For the first time in a long time, I dream about Jason, my old boyfriend back on Earth. In my dream, Jason and I are at the party where we met. Even though in my memory, the party is full of laughter and dancing and fun, in my dream all I see is cigarette smoke and jocks who splash their red plastic cups of beer on me. When Jason and I meet outside, it starts to rain—but it’s not romantic warm summer rain. It’s spitty, cold, sharp rain. My father would have called it “pissing rain,” and it stings my skin and gets in my eyes.

When we pull apart, Jason says, “I love you now that I can’t have you.”

And I say, “You were my first everything.”

But Jason shakes his head. “No, I wasn’t.”

And before I can figure out what he wasn’t my first of, he kisses me.

It’s sloppy and wet and awkward and our teeth clack together and his tongue feels like a dying fish in my mouth, flopping around.

I pull back—but it’s not Jason kissing me, it’s Luthor.

“You’ll never escape,” he says.

I want to run away, but my muscles are frozen as Luthor steps closer. His mouth opens in a wide grin, and his teeth are all black and rotten. I open my mouth to scream, but before I can, his lips crash against mine.

I wake up, struggling against my tangled quilt. My face is damp—with sweat or tears, I can’t tell. As soon as I escape my bed, I run to the bathroom and splash cold water on my cheeks, still gasping from the scream I never sounded in my nightmare.

I grip the sides of the sink with both hands, unable to stop shaking. I don’t recognize the girl in the mirror. Eyes red, lips cracked, fear spilling out. I don’t like admitting how much Luthor scares me. I wrap my arms around myself, squeezing them tight against my body. Why should I be so afraid of him when he hasn’t even really done anything? Is almost a good enough reason for fear?

Yes.

The room caves in around me. What I want to do is run, but I’m too afraid of what lurks in the dark, in the places where there’s nothing but cows and sheep and no one to hear me shout for help.

And that pisses me off.