“—After. Strong enough to deal then and after. So is it really hard to think maybe someone can be a really great guy, and I’m not puffing him up by calling him that? That maybe she doesn’t need to take the one negative thing I say about him and run with it?”

“We puff him up a little.”

I heard Vista make a disgusting snorting sound over the phone. I smiled.

“Are we trying to one-up each other here with war stories, because you just—”

“Nah,” she interrupted. “Nah. That’s for the boys. I know that really cute guy in armor on your team has the competitive streak. I’m… empathizing. And saying something I wanted to get off my chest, I guess. For a while after it wore off, I gave some real thought to going to where we’d stashed our bad guy and getting him to dose me again. That was part of the quote-unquote ‘clinging to the good’ conversation with my cranky old lady therapist. Most of the voices were friendly, and because I figured I’d gotten by, not telling my superiors.”

“Can’t do that. Not giving them the information.”

“I know. But this is all me trying to say that sometimes this all sucks. Really sucks.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Sorry about your throat baby. Me spending three months with voices in my head is the best comparison I can come up with. Sucks.”

“At least you got something out of it. Got to talk to Dean.”

“You didn’t get anything out of your throat-baby? No cooing at the chubby little munchkin?”

I made a sound I hadn’t wholly intended to make. Humor and disgust and cringe all together.

“Good luck with your team, Victoria. This thing is a mess. If you need help, we’ll send some people we can’t afford to.”

“The time fuckery is too important. Too big, according to apparently everyone who knows anything. Don’t.”

“If we don’t hear from you?”

“Don’t,” I said, again. “Don’t send anyone, don’t come. Not unless you’re sure you can afford to.”

“Okay. Don’t become one of those voices in my head, Victoria. I’ll put you in a corner of my brain with Bastion, Barrow Rose, and Shatterbird.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Call me when you’re done.”

“You too, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I hung up.

They were still talking, and I didn’t want to join in. Too close to memories of being wheeled off. Packed up into an ambulance, hearing people talk about me like I wasn’t there. Being ignored.

Parian wasn’t being ignored. Foil stroked her hair while talking to the professionals.

Still too close.

I flew straight down to the van. I stepped into the vehicle, and I unloaded with the odor annihilators, spraying myself down, and being sure to get the seats and the rest of the vehicle’s interior.