Free Finding Magic (downside ghosts) by Stacia Kane Page B

place to meet; it was where Chess thought they were going, but Jillian drove past the exit they should have taken off Highway 300. “Where—”
    “Downside.” Jillian paused, obviously waiting for Chess to reply, but Chess didn’t really have a reply to make.
    Downside. Of course she’d been there. She’d lived there a couple of times; well, not in Downside—she didn’t think that even the branch of Church government that handed out foster children like cheap Festival trinkets would place kids in Downside—but close enough, on the border streets between Downside and Cross Town, Downside and Northside at the far edge. Streets where the distance to Downside seemed to shrink after dark so it felt like living under a looming shadow, like worms of danger crawling out of the earth after the sun went down.
    But as with anything dangerous, Downside had its pleasures. Chess knew those, too. She
knew
Downside. Knew all kinds of things could be found there. Her heartbeat quickened.
    Only to drop again when Jillian switched lanes. Yeah, for someone interested in drowning out some memories Downside was like a fucking amusement park made of broken glass and sin. But Chess was going there in the company of a fully tattooed member of the Black Squad. Nobody would even talk to her, much less sell her anything.
    And even if they would, she wasn’t doing that shit anymore. It had been fine when she was in the Corey Home passing the time any way she could. Not now. Not when she had a future.
    She refused to think about the flask in her bag and what it meant. Refused to think about how fucking tired she was, so damn tired of fighting, of putting all her energy into not remembering, not thinking; tired from the nightmares and memories that crowded into her bed with her every night and made sure it would be hours before she slept, if she slept at all.
    Tired of being herself, and of feeling like herself, and of knowing what that meant.
    “There’s no need to be scared,” Jillian said, interrupting Chess’s thoughts. A welcome interruption.
    And one Chess had to stifle the urge to laugh at. “I’m not scared.”
    “Hey, it’s kind of a scary place. I mean, even I get nervous going there. I won’t go by myself.”
    Chess looked at Jillian. Really looked at her, in a way she hadn’t before. Yeah, Downside would scare Jillian, for all that she was on the Black Squad. Downside would scare Jillian because Jillian didn’t understand that no place was safe and that some of the biggest, most expensive houses in town were more full of hatred and sadism, had worse odds of someone escaping alive and intact, than the worst slum. Jillian didn’t know that money and nice things and clean, shiny hair that fell to her shoulders in perfect waves wouldn’t do shit to protect her if she happened to stumble into the wrong person’s path one day.
    Downside was no more dangerous than anywhere else when it came down to it. It was just a hell of a lot more honest.
    “I’m not scared,” she repeated, and felt rather than saw Jillian’s raised eyebrows and little smirk of condescending amusement.
    “Well, just the same. Be careful, okay? Stay with me, which means stay with Trent and Vaughn. And—well, Downsiders are like ghosts. The rules are the same, you know what I mean?”
    Chess smiled; in that, at least, Jillian had the right idea. “Don’t look at them, no eye contact, don’t talk to them, no sudden movements, don’t approach.”
    “Right.” Jillian slid the car off the highway, onto the exit at Cross Street. “Because I have to be honest with you. If something happens, if real trouble starts and we’re attacked or something … there’s really not much we can do about it. Even with Trent and Vaughn. There’s just too many of them.”
    Also like in the City, Chess thought, but she didn’t reply. Instead she just nodded and watched the buildings go by, the stately red brick and stone, the shiny steel, of Triumph City’s good