Shiver

the gentle way he’d kissed her hand.
    “That’s my gun,” she snapped. “You had no right to take it.”
    “You ever hear of ‘might makes right’? Yeow!” It was a near-shout as, focused on him, she let the truck wander off onto the shoulder where it barely missed sideswiping a utility pole. She corrected course with a last-minute jerk of the wheel that had the weathered pole zipping past millimeters away from the mirror—on his side. “Watch where you’re going. And slow the hell down!”
    All righty, then. The briefest of grim smiles curved her mouth as she stood on the brake. The usual grinding sound the worn brake shoes made when they were called into service was amplified into a grating shriek as the truck convulsed before jerking to a dead stop. As she had intended, he was thrown violently forward. The bad news was, he managed to catch himself with a hand on the dashboard before he banged his head or any other significant body part. And he never lost his grip on her gun.
    Damn it.
    “What the fuck?” He looked pissed. “You did that on purpose.”
    “Ya think?”
    “Why?”
    “Why do you think? I want you out. ” Clutching the wheel so hard the rigid plastic hurt her hands, she screamed it at him. “Out, out, out!”
    “Give it up, baby doll. It’s not happening.” His tone was brutal. Her gun suddenly looked way more threatening as he pointed it at her again, this time with what seemed to be real purpose. “Drive! Now!”
    “You wish.” Sam grabbed for the door handle, prepared to leap from the truck. As her foot slid off the brake, Big Red started to roll. Lunging toward her, surprisingly fast despite the injuries that were obviously causing him both pain and mobility issues, Quasimodo caught her wrist. His fingers snapped closed around her delicate bones like he meant business; she knew instantly that she wasn’t going to be breaking that grip anytime soon. Then the mouth of her gun suddenly jammed into her ribs, and she cried out.
    And froze. And glared at him.
    “Hit the brake.” His voice was hard with menace. The look he gave her sent a shiver down her spine as she sulkily complied. Suddenly she did feel a little afraid of him, and she didn’t like the feeling. The sensation of the gun pressing into her flesh made her heart speed up. “Let’s get this straight: you’re not getting rid of me, and you’re not going anywhere without me. For which you should be prepared to kiss my ass. At this point, I’m all that’s standing between you and a bullet in the brain. So if you want to live through this, drive. ”
    Sam took a breath. His battered face was misshapen enough to make his expression impossible to determine, but his jaw was definitely set. His swollen right eye was an unblinking black slit. His uninjured left eye wasn’t much wider as they both bored into hers. She was almost positive he wouldn’t shoot her, much less at point-blank range like this, but, she decided with one more furious look at him, it was a chance she couldn’t afford to take.
    For Tyler’s sake.
    “Now!” he barked when she still hesitated, weighing her chances. “Unless you’d rather sit here and wait for more of the group who just tried to kill us to show up. Because I guarantee you, they’re on their way as we speak.”
    That thought was way more terrifying than he was. Sam’s stomach clenched like a fist. Lifting her foot from the brake, she stepped on the gas instead. The truck rattled as it got under way again. Behind them, the Beemer lurched and swayed into motion like a dragging, too-heavy kite’s tail.
    “Not too fast,” he said as, with his warning about more killers being on the way lighting up her brain, she stepped hard on the gas and the truck obediently gathered speed. “Nice and easy, like you’ve actually got a brain in your head.”
    “Screw you.” She flung him a killing glare. But she eased off on the accelerator, although her every instinct urged her to stomp it. “By the way, it’d be a lot easier to drive ‘nice and easy’ if you let go of my wrist.”
    To her surprise he did, and eased back onto his side of the seat. The gun moved with him, withdrawing from her ribs. She could see it once more. He gripped it firmly; it remained pointed right at her, a deterrent to impulsive actions. Thinking furiously, Sam curled her fingers around the wheel and stared almost sightlessly out through the windshield. Trying once more to leap from the truck and run