Free Darkside Sun by Jocelyn Adams

and that one seemed more genuine. It made me relax a little. “Something like that, yeah.”
    “Does that make you a doctor?” Surely not, since she didn’t appear to be any older than me. But then again, they were immortal, so she could have been a hundred and eighteen for all I knew.
    “Oh, jeez, no.” Her laughter, bright and lively, danced along my skin. “They call me the Outfitter. I’m about as low on the Machine totem pole you can get, but I’ve made peace with it.”
    A few ideas about what an outfitter might be bingo-balled around my groggy mind. Her eyes were pale blue, the green in them only noticeable if I squinted. “You’re a soldier. So you … like … dress people up for battle or some junk?”
    “I manage the costume hall and make sure a sentinel looks the part when he or she goes hunting, among other random crap jobs Asher doles out.” One corner of her lip quirked up, and she wiggled like an excitable puppy. “I’m glad he asked me to sit with you. Wanna talk about it?” Her obvious raw eagerness urged me to spill my guts. I got the feeling she didn’t get to talk to people often. We had that in common.
    I locked onto her pleasant face, the only thing in the room that didn’t make me dizzy, and found I wanted to tell her. “Maybe. But first I need to understand where I am and what’s going to happen now. You said false reality, so does that mean this room doesn’t really exist?”
    “Oh, it exists, but not in the same reality as the one you grew up in. Right now, you’re kind of straddling the true reality and this one. Once you adjust and accept this place as real, your vision will clear, and you won’t feel so dizzy.”
    Ohhhh-kay. “How can anyone create layers of reality? Who is your founder? Some secret government installation at Area 51?”
    She smiled and shook her head. “Nobody but those in the Machine knows about us, and now you. Asher said our founder isn’t from here, but I’m not exactly sure what that means, and I’m afraid to ask.”
    If their founder wasn’t from here, then where? Another world, like where the wraiths were from? All of it seemed too far-fetched to be real, including Asher shooting Ava.
    Images of the bloody snow filled my mental cinema. “Asher killed my roommate. I accidentally let her see your bible, and the wraiths came looking for it. She had a wraith in her, and he couldn’t get it out. Now she’s dead.” Wetness pooled against my lashes, but I blinked it away. “If she’d been rooming with someone else, she’d still be alive. I didn’t think anything would really come through. I just thought I might be imagining the rifts all along, but they’re real. All of this is real, and nobody knows but us. Am I the only one who’s worried about that?”
    All of Sophia’s pleasantness drained away in one shot, leaving her scowling. She launched up and marched to the door in bare feet poking out of her skinny jeans, that bright aqua, fuchsia, and purple hair swinging like curled light. “Asher!”
    Heavy footsteps sounded outside the room. “What’s wrong?” he asked. I’d have said he sounded concerned if I hadn’t seen him blow a girl’s head off in cold blood.
    Sophia propped her hands on her slender hips and stared up, I guessed at Asher, who stood beyond where I could see. “You took an unbound guardian into an extraction and cleansing? That’s cruel even for you. She knew her. Jesus, Asher, what the freakin’ hell were you thinking?”
    Her expression went flat when Asher pushed forward, nose to nose with her, until he was framed in the doorway. “Remember who you’re talking to, Outfitter. She’s greener than green, and she’s a coward. How was I supposed to know she’d follow me to them?”
    Even outsized in every way, appearing like a child next to him, she stood her ground even though she’d begun to shake. I liked her better for it. “Still, you should have protected her from that. She shouldn’t have been