Throughout the novel, instinct drives the protagonist. Jess’s instinct is born out of her past. It is revealed that she first learned to trust her instinct when, as a child, she once had a gut feeling that she should stay home from school to be with her mother; when she ignored that feeling and went to school, she returned to find her mother dead from an overdose. That traumatic experience informs Jess’s resolve to never again ignore her intuition. Her instincts have carried her throughout her experiences in the foster care system, in which she routinely encountered abusive, exploitative people.

One of her most important instincts is her trust in herself. While society may look askance at Jess because she has no close family, home, or secure employment, her street smarts speak for themselves. She can read people and cautiously balances trust against suspicion. She can sense that there is goodness in Nick, but she doesn’t let that outweigh her sense that Nick is hiding something. Similarly, she treats Theo both as an ally and as an enemy. Jess understands that people are multilayered and capable of both aiding her and destroying her. Therefore, the only person she can truly rely on is herself.