Thanks to: rebelmewpheonix, xCrazyKindOvWeirdx, and marishka91
marishka91, i loved your review! i love hearing whats going on in your mind when you read my story, for me it really lets me know that i'm doing my job, so thank you. As for your questions, i will only tell you that yes, they all used to steal cars together, except Kenny because he just met Tyson and Max a little while ago. The reason why everyone is surprised and alarmed that Tala called has to do with why Kai hates him....does that make sense? I hope it does later.
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Calm Before the Storm
Chapter 2: I'm Not Broken, I Promise
"If I smile and don't believe,
Soon I know I'll wake from this dream.
Don't try to fix me I'm not broken.
Hello, I'm the lie living for you so you can hide,
Don't cry."
-Evanescence - "Hello"
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Only after a handful of Advil PM did I finally fall asleep.
It was five a.m. I'd been awake for three hours since I'd gotten home. Four hours since it happened.
All I had wanted was to stop seeing it all play out again and again in my head. I knew my dreams wouldn't be much better, but hopefully better then what I was feeling.
Miraculously, I didn't dream at all. It was as if my brain had been too numb to create the usual pictures in my head this time. So for those wonderful four hours my mind was at peace. My body on the other hand was restless and I woke up around nine a.m., which was really disappointing because those damn pills promised me eight hours.
Damn pills, I didn't fell rested at all.
And the pictures where coming back, playing through all of last night.
Thinking the sound of the running water would calm me down, I got into the shower and stood under the head, letting the steamy water hit me. The hot water felt like it was bringing all traces of last night - the sweat, the dirt, the gasoline fumes - too the surface of my skin where it was washed away down the drain.
My brother was dead and I was the last of our family. Of course I had a couple relatives still living, but I meant the small family of Mom, Dad, Gabe, and me.
Now it was just me.
Me against Voltaire and Boris. Me against all the cars still left on the boost.
But I had no more tears left to cry. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe there's a reason we can only cry so much.
Through the running water and my loud consuming thoughts, I almost didn't hear the doorbell. If I had been in the upstairs bathroom I wouldn't have, but last night I couldn't even make it up to my own bed, just far enough to crash on the couch.
I turned off the water, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around my self. Who the hell came all the way out here at nine in the morning?
When I left the bathroom, though the clear side window of the front door I could see the familiar navy blue uniform of a cop.
Normally, I would've been freaking out, but right now I wasn't feeling anything. The only reason for a cop to bother me out here was either because I was busted, or because they'd found Gabe's body and traced him back to me as a sibling. Or both.
One way to find out?
Yeah, I might have been feeling a little stupid. Who in their right mind would open their door to a cop after committing a grand theft auto the night before?
Exactly my point. You wouldn't.
I reached for the front door and opened it.
The man in the dark blue uniform and black combat books was handsome for being older. There was a silver badge on his chest the read 'Samuels'. I also noticed that Samuels didn't seem the least bit taken back by my attire of a towel and wet hair, which lead me to assume he's seen worse. Instead he wore a grim expression; his mouth was set into a firm line, but his light brown eyes were soft.
"Are you Miss Anastasia Kon?"
I nodded, unable to speak. I think I was starting to realize the possible consequences of opening the door because my heart was pounding.
Samuels took a deep breath. "I'm sorry Miss, but your brother was found dead last night a couple miles into Darr road. He was involved in an accident with a truck."
It came suddenly: a choking sob from the back of my throat. Maybe I wasn't so numb after all. Maybe all it took was for someone besides myself to confirm that Gabriel, my brother, was dead.
In front of my eyes I was seeing the crash again; the moment that Gabe's car hit and his body went flying. In my ears; the screeching of shredding metal and squealing tires. Through my nose; the smell of smoke, gasoline, ocean salt, and death.
My hand flew to my mouth to stop the bile that was rising and I closed my eyes.
Even though it was obvious they'd found Gabe, doing an investigation and connected him back to me, I still wasn't ready for Samuels to bring everything I'd pushed to the back of my mind up to the very front again.
I hadn't noticed, but Samuels was gripping my arm, keeping me from falling as I leaned all my weight against the door frame. I had no more tears to shed in front of him, but that didn't mean that my heart didn't feel like it'd been ripped opened and set on fire.
"Miss Kon, are you ok? Do you need to sit?"
I shook my head no and tried to pull away. Once I found my balance and was sure I wasn't going to faint or puke, I straightened up while keeping a firm hold on the doorway.
At first Officer Samuels looked concerned, and then, after clearing his throat awkwardly, looked guilty.
"Look, I know this is a bad time, but I need to ask you some questions regarding your brother."
Ah, now we get down to the real reason he was here. Well, it was obvious I wasn't going to jail today or he would have brought friends and arrested me as soon as I'd opened the door. So it looked like we were going to talk about Gabe and if I knew anything of his criminal activities.
When Samuels decided I looked stable enough to continue he asked, "When was the last time you saw your brother?"
Last night before he ran into a truck at eighty and his body crashed onto the road.
"I year, maybe," I shrugged innocently, sniffling a bit for added effect. "My relatives and I don't keep in good touch with him. Once he moved out a couple years ago, Gabriel started to get into some shady things that my family nor I wanted to get mixed up in."
Samuels nodded knowingly. "The vehicle he was in last night was stolen from an Audi dealership, so it's obvious he's been getting into things he shouldn't." He pulled out a small hand held notebook from his chest pocket and a pen. He opened it up and scribbled some notes down.
"How old are you Miss Kon?"
"Nineteen. Twenty in about two weeks."
"The reports show that your parents are both deceased, can you confirm this?"
I nodded, "They are."
"And you live alone?"
I nodded again and he paused to write something else down.
"Do you know of anyone else who might have been very close to him? A girlfriend, a relative close by, a friend? There were actually two cars stolen last night and we're still trying to find the accomplice so any information you might have on your brother would be much appreciated."
I shrugged. "All my relatives are out of state, and I doubt they would be involved anyway," I paused for dramatic effect, and to show him that I was thinking hard about something. "I think he did have a girlfriend, or at least he used too, by the name of Sheryl."
"Sheryl what?"
"Sorry," I said, shaking my head, "I'm not sure." Ha, see where that piece of bull shit will lead them. Maybe to the car Gabe had been working on he named Sheryl who he thought was his only love.
"Anyone else."
"No one I can think of."
Samuels closed his notebook and put it and the pen back into his pocket.
"Thank you for your time Miss Kon Call the police station if you think of anything else," he said, and then gently, "dismissing the situation, I am sorry for the loss of your brother. Losing a sibling, no matter what's happened is always hard. I hope everything turns out better for you."
I smiled gratefully. Samuels looked like he was genuinely sorry. He was a decent guys after all, not just all cold business and plans to ruin my day. We needed more people like Samuels in the world.
With one hand still gripping the top of my towel, I held out the other to shake his hand.
"Thank you. I'll be sure to call if anything else comes up."
After shaking hands, I watched as he walked off my porch, down to his police cruiser - one of the newer, sleek, awesome looking models I might add - and drove away before going back inside and shutting the door.
Inside it was quiet. I could feel the empty spot in the house that Gabe left. This house was never quiet even with just two people living in it. If we weren't yelling, throwing things, or hitting each other, then we were planning our next boost or just talking. If we weren't doing any of those things, I could always count on the T.V sounds from Gabe's racing channels or my music waffling through the old walls of the two story house. And if none of that was going on, then one or both of us were down in the barn working on the spoils of our boosts, and the humming and banging of drills and tools broke the silence.
How was I supposed to fill this enormous gap? As I leaned against the inside of the front door, sinking farther into my depressive thoughts, I thought of the perfect way to go about this. I would fill it with something else, or well, something what would make it seem like it was filled. There was only one thing I knew of that could cloud my mind to the point of numbness, so that it would be like there had been nothing to fill in the first place.
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Tala knew that she would want time for herself. Among many other things, Ana was fiercely independent. He gave her a full day and a half before he drove over to her house. It was around noon when he pulled up to the old faded yellow farm house she inhabited. Instead of being long, this farm house was narrow and angular, with two stories, a basement, and a cute little wrap around porch. Next to it was a matching barn.
Despite being a farm house and being build for the profit and nourishment of crops and animals, not one California orange or peach had been grown on this land in almost six years nor had an animal been raised. When Gabe and Ana lost their parents they moved into this modest farm house -thanks to Voltaire - and turned it into a workshop. The house had the perfect location for the work; it was hidden in the middle of the untamed parts of the California hills, and it was equipped with a large barn to transform ordinary cars into flashy masses of pure speed and power.
Tala had been friends with both Ana and Gabe for a long time before they moved. He had known their parents, he'd hung out with Kai, Gabe, Max, Tyson, and Ray, he'd watched Ana and Kai grow in their relationship from friends to never being separated, and he even played an accidental part in their separation. Yeah, him Ana and Kai went way back.
And now it was his responsibility to check up on her once he thought the time was right.
He pulled his icy blue Kawasaki ZX-12R motorcycle up to her maroon Toyota Tacoma; no need to draw attention to your self when you were stealing cars at night.
Tala pulled off his helmet, set it on the handle bars, and walked up to the front door to knock. He waited. Through his reflection on the glass on the front door's side windows, Tala tamed this wild orange hair of it's severe helmet head. He waited a little bit longer before knocking again.
She was obviously here, her car was in the driveway. Through the door he could even hear loud talking from what he guessed was a T.V.
Maybe she couldn't hear him?
Tala walked along the wrap around porch to the back door. He pulled out the spare house key Ana had given him a while back when they had been kinda sorta 'dating', and unlocked it, letting himself inside.
The back door opened up in the middle of a small hallway. To the right and down the hall was the kitchen, and the left into the living room were the noise was coming from. Tala walked toward it.
The first thing that caught his attention when he turned the corner into the family room was an empty beer can lying on the floor. But it wasn't alone. Scattered all across the room were not just more beer cans, but half full bottles of different kinds of alcohol as well.
And then, in the middle of the room, curled up on the couch with a large knitted blanket thrown over her, was Ana. She was staring at the T.V with a blank look on her face, almost as if she was staring passed it.
Tala sighed taking in the sight of the room and her, and walked over. To be honest, he'd expected worse.
When he came within her view, Ana jumped.
"Sorry," Tala chuckled, "didn't mean to scare you."
Ana looked more angry then scared. "How the hell did you get in here?" she demanded.
Tala held up the spare key that was still in his hand.
"I've been meaning to get those locks changed," she hissed, but more to herself then to him. She turned back to the T.V.
Tala stared at her, waiting for some kind of reaction to his presence in her house. Instead, she picked up an empty beer can from the low wooden coffee table in front of her couch - also littered with trash - and threw it at the T.V angrily.
"Lying Chinese son of a bitch," she yelled at it.
Amused, Tala looked over at the T.V. to see what she was watching that was making her so upset. He raised an eyebrow. The Hangover?
"Why are you watching this?" he asked, "It's supposed to make you laugh, not so angry you throw things at it."
"Action movies have too many car chases and horror movies have too much blood. Both remind me of Gabe. And I'm just not in the mood for romance, so comedy it is."
Ana continued to stare at the screen. Tala sat at the end of the couch near her feet to watch it with her. Finally, Ana turned to him, looking completely impatient.
"What exactly do you want?" she asked rudely.
Tala shrugged innocently, "Just checking up on you."
"Well, I'm fine so you can go."
"Yeah," Tala replied sarcastically as he eyed the cans and bottles over the table and the floor, and then the bottle of pills he hadn't noticed before, "I can see that."
"Don't ask then if you already know," she snapped.
"Look Ana -"
"Chill the fuck out, I'm fine."
Tala shut his mouth, sighed, and scanned the room again. Also something he hadn't noticed before: there were only cans and bottles, there were no traces of food. Not even a chip bag or anything of the sort.
"Do you have anything in your stomach at all?" he asked incredulously.
Ana glared at his staring. "Yeah. It's clear, comes in a glass bottle, and rhythms with Vodka."
Tala resisted rolling his eyes and tried to remember to be patient.
"I mean any food."
She shrugged, brushing off the question and turning back to the T.V.
That was an obvious no.
Alright. Fine. He knew she was going to be like this and he was prepared. He got up and walked into the kitchen, which was surprising clean compared to the living room. The kitchen was still the same when Ana and Gabe had bought it, always had been . It was one of the larger of the rooms in the house, with an old refrigerator, stove, and sink. The cabinets were made of old, unpolished wood, and there was a matching table toward the corner.
Tala had never been much of a cook, but he didn't need to be. He knew what the best thing to eat was when one had a hangover or had been drinking - at least for him - and he knew where everything was in the modestly decorated farm kitchen, and that's all he needed.
Fifteen minutes later he was back in the living room, sitting at the end of the couch. The only thing different was that the coffee table was cleared, there was a glass of water on it instead, a trash can now on the floor between them, and the smell of toasted bread and melted cheese floating in from the kitchen.
"What are you cooking?" was the first thing Ana asked as Tala sat down. Her voice was gentler then it had been earlier. He guessed being angry took too much energy, and she didn't look like she had much of it to begin with anyway. She also looked hungry; he was sure she hadn't even realized it either until she actually could smell the food.
"Grilled cheese, but you can't have any yet."
"Why?"
"Not until you've puked up all the alcohol you've obviously consumed in the last two days," he said. He wrapped his hand around her upper arm, "sit up and drink some water."
"But I don't feel like I have to puke," she argued weakly, letting him help her up anyway. The blanket slipped off of her to reveal the oversized black t-shirt she was wearing and her bare legs. Tala could tell she wanted to be irritated at his need to help but didn't have the energy to be.
He smirked darkly. "You will."
Ana took a small sip of the water before putting it down and looking back to her movie with Tala joining her.
Only ten minutes later and she was puking her guts out into the trash can and gulping down the water Tala had to keep refilling.
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Being in this house with Ana again reminded Tala of the days when they would hang out all the time. And it wasn't just Ana and him either, it was Gabe, Kai, Tyson, Max, and Ray. When they weren't looking for the next car on the boost list or working in the barn, they were inside the house just watching T.V., eating, chilling.
But Tala hadn't seen those guys in almost two years, and even though he lived in the same city as Ana and Gabe, only sometimes did they get together.
The most Tala saw of Ana was when she came in to his shop looking for car parts for her latest steal. He would write a list of things she needed, wire the expenses into Voltaire's private banking account, and then sometimes ask her if she wanted to grab some lunch. She would agree and that would be it. They would have lunch, and then go back to their separate lives. There were no more parties like they all used to go to, there was only work; there were no more midnight boosts with all of them working together as one, there was only Gabe and Ana doing the jobs anymore because everyone else had gone.
He knew it was cliché, but Tala missed the old days. Even though he liked his time spent 'dating' Ana after Kai left, he would trade it any day to fix his mistakes and have everyone back again. He knew Ana didn't feel for him like she had for Kai. Her and Tala had tried it anyway, only to mutually end it a few weeks later.
They went back to being friends, and then slowly didn't hang out as much as they used too.
Just watching Ana eat the grilled cheese he made in the kitchen made him think of all this. And now it was going to happen. Now that Gabe was gone, Ray would come back to help Ana, and that meant Tyson and Max would come too. The only one he wasn't sure about was Kai. Could they convince him?
Tala sighed. He hoped so. Kai was furious with him and Ana, but they needed to put the past behind them, and the only way to do that was to bring him here.
And it wasn't just that Tala wished everything could go back to normal again, it was also because Ana needed Kai. They all did. If they were going to help her get out of this mess with Voltaire, then Kai was needed.
Ana shifted in the stiff wooden chair at the table. She took another bite of the sandwich and looked at Tala leaning against the counter.
"Why do you think God killed my brother?"
Tala, taken back by the question, focused hard on her face, trying to find any clues as to what she wanted to hear. She looked exhausted, but better then before. Color was starting to come back to her face after being sick for the last twenty minutes and the redness in her eyes was starting to fade. She hadn't changed out of her large t-shirt, but her dark brown hair was pulled back away from her face now as she ate.
"Do you think maybe he's punishing me?"
Tala took a minute before slowly shaking his head. "I think it was just time for him to go."
"I trusted him not to die…I kinda feel like I've been cheated," she said guiltily, "that's sounds horrible, doesn't it?" She frowned and glared at her grilled cheese, disgusted.
"After all," she started again, "he died, and I didn't, and I know he suffered, even if it was just for a moment."
Tala listened closely but didn't respond. He wanted to let her cope in her own way, and if talking about it out loud helped, then so be it. But Ana was quiet now, staring off into the space around her plate. Tala turned his head to look out the small window above the sink behind him, wanting to give her a bit of privacy.
"You can leave if you want."
Tala turned back around. Ana was looking at him with exhausted kindness - the kind of tired you feel after being sick multiple times. She picked up her plate and trudged toward him to get to the sink.
"You're not going to go psycho alcoholic on me again are you?"
She gave him a half-hearted shoved to the side with her hip and a light laugh. "No, I'll be fine."
Feeling doubtful, he watched as she rinsed off her plate and set it on the counter to be washed later.
"Do you want some help cleaning up the living room?"
Putting a hand on her hip, she turned to Tala with a raised eyebrow. "Seriously Tala, I'm not doing it again. I already feel like shit as it is."
She took his arm and gently led him out of the kitchen and to the front door. Tala followed but wasn't sure if he wanted to leave yet. She didn't look like she had it under control; she looked like she was going to fall over any second, or at least go back inside and drown in self pity once he shut the door to leave.
"You look tired," she said as they stopped at the door and touched the side of his face with her palm. "Thanks for rescuing me and I'm sorry I acted like a bitch earlier, but I'm ok now, really."
She was giving him the best, controlled smile she had. He guessed she looked ok now - still a little sad, a little tired, but ok - and she sounded sincere enough…
"Ok, I'll call later, and you better pick up or I'm coming over again," he threatened.
"I'll pick up," she promised. She brushed her lips against his cheek in gratitude and nudged him out the door.
"What are you going to do for the rest of the day?" Tala asked casually, walking down the steps. Just one more test to be sure she wasn't just going back inside to drink leftovers.
She shrugged, leaning into the door and crossing her arms over her black shirt. "I still have a lot left on the boost, so I think I'll go out to the barn and work for the rest of the night."
It was obvious she was still upset but he believed her when she said she was going to make use of her time. Satisfied, he got back onto his bike, started it up, put on his helmet, and returned her wave before taking off back down the hidden dirt road to the highway.
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---rayluva4