Catharine climbs into the treehouse despite a single lit flashlight signaling that Linna wants to be alone. She finds the space in chaos—artwork torn from the walls, objects overturned—and Linna in tears, frantically searching for something.

Linna confronts Catharine about agreeing to the 10-day water fast and insists that Kent is dead. She explains that Kent had promised to leave her a letter if he ever truly walked away so that she would know he was safe. No letter exists. Linna accuses Catharine’s father of doing something to him.

When Catharine defends her father, Linna says that he moved her into the main building to surveil her and reduce her time with Kent. She tells Catharine that she’s just like him. Catharine is stung by the implication that Linna no longer recognizes her.

Linna then asks Catharine to be honest with herself about what the farm and her father have actually become. Catharine internally acknowledges the wrongness of it all—the manipulation, the scale at the weigh-in, and Rhonda’s emaciated appearance—but suppresses the recognition, convinced that trusting her own instincts would consume her.

Catharine offers Linna the money her mother left her so that she can leave and find Kent. Linna accepts but insists that Catharine keep half in reserve, just in case. Recalling her mother’s prediction that her perspective would change someday, Catharine agrees, though she privately wonders whether she will quietly hand the full amount to her father afterward.

Linna observes that Catharine’s voice breaks at the end of her reassurances, reading it as an admission that Catharine knows things have gone wrong but can’t say so aloud. She tells Catharine that she can’t force herself into happiness through self-punishment. Catharine closes her eyes and internally protects the pride she felt at the weigh-in, believing it’s hers and earned.

The argument winds down. Catharine quietly asks Linna if she will miss any of this. After a long silence, Linna answers that “[s]ometimes [she] worr[ies] [she will] miss all of it” (253).

The audio recording finishes near midnight. Catharine is disturbed to hear Holly describe her as intelligent and “calculating”—traits she had believed she developed only through years of hard experience. She wonders whether Reese’s earlier apparent intoxication was a performance, recalibrating her read of the entire evening.

She challenges Reese to simply ask what he wants to know—about Linna and about what she supposedly did to her. He responds that he doesn’t believe she hurt Linna because it’s clear they loved each other, and he gestures to a photograph on a nearby shelf showing Catharine, Linna, her mother, and her father at the farm. Catharine notices that he must have seen the photo earlier and waited for the right moment to use it. He presses her on why she refuses to explain what happened to Linna if she didn’t hurt her and then asks her how she became the person she is.

Catharine recalls a moment years earlier when, during a candid conversation with her friend Stella, she let slip that her mother had died when she was young. Stella immediately attributed all of Catharine’s patterns—her emotional distance, her need for independence—to that single loss. Catharine noticed how the partial disclosure had deepened Stella’s trust in her without requiring her to reveal anything further. One true thing, offered carefully, closes the door on deeper questions.

She decides to apply the same approach to Reese. She truthfully tells him that she hurt Lina, “the worst thing [she] ever did” (257), and then partially lies when she admits that it’s the reason she left the farm.

Catharine wakes at dawn in the treehouse to find everything neatly tidied and Linna gone. A single note on the floor reads, “Thank you. I love you” (258). She drifts back to sleep, planning to tell her father that Linna left of her own accord—framing it as proof that Linna was never committed, just like Kent—while quietly buying her sister as much of a head start as possible.

Hours later, she walks to her father’s cottage. He answers the door looking hollowed out and irritable, but when she tells him that Linna has gone to find Kent, he’s not surprised. He says he already knew, having spotted her crossing the property during a late-night run. He says that he discovered $10,000 in her bag, causing Catharine to go cold.

Her father explains the farm’s financial structure: Members pay donations to prove commitment, and people who leave—like Kent, Linna, and her mother—are liabilities. He adds that he interpreted Catharine’s mention of Kent the previous night as a deliberate signal about Linna’s intentions, meaning that Linna went to her confrontation with him believing that Catharine had betrayed her. Catharine is sickened. She notes with quiet grief that Linna protected her anyway, never telling him where the money actually came from.

When Catharine asks what he did to Linna, her father laughs off the question, insisting that he only took the money. He’s offended that she would think otherwise. Then, as they both reach for a knocked-over cup, his robe sleeve rides up to reveal a fresh, raw gash running down his forearm.

The day after her late-night confession to Reese, Catharine receives a text from Holly requesting a private meeting. They meet at a café. Holly tells Catharine that she was “brainwashed” and that none of what happened was her fault. Catharine inwardly rejects the word, feeling like it erases personal responsibility.

Thanks to the recording Reese played, Catharine already knows Holly’s full story: While severely weakened from weeks of fasting, Holly was driven off the property by Catharine’s father, coerced into signing what turned out to be custody papers surrendering Linna, and then abandoned at a prepaid motel room stocked with junk food as punishment for breaking his dietary rules. It took her 15 years to get sober and finally seek out Linna. When she couldn’t locate the farm herself, she found Reese.

Holly raises the possibility that Linna fought back the night when Catharine’s father confronted her, caused the wound on his arm, and escaped. Catharine wants to believe this but can’t fully commit. She internally compares Holly’s desperate hope to her own preoccupation with Marion Earl, whose novels she once believed contained secret messages about Linna’s survival. Holly also asks what Catharine thinks happened to everyone left on the farm after she fled. Catharine speculates that her departure would have caused her father to panic, dismantle everything, and start over somewhere entirely new.

Holly then discloses details that Reese never shared with Catharine directly: He traveled to Florida and spoke to the police about searching for bodies at the farm’s old location. The police dismissed him, explaining that the scale of construction on the site since then made it impossible to miss any remains and that local accounts described it as an ordinary family property—not a criminal compound.

Holly then questions where the bodies would be if not on the farm, but Catharine admits that she never actually saw any bodies. Holly floats the possibility that the remains could be anywhere—that Linna could still be out there. Catharine offers only a noncommittal response. They part with an awkward hug.

Back at her apartment, Catharine finds an email from Reese announcing that his investigation will go live as a staggered, multipart release starting Monday. The email includes a link to a TikTok that Holly posted an hour earlier—titled “MY CULT STORY, PART 1” (275)—which is already accumulating thousands of likes and comments. Stella texts Catharine the same link moments later.

Catharine realizes that the timeline has collapsed. She can no longer afford to wait, refine her narrative, and retain control. She picks up her phone and calls Reese.

Immediately after leaving her father’s cottage, Catharine runs to the treehouse, retrieves the bag with the remaining money and documents, and conceals it at the bottom of a crate. She picks tomatoes as she crosses the gardens, using the task as cover.

At the barn, Catharine is climbing into the truck when her father appears at the passenger window—sweaty and radiating a feverish intensity. He gets in without invitation and directs her away from their usual route, guiding her for over an hour down progressively more remote roads into a dense, humid swamp. When the truck can no longer move through the undergrowth, he makes her get out to walk.

After nearly an hour on foot through the cypress forest, he stops and says this is where he comes to think. This is also where he brought her mother, Ben, and Bertie to be disposed of after their deaths—the farm burials were purely ceremonial. He then reveals that, the previous night after encountering Linna, he decided on a complete reset. He killed everyone remaining on the farm. He tells Catharine that they will rebuild together, just the two of them, as she has passed every test he ever placed before her.

When Catharine asks about Linna specifically, his expression breaks. A flash of rage crosses his face before he claims that she met “[t]he same [fate] as the rest” (285). His reaction is too sharp and agitated; Catharine immediately reads it as a lie, and she begins to hope that Linna may have fought back and escaped.

He tells her that this is her “gift” to say goodbye before their new life begins. He asks her to confirm that she’s fully committed. Catharine agrees, focused entirely on getting back to the truck. She asks if she can drive. He hands over the keys, beaming.

As he stands before her and begins to speak—telling her how much she resembles him—Catharine drives the key into his eye socket. He collapses, his skull cracking against a rock. He’s dead within moments. Standing over the body, Catharine registers her own certainty: This is “the first thing [she] ha[s] truly meant to do in [her] life” (287).

Catharine sits across from a fully sober Reese in her living room and tells him the full story of her last day: her father taking her to the swamp, his confession to murdering everyone else on the farm, and her killing him in self-defense. Reese isn’t shocked; instead, he’s energized, saying that this changes everything, and he admits that he suspected she was capable of it. Catharine notes that, days ago, he had told her that he knew she hadn’t hurt Linna; now, he can’t even feign surprise at hearing a murder confession.

Reese clarifies that she never actually saw any bodies but accepts her certainty that they were there. He then gets excited about the possibilities, insisting that they need to work together to make a docuseries or podcast. He argues that people will love how empowering her story is and that she’s the perfect “hero.” When Catharine hesitates, he points out that her story will help other survivors of abuse—and that it might even help find Linna. Catharine privately concludes, in that moment, that Linna is almost certainly dead—her father would never have allowed her to survive and disappear. Despite this, she agrees, wanting to satisfy Reese.

Catharine demands control of her story, and Reese agrees immediately. Catharine tells herself that this is the financial foundation she has been planning toward for years. She also lies and says that she hasn’t thought about legal counsel, though she has had a specific defense attorney identified for years and has been saving the retainer. As Reese leaves, he asks what she did after her father died. She responds that she simply “drove and drove and drove” (294).

Directly after her father’s death, Catharine retrieves the key, cleans it in a nearby pool of water, and pockets it. She moves the money and documents to the glove compartment, sets the tomato crate on the passenger seat, and backs the truck out of the woods without once looking at the body.

Her father had told her during their walk that even a small amount of rain transforms the forest floor into a shallow swamp, dissolving organic matter within days—and that alligators are abundant. With this in mind, she drives without stopping for nearly two hours before reaching the highway.

Once on the open road, she drives north. She lets her hair down through the open window. She reaches into the crate, brings a tomato to her nose, and bites into it, letting the juice run down her arms.

Five years after the present timeline, Catharine lives on a 100-acre former Girl Scout camp in Wyoming, purchased with money from a Netflix docuseries about her story. Because her father’s body was never recovered, the resulting legal case ended in a mistrial. Netflix subsequently offered her a multi-series production deal, which she accepted, building a career producing stories centered on women’s experiences.

It's dawn at the property, and Catharine is preparing to welcome the first cohort of 10 women to her new month-long luxury wellness retreat. Her friend Stella is the first to arrive, having been invited after someone else dropped out. As the two reconnect, Catharine reflects on the retreat’s pricing and structure, justifying the significant cost as both a financial necessity and a way to offer something genuinely valuable: seminars from prominent women, personalized fitness programs, and extended residential options. Holly is scheduled to return as a guest speaker.

Stella offers to help however she can, which Catharine quietly notes as useful. After Stella heads to her cabin, Catharine checks her phone and finds an email from Marion Earl. Catharine had reached out to invite Earl to speak, no longer with the belief that Earl is a secret messenger for Linna, but simply wanting to thank someone whose work had given her hope during the darkest years. Earl declines, citing the quiet life she has built and her need to protect it. She closes by writing that everyone is “protecting something” by whatever means necessary.

Catharine settles into her rocking chair, reminding herself that the work ahead will be hard and wondering if Stella knows this, too. She repeats her new “mantra” to herself: “It will all, one day, be worth it” (305).