Roxy (book)

## Roxy

**Roxanne “Roxy” Monke** is a main character in *The Power (book)*. She is initially 14 years old.

## Character Story

#### Ten Years to Go

*This section is a detailed plot of this book chapter and **contains spoilers.** Click to expand.*

Roxy is at home with her mother when two men she doesn’t recognize, “Tall Man” and “Short Man” (Tony), kick down their door. The two men are here to “deliver a message” to Roxy’s father, Bernie Monk, by hurting her mother. Roxy has heard the things people have said about her father before, that he’s a crook, etc. They try to lock Roxy in a cupboard, but Roxy knows how to get out. She bashes the door open, knocking over the Tall Man, and emerges to see that the Short Man has a knife to her mother’s neck.

Her mother urges her to run away. However, Roxy suddenly realizes that she has a power within her. She’s able to release an electrical jolt of energy with a twist from her hands that singes the Short Man, damaging one of his hand.

She tries to do it again, but is unable to. Instead, the men knock her unconscious. When Roxy awakes, she sees her mother’s limp body on the sofa. On her chest is a piece of paper with a “felt-tip drawing of a primrose”.

Roxy turns out to be one of the youngest and first to discover the power.

#### Nine Years to Go

*This section is a detailed plot of this book chapter and **contains spoilers.** Click to expand.*

After her mother’s murder, Roxy’s father is determined to exact revenge on Primrose, the person who ordered the hit. He tells this to Roxy’s half-brothers — Ricky (the oldest), Terry (the middle one) and Darrell (the youngest) — all of whom are the sons of Bernie’s wife. Roxy is the odd one out.

However, Primrose is dangerous, and they need to be ready for him. Bernie asks to see what Roxy can do, and she shows them her power. Soon, he finds other friends with daughters around her age that Roxy can practice with and teach, so they have more firepower. They discover that Roxy is the strongest of all of them.

Just before, Ricky offers Roxy some cocaine to clear her head before the confrontation. The plan was to lure Primrose to a warehouse with the help of Weinstein, a guy they thought sold him out. Instead, Primrose shows up with a bunch more guys than they’d anticipated. She sees Primrose kill Terry.

Angry and afraid, Roxy feels the electricity in her hand as she lights up an iron walkway, causing three of Primrose’s men to go down. When two guys try to grab her, she takes them both down with just a touch. Then, when Primrose tries to get away, Roxy chases after him. As she zaps Primrose, he pleads with her, saying that Bernie came after him first. Roxy kills him.

#### Eight Years to Go

*This section is a detailed plot of this book chapter and **contains spoilers.** Click to expand.*

After the killing of Primrose, they kill off the rest of the gang. Then, Bernie gets Roxy out of the country since he knows they’re trying to track her down. They ask Roxy where she wants to go, and Roxy says she wants to find Mother Eve in South Carolina who she’s heard about through videos online.

Roxy makes her way to the convent where she shows off the strength of her power by boiling the water in the ocean. At the convent, the others tell Allie/Eve about her. Allie comes down to talk to Roxy, and Allie is surprised to learn that she has a British accent. Allie also senses how powerful Roxy is and remembers how the voice inside her had told her that “a soldier will come.”

Roxy talks about how she thinks these powers are going to change everything, and she came to Allie since it looks like she wants to be a part of that change. Roxy still thinks there’s a place for men and a role for them to play, but Allie sees things a little differently. Still, Allie invites Roxy in knowing that Roxy might be one of the strongest she’s encountered.

They get to the convent just as dinner is being served, and Roxy is welcomed warmly by the girls. Mother Eve recites scripture, picking and choosing the parts that she likes. She tells the story of Ruth and explains that it’s a story about friendship and loyalty.

Later, Allie and Roxy talk. Allie says that people keep trying to give them money, but she has no bank account and implies that she’s unable to set one up. Roxy offers to help her out.

At 7 AM the next morning, a man show up named Einar, who Roxy knows from before. He has with him a new laptop as well as seven sets of passports, social security cards and drivers licenses for Allie/Eve. Einar warns not to make deposits over 100K into the account for the first six weeks without clearing it him first since there are security measures placed on the accounts initially.

As the days pass, Allie notices that the voices in head have quieted down with Roxy here, and she tells Roxy about growing up in a group home. As they talk, they both admit to having killed someone. Roxy tells Allie about how one time she had a piano teacher who molested her, and she told her father who beat the guy up and partially castrated him.

When a group of 12 officers show up to take them down, Allie uses her powers to get them to drop their guns, and Roxy uses her powers to cause them to all collapse. They record the interaction, and Allie records a message to go with the video, beckoning any women and girls of any race or religion to join them.

The humiliation of the police force at the convent causes them to be become even more militant elsewhere. Soon, a 12-year-old girl named Mez shows up one day saying that she was hassled by officers when she and her mother were walking back from the grocery store. When her mother told them to leave her alone, seven officers beat her mother up severely and took her to the police station instead of to a hosptial. Hearing the story, Allie and Roxy are both determined to go to the station and rescue Mez’s mother, Rachel Latif.

Eventually, Allie’s organization outgrows the convent, needing a larger facility and outposts of the convent are springing up everywhere. By now, Allie truly believes she has been sent by God and that it’s her duty to deliver Her message. Meanwhile, Roxy tells Allie that it’s time to go home because she misses her family. Allie insists that Roxy can’t trust men, but Roxy disagrees.

#### Six Years to Go

*This section is a detailed plot of this book chapter and **contains spoilers.** Click to expand.*

Roxy ends up going to Bessapara, where Roxy’s father already had some connections, to set up a drug trade. She becomes the sole exporter of a substance called Glitter.

Meanwhile, Roxy has been using her drug trade to gain influence with Tatiana. She also stays in contact with Allie, reserving part of the money for the cause.

#### Five Years to Go

*This section is a detailed plot of this book chapter and **contains spoilers.** Click to expand.*

After the event, Allie corresponds with Sister Maria Ignacia, who has been loyally holding down the fort back at the original convent. Allie has recently asked Sister Ignacia to ensure that all files on “Alison Montgomery-Taylor” disappear, and today she receives confirmation that it will happen. While it’s not specified who is handling it, Allie knows that the believer most likely to have the power and influence to accomplish something like that is Roxy.

Roxy is on her way to Moldova when she gets news that her half-brother Ricky has been injured. She makes her way to Bernie’s wife Barbara’s house. There, she sees that Ricky is injured from the waist down. He tells her about how the night before, three women took turns with him, using their powers on him to force an erection for the fun of making him hurt.

Ricky knows who the women are who did this. Roxy calls around and quickly tracks the women down to a pub in Vauxhall. When Roxy leaves to go deal with them, her youngest half-brother Darrell wants to go, too. She takes two others she trusts with her, Danni and Viv.

She waits until the three girls leave the pub and makes her attack when they’re outside. She takes one of them out first, leaving her twitching on the floor. The girls know who Roxy is and tell her they didn’t know it was her brother. Darrell then takes a second one out with the barrel of a shotgun. Finally, the last girl, Sam, tells Roxy that Ricky had asked them to do it to him, wanting it to hurt. Sam manages to grab Darrell, but Viv kicks Sam out.

Roxy leaves the girls blinded in one eye and marks them all with scars on their faces.

Back at home, Barbara apologizes to Roxy for being unkind to Roxy when she was young (since Barbara disliked that Roxy was Bernie’s daughter with another woman), and she thanks Roxy for taking care of the situation with Ricky. Roxy shrugs off her comment. Barbara then tells her that there’s things Bernie hasn’t told Roxy about his business because Ricky was meant to take over, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

Barbara then gives Roxy three notebooks full of information about Bernie’s contacts — “Narcs. Bent coppers. Rotten doctors” — saying that it’ll be useful to Roxy in selling Glitter.

Later, as Roxy goes through the notebooks, she recognizes one of the names — Detective Newland. Roxy recalls that when she killed Primrose, he had told her that “Newland said you weren’t going to be home”, indicating that Newland was part of the plot to kill her mother. A little bit of research shows that Newland is now retired and living in Spain. When she mentions to Darrell that she’s going to track him down, he wants to come, too. Roxy understands that with Ricky out of commission, Darrell understands that she’s the family he’s got left and he wants to align himself with her.

Newland then confesses that he never worked for Primrose. He worked for Bernie, and Bernie was the one who ordered him to give the information to Primrose. In other words, Bernie ordered Roxy’s mother Christina to be killed.

Back at home, Roxy and Darrell confront Bernie. Bernie says it wasn’t personal; it was because Christina got two of his guys caught. Bernie says he’ll accept that she’s going to kill him if that’s what she feels she needs to do. However, Roxy thinks about it and decides that she doesn’t want to continue the cycle. Instead, she tells Bernie that he’s going to retire and tell everyone that he’s handing the business over to her.

#### One Year

*This section is a detailed plot of this book chapter and **contains spoilers.** Click to expand.*

(Four invitation cards from President Tatiana Moskalev, dated June 15, addressed to Senator Margot Cleary, Mother Eve, Roxy and Tunde.)

Allie approaches Roxy at the party to discuss the situation with Tatiana. Allie says that Tatiana has become unpredictable and may have outlived her usefulness. She suggests that perhaps Bessarpara needs new leadership and that perhaps Roxy should lead them instead.

After the party, Roxy drives elsewhere to work out a deal with some UN soldiers about getting around the current blockade at the border. Darrell set up the meeting. When Roxy gets to the location, she senses that something is off. She gets knocked out.

Roxy then sneaks out of the room and runs into the forest nearby.

#### Can’t Be More Than Seven Months Left

*This section is a detailed plot of this book chapter and **contains spoilers.** Click to expand.*

Allie is concerned that Roxy seems to have disappeared as of 8 weeks ago. Allie is in contact with Darrell, who appears to be concerned (though he’s just pretending of course, since he knows exactly what happened to Roxy). Meanwhile, Tatiana is paranoid and wonders if Roxy’s disappearance is because Roxy has sold them out. Allie doesn’t believe this, but instead notes how unstable and unpredictable Tatiana has become.

Near the Bessapara border, Darrell has now taken over the Glitter business, but he’s having problems with the U.N. blocking their shipments. Darrell’s implanted skein that he took from Roxy is still healing, so he can’t use it yet. The women don’t know that Roxy’s gone yet, but one of the women working at their warehouse reminds him that here he needs a female guardian and if his is missing, then he needs to be appointed a new one. Darrell insists that Roxy’s just taking a vacation.

On the phone with his dad, Darrell and Bernie talk about how they haven’t seen any sign of Roxy in two months. They also talk about their plans to sell skein transplants to others.

Tunde knows he needs to find a way to prove he’s alive and find a way out of the country. However, he gets ambushed by some women and wakes up in cage. He recognizes that his captor is Roxanne Monke.

Roxanne recognizes Tunde from his videos. Tunde asks for Roxy’s help, but she says she’s on the mend and that she doesn’t have much influence here. The camp is all women and smells like rotting food and rotting flesh. Roxy says that the women here are “mental” — they hunt men, let them be “king” for a few weeks, then they kill them. He pleads for her help, though Roxy says her plan was to lay low around these women and not cause trouble.

Still, Roxy bargains for Tunde’s life with a bag of Glitter that night. The negotiations are easy since they don’t care that much about him anyway. When they get away from the camp, she cuts him loose. She admits that she was betrayed by her people and that she’s still sorting out what to do next.

They end up staying at a refugee camp. People know Roxy and are respectful towards her. The other English-speakers at the camp talk about how around Bessapara, men without proper documentation are being rounded up for “work detail” and disappearing.

The third night there, Roxy wakes Tunde up to let him know that the camp is being attacked. As Tunde heads for the nearby forest, Roxy watches as women descend upon the camp, lighting it on fire and rounding up the young men. She hides and watches powerlessly as the women attack and torture one man as he screams until he’s dead. Roxy sees that the violence here is senseless. These women don’t want anything other than to do this “because they can”.

Roxy and Tunde hide in a tree nearby to get some sleep, but they are awaked when a woman dressed in combat gear starts burning the tree as they look for people hiding in trees. Roxy and Tunde haven’t been spotted yet. Tunde tells Roxy to give her a small zap, but then he realizes that Roxy hasn’t used her powers at all and remembers the scar on her collarbone.

Instead, Tunde tosses a film canisters at a nearby oil drum to try to distract the woman into going somewhere else to look. Roxy and Tunde make their escape as the woman is distracted and the others she’s with surround the oil drum. To Roxy and Tunde’s dismay, it turns out there were two young children hiding in the oil drum (which Tunde hadn’t realized). Roxy and Tunde have no choice as to keep running away as they watch the group of women descend upon the crying children.

Roxy and Tunde travel some distance and find a deserted rail station to rest in. They talk about what has happened to them and the betrayals they each experienced. They sleep together and find comfort in one another.

#### Here It Comes

*This section is a detailed plot of this book chapter and **contains spoilers.** Click to expand.*

In the North, Roxy and Tunde are sleeping in their shelter. When Roxy and Tunde awake, Roxy assures him that she’s going to get him out of the country. She says she needs to go get her skein back first though, but she says a blonde woman wearing a airline hat will come by tonight to drive him across the border in the trunk/boot of a car. As Tunde waits, he considers what to do with his footage and notes just in case he dies tonight. He quickly jots down an address and puts the package containing all the materials in a nearby mailbox as he sees a car pull up.

Roxy arrives at the factory with a small force, ready to mount an assault, but when she arrives they welcome her in. They shows her the skein they took from Darrell.

A short while later, Roxy meets up with Allie at a train station nearby. Roxy talks to Allie about how bad things are happening and that they should find a way to stop it now that Tatiana is gone. However, Allie has a completely different idea. She thinks that they should help the war to “begin in earnest”, using Roxy’s tale of betrayal to incite the women.

As Roxy and Allie talk it’s clear Roxy wants peace and Allie wants war. Roxy pleads with Allie not to do this.

Before they part ways, Roxy tells Allie to go find her former adoptive mother who has now remarried to a man named Lyle Williams. Allie does as Roxy recommends and seeks out the former Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor. Allie learns she is now running a children’s home in Jacksonville with her husband.

Back at home, Roxy goes to see her father. She says that she should kill him, but instead they laugh together sitting on the porch. She tells him about meeting Tunde and how they like each other, and Bernie asks about if they’ll have grandkids someday. Roxy says maybe.

Roxy’s story ends with “they have another drink before they go down” and it seems be left a little vague as to what that means for Roxy and her father. However, given that Roxy owns an underground bunker and the story is implying that a nuclear or chemical war (or some combination of both) may be brewing, it seems likely that the line is indicating that Roxy and her father will be hiding out in the underground bunker.

That said, Roxy no longer seems focused on gathering power and exercising power. Instead, she seems to be thinking of her future and possibly a relationship with Tunde. She seems to be at peace, and the way her story ends seems to indicate that she will be fine and possibly happier without her power. As for her father, he has no more sons and is relatively powerless now as well. Instead, he wonders about grandchildren.