Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(67)
Author: Kim Harrison

Jenks’s wings hummed as he laughed. "I’d get your ass back on the interstate, cookie maker. You wouldn’t like it if Rachel hated you forever."

"I don’t have time to stop in San Francisco," he said stiffly. "Two hundred miles might be the difference between my making my appointment or not."

My side hurt, and holding it, I stared at him. "I’ll get you there."

"I don’t see how!"

"I’ll get you there!" I exclaimed. Oh God, the triangle of gravelly pavement was getting bigger. "Trent, trust me. Just trust me. You asked me to trust you!"

I could see the frustration in the set of his jaw. On the dash, Jenks waited, tense and not a slip of dust escaping from him. Trust me. If he didn’t, then why should I trust him?

In a moment, there would be a metal barrier between 395 and 80-and an even larger one between Trent and me.

Trent’s face became ugly, and with a growled curse, he yanked the wheel to the left.

"Hey!" Ivy exclaimed from the backseat as the car swerved violently.

My heart was beating fast, and I pulled my hand from the dash. Jenks had made it to the rearview mirror, and he was grinning.

"Are we there yet?" came Vivian’s sleepy voice, and I glanced back to see her with a really bad case of pillow hair.

"No, go back to sleep," I said, noticing that Pierce had never even woken up, pressed into the corner behind Trent and huddled under his long coat.

I settled back, pulling my own coat up in the chill Trent kept the car in. His face was set in a determined, angry expression. We were back on 80 and headed to the coven meeting, but he wasn’t happy. He’d said he trusted me, but his body language said otherwise.

"I’m not going to make it," he said, and I smiled when the SAN FRANCISCO-217 MILES sign flashed over us. He was going to make it. And even better, I was, too.

"Thank you, Trent," I said, my headache easing a little.

"I’m not going to make it," he said again, sounding more lost now than angry.

It wasn’t like I could pretend to be asleep anymore, so I reached for the bag of sugar and carbs we’d gotten in another state and rummaged around until I found a squished brownie. Who in the Turn is buying the Milk Duds?

"You’ll make it," I said as I tore the cellophane open and the scent of enriched flour and chocolate hit me. I took a bite: the chocolate had too much wax and the peanut chunks tasted stale, but it was sugar. Leaning forward, I handed Jenks a chunk as big as his head. "Soon as I check in with the coven, I’ll have Al pop you up there," I said around my full mouth. "QED."

The noise that came out of Trent was sort of a strangled cough of out-rage caught in a steel trap of fury. I turned from Jenks, who was saluting me with his brownie, to Trent, now staring at me. "Want any of this?" I asked, holding my brownie higher in explanation.

"You could have jumped me there at any time?" Trent said hotly.

"Yeah," Jenks said, voice muffled from the brownie. "You just click your heels and think there’s no place like being pwned."

Trent clenched his jaw and corrected for the truck we were barreling toward. "Rachel," he said, that one word holding an entire argument. He was pissed, his grip tight on the wheel. Our speed, too, had gone up by about fifteen miles per hour.

"No, I can’t do it at any time I want," I said with a huge grin, lips closed so I didn’t look like a goober with brownie in my teeth. "The magic doesn’t work until you learn a life lesson," I teased. "Wasn’t it fun, though? Only two hundred miles left. We can do that on our heads! Unless it violates your elf quest? I mean, if I’m your sword, your shield, and your mirror, then it’s fair if I’m the one who gets you there, right?"

There was a snuffle from the back. Clearly Ivy was still awake, but I think that had slipped Trent’s notice. "Two thousand miles, Rachel," he said tightly, and I guessed that no, it didn’t violate the rules of whatever he was doing out here, because he sure wasn’t out here keeping the coven from attacking me. "I have eaten nothing but slop for two days and used facilities I wouldn’t let my dogs urinate in. And what about that couple in the RV outside Texas? I’ll never get that memory out of my head."

I nodded, working the brownie out of my teeth. "I could’ve done without that visual myself."

"I could have done without the entire trip," Trent grumbled, but his anger was slowing as he realized he was going to be in Seattle in a matter of hours.

I tucked my foot under me and turned to him. "You want me to work with you, right?" I said as I crumpled up the cellophane and tossed it into the bag. "Consider the trip your interview."

Jenks choked on his brownie, looking at me as if I’d lost my mind, red faced as he alternated his attention between me and someone in the back, probably Ivy. I shifted my lips in a soft grimace at the pixy. What was I going to do here, realistically? Either I cozied up really close to Trent to get him to say the right things at the meeting in two days, or I wound up first in Alcatraz, then the ever-after when I admitted I’d lost my bet with Al and fled to his protection. Some choice, but really, Trent was the better of the two. Even if he had let Ku’Sox out of his box. Stupid elf.

Trent made a huff of noise. "You were interviewing me. You. Interviewing me?"

I stifled a shiver. "Maybe." I could feel Ivy staring at the back of my head. It almost hurt.

His lips turning up, Trent smiled at the road, his expression becoming one of confidence and satisfaction. Not surprised, I collapsed in on myself and rolled my eyes. He was going to milk this forever. "So you’re saying you might work with me?" he asked, apparently needing to hear it. The tone of the engine dropped, and for the first time since leaving Las Vegas, the speedometer dropped into double digits. "How did I do?" Trent asked, a smile in his voice. "On my interview?"

Damn it, he was laughing at me, but a knot had loosened in my gut. I might work with him. I’d said it-admitted it to myself. I wasn’t going to sign his paper-become his witch-but a job…I might do a job. I was going to need something while I earned the trust of Cincinnati back and the work trickled in. "You’re not much of a team player," I said as I scraped the last of the sticky cake off my fingertips with a napkin so stiff it was nearly useless. "Inclined to take on too much and not let other team members know what you’re doing, which causes problems that could easily have been avoided."

Trent’s entire demeanor had changed. Relaxed, he let one hand fall to his lap and drove with the other. It just about pegged my attraction meter, but I frowned when he said, "Sounds like you."