“What do you mean ‘count’?” I asked. “Is someone keeping score?”

“I’ve healed so many people, I’ve done so much, devoted months of my life to fixing things. I threw myself into things around Gold Morning. I played a big role, for better or for worse. I’ve always been on your side. And none of it matters.”

“It matters,” I said. “But it’s not like there’s a big scorecard where you reach fifty thousand points and you win the forgiveness of one unconscionable act. You don’t reach a certain point total and win the girl of your dreams automatically. It matters, but it’s fifty thousand things that matter on an individual basis.”

“I’m not saying I want to win you, Vicky. I’m just saying…”

“You want it to count. To count enough.”

She shook her head. “You’re not getting it.”

“If you heal thousands of people and you mutilate twelve or so, you’re a healer who mutilates people. You don’t give me an hour’s worth of abstract interpretations of the big picture and buy fifteen minutes of me being happy to spend more time with you.”

“That’s not what I’m asking for.”

“Bonesaw and Swansong will always be ex-Slaughterhouse Nine. Precipice will always be ex-Fallen. Chris will… I don’t even know what he’s trying to be or not be.”

“He wants to escape his humanity. Leave weaknesses behind. He likes you and that makes him dangerous because he wants to kill what he likes.”

I nodded.

Good to know.

“I sent him away,” Amy told me. “Made him leave so he wouldn’t retaliate.”

“I don’t think he can escape his humanity like he wants, and even if he does find some magic potion that transforms him permanently into something entirely inhuman, if he enlists your help—”

“I won’t help him do that.”

“He will always have been human. And me? I will always be the girl who was turned into a monster by my sister. To others in the know and to myself.”

“No,” Amy said. She shook her head. “I— Only if you hold onto it. I offered to let you forget it all.”

“Doesn’t work that way. If you don’t remember it then you’re more beholden to it.”

“What?” Amy asked. “Vicky, you’re a smart person. You got good grades, but that might be the dumbest thing I’ve heard you say, and I remember being kids and you telling me that birds can’t go into space because they need gravity to swallow and therefore they can’t swallow while they’re up there.”

“On space shuttles, you dumbass. And you need to remember and dwell in the ugly shit because if you don’t, you just end up right back in it. How do you change if you don’t tackle it head-on?”

“By getting through it and then putting it firmly behind you.”

“Except you tried that, apparently, and then you went and you destroyed Hunter.”