“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.”

“I didn’t destroy her, I made a mistake. I think I can fix it. Fuck. I should have known better than to expect you to be fair, Vicky.”

The more agitated she got, the more my body ratcheted up the physical signs of tension. I tried to remain still, told myself flight was an option. I had a headache from where my neck and jaw were tense, and with that painful buzz in the back of my head, I tried to visualize it as a tactile reminder of the people behind me. Of refugees who needed that food.

Stupid, like a dumb mnemonic, but it helped me to process.

Every time I’d spoken, I was left feeling like I was risking pushing too far, or not pushing far enough. If I didn’t push enough, she lost momentum. If I pushed too far, she threw up walls.

And I didn’t really know her enough to know where those boundaries were now.

Here, I had zero idea. For the first time, I couldn’t even recognize enough of her to say.