“You know what the shitty thing is, Vicky? I told myself I wouldn’t say this. I was doing okay. At the Birdcage, after, figuring myself out, finding a balance, coming to terms with how much I hated myself… I’m rambling.”

The fingernails of my good hand dug into my leg. The fingernails of my injured hand touched my leg, two of them wobbly, barely attached. A reminder.

“I earned my stripes saving the world, I got offered work and money helping manage things behind the scenes, watching Bonesaw. I healed heroes now and then. I managed, I was doing okay. I repaired bridges with Carol, and I had an actual mom for the first time ever. Mark was cool, all considered. I was fine.”

“I didn’t do anything to stop that.”

“You—you kind of did. You appeared at the edges and fringes. You re-entered my life and it all went to pieces. Again and again.”

“All my fault.”

“No. But you didn’t make it easier, for yourself or for me.”

“By existing? By having a life? Normally, Amy, when someone does what you do, it’d be you who abides by a restraining order, who stays a certain distance away, or who gets locked up in a cell.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she told me. “It would have been best if one of us hadn’t made it through Gold Morning, that’s all.”

I maintained eye contact with her for long seconds, staring her down. She was the one to look away first.

“I don’t resent you, I’m on your side,” she said, looking at the door. “If you need anything, just ask. I’ll be here.”

“I thought you said that if I had an honest conversation with you, that you’d do what I asked.”

She shook her head.

“Do what I ask,” I told her. “I endured this room, this exercise of yours. I played nice. I measured out my fucking words, I told you, straight up, what I needed and wanted, instead of being really underhanded and throwing you through a portal to another world and throwing away the key, no warning, no appeals. I told you that I think you need help. That you need to talk to the Wardens and talk to a therapist.”

“I tried.”

“I doubt you really tried,” I said, anger putting bite into my words. “Right now, you’re spiraling. You don’t stop until someone makes you stop. You hurt Hunter—”

“You never even met her!”

“She still fucking counts. Those twelve people that Dot mentioned—”

“Who I fixed!”

“They count. You’re going to keep hurting people until someone makes you stop. That’s either with the help of a professional, more imprisonment—”

“Exile.”

“—or a bullet to your head.”

The look she gave me was as wounded as if I had actually shot her.