48 pages • 1 hour read
Hell Followed With Us
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Parts 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4: “Nicholas” - Part 6: “Theodore”
Part 4, Chapter 23 Summary
The narrative again shifts to Nick’s perspective, who wakes up to find Benji gone. Nick is overcome by guilt for ever considering Benji to be less than human and for thinking of using him as a sacrifice. Nick manages to locate Benji as he is about to attack the group of Angels on the way to the church, and Nick shoots a couple of them from a distance. He watches as Benji tears each Angel apart by their limbs and rips them apart with his teeth. Benji is almost fully transformed now, with claws, a long tongue, and a hollow body. After all the Angels are dead, Nick approaches Benji, who instantly attacks Nick. Nick tries to remind Benji of who he is, believing that Benji is still himself somewhere inside. He gives Benji some bobby pins and fixes his hair. Benji calms down, realizing that Nick is a friend.
Part 5, Chapter 24 Summary
Back in Benji’s perspective, his memory of the next several hours is hazy, but Nick takes him back to the bank and helps him cover his wounds. Nick can see that Benji is suffering and invites him to make lizards out of beads—something that Nick does when he’s upset. Benji reluctantly agrees to try it and makes a rainbow lizard. When Nick asks where Benji was going when he found him, Benji asks Nick to get Erin so that he can tell them both everything about Theo and the fire. Benji confesses that he went back to see Theo twice and that he is all but certain that Theo is the reason the ALC was set on fire. Benji feels personally responsible, and Erin demands an apology. Nick reveals that he knew Theo when he was a member of the death squad, and he believes that Benji is correct in his suspicions. He makes a plan to trick the Angels by sending Benji back to plead forgiveness and then use the opportunity to unleash Graces upon the entire cult.
Part 5, Chapter 25 Summary
Benji sits with several members of the ALC, awaiting Nick’s cue to leave. Cormac passes around a bottle of expensive wine that was left over from his parents’ supply, but Benji refuses it, already feeling ill from his slow transformation. Soon afterward, Nick calls Benji to talk privately. He gives Benji a bead lizard made with trans pride colors, and Benji is overcome with emotion. He sees it as a good opportunity to tell Nick that he has feelings for him, and Nick isn’t sure how to respond. Nick is not overly interested in touching people, but he hugs Benji, and their foreheads touch. Benji and Nick make a promise to sort out whatever future they may have together when Benji returns from New Nazareth. Before leaving the ALC, Benji takes off his mask and rolls up his sleeves to show everyone what he is becoming. Some stare in horror, others in awe, but everyone comes to a place of understanding and acceptance. Some even hug Benji despite his rotting skin. Benji knows that he has found his family and promises himself that he will make the Angels pay for what they did to the ALC and to him.
Part 6, Chapter 26 Summary
Theo is at the church with several other Angels, praying to God for forgiveness and to help him not fail the Angels again. He feels a deep sense of shame for failing to get Benji back and prays for another chance. When Benji suddenly bursts into the church and falls to the floor, claiming to want to return home, Theo holds him, feeling immensely grateful and relieved. He not only wants to prove himself to the church and God but also still feels a possessive and twisted love toward Benji.
Parts 4-6 Analysis
When the narrative shifts back to Nick’s perspective again, it showcases Benji’s transformation from another point of view, as well as showing Nick’s own viewpoint shift through a more intimate lens. Nick watches Benji brutally kill the Angels using his claws and fangs, and it is only through Benji’s eyes that Nick knows that he is still the same somehow. Nick goes through a period of self-reflection and guilt as he realizes that the person inside Seraph is just a boy like him, and he hates himself for ever considering using Benji as a sacrifice or considering him less than human. Nick now sees Benji as a true friend and ally and as a complex human being who is loyal and unapologetically vulnerable.
Benji starts to feel like he is Finding Home and Finding Family more and more with each passing day, during both moments of simplicity and in more significant scenes. When Benji announces that he is becoming Seraph, it is a gesture of trust and, in a sense, a form of “coming out.” Like the day that he announced he was a boy and not a girl, Benji now embraces yet another layer of his identity in Seraph. Alongside all of this, Benji confesses feelings for Nick, creating a new development in their complex relationship.
Benji’s transition to the being known as Seraph is symbolic on several levels. Benji is becoming himself, growing up, and shedding his former life and the trauma that came along with it. Ironically, by embracing and becoming the creature that the Angels wanted him to be, he gains the strength and power necessary to defeat them, feeding into the theme of What Makes a Monster. As Benji conquers the demons of his past, both internally and externally, he leaves behind insecurity, doubt, and any remaining reliance on Theo and religion. Benji is full of rage at the Angels for using him and turning him into a sort of monster, and all this guilt and rage is eventually what fuels his vengeance.
For the one and only time in the story, the narrative perspective shifts to Theo, which is done to bring clarity to his motivations and the flaws in his psyche that cause him to act possessively toward Benji despite not really loving him. Theo’s loyalty is to the Angels, and his motivation lies in what he believes will happen to him after death, speaking to the theme of How One’s View of Death Affects One’s Life. Theo sees Benji as part of that plan and thinks that by remaining close to Seraph, he will secure a place with the Angels and in Heaven. Theo relies fully on outside approval, and this flaw is what causes him to fall right into Benji’s trap.
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