Quarter Mile High

By Tempest-Races

Chapter 4 – Neon

Tonight she's out to lose herself, find her high on Peachtree street...

She's always buzzing like neon, neon.

Who knows how long, how long, how long, she can go before she burns away?

-Neon, John Mayer

"Mira? What are you doin here?" Leon asked his sister in shock.

"I had to leave Santa Fe. I had no where else to go." Mira was still standing halfway behind Mia in the warm kitchen, made steamy by the pot of boiling water and spaghetti noodles on the stove.

"I mean, I haven't seen you since you were 9 kid. We haven't spoken since you were 14. Why would you come here?" Leon wasn't sure if it was a bad thing his sister had shown up or not but he did know he wasn't sure how he felt about her tracking him down. His previous family had been lost to him for so long he just wasn't sure how to feel about his little sister showing up out of the blue.

"Like I said, I had no place else."

"Why'd you run away from Dad?"

"Because I did." Mira, backing into a corner in her mind, by Leon's belligerent attitude started to come out spitting. It was one of her self defence mechanisms.

"But why?" Now Leon looked almost more puzzled then anything. "He was your guardian."

"He was yours too but you still ran. What good is a guardian who'd rather beat you up then take care of you? He got married again after you left and the new wife hated me. She already had two perfect kids from her last marriage for them to spoil together. They sure as fuck didn't need me around and they made it quite clear too."

"I just mean, I really don't know what you want me to do about it Mirabella. I'm not really in a position to take care of a 16 year old kid here."

"I don't know what I expected you to do about it. I guess I expected you to be a little more concerned about things. But you know what? Fuck you. I got here on my own and I'll make it someplace else on my own too."

Mira made a dash for the back door and made it out into the early evening sun. She was aware she'd just left all her possessions with Mia Toretto but since they were so scant and worthless anyway she figured it didn't make much difference.

She took off down the block and hopped on the first bus available to her. She didn't care where it went as long as it was far away from her brother. He was nothing like she remembered him. So much for Mia's fabled nice guy. She'd have been better off with her dad and his indifference then with Leon's very overt unhappiness with her presence.

xox

"Leon! What did you do that for?" Mia cried, dashing to the back door to find Mira already long gone.

"I don't know." Leon sat down heavily on a kitchen chair and ran a hand through his hair.

"She really your sister?" Dom asked in his typical succinct way.

"One of them, yeah. I figured she was a girl our dad would be ok with her, not like he was with me."

"You were way outta line Leon." Mia scolded. "She needs some serious help. She's literally skin and bones. She hitchhiked all the way here from home."

"She what!?" Leon looked up and asked his question in a raised voice. "She's only 16!"

"You pretty much lost any right you had to be outraged when you set her running outta the house." Letty quipped, her way of dealing with uncomfortable emotions. Leon looked at her in hurt, normally the sensitive one. Mia shot Letty a quelling look.

"I know how old she is. There's more." Mia sighed. "She's been doing some sort of drugs."

"She tell you that?" Leon looked shocked.

"No, the signs are pretty obvious when people are injecting. She's got tracks down both her arms." Mia crossed her arms, upset that Leon had treated his sister the way he had. If she'd only been his childhood acquaintance like Mira had let her to believe, Mia still would have been upset to see Leon talk to such a young girl the way he had. "I went through a lot to keep her here to wait for you. She's nervous and excitable. Now she's out there, likely starting to go into withdrawals. How are we gonna find her?"

"She was supposed to stay with Dad." Leon mumbled as he hung his head.

"Yeah, well looks like she didn't." Letty's sarcasm was her defence mechanism but also just how she saw the world. Mia gave Letty another one of her withering looks.

"She likely hasn't eaten in days and now she's alone, scared, hurting, hungry, and likely looking for drugs in L.A." Mia turned away in disgust from Leon. The kind of anger they were seeing from her wasn't common out of Mia. It was clear she was very upset.

"We'll have to go find her." It was Vince who dared to break the silence and suggest a plan of action. "We can't leave a 16 year old kid out alone in L.A."

"Yeah, we better go try and find her." Dom agreed and picked up his keys. "You all get a look at her before she ran off?"

"Not really." Jesse admitted and Letty agreed with him. Brian also looked like he wasn't sure.

"Ok, so Mia, Leon, and Vince know what she looks like for sure. Mia, go with Brian and search. Vince, come with me. Leon, take Jesse. Letty, stay here in case she comes back." Dom took control of the situation as was so often his job to do. Everyone nodded their understanding of the groups except Vince.

"I'd rather go alone Brother." He told Dom.

"Why?" Dom asked, puzzled by his friend's request.

"I'll have a better chance of finding her." Vince said and clammed up. Dom could tell from the stubborn look on ol Coyote's face he wasn't going to get anything else out of him.

"Ok, I'll take my own car. I think I should be able to recognize her if I see her anyway."

That decided they all left the house, leaving Letty home in case Mira should decide to come back for her stuff. They left Letty with strict orders not to let Mira leave if she did come back.

xox

It hadn't taken Mira long to find a 'turf' or place where drugs were sold. She had a small amount of money left over from her trip funds and she was hoping it was enough for a hit. She watched the various dealers interact with customers and waited until she saw someone she thought she could be comfortable with. She turned her back and counted her money carefully. 20 bucks. It should buy her at least one hit, she figured. She hated going to a dealer she didn't know but she had no choice. Her brother's rejection had thrown her to rock bottom yet again. It had pretty much been the hardest of her falls in recent memory and she needed a hit. Her blood was so cold, it was crying out for it. She approached the dealer.

"I'm lookin for some Antifreeze." Mira told the dealer she'd selected. He was young, maybe 18 or 19 and nice looking in her mind. He was clean cut, sandy blonde hair, hazel eyes, medium build and was nicely dressed.

"Come again?" He asked. Mirabella knew the words for heroin were different all over so she tried another slang term.

"You know, Charlie?"

"Ah, you a channel swimmer?" The dealer asked, using the slang term for a heroin injector.

"Yeah, that's it!" Mira smiled in a rather self hating way. There was a smile on her lips but there was self loathing in her eyes. Drugs had started as a way to escape and feel good. Now the only time she got either of those effects was when she was high. She mostly hated her drug use the rest of the time but she had no way to stop. She was truly an addict.

"I can hook you up."

"How much?"

"For 30 I'll give you enough for 2 hits, ready to inject."

"I got 20."

"I'll tell ya what. I'll take 20 for tonight and then next time you wanna hookup you come back to me. We'll work something out."

"Deal." Mira quickly agreed and gave over her last 20 bucks. She was handed a vile of liquid. She always kept her own needles, too smart to end up sharing one.

"You wanna sit in my car for awhile? You can tie in there."

"Yeah sure." Mira took him up on his offer, tied off her arm to raise a vein and shot up the drug. It took about 7 seconds for it to hit her system. She watched the man who had offered her a seat smoke a marijuana cigarette.

"You're new here aren't you?"

"Yeah. Just got in."

"I'm Shay."

"Mira." Mira introduced herself then tipped her head back and just let the drug warm her. It felt like her blood was on fire. It could have been 20 below and she still would have felt like she was lying under the tropical sun with the blood heating her body. It was how so many heroin users ended up with hypothermia. Also how many of them ended up dead.

"So, you work?"

"Not yet. I'll haveta find something soon."

"You wanna work for me? I don't normally take on Strawberry's but for you I'd make an exception."

Mira knew what Shay was offering was to keep her in drugs in exchange for her giving him sex. It was an easy enough way for her to get her fixes. She didn't know what about her would attract a nice lookin guy like Shay. In truth she'd done what he was asking of her before. It wasn't her favourite way to get her drugs but better then stealing in some ways. She'd never been propositioned that way by a nice looking guy. Normally it was gross old guys who were willing to make that swap.

"I'll let you know, if it's not a limited time offer."

"Nope, any time you need something you let me know and I'm sure we can work something out. Maybe you could even do a little pushin for me, you know? Give you a cut of what you make me." Mira nodded in answer to his offer and just let her worries slip away into her drug induced fog.

A strange car rolled slowly down the street they were sitting on. Mira took no notice of it and neither did Shay through the blue haze of smoke that had filled the car. Mira was too high to care and for some reason Shay just didn't take notice of the vehicle's slow travel. So both were pretty shocked when a strong, masculine arm reached into the car and lifted Mira out of the passenger seat.

What was left of her drug fell into Shay's car as she was forcibly stood up out of it.

"Hey, what's the deal?" Mira asked, eyes traveling up the person who'd pulled her out of the car right up into the blue gaze of her brother's friend Vince. "What're you doin here?" She snarled.

"Takin you home. Get in the car." Vince gave the teen a sharp push toward the passenger door of his Maxima then caught her as she almost fell down.

"Hard to take me home when I got no home. Let go of me." Mira struggled to get free but she was no match for the much stronger Vince. Her strength was gone quickly and she gave up, sagging in his grip.

Vince couldn't believe how prominent the bones were in Mira's arms. He figured she'd been addicted for awhile, since the drug pretty much killed your appetite for food.

"Listen to me. Get in the car and we'll talk." Vince opened the door himself, forced Mira down into the seat and slammed the door. He got around to his side and got in before she could figure out the door mechanism. He locked the power doors from his controls then locked hers out so she couldn't do anything stupid.

"What did you find me for? I'm not goin back to that place." Lips pinched into a mutinous line, Mira glared out the window of the car, watching the scenery fly by.

"Why not?"

"Cause he don't want me around. I was a burden to my damn father. I won't stick around where I'm not wanted and be one to my brother too."

"You'd rather run around doin drugs?"

"Drugs are one thing I can count on pal. If I do the same amount from the same dealer I get the same treatment. That's not true about most people." Mira looked out the window, feeling worse the more she came down. "Besides what would you know about it?"

"More then you'd think." Vince sighed and lit a cigarette.

"Really?" Mira asked sarcastically, expecting to hear my brother's friend's cousin's girlfriend's friend use to do hash or some such other inane story that so many people thought made them understand what a real addict went through.

"Yeah really. I use to do drugs ok? If I could get it in my body and it would get me high I was down for it. I almost lost my friends, my job, my life, all of it. And paid some jerk that was getting rich off me for the privilege." Vince blew out a cloud of smoke and his grip on the wheel got tighter, turning his knuckles white. It was not a time of his life he enjoyed talking about. He sped up the car in his agitation. He was just driving around, giving himself time to talk to Mira about her problem.

"Why'd you stop?" Vince actually had Mira's attention. She'd never met anybody who'd done hardcore drugs and stopped before. Many people hid the facts of their addiction and recovery from the world. So many more of them ended up dead of an overdose or drug deal gone wrong which also made it hard to find someone who'd 'been there'. If anyone had cared about her enough to find out what was wrong with her they could have encouraged her to go to a support group where she could have met other teens in similar circumstances but no one from her home had even really known she had a problem let alone cared enough to help her with it.

"Almost died. I kept it hidden from all my real friends. I just disappeared on them, sometimes for days at a time and refused to talk about where I was. But where I was, was with my other group of 'friends' who were just as high as I was. But then one day I shot up a regular dose of heroin for me but I was in a new place. My tolerance dropped because of the unfamiliar place and I OD'ed. Someone got me to a hospital in time. Then I never touched another drug in my life. And I never will again either. Trust me; it's not worth it in the long run. You're just runnin even harder from your problems with drugs then you are if you just run away from your problems without them."

"I can't live without it now." Mira admitted and because she did hate her addiction so much it had led her to hate herself she started to cry. "I tried. I made it a day and 7 hours before I had to have more. No one could help me because no one knew. Not that anyone would have cared if they had known."

"Oh people know. They just don't know what to say so they say nothing. Trust me. My friends all knew I was into something. They didn't know just what it was or what to say to me so they kept quiet. But they knew I wasn't right, and since someone told me to always inject between my fingers and toes I didn't even show tracks like you did to Mia. We care."

"My brother doesn't want to take care of me ya know? So taking me back there doesn't really make sense. It'd be better if I did just OD." Mira was still quietly crying, looking at her hands.

"Leon was just shocked. He'll get over it. Mia wants you around. She really does and Dom thinks you need a place too. It's Dom's house. You could stay there even if Leon left if Dom wanted to let you."

"I guess. But Leon was there first and it's not fair for me to make him feel bad in his own home."

"He'll adjust. Listen, just promise me you'll give it a week. A week of no drugs and trying to fit in. Ok?"

"I guess, but I don't know about the no drugs part. It's gonna be hard." Mira looked up at Vince. "Especially if my brother hates my guts."

"He's not gonna hate your guts. Just remember, I been there so if you need to talk…I'm not very good at it but I'll do my best." Something about the skinny little attitude filled kid reminded Vince of himself. No one had been around to save him; it had been a lonely uphill struggle he'd had to undertake on his own. It had been made worse by the knowlage that his friends would have helped him if he'd only swallowed his pride long enough to ask them for it. He'd only succeeded in the end because he'd told himself that he'd gotten himself in so he'd have to get himself out too. This kid wasn't gonna have to face that if he had his way. Whether Leon wanted her around or not.

"Who'd want an ugly dirty junkie for a sister anyway? I can't blame him." Mira continued to run herself down anyway.

"You won't be a junkie a few weeks from now if you just commit to staying off the special H and then you'll find everything else starts to look up ok? Trust me. I know you got no reason to, and I'm the biggest hypocrite on earth askin you to trust me since I hardly trust anybody myself, but Dom and Mia are two people who I do trust and you can too. Let Mia take care of ya. She's good at it, better then Leon woulda been anyway. You're brother'll come around and in the mean time you get to soak up Mia's mothering. She's real good at it." Vince winked.

"I don't remember when I had a mother so she could be shitty at it and I'd never know." Mira admitted.

"Yeah, we all heard about how she ran off from Leon."

"Yeah. She sure did." Mira pretty much crashed out from losing her high right around then and fell asleep in the car. Vince called off the search and headed home. He couldn't wake the girl so he ended up carrying her into the house.

"Where we putting her?" He asked Mia and Dom as he kicked the door closed behind himself.

"How'd you find her?" Mia cried, running up to the pair.

"Luck." Vince had the stubborn look they all knew so well on his face and it was clear he was not going to elaborate.

The more he thought about it the more he realized he would have to let them in on some things. "I didn't find her til after she got a hit into her though. She's gonna come down hard for the next few days. We have to keep her in the house under watch if she's gonna beat this thing. She can't get any drugs for a week then she'll have a chance."

"Take her to the spare room upstairs V. She can sleep there." Mia said and followed Vince up the stairs to tuck Mira in and change her into night clothes since Vince couldn't. Vince set Mira on the bed then left the room to let Mia get her ready. He waited outside the door in case Mia needed any help.

Mia left the bedroom with a small sigh a few minutes later to find Vince standing in the hall.

"She's ok?" Vince asked.

"She will be, if, like you said we keep her out of drugs for the next few weeks. Did she say anything in the car?"

"Just that her mom took off so long ago she doesn't really remember her and she pretty much hates herself. She'll be ok. She's a tough cookie."

"Just like someone else I know." Mia smiled softly at Vince. Her smiling look turned into one of worry a split second later. "I know this can't be easy for you V."

"How so?" Vince's eyes got hard and he started to close up. To Mia, who'd known him forever the signs were obvious. He still though she didn't know. She wanted to tell him he should have figured out long ago that she knew everything about everyone in her house. That she'd wanted to help but that at 17 she hadn't known how to help the then 21 year old Vince beat something so serious.

"I know about all those years ago V. I mean I respect your privacy and right not to talk about it but I figure it won't be easy watchin Mira go through this." Mia touched his arm softly.

"How'd you…" Vince trailed off and gave Mia one of his quirky smiles. "You know pretty much everything about us don't you?"

"Yeah. I hope she can beat it V. She seems like a good kid under it all. Sure hasn't had much of a life up til now."

"She's tough, she'll do ok. Once she settles in and has a few weeks to get use to us we'll have to put her in school. Gonna be hard since Leon's not her legal guardian."

"We'll just have to have him see what he can do about that won't we? We can't send her back to where she came from. If she came all this way to find a brother she hadn't seen since she was 9 she must have had a very good reason."

"Yeah, we'll work it out Mia. Don't worry too much over her."

Mia giggled. "You know me too well."

"I guess I could say the same to you." Vince still wasn't sure how he felt about Mia knowing something about him that he'd been so sure he'd kept from his team. Ok, he knew they knew something was wrong, but not that Mia knew every detail.

"I made it my business to know V. You were hurting and I wanted to know if I could help. It ended up being way over my head, but I was still worried about you. I hope I can help Mira."

"We can all help Mira. Most of all Leon can by explaining to her he was just shocked and didn't know how Dom would react if Leon asked him if his sister could move in and that he never meant to hurt her feelings. She needs to know she's welcome here and it should come from Leon before the rest of us."

"I think you should talk to him about it V. He'll take it better from you. All that man stuff about bein boys and all that." Mia didn't understand the brothers from different mothers mentality and she didn't really try.

"I'll talk to him. When he knows Dom's not mad and doesn't mind keeping her here maybe he'll be more ok with it. But really Leon should know already. I mean, Dom had no problem letting him and Jesse stay."

"Him and Jesse were useful. Mira's not likely to be looking for a mechanics job."

"No, but she can help you after school in the café. It'll be good for her to have a routine."

"Ok, we should go talk to the team I guess. They all need to know. I just wish we didn't have to reveal her personal business to them all. But I guess they need to know if they're gonna help her by looking out for her."

"Yeah. She's gotta know there's no shame in gettin help and that we're not gonna punish her over it."

"I just hope Leon can work things out with his dad so that she gets to stay here."

"Me too."

Vince and Mia walked back down stairs, Vince a stair behind Mia. He was almost happy he'd had a chance to talk to Mia. Things had been strained between them since the issues with the trucks had gone down and been put behind them. He couldn't say that he was a big fan of Brian, no matter what the other man had done for them, but he did make an honest effort to live and let live and stop giving Mia shit over it.

Vince wasn't looking forward to laying down the law for Leon. It was Dom's job to keep them all in line, but this time it looked like Vince was elected. Vince chuckled to himself. It was like some cruel joke by fate to heap responsibility onto the shoulders of the one person in the group who hated it above everyone else. First responsible for the girl having someone to turn to and then responsible to tell her idiot brother to shape up.

What would fate toss at him next?