Free Unknown by Rachel Caine Page A

slowly and quietly beneath my feet, a sense gifted to me through my connection to Luis—although even Luis rarely felt Her presence so clearly. A tendril only, a whisper, questioning, like a murmur in sleep. This borrowed touch, fleeting and faint, made me drop to my knees and press my hands flat into the sand. I gasped in ragged breaths, begging with all my soul for the blessing of her awareness, of her embrace.
    I had forgotten how alone I was, until for a single, shining instant, I was found.
    Then sense faded, and I was alone, lost, and afraid once more.
    Human, again.
    I rose, still breathing hard, and wiped the tears from my dusty face before heading back to the van.
     
    “Here they come,” Luis said, less than half an hour later, glancing in the rearview mirror. “You know the drill, Cass. Stay cool.”
    I nodded. The van was completely empty of any trace of the boy. No doubt there would have been witnesses that saw the boy back near the Rocha house, but one thing I had quickly learned about Luis’s neighbors: They were not eager to help the police.
    It was highly doubtful any of them would talk.
    I looked in the mirror on the passenger side and saw the lurid red and blue lights, and heard the rising wail of a siren. Luis immediately slowed the van, pulling off to the gravel shoulder of the road.
    The police car pulled in behind.
    It went as Luis had no doubt assumed it would; we were ordered to get out of the van and lean against the hot metal of the vehicle. The policemen—two large men who kept their ready hands near the butts of their guns—searched the van, then each of us. Luis stayed bland and calm. If I fumed at the casual way that they dared to touch me, I kept the reactions carefully hidden. That was one thing that Detective Halley had done for me; he had taught me to handle these official invasions with some semblance of control.
    All licenses and registrations were current, and, as I had expected, the police had nothing but an anonymous report on which to question us. Without some physical evidence, they were forced to let us go.
    I didn’t imagine for a moment that they were happy about it.
    Luis let out a slow breath as the police car, its lights still flashing, disappeared behind us. He kept the van to a careful speed, mindful of all road laws, and at the next turning pulled off in the parking lot of a diner that advertised HOME COOKING. It smelled like grease, even from where I sat a hundred feet away.
    “Are we turning around?” I asked. I sincerely hoped we weren’t stopping for food. Not here.
    “I was thinking about it,” Luis admitted, then shook his head. “No, it’s no good. We need information, and we’re not going to get it sitting around waiting for Pearl to send another kid after us. The Ma’at know things we don’t. Let’s see what we can get out of them.”
    Activity. I felt a slow smile spread across my face, warm and genuine. “Sounds like fun.”
    “Your definition of fun sometimes worries me.” Dark eyes examined me for a moment. “You want something to eat?”
    I shuddered. “Not here.”
    “You’re sure.”
    “Yes.”
    “Not even pie?”
    I did love pie. I turned my gaze to the diner, and said, “Not here.”
    “You’re too picky.”
    “Perhaps,” I said. “Perhaps I have a better-developed sense of self-preservation than you do.”
    He frowned. “You just got no appreciation for the little things.”
    I continued to smile as the hot breeze blew in through the open window, washing away the stench of burning food. “Then how is it that I like pie?” I asked him. “Or that I like you?”
    “Hey, I’m not a little thing. Don’t you go spreading that rumor.”
    “Everything is small,” I said, and my smile faded.
    “Everything. Even me.” The memory of that brush of the Mother’s touch ached inside me, woke needs that had slept since I’d been cast down into human flesh. I wanted, needed . . .
    Luis took my hand in his, a human touch that was