The real weapon, the one that does the most lasting damage, is the systematic destruction of the victim’s credibility — the careful construction of a world in which, if the victim ever speaks, no one will believe her.

The Prescotts did not only break Camila’s body.

They filed a false report casting her as a trespasser and a harasser.

They arranged for her to seem unstable, litigious, a troublemaker with a grievance.

They built, in advance, the story that would be told of her if she dared to tell the truth, so that her truth would arrive already discredited.

And that is why her deepest terror, lying in that bed, was not the pain but the disbelief — because they had spent months, deliberately, teaching her that her word was worthless, that the system was theirs, that speaking would only make her look crazy and them look wronged.