I have wondered, since, what exactly it was that refused, in that moment, when refusal seemed so pointless, when I believed I had seconds to live and nothing to gain by resisting.

And I have come to think it was not the will to live, exactly, though that was part of it.

It was something more specific and more stubborn: the refusal to let a lie be the last thing written about my life.

Because I understood, in the clarity of that terrible moment, seeing Selina’s smile, that they were not only going to kill me.

They were going to erase me, and worse, they were going to replace me, in the record, with a lie.