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up in the middle of this iusani~? Six, seven, eight, nine... I can't possibly sit still all the way to a hundred!
    "Where/s he? Twelve, thirteen... I've never b~n so scared in my life...
    fifteen..."
    She-did it. Somehow, she sat there, imagining she saw dark shapes moving just beyond the tree line, only to discover they were branches swaying in the wind, hearing sounds that turned out to be her own body brushing against the plush seat of his car. His car. A sports car with what appeared to be fangs where the grill should be. Jet black, inside and out. Expensive. It smelled new.
    "Ninety-nine, one hundred. There. Made it that far."
    She closed her eyes, prayed her pursuers were all hard-of-hearing, checked to be sure it was in neutral and turned the key. / The beast of a car came to life and sat purring like a contented lion. She started counting again and adjusted the mirror so she could see behind her. She checked the emergency brake. It was on. When she got to fifty, she depressed the clutch and slid the stick shift into first.
    But when the passenger door was yanked open and he dove in, she was so startled her foot slipped off the clutch and the car stalled.
    He swore.
    "Come on, Alex! Go!"
    She twisted the key again, released the brake and managed to take off this time.
    "Are they following us?"
    She looked up at the mirror.
    "Shift! We're in a hurry here, the object is to go fast!" She shifted, negotiated a curve, picked up speed and shifted again.
    Behind her she could only see a cloud of brown dust. Ahead, only darkness. She reached for the headlight switch. He covered' her hand.
    "Not yet. No lights."
    "I can't drive in the dark!" She shifted again, but fourth gear was all she dared on this road. She'd get them both killed if she tried to go any faster.
    "Are they" -- "Yeah, they're coming."
    Her foot pressed harder on the accelerator.
    "This is insane. I'm running for my life in the middle of the night with a total stranger.
    I can't drive this car! I've never driven a car like this in my life! "
    "You're doing fine."
    "God, I don't even know your name!"
    "Palamaro," he said.
    She glanced at him briefly, not daring to take her eyes from the barely visibly road ahead for more than an instant. He was turned in his seat, staring behind them, and he held something in his hand that she couldn't identify. Not a gun.
    "Palamaro?" she repeated stupidly.
    "Torch Palamaro," he said.
      "Torch?" She swung the wheel and the car veered wildly. She'd almost missed that corner.
    "That's not your real name, is it?"
    "Nickname." He was a man of few words, it seemed. She frowned, aga~ glancing his way.
    "Why Torch?"
    His answer was a slow grin, and he lifted the thing he held, pointing it behind them.
    An explosion rocked the very ground beneath them. The car vibrated with it. The night glowed for a moment, and Alexandra jammed the brake and th clutch at the same time, skidding the vehicle to a stop in a cloud of dust.
    She looked behind them, saw what had been the van, minus several important parts, the hoodbe/ng the most obvious. It burned like a motorized torch, ~pourin' g black aoke skyward as several men emerged like rats from a burning ship.
    They scurried, then regrouped and ran forward, and she heard a rat-a-tat sound she couldn't place at f'u~t.
    Then the back window exploded, and she screamed. The man who called himself Torch--for obvious rea-sous--gripped her waist in his large hands and pulled her onto his lap. Before she could yell again, he was sliding out from beneath her, into the driver's seat. In what seemed like a heartbeat they were flying, and one of his hands rose to the back of her head to push it toward her lap. "Stay down, Alex."
    Alex stayed down.

 
Chapter 4
    Torch didn't know where that brief flash of courage she'd displayed back at the house had come from, but it was long gone now. She sat huddled in the passenger seat with her knees drawn to her cheat and that long hair of hers hiding her face. And he