Consumed by Fire (Fire 1)

“Punk is fine. It fits my mood.”

It didn’t fit hers. She’d taken cocaine once, at Pete’s urging during one of his faculty parties, and it made her feel nervous, jangled. The circumstances and the music were doing the same thing to her, and she kept one hand in Merlin’s fur, as if it were a security blanket, as she tried to take stealthy, calming breaths.

The Dead Kennedys were pounding away through her Bose speakers, always a great choice for long, fast drives but getting on her last nerve at the moment, though she said nothing. She breathed again.

“I find it works best if you breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth,” he observed.

She ignored him. He was right, of course—she’d been too anxious to even remember that much. She’d make it through this.

The song finished, and X Japan came on. “All right, you’ve managed to surprise me,” he said. “Japanese punk?”

“You said you didn’t want me to annoy you,” she muttered, refusing to look at him directly. She could see him well enough in the window as the sky grew lighter. “I don’t think we can have a discussion without it.”

“You’re probably right.” He seemed perfectly content with J-rock when he finally found a paved road; then the driving style she remembered so well came into play, and they were barreling down the thankfully empty road. They had gone through the Ramones and classic Stooges, with “I Wanna Be Your Dog” leaving her feeling itchy, when he straightened slightly and reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulling the fabric tight against his crotch. He pulled out her iPod, and glanced at her. “Got any requests?”

For you to go to hell, she thought fiercely. “Van Morrison,” she muttered. Van the Man would give her strength.

“Good choice,” he said, and she immediately regretted it. He glanced down at her iPod Classic, navigating it faster than she could, and a moment later “Days Like This” came on the stereo. It was a cynical choice but she didn’t care; she let the music slip under her skin, shutting him out. He stopped trying to talk to her, instead concentrating on the road, and she finally, finally began to relax. There was nothing unsalvageable in a world with Van Morrison in it.

She drifted into sleep, on and off during the endless hours, and when she woke with a start, she needed a bathroom, and damn, did she need some food. At some point they’d gotten on a wider road. Tall, spiky mountains appeared on one side as they headed toward a depressingly flat landscape. “Where are we?”

“Halfway through Wyoming.” While she’d slept the music had changed, and he must have set it to shuffle. At the moment it was Richard Thompson.

“If you don’t stop soon I will start to chew off my own arm.”

“Hungry, are you? I’m not surprised. Maybe next time I cook for you, you won’t throw the plate at me.”

She gritted her teeth. “I’m afraid I can’t wait that long. I need a bathroom and I need food. You need to stop in the next town.”

“There aren’t many towns in this part of the country.”

She looked at him. Some of that tension had left him, but not all, and she knew she should still tread carefully. She wasn’t in the mood. “Find one,” she said flatly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said sarcastically. Merlin was lying at her feet, marginally more alert, and he added a whining noise to her request.

“You need food, old boy?” Bishop said, sounding a lot more affectionate toward her dog than he had been with her, and for a moment Evangeline couldn?

??t decide who she was jealous of, which was patently ridiculous. Bishop had taken over her life five years ago, and now he’d come back and taken over again. He was even trying to steal her dog from her.

“He hasn’t eaten in a long time either. We’ll need to find a pet store, if possible, or at least a grocery store. He doesn’t eat people food.”

“He’ll be fine with people food.”

“I only give him a very expensive blend for big dogs with delicate digestive systems,” she said sternly.

“What makes you think he has a delicate digestive system? He’ll be fine with a couple of hamburgers.”

“Why the hell do you think you know more about my dog than I do?” she demanded, thoroughly pissed.

He didn’t answer, and his words to Clement came back. You cut my woman, and you hurt my dog. Not that she was his woman, but she had the sudden, horrible, unavoidable feeling that Merlin really was his dog.

“You bastard,” she said under her breath, leaning back against the seat.

He sighed wearily. “What did I do now?”

“You know what you did. You took my diamond earrings, my trust, my . . . my love, and disappeared with all of them. As if that hadn’t hurt me enough, you give me a dog so you can have the extreme pleasure of ripping him away from me.”

He didn’t bother denying it, the bastard. “Figured that out, did you? Took you long enough. Don’t be so melodramatic. I hate to tell you, but he no longer considers me his owner. He obeys my instructions because I trained him, but if he was given the choice, he’d always come back to you. You have that effect on dumb animals.”