Chapter 3 – Brave New Girl.
After the girls had a few drinks and got to know each other a bit better they headed out. Keira's on again off again boyfriend Blaise was driving them down to the club that Keira had talked about so they wouldn't have to take a cab. Cerise had moments of clarity where she knew it wasn't smart to go off with strangers. However, she was sick of being the good girl all the time so she brushed off the little voice and resolved to enjoy herself.
Keira's two roommates had also joined the group and all the girls had enough liquor in them that they were not feeling any pain by the time they left the house.
Cerise was feeling so out of character. She was dressed like the old days, but she wasn't acting like the her of any days. She was never a big drinker, or a big dancer for that matter. While the other kids partied with liquor she'd been at home, writing in her journal and climbing trees. Now here she was getting drunk with strangers.
She'd much rather be in jeans and a tee shirt and smudged with dirt then dressed up in fancy clothes worrying about what would happen to them if she felt the inspiration to just throw herself down and write. She'd always wanted to be a author.
In her mind it would be the ultimate job. To work in a comfortable room of her own home, or for that matter where ever she wanted to thanks to modern technology. She'd be her own boss, no one would tell her what to do. She'd move to some dramatic place where it was beautiful in summer and snowy and wild in winter and she'd write.
She mostly had plots for romance novels in her head. She didn't know what made her think she, of all people, could write romance when she'd never so much as smelled the real thing, but she knew what she'd like. Even if she'd never had it first hand, she knew what would make her happy.
But first she had to make a new life for herself. Of course, she reminded herself, she was well on the road to getting started on that tonight. Or rather she would be, the next day, after she used this night to kill her old life and ring in the new one. With lots more liquor.
On that thought Blaise squealed his tires into the parking lot of a club called Nitrous. Keira hadn't been lying. The lot was filled with tricked out cars. Most of them had scantily clad women accompanying them.
"Wow." Cerise didn't have much to add to her comment. She was overwhelmed. "I'm underdressed. Or overdressed dependin on how you look at it." She drawled.
"Naw girl. Wait till we get inside. These girls are just the racer chasers. They all dress slutty to try and attract the eyes of the winning males. Not every girl in our scene falls in with them. You'll fit in just fine inside. Let's go in."
"You sure? I look country, like I just fell offa the turnip truck."
"Don't judge you based on these skanks Cherry." Cerise nodded to Keira's comments.
The girls climbed out of the car and started toward the building. They got in the line-up for edmittance but since it was early they didn't wait long. The scene inside the club washed over Cerise and left her feeling even more out of her league. The walls were painted up with various car logos done in glowing paint so they seemed to have their own light sources under the black lights. The tables around the edges of the dance floors were lit from inside and were also in the shape and colours of the various car logos.
The main dance floor was done in squares that had LED lights in them, they flashed as they changed colours. It made the dance floor into a flashing rainbow checkerboard. There were girls wearing as little as the ones outside dancing all over men and each other and there were girls dressed more like Cerise and her companions, dancing in friendly groups. The former girls still outnumbered the latter, but Cerise didn't feel quite so out of place.
Keira leaned over so what she said would be audible to her new friend. "Let's go get a drink."
"Sounds good." Cerise replied in her soft Georgian drawl.
Both girls went over to the bar and ordered drinks. Then they leaned on the bars edge and just looked around the room, sipping on their blue lagoons. There was a rather rambunctious group of people holding court in one corner of the room. They looked like they were having a great time, as a family. There was a core group of people that didn't change even though other people came and went. There was a subtle ebb and flow to it, like the people had their own field of gravity.
"Who're they?" Cerise asked and nodded subtly at the group.
"They would be the Toretto gang." Keira replied.
"Gang?" Cerise asked, not thrilled to be introduced to her first gang so early in her L.A. experience.
"Not gang, like gang gang. They're a street racing gang. A team really. I guess gang wasn't the best choice of words. They're a team."
"There/s an awful lot of them." Cerise bit her bottom lip and glanced at the group of people still playing around with each other in the corner.
"Well, the big bald guy is Dominic Torreto. The Latin girl under his arm is Letty, his girl. The little Italian girl is Dom's sister Mia and the blonde guy is her husband Brian. The scruffy guy is Vince, Dom's best friend. The other guy is Leon, and last but not least is Jesse."
"That's all of them?" Cerise asked on a laugh.
"Some come and go but that's the main group, yeah." Keira joined her in her laughter.
"Cool. What do they do, other then race cars?"
"Dom owns a garage and a diner; they all mostly work with Dominic in either of his places. Some of 'em have girlfriends already some don't." Keira was vague.
"Ah see." Cerise said, curiosity about 'the team' playing over her features. "They sure do seem to hold court up heah."
"Yeah, that's them. Dom's the king of L.A. street racing so everyone looks up to him and sucks up to him too."
"Guess ah don't count since ah don't plan on racin' mah car."
"Everyone counts Cherry. You want social acceptance in this crowd, the fastest way is to get on Toretto's good side."
"Ah guess." Cerise answered softly and looked at Keira. "If ya wanna go dance, don't let me hold ya back. I can entertain mahself right here."
"I'm gonna go dance and you're gonna come wit me! I can teach you a few things." Keria threw back the rest of her drink and motioned Cerise to do the same. When Cerise complied Keria lead her out onto the dance floor.
As the evening wore on Cerise had more to drink and got more comfortable with the dances that Keira was showing her. She found she didn't need to buy herself much in the way of drinks as men were doing most of the buying for her. She looked a Keira in between songs.
"Ah can't drink anymore." Cerise fanned her face. Her accent was even more pronounced in her intoxicated state.
"You gonna be sick?"
"Ah don't think so, but ah just know ah can't drink anymore."
"I'm gonna go talk to a friend of mine for a second. You be ok here on your own?"
"I'm sure Ah'll be awright. Ah was gonna come alone after all."
"Ok, just don't talk to strangers!" Kiera laughed.
"Awright." Cerise agreed on a laugh of her own.
Cerise was leaning on the bar watching the crowd ebb and flow around her like water around a rock in the center of it's river when a strange man walked up to her.
He was older, rough looking. He looked her over from head to toe with his light eyes.
"Hello there." This new man said, smiling. Cerise didn't really like his smile, she couldn't put her finger on why. It occurred to her that it felt predatory.
"'llo." Cerise answered and looked away. She didn't want to show any interest, even though a part of her, the small part that wanted to start a new wilder life wanted to talk to this man, that small part that knew he meant trouble, and trouble might just be what she was looking for.
Keira noticed Cerise talking with a strange man but didn't really have a problem with it. She had forgotten how naive her new friend was in her own intoxicated state.
"How's it goin?"
"Aw'm fine." Cerise drawled.
"Henry." He stuck out his hand. Cerise shook it.
"Cherry." She introduced herself.
"Perfect." He smiled a wolfish smile, rather like a wolf after sheep. "Where you from?"
"Atlanta." Cerise told a small fib, not wanting to admit she was from the back of beyond.
"So. you here with anyone?" The man put his hand on the bar behind Cerise, bringing him very close to her, and she fought the feeling he was too in her space.
"Some girlfriends." Cerise answered, thinking she should have picked someone, like one of the well known people in the corner, and told this man it was her boyfriend.
"You wanna dance?" He smiled a genuine smile and it transformed his face from dangerous to sort of sexy. In an older man, 5 o'clock shadow sort of way. In short, the opposite of her ex.
"Ah suppose ah do." Cerise smiled and headed out onto the floor, her hand in his.
Keira looked up and saw Cerise was now on the floor with the man she'd been talking to. She, having fought with Blaise, was glad someone had a chance of going home with a chance of getting some and she didn't want to interfere.
One of the girls with the Toretto's looked up and saw the girl who'd arrived with Blaise's girlfriend dancing. The man she was dancing with wasn't good news. She elbowed her date.
"Leon!"
"Ouch, what did you do that for?" Green met green as Leon rubbed his ribs and looked up at his girl.
"See the girl with the caramel coloured hair out there with the guy who kinda looks like V?"
"Yeah, what about her?"
"I want you to go cut in on them."
"But she can't really dance. Look at them. If I want to dance with someone I'll dance with you." Leon said in his own Midwestern growl and pulled the girl down into his lap.
"She's new around here. She came with Blaise and Keira and I don't think she knows who she's dancing with."
"Well, who is she dancin with?"
"Henry James."
"Who's that?"
"Leads a bike gang known as 'The Reapers'. They're bad news Le. Real bad news. He'll chew that little thing up and spit her out. She can't be much more then 18."
"You're one to talk."
"Just go save her." She pointed in the general direction of the dancing couple
"You said the guy kinda looked like V. Not that he could be his freaken brother." Leon looked back around after looking at the man in question on the dance floor.
"They don't look that alike. Vince has enough sense not to let a retarded monkey barber do his hair."
Leon looked around. He didn't want to go out on the dance floor. He never had really liked to dance that much. He looked around his team. "I know!"
"I wanna know why you're still not out there saving that girl from that madman."
"A sexy madman!" Letty broke in and Dom gave her a dirty look.
"A mad man that looks like my best friend." Dom growled. "You think he sexy too?"
"Of course not." Letty grinned at having ruffled Dom's feathers and sat back in her seat beside him.
"Send Jesse!" Leon said. "He likes to do that stupid grinding sort of dance they're doing anyway."
Jesse heard his name and looked up from his gameboy. Even in the middle of a hot dance club he couldn't bear to be separated from his computers. "Huh?" Jesse said as he looked up, having missed most of the conversation previous.
"Go cut in on that couple." Leon pointed them out.
"Ok." Jesse answered with a shrug, a result of the one track attention span he'd never been able to control or out grow. He jumped up and started to do a slinky sort of move out onto the floor. He stopped and turned back to Leon. "Am I after the man or the girl?" He gave a cheeky grin.
"Just go!" Leon laughed, and then reconsidered. "The girl!" He called after the again moving Jesse, who waved his hand over his head in acknowledgement.
"Is that smart?" Vince asked the group in general after Jesse had left.
"What?" Leon retorted.
"Sending the kid up against a guy as big as that guy."
"Oh shit." Dom answered and watched carefully to see if there was going to be trouble.
"Whatcha lookin for tonight girl?"
"Ah don't really know, Ah just went with what felt right tonight."
"Leave with me. I have my bike out front. We can go for a ride."
"Oh, Ah don't think so. My friends are here and Ah'm just gonna leave with them."
"Come on! Live a little. It'll be fun."
"Ah don't think so." Cerise said and Henry pulled her closer. She fought an urge to fight against his arms. She was out of her depth. She looked around for Keira to come save her but the other girl was no where in sight.
"Hey, mind if I cut in?" Jesse asked and then just did.
With a sensitivity to things around him that surprised his team and friends to no end he knew that this Henry was up to no good and the girl was out of her element trying to get rid of him.
"You forget you were supposed to meet me back at the table after you got your drink sweets?" Jesse asked the blue eyed girl like she was with him.
"The lady and I were making plans you little twirp."
"I don't think so. She came with me." Jesse smiled and started to subtly move his new found 'girlfriend' toward the safety of his team, where Dom and Vince had his back.
"You sure about that? She told me she came with girlfriends." Henry growled. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to look.
"It doesn't matter what she told you Henry, because she came with Jesse and they had a little fight. Besides, Chyna'd kill a little thing like her if she ever found out."
"That's not your concern." Henry snarled.
"I just made it my concern. The kid is my concern, so, so is his date." The slight blond girl told the huge man in front of her with unflagging confidence. "You got a problem with that? Cause if you do we can settle it now, or on the blacktop any time you want."
"Whatever, she's just a girl." Henry went to walk away, back to his reaper cronies. He looked back over his shoulder. "I won't forget this."
"Neither will I." The blond assured him with a glacier cold look and started to move Jesse and this new girl back toward their booth.