I can make him do it.

“No one can do that. It’s too far,” her own voice cooed, a melodious echo.

I can make him do anything.

Ripples of heat lapped up from the blacktop, the first warning signs of another long, hot Carolina Summer. Sweat beaded on the boy’s forehead. She remained cool and calm, though within her mind churned and burned, a thousand thoughts, a million wishes: a burning sea of psyche. His will eroded slowly but surely.

“I’ll go do it for you right now.” He spoke the words, empty, vacant. Headlong he leaped, destined to fail, destined to be hers.

A day later, Renee watched from the corner of the small hospital room, a room she shouldn’t have been allowed to enter. The adults look concerned about his broken bones; they had no idea. He looked worried, a helpless Summer; he was utterly clueless.

The moment ripe, she stepped forward, all innocence and freckles, “I’ll sit and read to you everyday, if you’d like.” Batting lashes over doe eyes, she viewed her victim, her puppet.