Free Unbroken: Outcast Season: Book Four by Rachel Caine Page A

beer.”
     
    *   *    *
     
    Esmeralda had been quiet—dangerously so—in the back of the truck, but as we drew nearer to Seattle, I heard her rustling and banging in the back. Finally, there was a sharp, annoyed rapping against the wall behind our seats, and Luis pulled the truck in at a closed, but covered, gas station. “Need a fill-up anyway,” he said. “Thank God for credit cards at pumps. You check on Reptile Girl back there, Iz.”
    She had been steaming and glowering the entire drive, and now she gave him a frosty stare. “Say please,” she said.
     
    “I thought you wanted to be treated like an adult, not a little kid,” he shot back. “Get your ass out and check on Esmeralda. Please.”
     
    It clearly didn’t improve her mood, but she wiggled across the seat and darted toward the back. The rain was still pounding down, and the sound it made on the tin shield above us was a continuous, metallic din. Still, we were dry, and I couldn’t really say I was displeased with the trade. I stood outside with Luis, enjoying the smell of the rain, as he filled the gas tank. Isabel reappeared and said crankily, “She had to pee. So do I.”
     
    “Open the store and go to the bathroom.”
     
    Isabel rolled her eyes. “She’s a
snake
, Tío; she doesn’t use a toilet. She’s out there in the rain. She’s pretty angry about it, too.”
     
    “Just go do your business and get back here,” Luis said. “Lock it back up when you’re done, okay?”
     
    She didn’t answer. I had to smile at the thought that Luis had felt a need to lock a store during what would be, most likely, a time of chaos; Earth Wardens did tend to be more responsible with their powers than others. Most Fire Wardens would have melted the lock in their quest to get relief, and I didn’t like to think what aWeather Warden might have done.
     
    Isabel vanished inside the store.
     
    “How about you?” Luis asked me. “Need to go?” When I shook my head, he said, “Okay, then watch the pump. I’m hitting the head.”
     
    He moved in that direction. I concentrated on the boring task of watching the numbers spin meaninglessly on the pump; Luis had—probably uselessly—given his credit card for the payment, but economies across the world would stumble today, shatter tomorrow. Soon, it wouldn’t be how many imaginary dollars, or pounds, or yen, were in an imaginary account.… It would be about survival, and survival required tools. Things to barter, things to use. I began making a list of what would be good to acquire.
     
    The pump stopped with a thud and click, and I replaced the nozzle where it was meant to go… and then realized how alone I was. Esmeralda was still missing, somewhere out in the rain; Luis and Isabel were in the store itself. It was just me, and the constant, punishing rain.
     
    But there was someone watching me.
     
    I stayed very still, facing out toward the downpour-obscured road. I saw nothing, but I sensed… something. A presence. The damp hair on the back of my neck prickled, and I felt the need to back up, but I stood my ground.
     
    There was a sigh of wind, and the curtain of rain parted in a clear, square corridor. Water sluiced off the invisible top and down the sides. It was a precise, dangerously controlled use of power, and at the other end of the opening stood a child. Small, delicate; girl or boy, I couldn’t tell, and it didn’t matter greatly at that age.
     
    “Sister,” the child said, and that voice echoed out, too large and powerful for that frail form. “I need to speak with you.”
     
    I didn’tknow the child herself, but she was only a vessel. The power that loomed larger around her was familiar, and dangerous indeed. Pearl had come to see me—not in the flesh, but occupying it, piloting it from afar.
     
    The open, rain-free corridor was an invitation, an obvious one that lured me toward the child. It was stupid of me to consider going toward the danger, but I was in a