The Ghoul is in custody and out of the picture, Harvey has taken over the internal investigation of Fabulism, and this plot-line is pretty much wrapped up just before Alice has her epiphany and stands up for herself to her old flame. Shortly after, when Alice is in wake of her relationship ending, a loose end connected to the Ghoul-Fabulism case pops up.

In an effort to get their minds off heartbreak, Alice, and Cleo who has also gone through a break-up shortly prior, accompany Mack and his band who were pestered by the Ghoul to investigate this strange loose end. They gang is caught in a compromising position as scores of police descend upon the abandoned dock house they've been lured to. After a heart-pounding evasion of the bulls the girls attempt to reach Harvey. 

He's the most powerful person they know as far as status, connections, money, etc..., but when he is nowhere to be found, and knowing that altruism is not in his nature, Alice assumes they've been hung out to dry. Now the only chance for them is to get out of the city so that they can collect themselves and try to figure out what's going on, and what they can do next.

The circumstances of the external environment have changed to match Alice’s internal story – forced to the outs of life as she’s known it, ensnared in a mystery with no idea where she’s going. These questions must be answered inside and out. Ousted from regular society and forced into a hobo-esque adventure, hidden talents of Alice start coming in handy. Out-of-the-box thinking, an unflinching attitude toward overcoming obstacles, all amounting to a cleverness that the middle class are never compelled to develop. But people watching her display her gifts tears her up inside.

She's learned enough now to know that her struggles come from within herself. She's still struggling, but now with a more courageous, less rigid view of the world Alice can finally grapple with her identity and life story. There remains no other choice but to confront the root of her core wounds and tribulations - abandonment. 

Like a reverse Batman, Alice has always been a symbol of a person. Two eyes, just above a mouth, affixed to a head positioned five-or-six feet off the ground. But she's never been more than that. She was rejected as a child and learned to reject herself. By her the math of her harsh internal beliefs, because is she is not worthy, it must be for some undeniable, forsaken fact of the universe that she is bad and unworthy. She could never let herself be a real person. As far as she knows she is a bad person that the world must be protected from at all costs. At which point the only noble action, is to sacrifice self for the good of all people. 

Which is where we get people-pleasing, agreeableness, the fundamental belief that "I must do something good to be good, because otherwise I am bad," and thus the rejection of self, boundaries, and all personality. With a now crystal-clear understanding of Alice's status in the world you can also see that status is that which comes from within - a feeling based in beliefs about the self.