After a delay, Michael’s gaze slides from the empty wall to the source of the words. The sound of Lee’s voice is still the same: clear, real, cutting through the fog and slipping into whatever subdimension he’s been sent to. The visual check confirms it’s her (he needs at least two senses in agreement to muster up belief), though he doesn’t look her in the face, and he goes back to staring at the off-white paint as soon as he’s satisfied with her identity.
Her presence is taken in stride—of course Lee was going to appear. She exists on his plane, she can see through floors and ceilings and walls to wherever he is and she can keep seeing, straight through his heart like a blade. She could find him anywhere, just like a messenger from God.
He considers her message now; it works through his brain like glue, all the cogs up there sluggish and sticking together. They have him on a bunch of stuff to calm him down now, and it makes thinking concrete thoughts a chore. At least the question is a simple one. It doesn’t take him too long to remember that he’s so mad at himself, he doesn’t have any anger left over for others.
“No,” he tells her. His voice comes out rough from days of disuse.