Blood of the Devil

Chapter 23 - Who Needs You?

The awkward silence that followed lasted for the better part of half an hour before the pair were squabbling again. It began as Mickey sighed, reaching for the radio. His other arm rested on his thigh, fingers playing with the steering wheel, as he flicked the music on. Letha sneered at him.

“Do you mind?” she demanded angrily, folding her arms across her chest.

The song drowned out her words, and Mickey glanced over at her. “What did you say?”

Grinding her teeth, she jammed her palm into the volume dial, silencing the car once more. “I said; Do. You. Mind?”

“The music?” Mickey shook his head, “Geez, Letha. You really don’t like anything do you?”

“Not the music,” the girl snapped, glaring at his profile, “Your driving.”

He chuckled, glancing at Letha out of the corner of his eye. “What? Worried I’m going to kill us?”

Letha smiled a sickly sweet smile, and turned away from him. “Not ‘us’.”

Fixing his gaze back on the road, Mickey snorted, reaching for the radio again. A motorbike sped past, swerving between the cars at dangerous angles, the driver’s knee scraping the ground. Bobbing his head to the music, Mickey jerked his head at the bike.

“Who do you reckon he’s running from?”

Letha muttered something inaudible beneath the song, and Mickey frowned at her. “what?”

She said something else, louder and longer this time, and he reached for the volume.

“…not that I care, you ignorant moron!” Letha finished in a screech, causing Mickey to lean aside with a grimace.

“No need to yell,” he scolded, though Letha’s expression seemed to disagree, “And all I caught of that was ‘don’t care’ and ‘ignorant moron’.”

“Then you got the gist,” she sneered.

Shaking his head, Mickey looked for the motorbike again, but it had disappeared. Shrugging, he made to turn on the music again, but Letha spoke and he paused.

“How much longer?”

Pulling up at a red light, Mickey squirmed in his seat, wriggling around to look at her. Letha was still in jeans and her white shirt, but most of her unruly hair had escaped the tie and now cascaded down her shoulders. Her arms were folded across her chest, her legs folded so she was angled away from him, and her knee was jiggling impatiently. Mickey was sure, had he been able to see her face, that Letha would have been pouting.

Growing impatient as he didn’t reply, Letha swung her head, glare in place, and scowled at him. “Well?”

Mickey grinned. “About 15 minutes.”

A car beeped in the background, and Letha turned away again. “It’ll take longer if we wait for two greens at every traffic lights.”

He jerked his eyes back to the road, slamming his foot to the accelerator and pulling out just as the light turned orange. A furious car behind him braked again, honking madly and Mickey bit his lip. “Oops.”

As they slipped off the highway, drawing into the outskirts of a town, Mickey smiled suddenly. “Let’s play 20 questions.”

“No.” Letha snapped, “There you go; my first answer.”

“See now,” Mickey drawled, “That’s perfect. My first question was ‘do you hate me’. Your turn.”

“Cinnamon.”