Sheep and Wolves by Jeremy C. Shipp Page B

that point on I decided to do everything right. I decided to eat right, sleep right, walk right, shit right. I decided to be the best Little Fucker I could be.
    And so, when I looked at the cuts and bruises and black eyes on the other children, and looked at my own flawless body in the mirror, I almost felt free.
    The organization that broke us out weren’t called HARM, but ANGEL. I never learned what it stood for. I never asked.
    None of the safe houses were safe enough, so I moved around until I couldn’t anymore. Until I was stuck.
    It didn’t matter how much they saved me.
    It’s never enough.
    *
    The three of us stand side by side by side, and Lucian trembles, because he still hasn’t learned how to smile right.
    I don’t watch the teenage boy selecting Rea’s breasts on the electronic panel outside, but I know he is. Rea knows too.
    The boy comes here every Friday afternoon for the same thing.
    I don’t own my legs anymore, so one of the machines has to hold me up as I face the glass and spread what’s left of my arms and smile like a good Little Fucker.
    The machine with the blades carves out another slice of Rea’s left breast.
    When the machine with the pincers carries the slice away, the glass darkens and we’re released.
    I use my good arm to pull me to my bench, and Lucian goes on another pointless rampage.
    The people outside, they can’t see inside right now, but we can see out. We can always see out.
    The boy must know this.
    He stands by the glass, this time and every other time, and he chews the sliver of Rea. Probably twenty dollars worth. It’s small. But it’s more than enough to get the job done. You can see it on his face.
    Rea doesn’t have to watch him, but she does. She watches him, with the eye sensor that Lucian broke off the machine in her one good hand, stroking it, turning it counter-clockwise, murmuring something about treacherous mouths and lying tongues.
    “What are you saying?” Lucian says, after the machines go away.
    “A psalm,” Rea says.
    “Great,” Lucian says. “I’m sure that’s going to save us.”
    “No one’s going to save us.”
    Lucian approaches Rea, and for a second or two I’m afraid he’s going to hurt her. Instead, he collapses on the floor and cries. Through the corner of my eye, he looks something like a scared little boy.
    “It doesn’t have to be like this,” I say. “When the red light goes on, you can stand and hold out your arms yourself and wave when you’re supposed to. If you do that, the machine won’t have to force you. You don’t have to be controlled. And if you smile on your own, they’ll take away the pain during the processing. The needles they stick in our heads can do that. Just smile.”
    It’s almost like freedom.
    The teenage boy heads home to his family.
    “I’ll never smile for them,” Lucian says, through his tears. “I don’t care what they do to me.”
    “There are reasons to smile,” Rea says. “Do you want to know mine?”
    Lucian says no by curling up in silence. Head on, he looks like me in the orphanage, years ago. The day I gave up.
    “I want to know,” I say.
    Rea places the eye sensor in her mouth and swallows. “I’ve cursed my flesh hundreds, maybe thousands of times since I’ve been here. These are powerful hexes, and anyone who eats me will learn that I’m not a piece of meat. They’ll taste the power of my soul.”
    Lucian rolls on his back and says, “You’re a deluded bitch.” Then he tells her, “I can tell you’re one of them. You have no soul.”
    “Everyone has a soul,” Rea says.
    That’s why she’s here, of course. She told me. She told me that she opened up in a public forum, and told them what she believes. Someone recorded her, sent the recording to the government, and that was enough to get her thrown in here.
    Anyone who says that everyone has a soul obviously doesn’t have one herself.
    “I need to get out of here,” Lucian says. “This is a