She hoped Billy Ray would help her put some fat on later. In the past, he’d been happy to beat the shit out of her. It was part of their history.

What if I can’t take a punch without it hurting anymore? she thought with a surge of panic.

“We have some intel from Mollie about what’s happening inside the zone, but we were hoping you could give us a better idea of exactly what’s going on,” Barbara said.

“Yeah, I imagine Mollie isn’t a reliable narrator,” Michelle said. She took a bite from her sandwich and began talking as she chewed. “From what Joey said, she’s pretty unstable. And if Joey’s face is any barometer there’s no doubt about that.” She gave a hollow laugh, grabbed a folding chair, and sat down. The metal was cold against her ass.

“I’d like to tell you more, but at some point things become fuzzy.” She was dancing around what she’d done to Aero now. Trying to distance herself from what had happened. Trying to get away from her murderous glee.

“I wasn’t me anymore,” she continued. “I no longer had control over anything. We all lost control of ourselves.” Yes, that was it. Share the blame. “And it wasn’t just us going mad. The city is changing for the worse by the second. I can tell you that however bad you think it is in there, you can’t imagine how much more awful it is.”

Michelle wasn’t going to tell them about Aero. She hadn’t seen Earth Witch or Recycler or Doktor Omweer after Joey had brought her back. They were the only ones who could tell what had happened.

It was her burden to bear. She had so much shame and guilt. But you liked it. It felt good. You could do what you wanted. And the blood. You bathed in the blood. You barely wiped it off your hands.

She thought she was going to vomit.

Puking seemed like a very good idea. It might get in the way of the crying. Because now she really wanted to cry. But she wouldn’t let that happen. She didn’t deserve to cry after what she had done.

“I’m not even sure I know what was happening because at some point, I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.” Don’t say anything about the people you killed, she thought, even as the desire to confess was rising up inside her. Never tell what you did. They don’t need to know. No one needs to know.

“People ate each other. They committed suicide. They murdered each other. It was carnage. Blood ran in the streets like water.” She was panting now. There was nothing she could do to stop her memories. Talking about it made it real. She would get the story out, then never talk about what had happened in Talas again.

“It’s okay, Michelle,” Billy Ray said. “We’ve been tranquilizing Mollie just to get her stable enough to use her portals without killing herself or anyone else. Anytime she opens one close to Talas, well, it goes badly.”