Free Unforsaken by Sophie Littlefield

could set up a meeting place and—”
    “No. Too dangerous. By the time we set up the exchange, it’d be too late. They’ve got all the advantages, Hailey. Technology, weapons, everything. They wouldn’t give up anything and then they’d have you too.”
    “They don’t have everything,” I said softly. “They don’t have you. They don’t have Seers.”
    “We just need to think about what we’re up against. Prentiss said he’s got more people in charge now, Hailey. Not just one like before, when Bryce ran everything. I bet there’s a lot more people than that at the new lab. More security, for one. And more staff, if they’re trying to rebuild the research in the shortest possible time.”
    “I still think Prentiss must be ex-military,” I said. It was the way he talked, as though he was used to being in command. “If he hires people like him, they wouldn’t care where they work; they’d just move to the new facility, wherever Prentiss told them to go.”
    “Yeah,” Kaz agreed grimly. “Prentiss probably has contacts everywhere. Contractors who work for governments all over the world, not just ours. Old buddies still on the inside, who are happy to take his calls, listen to his ideas, maybe have an inside track to approving projects or getting funding.”
    “And the Seers,” I said. “If they could train people likeyou, who could see what the enemy was doing, their movements, their strategies …”
    “The visions don’t work like that. I’m a strong Seer, a pureblood, and even I can’t predict when they come or what they’ll reveal.”
    “But Bryce was trying to develop ways around that, training Seers to control their visions.”
    What if Prentiss found a way to control someone as powerful as Kaz? It was terrifying to imagine Kaz’s gift being manipulated by someone like Prentiss. I prayed that they hadn’t figured out yet that Chub was a Seer. If they knew what Chub could do, they would never let him go.
    “So,” Kaz said, “us against the ex-military machine. They’ve got money, weapons, connections. We’ve got, uh …” He shrugged. “Well, we’ve got each other. No problem—ought to be a piece of cake.”
    He was trying to joke, but his voice was hollow. The park had emptied as the sky had grown dark. It was just us and the few homeless people who were making their home here for the night.
    I shivered, partly from the chill of nightfall and partly from the fear in his voice. I touched Kaz’s face, just a hesitant brush of my fingers against his cheek. I wanted to comfort him, and I moved without thinking.
    But Kaz reacted by covering my hand with his and pressing it to his face. He took a shuddering breath and said my name, hardly more than a whisper.
    “Hailey … I can’t do this without you.”
    He couldn’t do it without me . Kaz was strong and brave, and I was shocked by his admission. He circled his arms around me and I leaned against him and held on, and I could feel his heart beating through his shirt and his warm breath on my neck as he bent toward me, and his eyelashes brushed my forehead.
    And then he kissed me and it was like the first time, the day we’d left Chicago, when we’d stolen a private moment in the shadow of his mother’s garage.
    It was like the first time but it was also different. That time had been about the newness of our relationship, innocent and tentative. That day had been a sweet little break from what had come before and what would come after, and it was almost like an illusion—we both knew it couldn’t last but we were willing to pretend.
    This kiss was something else. It started gently enough, like the first one had; Kaz brushed my lips with his. But then it changed.
    The first time we’d kissed, Kaz’s tongue had lightly caressed my lips and I had been surprised to discover I liked it. I’d thought about it a thousand times since. I’d wished I had been brave enough to take it further. I wanted a do-over; I wanted to kiss