Tonight, as exhausted as she was, she lay awake, listening for his screams. When she did finally fall asleep, she landed in a dreamscape on fire, a place full of danger—a world at war, animals being slaughtered, girls being kidnapped, men screaming and pointing guns. She screamed for Matthew, but no one could hear one girl’s voice in a falling-apart world. And besides, what good would he be? She couldn’t tell Matthew this. Not this. Some fears you carried alone.

“Leni!”

She heard her name being called from far away. Where was she? It was the middle of the night. Was she still dreaming?

Someone grabbed her, yanked her out of bed. It was real this time. A hand clamped over her mouth.

She recognized his smell. “Dad?” she said through his hand.

“Come on,” he said. “Now.”

She stumbled over to the ladder, climbed down behind him in an utter darkness.

None of the lamps were lit downstairs, but she could hear her mother breathing heavily.

Dad led Leni to the newly fixed and steady card table; guided her to a seat.

“Ernt, really—” Mama said.

“Shut up, Cora,” Dad said.

Something banged onto the table in front of Leni with a clatter and a clang. “What is it?” he said, standing right next to her.

She reached out, her fingers trailing across the rough surface of the card table.

A rifle. In pieces.

“You need better training, Leni. When TSHTF, we’ll have to do things differently. What if it’s winter? Everything might be dark. You’ll be off guard, confused, sleepy. Excuses will get you killed. I want you to be able to do everything in the dark, when you’re scared.”

“Ernt,” Mama said from the darkness, her voice uneven. “She’s just a girl. Let her go back to bed.”

“When men are starving and we have food, will they care that she’s just a girl?”

Leni heard the click of a stopwatch. “Go, Leni. Clean your weapon, put it back together.”

Leni reached out, felt for the cold pieces of the rifle, pulled them toward her. The darkness unnerved her, made her slow. She saw a match flare in the darkness, smelled a cigarette being lit.

“Stop,” Dad said. A flashlight beam erupted, blared into being, focused on the rifle. “Unacceptable. You’re dead. All of our food is gone. Maybe one of them is thinking of rape.” He grabbed the rifle, disassembled it, and pushed the pieces to the center of the table. In the blast of light, Leni saw the rifle in parts, in addition to a cleaning rod, cloths, some Hoppes 9 solvent and rust protector, a few screwdrivers. She tried to memorize where everything was.

He was right. She needed to know how to do this or she could be killed.

Concentrate.

The light clicked off. The stopwatch clicked on.

“Go.”