The bags drop to the floor. I can hear something tear, and I want to look down to see how much more food we’re spilling, but then Josie’s hands are on my face.

I’m holding on to her shirt to stop her from stealing our food. She’s clawing at my eyes to stop me from holding her.

I don’t want her to touch me. I cannot let her go.

“You can’t—you can’t stop me. We have a right to the food too.”

But she didn’t ask for it. She could’ve come here and asked for it. Instead she tried to steal it. This isn’t hers. It doesn’t belong to her.

The tiny part of my brain that sounds like Leah tells me to figure out what’s going on. To be careful of more danger. Is she here alone? What does she want? Is she sick?

Is she sick?

Let go. Let me go. Let go. I can’t.

“I need it,” Josie says. “She needs it.”

We need it too.

I cling to her dirty shirt with one hand and raise my other to try to push her clawing fingers away. I can hear myself moan and keen. I don’t mean to do it, but it happens. The sound is primal and desperate and full of rage.

My brain trips over the same messages over and over again. Let me go. I can’t let go. We need the food. Let me go.

Josie lets me drag one of her hands down, and the moment I release it, she reaches up and smacks my arms away. She stumbles forward and something crunches underneath her feet. In one fluid arc, she brings her arm up to my throat and slams it against my windpipe, her forearm under my chin. She pushes me against the counter.

The edges of my vision grow dark. I claw at her. I keep clawing.

“You need to stop fighting it,” she says. Her eyes are haunted, Granddad would’ve said. Angry. Hurt. Dangerous. “It’ll be easier if you stop fighting it. I promise I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t have you stop me. This’ll be fine. You’ll sleep, nothing more. And I’ll be long gone from here by the time you wake. It’s the best solution for both of us.”

Another tear trickles down my face, but this time, it doesn’t come from me.

I stop clawing at her arm. I stop trying to push her off me.

I don’t want to sleep. I can’t sleep.

Leah needs me. One of us has to be awake. Always.

I spread my arms on either side of me and bend across the kitchen counter. I do the only thing I can. I reach as far as possible, until my fingers find the edge of the bowls Nia and I used for bread dough.

Josie leans in, and my field of vision narrows. Everything grows dark.

I whimper.

I let the last bit of breath escape from my lungs, overextend my reach, and shove the bowls off the counter so they go clattering onto the floor.