Author&#8217;s note<br /><br />I apologize.&nbsp; I&#8217;m sure my readers will have mixed thoughts on the &#8220;women in refrigerators&#8221; trope, given that most of my readers rather enjoy the ladies in peril.&nbsp; Basically, a female character created simply to die to provide more motivation for the (usually male) protagonist.&nbsp; Ellen is a woman in a refrigerator.&nbsp; I'm not a fan of the trope, and in particular, more serious tone, where snuff isn't the object of my fiction, I don't like doing it.&nbsp; I&#8217;ve know for a long time that Ursula was going to kill her.&nbsp; She&#8217;s woefully underdeveloped; she&#8217;s only been in like four scenes.&nbsp; I could have developed her more, but she just didn&#8217;t fit in the narrative.&nbsp; I was thinking it was a good thing I killed off Callie first last chapter and established I will kill off characters, because killing the mentor is totally okay, but what happened to Ellen really isn&#8217;t.&nbsp; It all comes down to payoff, and killing the mentor usually has great payoff both before and after the death.&nbsp; Ellen&#8217;s character doesn&#8217;t have much payoff prior to her death, but I hope eventually her death is integral enough down the line to justify such a sloppy execution (har har, sloppy pun) of her character.&nbsp; In other words, I&#8217;m sorry, but that&#8217;s just how it is.<br />Doug<br /><br />That aside, I am pleased with this chapter.&nbsp; It will have a lot of consequences for everyone, good and bad.<br /><br />Part 5: <a href="http://fav.me/daeabzb">fav.me/daeabzb</a><br />Part 7: <a href="http://fav.me/daedepk">fav.me/daedepk</a>