I just want my bunny.” Chloe let out a sharp, cruel laugh.

“Then learn to obey me.” And Sofia, my brave, frightened six-year-old, took a small hesitant step forward, and said the thing that I will hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life, because of what it revealed about the world my daughters had been living in.

“Please don’t be mean to Valeria,” she whispered.

Not please give me my toy.

Not please stop being mean to me.