The cold asphalt bit through the thin soles of Anabelle's canvas shoes.

She walked in the pitch black, guided only by the faint sliver of moonlight cutting through the clouds. She didn't look back.

A heavy thud echoed behind her, followed by a string of breathless curses.

The cameraman assigned to follow her was already sweating through his shirt. He was panting heavily, his heavy boots scraping against the pavement, but he kept his heavy rig perfectly stabilized, refusing to let the lens drift away from her for even a second.

Anabelle kept her pace. One hundred and ten beats per minute. It was the exact marching cadence she had learned during her private equestrian and orienteering training. It conserved the maximum amount of energy while covering the most ground.

In the production control room, the overnight live stream was quiet. Only the hardcore insomniacs were watching.

Comments scrolled lazily across the screen. They called her crazy. They said she was walking off the cold.

The sky began to bleed a pale, bruised purple. Thick morning mist rolled off the hills, soaking Anabelle's jeans up to her knees. Her shoes squished with every step, the freezing water numbing her toes.

She stopped abruptly in front of a rusted green mile marker.

She closed her eyes. The cold wind whipped her hair across her face. In the darkness of her mind, a high-resolution map of the fifty-mile commercial radius snapped into focus. She had memorized it three weeks ago.

She opened her eyes, her breathing steady. She took a sharp right turn at the upcoming fork in the road.

Back at the camp, thick black smoke billowed from the fire pit.

Kody shot up from his cot, coughing violently. The wind had shifted, blowing the toxic smoke directly into his face. His eyes watered, stinging and red.

He looked around and noticed the empty cot by the boulder.

"She quit!" Kody laughed, pointing directly at the nearest camera. He smoothed his hair back, his chest puffing out. "I knew the trailer trash wouldn't last one night. She probably cried all the way home."

The live viewer count spiked. People waking up across the country logged in, fueled by Kody's arrogant declaration. They wanted to see the failure.

The broadcast cut away from Kody's smug face.

The screen filled with Anabelle. She was standing at the edge of a desolate strip mall.

The cameraman groaned, leaning his entire body weight against a concrete light pole. The camera lens shook wildly.

Anabelle didn't look tired. She walked straight past the glowing neon signs and headed for a large, overflowing metal trash can near the alleyway.

Her fingers ached from the cold. She scanned the ground near the trash can and spotted a crumpled, discarded fast-food napkin that had blown against the curb. She bent down, picked it up, and flattened it against her thigh. She tore it carefully into two thin sheets, creating a makeshift barrier against the grime.

She plunged her hands into the garbage.

The live chat exploded. Thousands of messages flooded the screen, calling her disgusting, starving, and desperate.

Anabelle ignored the smell of rotting food. Her fingers moved quickly, pushing aside empty coffee cups and greasy wrappers.

She found it.

She pulled out a thick, crumpled copy of yesterday's local community newspaper.

She shook off a few drops of stale coffee. Her eyes scanned the pages with the precision of a hawk. She ripped out the glossy, brightly colored manufacturer coupon inserts hidden in the middle.

She folded the glossy pages into a tight square and shoved them deep into her front pocket. She tossed the rest of the newspaper back into the trash.

She turned and looked at the massive red CVS Pharmacy sign glowing at the end of the strip mall.

The glass doors were locked. Two homeless men were asleep on a nearby bench, wrapped in dirty blankets.

Anabelle walked right up to the glass doors. She sat down cross-legged on the cold concrete, pressing her back against the windbreak of the building.

The freezing morning air bit into her bones. She wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling them tight to her chest. Her teeth chattered, but her eyes were completely dead. Cold. Calculating.

At exactly 7:00 AM, the fluorescent lights inside the store flickered to life.

A woman in a blue polo shirt walked toward the front doors, a ring of keys jingling in her hand.

Anabelle stood up. She brushed the dirt off her jeans. In a fraction of a second, the cold calculation vanished from her eyes.

The employee unlocked the door and pushed it open, jumping back slightly when she saw Anabelle standing right there.

Anabelle smiled. It was a bright, flawless, American-sweetheart smile.

"Good morning!" Anabelle said, her voice dripping with fake cheer.

Her fingers tightened around the folded coupons in her pocket. She stepped through the sliding doors, the warm air of the store hitting her freezing skin.

The automatic doors slid shut behind her.

Anabelle grabbed a red plastic shopping cart. The wheels squeaked loudly against the polished linoleum floor. She didn't wander. She didn't browse. She walked with the absolute certainty of a predator tracking prey.

The cameraman hoisted his rig onto his shoulder, zooming in tight. The live chat was buzzing with anticipation. Everyone was waiting for her to steal something. Everyone wanted to see the poor girl get arrested.

Anabelle stopped in the personal care aisle. She reached out and grabbed exactly six boxes of a specific, high-end whitening toothpaste.

She tossed them into the cart.

Next, she moved to the hair care aisle. She picked up two bottles of a promotional shampoo. Finally, she walked to the refrigerated section and grabbed four cartons of eggs that had bright yellow "Manager's Special - Expiring Soon" stickers slapped on them.

She kept her head down, her thumb nervously rubbing her index knuckle as she mentally cross-referenced the barcodes with the crumpled glossy pages in her pocket.

Ten minutes later, she pushed the cart up to register number two.

Brenda Kowalski, the cashier, popped a bright pink bubble of gum. Brenda's eyes dragged slowly up and down Anabelle's muddy shoes and frayed flannel shirt. Her lip curled in obvious disgust.

Brenda grabbed the first box of toothpaste and dragged it across the scanner.

Beep.

The green numbers on the digital display lit up. The total started climbing.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The live chat was moving so fast it was a blur. Viewers were placing bets on how fast the security guard would throw her out onto the pavement.

"Forty-seven dollars and eighty-five cents," Brenda said, her voice flat and bored. She didn't even look at Anabelle.

Anabelle didn't flinch. Her heart rate remained perfectly steady. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the blank white emergency medical card Trey had given her.

"I need to register for a new ExtraCare rewards account with this card," Anabelle said, her voice polite but firm.

Brenda rolled her eyes hard. She aggressively punched the keys on her register, pulling up the new member screen. She scanned the blank card.

The moment the system accepted the new account, the register chimed. The new member welcome discount automatically applied.

The total on the screen dropped instantly from $47.85 to $35.00.

Before the viewers could even process the drop, Anabelle pulled the crumpled newspaper clippings from her pocket. She smoothed them out flat on the black conveyor belt.

She slid six manufacturer coupons across the counter.

"Two dollars off each toothpaste," Anabelle said.

Brenda frowned, snatching the coupons. She scanned them one by one.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The total plummeted to $23.00. Brenda stopped chewing her gum. Her jaw hung slightly open.

Anabelle pointed a steady finger at a cardboard promotional sign hanging right above Brenda's head. "The store promotion says buying two of those shampoos generates ten dollars in ExtraBucks rewards."

Brenda glared at her, but the system prompted the printer. A long strip of receipt paper spat out, bearing a $10 store reward barcode.

Anabelle reached out, tore the coupon off the machine herself, and handed it right back to Brenda.

"Apply it to this transaction."

"You can't do that," Brenda snapped, her face flushing red.

"Store policy allows same-transaction application if the subtotal exceeds the reward amount," Anabelle recited, her voice dropping an octave. She sounded exactly like an obsessive couponer who had memorized the fine print of every rulebook, staring at the cashier with a paranoid, unyielding intensity.

Brenda's hands shook slightly as she scanned the barcode.

The total dropped to $13.00. The live chat froze. Millions of people stopped typing at the exact same second.

Anabelle pulled out her final weapon. Two manufacturer compensation vouchers for the expiring eggs.

"State consumer protection laws mandate that manufacturer compensation vouchers can be stacked with store markdowns," Anabelle said, her eyes locking onto Brenda's. "Scan them."

Brenda's fingers were trembling so hard she dropped one of the vouchers. She picked it up, her breathing shallow, and ran them over the red laser.

The register let out a loud, angry, continuous buzz.

The digital screen flashed red.

TOTAL DUE: -$0.15

The entire front of the store went dead silent. The cameraman forgot to focus the lens, letting the shot go slightly blurry.

The system couldn't process a negative balance. Brenda's hands shook violently as she manually keyed in an override, adjusting the total to exactly $0.00.

The receipt printer whirred to life, spitting out three feet of paper.

Anabelle smiled, a genuine, terrifying smile. She took the receipt, shoved the eggs and toiletries into her backpack, and walked away.

On Twitter, the hashtag TrailerParkGenius exploded, hitting the number one trending spot in three minutes.

Anabelle walked out the automatic doors. The California sun hit her face, warming her freezing skin. The corners of her mouth twitched upward. The hunt had officially begun.

The smell of hot grease and cooking protein hit the camp like a physical blow.

Anabelle sat cross-legged next to the fire pit. She had found a rusted, discarded tin can near the highway, scrubbed it clean with sand, and was now using it as a makeshift frying pan over the open flames.

She cracked two fresh eggs against a rock. The yolks hit the hot metal with a loud, aggressive sizzle.

The rich scent of frying eggs drifted directly into the wind, sweeping over the five cots.

Stomachs growled in unison. The other contestants looked like walking corpses.

Kody swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. He quickly ran a hand through his hair, pasting on a wide, friendly grin. He walked over to the fire pit, squatting down right next to Anabelle.

"Wow, Annie," Kody said, his voice dripping with fake charm. "You really saved our lives. That smells amazing. We make a great team, right?"

Anabelle didn't look up. She kept her eyes fixed on the bubbling egg whites, using a thin green twig to carefully separate the edges from the tin. She let him talk.

Kody's smile faltered when she didn't respond. His eyes darted to the cooked edge of the egg. His stomach let out a loud rumble. He reached his hand out, his fingers inching toward the hot tin.

Smack.

Anabelle whipped the twig through the air, bringing it down hard across the back of Kody's hand.

The sharp crack echoed through the quiet camp.

Kody yanked his hand back, his face twisting in pain. He cradled his stinging knuckles against his chest.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Kody screamed, his friendly mask shattering. "Are you trying to hoard it all for yourself?"

Anabelle slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were completely devoid of emotion. She looked at him the way a person looks at a stain on the sidewalk.

"Pay me," she said. Two words. Ice cold.

Kody let out a harsh, barking laugh. He pointed at the drone hovering above them. "We are a team! We're supposed to help each other! You're being selfish!"

Camila sat up on her cot, wrapping her arms around herself. "He's right, Anabelle. We're all starving. It's really mean to eat in front of us."

Anabelle stood up. She wiped her hands on her jeans.

"Let's do the math," Anabelle said, her voice projecting clearly over the crackle of the fire. "Market value of two organic eggs: one dollar. Labor cost for a ten-mile round trip on foot: twenty dollars. Technical surcharge for wilderness fire-starting and sanitation: twenty-nine dollars."

She looked dead into Kody's eyes.

"The price is fifty dollars for one egg. I don't do credit."

The camp fell dead silent.

"You're out of your damn mind!" Kody roared, kicking a cloud of dirt into the fire. "You're extorting us!"

"It's basic supply and demand," Anabelle replied smoothly, her thumb rubbing her index knuckle. "I hold the monopoly on food. You hold the demand. Pay the premium, or starve."

In the live chat, viewers were losing their minds. The brutal, unapologetic capitalism coming from a girl in a frayed flannel shirt was intoxicating. They mocked Kody relentlessly.

Kody's face turned a deep, ugly purple. The humiliation burned in his chest. He spun around, kicking a large rock near the fire pit.

"You're going to lose!" Kody spat at her. "Nobody is going to help you when you fail!" He stormed off toward the edge of the woods.

Camila quickly pulled her hand back, realizing the beggar routine wouldn't work. She lay back down, turning her face away from the smell.

Diego sat on his cot, his dark sunglasses hiding his eyes. He tilted his head, watching Anabelle with a new, sharp intensity.

Anabelle sat back down. She ate the eggs slowly, methodically, making sure not to drop a single crumb.

When she was finished, she carefully wrapped the remaining two eggs in a piece of plastic she had saved, burying them deep in her backpack. She pulled out the free tube of high-end toothpaste and walked toward the small creek to wash up.

Behind a thick oak tree, Kody watched her walk away. His chest heaved with angry breaths. He motioned for Camila to come over.

"She didn't buy that stuff," Kody whispered, his eyes narrowed into slits. "She stole it from the production crew's tent. If we get close to her, we'll get disqualified too."

Down by the creek, Anabelle saw Kody's reflection in the water. She saw him whispering. She saw Camila nodding.

Anabelle spit the white foam into the dirt. A cold, sharp smile touched her lips. Let them isolate her. A wolf hunts best alone.