buck’s death by taking out Frick with one bullet. Will realizes this is why one has been missing from the gun. Frick yanks down his collar and shows the bullet scar on his chest. The people in the elevator ask Will how he knows Riggs killed his brother. Will says it couldn’t have been anyone else. Dani asks Frick if he knows Riggs. Frick looks at him like he’s crazy and shrugs. Frick has his own cigarettes and matches.
The elevator doors open on the second floor. No one is there. Will pushes the L button for the lobby over and over again. He feels claustrophobic in the vertical coffin. His uncle Mark laughs and says he’d never survive in prison. Just before the doors close, four fingers hold it open.
Shawn steps in wearing what he wore the night he was shot. He is covered in blood. Everyone is happy to see him, shouting his name and slapping hands. Shawn hugs his father, then they shake hands like business partners.
Shawn finally faces Will. Will comments that Shawn’s silence reminds him of how he used to punish Will for annoying him by not speaking to him for an entire day. Will hugs Shawn but Shawn doesn’t hug him back. He won’t answer when Will asks why he won’t talk.
Will starts explaining how he found the gun, and how he’s following The Rules like their elders. He says he is on his way to Riggs, and he knows Riggs did it. He confesses that he is scared, and he needs to know he is doing the right thing. He wants confirmation from Shawn that The Rules are the rules. He asks, “Right?” many times, the words filling the page in the shape of a giant question mark.
Will starts breaking down. He hides his eyes because he doesn’t want anyone to see him cry. Their cigarette ends glow like elevator buttons. He looks back at Shawn, who has tears and snot pouring from his face. Will reminds him of the first rule, but Shawn keeps crying. He can’t see him as anything other than his brother—his favorite. Next there comes the sound of metal grinding on metal, something to do with the elevator machinery. However, the sound comes from Shawn’s belly.
The elevator stops. Everyone stands in the thickening smoke, crowded in the cell-coffin-elevator. Will sees only the cigarette ends burning through the smoke. Shawn hasn’t lit one, though. Will feels the cigarette meant for him is burning in Will’s stomach, filling him with a stinging fire.
The door opens slowly and the smoke rushes out like an angry wave. The ghosts follow. Will catches his breath. He stands alone in the empty box, his face feeling tight from dried tears and his jeans soggy from urine. The loaded gun is in his waistband still.
Shawn turns back to his brother. His eyes are dull because he is dead, but they shine with tears. Shawn finally speaks, saying only two words, like it’s a joke he’s been saving. The novel ends with Shawn’s words standing alone in large letters on an otherwise blank page: You coming?
Analysis
Reynolds further develops the theme of gun violence with Frick’s story about how he unintentionally killed Buck. In a variation on the familiar stories told by the other ghosts, Frick explains that he wanted to join the Dark Suns. Like many other street gangs, they pressure new members to commit an act of thievery or violence as an initiation that shows what they are capable of.
In Frick’s case, however, the initiation went wrong when fear got the better of him. Although he planned to rob Buck, thinking him an obvious target, Frick didn’t plan for Buck to fight back when there was a gun in his face. Under pressure, Frick shot him, setting in motion a cycle of violence that Will became caught up in. In an instance of situational irony, Will learns the bullet missing from Shawn’s gun was used to kill Frick. The theme of uncertainty also arises when Will hopes to gain clarity from Frick about Riggs’s involvement in Shawn’s shooting. Despite Will’s poorly founded insistence that it “had to be” Riggs, Frick appears not to know who Riggs is.
The last ghost to join the others in the elevator is Shawn. Unlike the other ghosts, Shawn is still wearing the bloody clothes in which he was murdered. Although Shawn acts amiable with the ghosts, he refuses to speak to his little brother. Will reveals that Shawn used to give him the same silent treatment when he was acting annoying, withholding attention from Will until he worked out on his own why Shawn wasn’t speaking to him.
Replicating the power imbalance of siblings born many years apart, Will asks question after question while Shawn remains quiet. Will needs his brother to tell him if he is doing the right thing in carrying out The Rules. But because all of Will’s mentors are gone, his question is something only Will can answer. Shawn lets his brother writhe in the discomfort of this uncertainty.
The novel reaches its climax when Will’s uncertainty becomes so unbearable that he breaks down crying—a violation of Rule 1. In an instance of situational irony, Will sees that Shawn is also crying, releasing the stream of snot and tears that he thought he had to suppress while living. This moment of shared vulnerability between Will and Shawn is a chance for them to express their grief in a healthy way, which The Rules prevented.
The book ends on the image of the ghosts walking out of the elevator while Will catches his breath. Shawn’s only words—“You coming?”—carry a symbolic double meaning. While ostensibly he is asking if Will is going to follow the ghosts out of the elevator, Shawn is really asking if Will is still going to get revenge, an act that will inevitably result in retaliation. If the ghosts’ stories have taught Will anything, it is that he is likely to be the next murder victim if he kills Riggs. Reynolds leaves this crucial question open, allowing the reader to decide whether they believe Will is prepared to join his brother and the other ghosts or discard The Rules that have brought him and his community nothing but sorrow.
