Fire And Ash by Nia Davenport Page A

or not to play along, especially when it is her birthday and over the phone when she invited me out to dinner with them she told me that she hasn’t had a birthday that included real friends since before Derek’s dad died.  
    “Derek has been a perfect gentleman since he answered the door,” I assure her. Ha! If that isn’t an oxymoron.  
    Her face relaxes into relief. “Mom is waiting on us in the car around back.”
    When Cassie turns her back to lead the way I elbow Derek in the same spot between the ribs I kicked him in at the gym. He didn’t go down or cry out, but it was a solid kick. I know it still has to be sore. I am proven right when his body tenses beside me and he lets out a low heavy breath. I’m being petty, but no more than he is with his arm weighing heavily down on the shoulder he tried to pop out of its socket.
    “Get your arm off of me,” I whisper low enough for Cassie not to hear.
    Derek pretends like it is too low for him to hear too.
    I accidentally on purpose step on his foot with the heels Aunt Farrah said it was blasphemous to wear the dress without. I’ve only worn heels all of five times before in my life, but I’m coordinated enough not to look like a klutz in them. Still, I pretend to wobble a bit and my left heel digs painfully into Derek’s right foot. I swallow a smile when a perplexed Cassie turns around at the sound of his wince.
    “Sorry,” I say smiling innocently over at him for her benefit. “I’m not used to walking in these things.”
    Derek takes the front seat beside his mom and Cassie sits in the back with me. Thankfully. Riding in a car beside Derek for an hour to Highland Village and back would have been a true test of my will that I know I would have failed.  
    Sitting through dinner at the Hibachi restaurant without strangling him is bad enough. Every time he opens his mouth to sling a cleverly masked dig across the table at me I imagine impaling him with a chopstick.
    When we get back to their house my car won’t start. The local tow shop closed at eight along with just about everything else in town and if I call a twenty four hour wrecker from Highland Village they will charge two arms and two legs for the drive they will have to make. Mrs. Jensen suggests I leave my car for the night and have it towed to a mechanic in the morning. I agree with her right up to the point where she says Derek can drive me home. But telling her I’d rather walk from their house to mine barefoot than ride in a car beside her charming son would be rude so I smile tightly and tell her thank you instead.  
    Derek doesn’t seem any happier about his mom’s offer than I am. He stalks out of the house with his keys then growls at me not to close the door too hard to his car. I pretend like I don’t hear him and slam it shut. Childish I know, but Derek Jensen brings out the worst in me.  
    We ride in tense silence the entire way to my house. I reach for the door handle and begin climbing out of the car before he even has it in park good. A hand at my elbow jerks me back.
    “What the hell?!” I jerk my arm out of Derek’s grip.
    He is looking at me with barely contained rage and for a second I’m afraid of what he is going to do next. My hand feels around my seat for a messenger bag that’s in my car back at his house.  
    “Looking for the silver blades you have in your car?” Derek’s voice is deathly still. He speaks so quietly I’m almost not sure I heard him correctly.  
    You didn’t. If he knows about that then it means he knows what it’s supposed to be used for. And only hunters and phoenix know that. The Jensens are neither.
    “Excuse me?” I say.  
    Derek snorts. “You heard me the first time. Stop trying to convince yourself you didn’t.”
    I am stunned frozen for a minute. Then I’m reaching for the door handle again to put some space between us.
    The door locks. It doesn’t budge when I yank at the handle.
    “Let me out or you will regret it,”