“You can prepare yourself for something, imagine it a hundred different ways, and still find yourself breathless when it actually happens.”

Kat’s reaction to Meg’s presence in the room shows how significant this moment is for her as she thinks she’ll finally get back at Meg for leading her to the man who raped her and ruined her life. This feeling relies on hyperbole of how the mind can conjure about a scenario and ruminate on it playing out, and this feeling underscores Kat’s obsession with Meg for the last 10 years. It also heightens the suspense because at this point in the novel, readers don’t know why Kat is so excited to see Meg.

“If you’re one of my targets, know that I’ve chosen you carefully. It’s likely you’re in the midst of a major life change—a lost job, a divorce, the death of a close family member. Or a heated run for elected office that you’re on the verge of losing. Emotional people take risks. They don’t think clearly, and they’re eager to believe whatever fantasy I feed them.”

Meg’s statement directly to the reader makes her seem like a force to be reckoned with, and she is. However, Meg doesn’t prey solely upon people in the midst of a major life change. She has many other criteria for choosing her victims that make this otherwise ominous introduction more palatable. Keeping the notion that Meg targets her victims due to their abuse of power a secret until later in the book makes readers wonder what Meg is capable of. It’s also reflective of Kat’s perception of Meg, since she fails to understand who Meg is and why she does what she does at this point.