Hunger woke her up. It was a sharp, twisting cramp in her stomach that made her gasp before her eyes even opened.

Clarisa sat up. The light coming through the thin curtains was gray. Morning.

She went to the small wardrobe. It was mostly empty, save for a few of her old clothes from high school. Out of style. Out of season.

She pulled out a black turtleneck sweater. It was wool, too hot for the season, but she needed coverage. She put it on. It hung off her frame like a tent. She rolled up the sleeves, but they kept sliding down.

Bethel entered with a tray.

"Breakfast," she said.

Clarisa looked at the tray. One slice of dry toast. A cup of black coffee.

"That's it?" Clarisa asked.

Bethel didn't look her in the eye. "Mrs. Dillon said... she said you need to watch your weight. She wants you to look like a model again."

Clarisa laughed. It was a dry, hacking sound. "A model? I look like a corpse."

She ate the toast in two bites. She drank the coffee, ignoring the burn.

"I'm going to see Grandmother," Clarisa announced, standing up.

Bethel moved to block the door. "You can't. Brady said-"

Clarisa didn't stop. She walked right up to Bethel, invading her personal space. "Move."

Bethel moved.

Clarisa walked out of the lodge, across the wet lawn, and toward the East Wing of the main house. The gardeners stopped their work to stare. She ignored them.

She reached the patio doors of her grandmother's suite.

Brady was standing there. He was leaning against the glass, arms crossed over his chest.

"Lost?" he asked.

"I want to see Grandmother," Clarisa said.

"She's resting. She doesn't want to see you."

"Does she know I'm here? Or are you lying to her?" Clarisa stepped closer. "Grandmother is the only one in this family with a spine. She wouldn't turn me away."

Brady pushed off the wall. He shoved Clarisa. It wasn't hard, but in her weakened state, she stumbled back three steps.

"She's fragile, Clarisa. She doesn't need a junkie upsetting her heart condition."

"I'm not a junkie," Clarisa said, her voice rising.

Helen walked out onto the patio, holding a fashion magazine. She stopped when she saw Clarisa. Her eyes went to the oversized sweater.

"Good lord," Helen said, wrinkling her nose. "Why are you wearing that? You're swimming in it. You look grotesque."

"This is the result of your 'wellness camp,' Mother," Clarisa spat.

"It was rehab!" Helen cried, clutching her pearls. "We did it to save you!"

"I never touched drugs!" Clarisa screamed. "Kaleigh put them in my bag! You know she did!"

"Shut up!" Brady roared. "Don't you dare slander her!"

The shouting drew attention. The glass doors to the main living room opened. Kaleigh stepped out, looking terrified. Ambrose was right behind her.

Kaleigh shrank behind Ambrose, gripping his jacket. "Is she... is she having an episode?"

Ambrose looked at Clarisa. He saw the shaking hands. He saw the desperation. But he also saw the fire in her eyes. It didn't look like withdrawal. It looked like fury.

"Get back to your kennel," Brady sneered, pointing at the guest house. "You're embarrassing us."

Clarisa looked at them. The united front. The wall of lies.

She stopped fighting. Her shoulders dropped. The fire in her eyes turned to ice.

She let out a laugh. It was a chilling sound, devoid of humor.

"Fine," Clarisa said softly. "I won't see her. But remember this moment. Remember when you denied me."

She turned around.

"Sleep well tonight, family," she called over her shoulder.

She walked away. She could feel Ambrose's eyes burning a hole in her back.

Dinner was mandatory. Bethel had made that clear.

Clarisa walked into the formal dining room. The table was set for six, loaded with silver and crystal. Roast beef, truffle mashed potatoes, glazed carrots. The smell was overwhelming.

She sat at the far end of the table, opposite her father, Jethro. He hadn't spoken a word to her yet. He just chewed his meat, looking at his iPad.

"So," Kaleigh said brightly, breaking the silence. "What did you learn in that place, Clarisa? Did you learn to weave baskets?"

Brady snorted into his wine glass. "Probably learned how to dodge work detail."

"As long as she broke her bad habits," Helen said, smiling tightly.

Clarisa held her knife and fork. Her hands were trembling. Clink. Clink. The silverware hit the china plate.

She put them down.

"I learned a lot," Clarisa said. Her voice was quiet, but it carried.

She stood up.

"What are you doing?" Brady asked, annoyed. "Sit down."

Clarisa began to unbutton her left cuff. Her fingers were slow, deliberate.

"You asked what I learned," she said.

She grabbed the sleeve of her black sweater and yanked it up. Hard. Past her elbow. Past her bicep.

The room went silent.

The skin of her arm was a ruin.

There were circular burn marks-cigarette burns-scattered like constellations. Some were old, silvery white scars. Others were a deep, bruised purple, the puckered skin of keloid tissue that spoke of more recent, but fully healed, trauma.

And the tracks. Not from shooting up heroin, but from forced sedation. Bruised punctures where needles had been jammed in without care.

Helen dropped her wine glass. Red wine splashed across the white tablecloth like a gunshot wound.

"Oh my god," she whispered.

Clarisa walked around the table. She stopped right next to Brady. She shoved her arm into his face.

"Look at it," she commanded. "This is what I learned. I learned how to smell burning flesh. My own."

Brady recoiled, pushing his chair back. His face drained of color. "You... you did that to yourself."

"Did I?" Clarisa pointed to a scar that wrapped around her wrist. "This is from the handcuffs when I refused to sign the confession. And this?" She pointed to a burn. "This is because I was too slow during the drill."

She looked at Kaleigh. Kaleigh's hands were over her mouth, tears streaming down her face.

"It's horrible," Kaleigh sobbed. "Sister, why would you hurt yourself like that?"

Clarisa stared at her. "Stop acting, Kaleigh. The audience is captivated already."

"We didn't know," Jethro said, his voice hoarse. He finally looked up from his iPad. "The brochure... it said it was a therapeutic retreat."

"You didn't want to know," Clarisa corrected. "You sent me to hell because it was convenient."

She slowly rolled her sleeve back down, covering the horror.

"I'm not hungry," she said.

She turned and walked out of the room. The silence she left behind was heavy, suffocating, and filled with the stench of their own guilt.

The dining room remained frozen in a tableau of shock. The spilled wine dripped off the table onto the rug. Drip. Drip.

Helen had her head in her hands, sobbing. "My baby... look at her arm..."

Brady slammed his fist onto the table. The silverware jumped.

"She's lying!" he yelled. "She has to be! She did it to herself to manipulate us! She's a psycho!"

"Brady," Jethro warned, but his voice lacked conviction.

"No, Dad! Think about it! Who comes back and flashes scars like that? She wants money. She wants pity."

Kaleigh reached out and touched Brady's arm. "Brady is right, Mom. People with... unstable minds... they self-harm. It's a cry for help."

Ambrose had been standing by the sideboard, silent. He stepped into the light.

"That wasn't self-harm," he said. His voice was cold steel.

Brady whipped around. "Whose side are you on?"

"I'm on the side of facts," Ambrose said. He walked over to the table. "I served in the military, Brady. I know what self-inflicted wounds look like. The angle is wrong. The depth is wrong."

He looked at the empty chair where Clarisa had sat.

"Those burns on the back of her arm? You can't reach that angle with a cigarette in your own hand unless you're a contortionist. Someone else did that to her."

The room went deadly quiet again. Ambrose's words carried the weight of authority. He didn't lie about violence.

Brady slumped back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. "Fuck."

Kaleigh's eyes darted between Ambrose and her parents. She saw the shift. The doubt.

She stood up, wiping her tears. "Then we need to get her help. Real help. I know a doctor... Dr. Evans. He's a psychiatrist. He can evaluate her."

"Yes," Helen said, grasping at the straw. "A doctor. We'll get the best doctor."

Kaleigh hid a smile. Dr. Evans was on her payroll.

Back in the Lotus Lodge, Clarisa sat on the floor in the dark.

She hadn't turned on the lights. She was applying an antiseptic cream she had stolen from the bathroom cabinet to her burns.

She knew what had just happened. She had dropped a bomb. Now she had to wait for the fallout.

She took her leather-bound notebook and carefully worked at the inside of the back cover with her thumbnail. A thin panel of reinforced cardboard came loose, revealing a hidden compartment. Tucked inside was not a phone, but something just as vital: a wafer-thin, single-use satellite phone, barely thicker than a credit card. A parting gift from Gilda, the hacker who had ruled the camp's electronics shop.

She powered it on. The screen glowed blue in the darkness.

She typed a text to a number she had memorized.

I'm in. Phase one complete. They are shaken.

She waited. Three seconds later, the reply came.

Copy that. Files are ready to upload. Just say the word. - G

Clarisa smiled. Gilda owed her a life. This was how she was repaying the debt.

Clarisa typed back: Hold. Let them simmer.

She powered down the device and sealed it back inside the notebook's cover.

She lay back on the hard floor. For the first time in three years, she didn't feel like a victim. She felt like a hunter.