Chapter 2

"Get her off the stage!" Robert roared.

Two security guards grabbed me by my upper arms.

"Don't touch me!" I screamed. "The entire country is watching. Touch me, and see what happens to this network!"

I gripped the metal frame of the tripod with all my strength.

Robert flicked a quick look at the control booth.

*Click.*

The live feed went completely black.

"Signal terminated," a technician's voice announced over the intercom, flat and indifferent, as if reporting the weather.

Robert slowly adjusted his cuffs and walked over to me. His voice was dropped so low only those within a few feet could hear.

"Valerie, your little stunt just disrupted a major international broadcast. Our digital scales are calibrated by global authorities. There is no technical error."

"Global authorities?"

I stared down at my wrists. The bone was so prominent you could count every tendon.

"Then explain to me how someone whose wrist is thinner than a plastic water bottle weighs over two hundred pounds?"

He didn't answer. He turned to the guards. "Take her out the back. Don't let the paparazzi get a single shot."

Chloe stepped up from the wings. Her makeup was flawless, though her custom gown was visibly strained at the seams of her waist.

She walked over holding a glass of water, her face filled with mock sympathy.

"Valerie, honey, take a sip. What you just did... honestly, it broke my heart to watch."

I stared at the glass in her hand.

"Chloe, what was your official weight today?"

"One hundred and seventeen pounds," she blinked innocishly. "You saw the board."

One hundred and seventeen. In a dress that was practically screaming at the seams.

And me, showing a cage of ribs in a saggy dress, at two hundred and thirty-one.

"If you're one-seventeen and I'm two-thirty, then I must have swallowed an entire extra copy of you. Where is she, Chloe? Point her out."

Her smile stiffened for a fraction of a second.

"You're just hysterical, Valerie. I get the pressure is high, but this isn't healthy..."

She turned to Robert, her voice trembling with fake concern.

"Mr. Croft, does Valerie need medical attention? I'm really worried she might... hurt herself."

Robert nodded gravely.

"I've already called the specialists. The committee will handle her mental and physical well-being, but her run in this competition ends today."

"There is nothing wrong with my mind! The only thing broken is your damn scale!"

The guards began dragging me down the backstage corridor.

Robert didn't look at me again. He whispered something to his assistant, who nodded and rushed toward the equipment area on the side of the stage.

The digital scale was still there. The screen had already been cleared from 231.00 to 0.00.

They were erasing the data.

"Are you wiping the logs?!" I yelled.

No one answered.

The guards threw me into a dressing room and locked the door from the outside.

My phone was gone—it had dropped during the struggle on stage.

A single fluorescent lightbulb overhead flickered, buzzing like an angry hornet.

Ten minutes later, the lock clicked.

A woman in a white lab coat walked in. She looked to be in her late forties, her ID badge reading: *Dr. Abigail Vance, Licensed Clinical Psychologist.*

Behind her was a man carrying a video camera, the red recording light already blinking.

"What is the camera for?" I demanded.

"Valerie, I'm the mental health consultant hired by the committee."

Dr. Vance pulled up a chair and sat opposite me, her smile calculated and cold.

"Given your violent outbursts on stage, we need to conduct a brief psychiatric evaluation."

"Exposing my ribs to prove I don't weigh two hundred pounds is a 'violent outburst'?"

She opened her notepad, her eyes scanning my hollow collarbones with absolute detachment.

"You stripped off your clothing without authorization, which constitutes public indecency and disturbing the peace. Furthermore, looking at your extreme physical state, you show classic signs of severe anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder. Simply put, your perception of your own weight is completely detached from reality."

I got it.

They wanted to paint me as a lunatic. A crazy girl who thought she was thin but was actually obese.

"So you're telling me that I think I'm ninety pounds, but I'm actually two-thirty?"

"I'm not diagnosing you yet," her pen scribbled quickly on the pad. "But your violent denial of objective data, combined with public exposure, aligns with several clinical criteria."

I stared at the blinking red light on the camera. I didn't need to guess how they would edit this footage.

"If this 'evaluation' is over, I want my phone. I need to make a call."

"Your device is being held by the committee for safekeeping," Dr. Vance said, closing her notepad as she stood up. "For your own safety, of course."

The door clicked shut and locked again.

In the four mirrors of the dressing room, my reflection stared back—sunken cheeks, arms like sticks. Two hundred and thirty-one pounds. My ass.

Muffled footsteps stopped outside the door. It was Chloe.

She was on the phone. Her voice was low, but the cheap dressing room door did nothing to block the sound.

"Dad, it's done. The live stream was cut in time. Barely anyone saw... Yes, I'm keeping an eye on Robert."

She paused.

"Did your people pull the chip from the scale yet? ...Good. Swap it with the backup. Don't worry, Dad. Who's going to audit a scale for some third-tier nobody?"

She chuckled softly, and her footsteps faded away.

The chip.

There was a chip inside that scale.

I leaned my back against the locked door and closed my eyes.

"Your father sure runs a tight ship, Chloe."

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