Lose the Road

By –Tempest Races

Chapter One – So Damn Relentless

"Well, I'm running back and forth from here to South Carolina, wishing you were here. I guess I should watch what I wish for."

"Hey Trouble! You gonna come get this work order or stand there all day with your keys in your hand daydreaming?"

Her boss's call snapped Tempest out of her reminiscing. She shook her head. Two whole years had gone by since the day he'd broken her heart and she'd run away from the whole situation. And not a day went by she didn't hate herself for her inability to let it go. Let him go. Move on. Find someone else. Get on with her life. Forget those two weeks.

Forget him.

For heaven's sake, it had only been two weeks. Two weeks was nothing. The time she had even known with him had been such a tiny fragment of her life. So why couldn't she get on with her life without him in it? She shouldn't have known him well enough to miss him so much. But she missed how he did everything, every day. The way her coworkers had all latched onto the nickname 'trouble' didn't help, because they didn't say it right, and it wasn't for them to say. As soon as her car had showed up sporting licence plates front and rear with the word on them, the name had stuck and she couldn't escape it. Not without revealing why she wanted to. Had to. In California, it had been something only he had called her. It had been like everyone else knew it was really only for him anyway, no matter how well it suited.

But at home, hardly anyone knew about him and that was how she liked it. She certainly wasn't going to go into the situation with 'her boys' at work. She simply wouldn't watch both pity and distain fill their eyes when they looked at her. Pity for her having lost the only man she figured she'd ever love, and distain for the woman who'd been so weak to allow herself to be found in that position in the first place. Because at the end of the day, men didn't cry and they didn't pine. Men sucked it up and got on with their lives, they just moved on from horrible, terrible loss. Even though they didn't, not really, they acted like they did, made it seem like they did. So, so did she. Because at the end of the day, her life wasn't her life if she couldn't live it as 'just one of the guys' at work, no matter how close to ending her life was at home, when her idle hands made her mind think of the devil's work.

So she'd spend a week with Angelo, driving straight into Toronto instead of going home, and calling work to tell them something had come up and that she'd be late getting back. And she'd tried to get all her sadness over the situation out there with Angelo so she wouldn't have to bring it home with her. It had taken him the whole week to hear the story and put her back together. She was no longer broken, just fractured and stress cracked.

"I'm comin' already. Shit! Who pissed in your cornflakes?" She unlocked her toolbox quickly and started toward the open window behind which was the office of the controller of the shop, who was waving the paper detailing her first job of the day.

"Women!" was the only answer she got. She was used to it.

"Men! Without a woman to do their thinkin' for them, they'd try to breath and walk at the same time and drop dead."

"Yeah, yeah. That car isn't going to fix itself."

"I know that." She rolled her eyes. "If they could fix themselves, you'd be able to do my job."

"Just shut up and get to work already."

"Funny, when I look around this big cement room with all the hoists in it, I figure I'm already at work."

"You're some funny." Grant, her boss, pointed out the door. "Go get the car and figure out why it has no headlights."

"When did I become your electrical tech? Driveability, hello?" After building her Skyline with Leon and Jesse, she had finally decided what kind of work she wanted to specialize in. Keeping cars running at their peak. No more front end or brake work for her. She was well on her way to starting her engine courses so she could take over for Mike, the current engine tech, when he retired. Building engines and tuning them was where she wanted to be now. But finding electrical glitches, unless she was finding them over Leon's shoulder while he did all the work, wasn't where her interests lay.

"You became electrical when Randy took the week off."

"Sweet fuckin' Christ. No one else can do this dumb ass shit?"

"Listen, you deal with more electrical doing driveability than anyone else does doing front end, trans, trim or general ok? So you are my electrical tech as well as my driveability tech for the week. Suck it up, unbunch your panties, and get to work. Unless you discovered a desire to go back to doing oil changes, brakes and tires?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love you too Grant." She made a kissie face his way before strutting out the door. They were all very fond of each other. Not that you'd know it by looking around at them working. She pulled the disabled car into her bay, grabbed a test light, multimeter, and trouble light and started checking wires. She was upside down in the driver's seat, her head wedged under the consol near the pedals as she ohmed out the wires from the headlight switch when she heard her name called over the PA system. "Tempest James, telephone line eight please."

"Son of a fuckin' cock suckin' whore!" she called as she started to untangle herself from the floorboard of the Impala she was working on.

"I don't know how you manage to bend yourself like that," her co-worker, Zakk, said on a laugh as he watched her swing her sock feet over the headrest of the seat and out the door so she was once again orientated the right way up. Most people crouched in the open door. She got on her back on the floorboards, feet stuck up over the seat and ended up bent like an S. She found it gave her more ability to see what she was doing. But that didn't mean she liked doing it.

Tempest crammed her feet back into her work boots and stood up with a sigh. "I'm flexible. And no, that's not an invite for you to find how just how flexible, and yes, it does make for some interesting evenings."

"You sure do know how to take all the fun out of things," Zakk teased her ability to take the wind out of their sails before they could take what she said ass backwards and tease her with it.

"I've got instincts like a cat for what'll come out of your mouths next. Bunch of dirty minds. I blame testosterone and penises for it all." Tempest called over her shoulder as she started toward the phone perched on the parts window.

"You'd be a lot less happy if the world didn't have testosterone and penises!" Zakk called back.

"That's why god made ice-cream and vibrators my friend." Sometimes what came out of her mouth shocked even her, but she never let on. Part of being treated like just another one of the guys was acting like just another one of the guys. She picked up the phone and hit the button for the appropriate line. "Service, Tempest here."

"Hola chica. How's?"

"Hector? How the heck did you get this number?" Or remember who the hell I am. And decide to call me up at nine am, which is like five am where you are.

"Got the name of the place you work at from Harry and the number on the internet."

"I see." True to his word, Harry had often helped her get parts for her car she couldn't get herself. He shipped them to her business address because it was cheaper, and it saved her dragging them from home to the shop. "What can I do for you man?"

"I," Hector took a deep breath and the pause in conversation carried a tension Tempest could sense, even from over three thousand miles away. "This line safe to talk on?"

"Dude, we're a car dealership. I don't think CSIS is tapping our lines."

"But no one else in the building is listening?"

"Naw. Once you're on the line if you try to pick up the same number the phone just beeps at you. What'd you need?"

"Girlie, there's no easy way to tell you this." Hector sighed. "There was an accident. A bad accident."

"What happened?" Her stomach felt like it was in her feet at Hector's announcement.

"I can't go into it. I don't know enough about what went down to go into it. All I know is that Harry told me to call you and tell you about Jesse."

"What about Jesse?" She'd talked to her cousin only the day before yesterday. He'd been fine. Happy and full of plans for what he was going to do with the Jetta in the next six months before his dad got out of jail. He'd been fine. Full of his plans for the dessert show, Race Wars, that he couldn't get out of his system until it was done and dusted.

What could have happened to him in two days to make Hector sound so upset? And why was Hector the one calling her? Where the fuck was Leon? They still spoke all the time. Leon had planned to come visit her. They were still best friends, even though they hadn't seen each other in two years. It made no sense for Leon not to be the one telling her if something had happened to Jesse. Or Mia, or Letty. Or, horror of horrors, Vince. Not that she'd spoken to him since the day she'd run out of California. But, as a last resort he was still a more logical choice of who would call her than Hector. Dominic, much as they didn't really get along, made more sense than Hector. Why wasn't one of the extended 'family' calling her to tell her about her cousin? Why was it a virtual stranger? She waited to get an answer to both her spoken question and unspoken ones.

"Tran did a drive by on Dom's and shot the place up. Jesse got caught in the fire. He's in the hospital. Saint Francis. It's not great Tempest. They think he'll make it. But they don't know for sure and they can't say what kind of damage he'll have, if he recovers. Shit I'm sorry to be the one tellin' you this when you're so far away. But," Hector seemed to need another moment to collect his thoughts. "Well, I don't know exactly what happened, but the rest of the team bailed."

"Bailed? As in Jesse is in the hospital all alone after being shot? No doubt because of something that idiot Dominic Toretto did in the first place?" Tempest started to get more wound up and worked up the more she thought about it. So that was why no one she knew well had called to break the news. They were all gone. And not so much as a word out of any of them. Leon, who still professed to miss her, love her like the sister she always should have been to him in the first place. Mia, who still tried to reconcile her with Vince every time they spoke. Letty, who still bemoaned with a laugh how few people could put Dominic in second place, and make him humble for a few days at a time at least whenever she e-mailed. She wasn't exactly close to any of them now, save Leon and Jess. But they knew each other. It didn't sit right that she was getting this news from Hector. A mere acquaintance.

"I dunno about any of it girl. Just that yes, Jesse is alone right now. I thought you should know."

"Yeah, thanks Hector. Thanks for takin' the time to call." She hung up and stood staring at the phone in shock for several moments. So now what? She was still over three thousand miles and about thirty straight hours of driving away. And short of calling the hospital and pretending to be his sister, she had no way of getting any further information about what exactly was wrong with her cousin. 'Shot' covered a sweet lot of territory. She looked down at her hands and they were shaking. She made twin fists to try and control it. Even to her, her fists looked small and ineffectual. With her cousin lying perhaps dying in a hospital so far away, she felt like a tiny speck of dust in the middle of no where. She felt miniscule. Inconsequential.

Something wasn't right here. Why had the rest of the team bailed? Why had Leon? Leon was Jesse's best friend. And Tempest knew Leon thought it his responsibility to look out for Jesse. It just didn't sit right that Leon would do something so callus as to leave Jesse alone and maybe dying in the hospital. If he had, he would have had one hell of a good reason. And he, to Tempest's way of thinking, would have shared that reason with her somehow, some way. He would have called her. He would have wanted her to be there for Jesse. He wouldn't have wanted her to worry about him. He wouldn't have wanted her to worry about him either. And he would know she would never ask after his health, or even bring up his name. So Leon would offer the information, knowing that refusing to ask for it didn't mean she didn't want to know. Didn't mean she didn't need to know. Something was fishy. And the only way she was going to be able to get on with her life was to go to California and find out first hand what was going on.

And that opened up whole new set of problems. She'd need a few weeks off, minimum. That wasn't such a big deal. She hadn't used any vacation time in two years. There had hardly been much point. So she knew that Grant would let her take off for two or three weeks if she needed to, no questions asked. But she still had to get to California. And something told her, some instinct she possessed for the clandestine even though her life was very straight forward and law abiding most days, told her that it would be better if no one knew she was there. Not her family, not her coworkers, not the authorities of either country.

And to pull that off there was only one person she knew of to ask for help. And even though she'd told Hector the line was safe, and was reasonably sure she hadn't lied, she couldn't make the kinds of requests she had to make over a phone line. She headed straight out of the shop and into her manager's office. She sat down in one of his chairs and waited for him to look up. She tried, for once, to let her distress show on her face. When he looked up and did a double take, she guessed she'd done a better job than she'd even imagined. "I need a few weeks off."

"Just like that?" he asked. His normally stalwart, unflappable technician was ghost pale, slightly shaking, and her voice was low. She looked as if she was in shock. And given how hard it was to shake her most days, it bothered him.

"I just got a call. My best friend in Toronto is hurt. He needs me."

"You need a few weeks off to go to Toronto?"

"That's what I said. Listen, I'm holdin' it together by a thread here. Can I go or not?"

"Randy's already on vacation."

"I'm not asking for vacation. I'm tellin' you that my best friend, who's got no one else in the world, is hurt and needs me. Cam can handle the electrical end of things. He's good enough. I need to do this."

Whatever her boss saw on her face must have been enough to sell her seriousness. "Ok, get outta here. Finish whatever you were in the middle of first though. An hour won't kill you."

"Fine." She was so happy to be allowed to go without threatening to quit, fixing the lights of the Impala wasn't too much to ask. She found the broken wire and repaired it in record time before heading around to her car and tearing off for home. The second she was in the door she had the phone to her ear and her suitcase open on her bed.

"Hello?"

"Mom, it's me. I gotta go to Toronto."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. Angelo. He needs me. I need to drop the dog off at your place because as soon as I'm done packin' I'm headed for Ontario."

"Is everything ok?"

"Yeah. He's just been hurt is all. Needs my help. 'Sides, I haven't seen him in a year and I haven't had any time off in two."

"I know. But it's such a hurried thing. And the way you're talking is bothering me. Are you sure everything's ok?"

She couldn't tell her mother about Jesse until she knew more. She didn't have any details and she'd just be worrying her mother for no good reason. "Fine. Other than Angelo. You know I worry about him."

"Ok, if you're sure everything is ok. Just leave Sam in the house and I'll keep him as long as you need me to."

"Great. Mom, you're a star. I'll call you when I get there."

"Ok, be careful."

"Ok." Tempest clicked her cordless off and tossed it on the bed. She randomly shoved clothes into her bag and hit the door running. Her Skyline and RX-7 were still in her mother's garage. Neither was insured until the next day, and the RX-7 never had been rebuilt anyway, but she couldn't very well take her Altima. It was too slow to get her there in the kind of time frame she was thinking. But her Skyline was far too unmistakable to be the vehicle she picked for something like this.

She'd thought about starting to tear down the engine of the 7 several times and then something else with the Skyline had always taken her attention. Even though she still found it hard to drive the Skyline. He was in everything inside. The seats, the doors, the very stereo that played the soundtrack to her life, all of it was because of him.

She threw her bags into the back of the Altima with a sigh. It'd have to do. At least it would blend in. Well, as well as any car of hers ever would. It's vanity plate read trblsm2 and everyone who knew her knew that the Skyline was Trouble, but the Altima was troublesome too, with her behind the wheel. She slammed the trunk closed, ran her dog across the street and let him into his 'grandmother's' house and cooed good-bye for a few moments. He'd have a great time dominating her mother's dog and making her life hell for the few weeks she was gone. He'd miss her, but he'd be ok.