“Most Debunkers spent their money on actual things, rather than just buying anything they could swallow, smoke or snort. Unlike Chess.”

“I’m not into danger, either.” “Aw, Chess. You so into it you ain’t climb out with a rope. Why else you do your job, live down here, buy from Bump?” “It’s just—I mean—I just do, is all.” Her cheeks burned. She shouldn’t have let him come in here. She should have just sent him home and let him wash his stupid shirt himself. “No shame in it. Some of us needs an edge on things make us feel right, else we ain’t like feeling at all, aye?”

“Terrible’s eyes narrowed; he gave Chess the kind of look most people reserved for ax murderers. Ax murderers who killed children. And kittens.”

“Thou mutters, Miss Putnam. Speak up.”Like she couldn’t hear. She’d hear Chess if Chess ran to the other end of the room, covered her mouth with her hands, and whispered “Fuck you,” but she couldn’t hear Chess standing four feet away from her.”

“Chess lied to herself every day; it was just something she did, like taking her pills or making sure she had a pen in her bag. Little lies, mostly. Insignificant. Of course there were big ones there, too, like telling herself that she was more than just a junkie who got lucky enough to possess a talent not everyone had. That she was alone by choice and that she was not terrified of other people because they couldn’t be trusted, because they carried filth in their minds and pain in their hands and they would smear both all over her given half the chance.”

“Then again, she had-through a bizarre combination of skill, dumb luck and incredible misfortune-managed to build up a file any Debunker would envy.”

“If Mrs. Morton would stop verbally jacking off her husband and son, this would all be done so much more quickly, but then Chess figured it was just about the only sex the woman got.”