I hum a song.
I do that sometimes.
Hum.
I like sounds.
“Hello, Selene,” a deep male voice says from the fence of the rabbit fields.
I stop humming.
“Do you remember me?” the man asks.
“You’re Luthor,” I say.
Luthor nods. “I told you before, call me Luthe. All my friends do.”
But . . . I don’t think he is a friend.
The fence around the rabbit field is nothing but chicken wire. He crumples it and shoves it away as easily as if it were made of paper.
“Selene,” he says. I like sounds, but I don’t like the way my name snarls around his lips.
“You were always my perfect girl,” he says softly. The rabbits scurry out of his way as he walks slowly toward me.
Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun. My mind screams at me, but my body doesn’t move.
Everything is dull around me. A splintered memory jabs into my brain, trying to spark life into me, but everything is slow and steady. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, a dull, normal beat . . . beat . . . beat. Not the panicked racing of the rabbit’s heartbeat when I hold it down. But I feel like a rabbit, one selected for slaughter.
Luthor touches the side of my face, runs his fingers down my cheek, tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Sing for me,” he says.
“Singing isn’t productive,” I say. But I do sing, sometimes. Or hum. I like sounds. The rabbits like sounds. Sometimes we sing together.
But I don’t want to sing for him.
Luthor’s hands slip down my neck, his fingers pressing slightly against my throat. “Sing,” he commands.
My mouth opens, my body automatically ready to obey the command.
But there is something inside me that silences my voice.
I will not give him what he wants, this rebel inside me whispers.
I do not sing.
Luthor’s grip on my neck tightens, and he pushes me down, first to my knees, then to my back. “You are mine,” he growls. “If I can’t have her, I will take you.”
My body doesn’t protest. It has been trained by years of drugs and acquiescence.
I shut my eyes.
“You’re more like clay now than you were before.”
I open my eyes.
Luthor is grinning.
“In the story, Pygmalion turned his girl of clay into a human. But I have turned a human into a girl of clay. And that is, by far, the better option.”
I open my mouth.
And I sing then. Not the song Luthor wants. I sing for myself, a dirge, a mournful wail. I sing—I scream—until Luthor’s hands around my throat silence me.
And I die. But at least I die in song.