Free MySoultoSave by S W Vaughn

finished her cigarette yet, so she found a
spot on the wall and joined the ranks, taking her time. She knew what waited
inside. Endless lines, endless hoops to jump through, delay after stonewalling
delay. Just another exciting morning at public assistance.
    “’Scuse me, hey. You got another cigarette?”
    Logan startled and turned toward the voice. Next to her
stood a girl in short sleeves with stringy, tangled blond hair, hands shoved in
her jeans pockets, directing most of her attention at the sidewalk. There was
something familiar about the figure. At first she thought it was just the
stance, the same loose-limbed, spaced-out shuffle employed by junkies around
the world.
    Then the girl looked up and recognition came along with
shock. “Deenie?”
    It hurt to look at her. She’d crashed with this girl and her
thug boyfriend more than once. Six months ago, Deenie had been all right. She’d
been a social user, preferring pot and the occasional snort over pipes and
needles. Then, she’d still looked like a relatively healthy twenty-two-year-old.
Now there were years etched into her gaunt face, shading dark hollows beneath
her eyes and lining chapped, tight-pressed lips. Track marks on her stick-thin
arms.
    And she was pregnant. The slight mound of her belly said
four, maybe five months, but if she was using, she was probably further along.
    Deenie blinked a few times and smiled, showing teeth already
starting to rot. “Logan! I thought you…”
    “Died?” She leveled a smirk. It was a reasonable assumption.
Most people didn’t leave Crystaltown any other way, with the exception of
dealers striking out in search of bigger turf. “Not yet,” she said and handed
over a cigarette. She probably shouldn’t, but it wasn’t as though Deenie would
quit on the spot if she didn’t. The girl would just bum one off somebody else.
“Need a light?”
    Deenie nodded. “Thanks.”
    She watched the girl light up with trembling hands, and her
heart threatened to break. Deenie had fallen so fast. She’d seen this rapid
descent into addiction too many times, and it invariably ended the same way—with
a corpse pumped full of drugs that nobody cared enough about to identify,
eventually dumped in an unmarked grave.
    Well, she wasn’t going to let that happen. Not this time.
    Deenie drew an appreciative drag and plucked at Logan’s
sleeve. “Nice threads. What is it, Halloween or something?”
    “Nope. I’m joining the Navy.” Smiling, she dropped her butt
and ground it out. This had to be handled right. She could get Deenie into
rehab right now, bring her inside the welfare office and have her checked in
today—but the girl had to sign up voluntarily. The state could only force
people into it if they were arrested or hospitalized, like she’d been after she
blacked out in the street. And getting a hard addict to volunteer for rehab was
like telling the sun not to rise. “So, when are you due?” she said, gesturing
to Deenie’s swelling stomach.
    The girl glanced down and shrugged, her mouth twisting
unconsciously. “I’m just getting fat,” she whispered, but a flicker of panic in
her dulled eyes insisted that some part of her knew the truth.
    “Right. Must be all that steak you’re eating.”
    “Mm-hm.” Her gaze shut down and she went back to smoking.
    An urgent shiver traversed Logan’s spine. She was losing
her.
    As she watched Deenie bring the cigarette to her lips, the
world seemed to darken. The shadows lengthened along the sidewalk…and Deenie’s
rose up, thickened, became a substantial black silhouette that draped an arm
around the girl and leaned in to whisper in her ear.
    Oh, fuck. Another hallucination.
    Heart skittering in her chest, Logan reached toward the
humanoid shape, which was growing more defined by the second. She’d touch
nothing and shock herself back to sanity. But when her fingers brushed the
thing that wasn’t there, a horrific vision slammed into her mind—Deenie sprawled
in an