Roman lands in Richmond and calls his sister Neveah, who is at the family home in Jefferson Run, Virginia. She hasn't seen their younger brother Dante since the accident. Despite it being past visiting hours, Roman insists on going straight to the hospital, and Neveah agrees to meet him there.

Driving through Jefferson Run, Roman reflects on the city's decline from a manufacturing hub to a hollowed-out town of abandoned buildings, adult video stores, and check-cashing shops. He notes the family's crematory still stands amid the decay, and silently compares his comatose father to the dying city, though he refuses to give up on him.

At the hospital, Roman embraces a weary Neveah, who explains a truck ran their father off the road into the path of a train, leaving him with broken hips, ribs, brain bleeding, and more. Roman bullies the nurse into letting them into Room 245 by threatening viral social-media exposure. He holds his unresponsive father's scarred hand and speaks to him.

Neveah reveals her suspicion that the crash wasn't an accident: two weeks earlier, both crematory vans had their tires slashed, and the week before that someone spray-painted "187" on the front door. She asks Roman to help cremate six bodies, including a 600-pound man, since Dante is missing. Roman agrees.

Neveah takes a cryptic phone call (not from Dante), gives Roman the house key, and leaves on an unspecified errand, admitting she's overwhelmed and that this feels like losing their mother all over again. Roman privately acknowledges he will help tomorrow out of duty but has no desire to inherit the crematory or become the "King of Ashes"--that title belongs to his father alone.