When he squeezed her throat, she gasped for air, for the ability to scream or speak, and she grabbed at his wrists and tried to pull them away, her nails leaving crescents on his skin, which she then intentionally dragged to cause a streak of skin and blood. She was hyperventilating when he began to sing, and she noticed the vines listening before the singing soothed her. She vaguely recognized the song, and she didn't understand why she suddenly felt calm. He was going to kill her, her mind screamed, but it was if that realization was trapped in molasses, as if it couldn't reach the vines that withered and died at her feet, and all she could do was gasp and sob.
And, finally, beg through the tears, even as her hand and nails reached for his face, for his eyes, for something she could hurt.