ABP had never lifted a kind finger in Yaya’s life. She shook her head.

Doc ran a hand through her short white hair. “You don’t have any reason to trust the company, but trust me. You liked me on Friday, remember? You weren’t drunk when we came back here. You felt safe with me.”

Friday night was still foggy. Doc had been interesting, and sometimes when you were miserable, tipsy, and horny, interesting was enough to forego complete trust. Yaya had gone with her gut. Now her gut was home to this other thing.

Sure, her vagina was the exit, but every slithering motion felt systemic, both everywhere and nowhere. Her organs had to be shifting to accommodate. Or bursting.

Its voice hummed in her head again. Hungry. Give sweet.

“Stop,” Yaya whispered.

Doc heard anyway. “I’m offering a hand.”

“You’re offering a drill to my skull and a knife to my womb,” Yaya said.

Fire itched between her shoulders as the voice rattled up her spine. Peanut butter, drunk girl. These had to be the misfired thoughts of a stroke. Sibs was splitting her brain in two. That probably wasn’t how strokes worked, but Yaya wasn’t sure. Peanut butter.

“Do you have peanut butter?” she asked.

Doc glanced at the kitchen and then offered her first smile. “May I leave the table?”

Yaya nodded. If she gave the voice what it wanted, maybe it would stop.

She watched Doc disappear into the kitchen. A drawer slid open and shut, and then hinges creaked twice.

“Did you want it as a sandwich?” Doc asked.

“Leave the bottle,” Yaya said.

Doc strode around the kitchen corner and turned to the wall beside the door. One hand held a large peanut butter jar with a blue lid. The other held a shiny spoon. Yaya didn’t think her own utensils ever looked so clean. Doc passed the spoon into the same hand as the jar and held it out for Yaya to grab.

“I can’t have it being said that I’m a poor hostess,” Doc said. “Not even while held hostage.”

Yaya couldn’t help a smirk. This was more like the Doc she remembered from Friday, at least in hazy fragments. She reached for the jar with her free

hand. Her guts rumbled, and she gave a silent promise that yes, she was feeding them.

She felt the syringe in Doc’s hand before she saw it. A flick of the wrist and it appeared between Doc’s fingers, hidden partway by the spoon at first. Drops of what was likely some sedative fell to the carpet as the needle dove toward Yaya’s arm.

Yaya grasped at Doc’s wrist to stop it. The needle rushed closer, almost to Yaya’s neck. Doc’s pale eyes never turned wrathful, ever calm and deliberate as she pushed. She was stronger. Only slightly, but enough. She would pierce Yaya’s skin and knock her out.

Tension seized every muscle. A sharp pain shot between her legs, intestines unspooling down, up, over her waistline.