A/N: Please forgive the spacing, was acting really screwy when I uploaded this earlier. This is probably the fourth time I've tried to update this story and each time the font gets all out of wack. So plese forgive the weird spacing. Thanks in advance!
Chapter Three
Forty-five grueling minutes later, Raylen was sure that she was at the end of the interrogation. But she was proven wrong when Dom opened his mouth to ask yet another question.
Raylen had to refrain from rolling her eyes. Her eyes felt as if they were going to close at any minute and her whole butt was numb and had been for the last fifteen minutes. She resituated herself on the stool causing her butt to tingle a bit and looked Dom in the eyes. Her eyes held a look of banality.
"What are you doing tonight?"
This question caused the whole restaurant to go silent. All eyes were on her, except for Letty's. Her eyes were filled with irritation and placed firmly on Dom. Raylen was at a loss for words. She glanced around the room and found that the other members of the team were as shocked as she was. When turned back to Dom, he gave her a look that said, I'm waiting.
"I...uh..."
She swallowed a couple of times and looked at Leon. He was staring at Dom and annoyance was written all over his face. Raylen didn't know how to answer the question. She didn't want to make Letty or anybody else mad by saying nothing and making herself appear available, but then again if she were to say that she had plans, she might anger Dom.
Surely he did this on purpose, she told herself. Maybe this is just a test.
"Um..."
She felt like an idiot just standing there. Sweat was starting to form around her temples.
Just answer the damn question, she yelled mentally.
"I'm not sure," she replied after a bit.
She glanced at Leon, whose expression hadn't changed much. He looked at her and she smiled briefly. Leon's features seemed to soften up a bit and he stepped towards her. Mia walked around from the counter and crossed her arms across her chest. It was apparent that she didn't like whatever Dom was doing, but then again no one was exactly sure what he was doing.
"That's good," Dom said and began to walk towards the back of the office.
Raylen gave a questioning look at Leon, who shrugged in return. Within seconds, Letty was at Dom's heels, but stopped following him when he turned back around and faced Leon.
"Take her with us tonight," he said. His deep voice reverberated off of the walls of the restaurant.
Leon nodded and wrapped an arm around Raylen. She looked at his hand before stepping out of his embrace. He quirked an eyebrow at her. Raylen shook her head and began to walk off to her car, with Leon hot on her heels.
Dom turned around and headed into the office, making sure that the door shut after Letty entered the room.
Vince was the first one to break the silence that seemed to be never ending.
"Well, that was certainly different," he said as he moved over to the stool that Raylen had been sitting in earlier.
Mia nodded and walked back to behind the counter. The sound of Letty and Dom arguing in the office floated out into the main part of the restaurant. Mia was glad that there weren't any customers at the present time. Jesse sat down in the stool next to Vince and said, "Why does he want Raylen to go with us? I mean, Leon hardly knows her."
"None of us know her," Vince said, correcting Jesse.
Mia sighed and picked up the old blue dish rag that she had been holding earlier. "I don't know."
"It just doesn't make sense," Jesse continued.
"Since when does anything Dom does make sense?" Mia asked as she picked at the edge of the rag.
"True."
"Yo, Raylen, what's up?" Leon said, following her out to her car.
Raylen spun on her heel and faced Leon. She did it so fast that Leon almost ran into her and knocked her over.
"What's up is the fact that I was just interrogated for almost an hour and then commanded to go with you and your posse to something that I don't even know about."
Leon ran a hand through his short brown hair and responded with, "I know that it doesn't seem fair, but..."
"You don't actually expect me to go with you tonight, do you?" she asked with anger seeping into her voice.
"Well, I was kind of hoping..."
"Leon, I don't know those people. I don't even know you! And yet you expect me to go with you to some shindig..."
"A street race," Leon said, correcting her.
A blank look crossed her face and it seemed that she had lost all capability to talk. Leon didn't know whether to be alarmed at her sudden changing in attitude or to laugh. Raylen snapped out of her daze quickly and glared at Leon.
"A street race?" she asked. The way she said it, made it seem as if street races were just a myth.
Leon nodded and placed his hands in the back of his faded denim jeans. The sun was bearing down upon the two people and a small layer of sweat was forming on them. He took a step back and leaned on his Skyline. Raylen merely shook her head before running a hand down the side of her face.
"Why on earth would I want to go to a street race?" Raylen asked.
Leon shrugged. "I don't know."
"Why would he want me to go to a street race? It's not like I know anything about cars. I know how to drive them and that's about it. Hell, I can't even change a flat tire, and yet he wants me to go to a street race?"
Leon tried to refrain from smiling, but failed miserably.
"That's the way it appears."
"Dom is a very strange man. A very strange, bald man at that."
Leon's smile grew bigger. "I won't argue with you about that."
Raylen stepped closer to Leon and peered into his eyes. "Do you really want me to go?" she asked.
Leon placed a hand on her hip and stood up to where there were only a few inches between them. "Yeah, I would like you to go."
Raylen placed her hands on his chest and looked up at him. She wasn't exactly sure as to why she was going to say yes. The only reason that actually made sense was that she wanted to make sure that she would be able to see Leon again, but that reason didn't even make total sense. Questions bounced off the walls of her brain as if there was a ping-pong match going on inside. Just when she thought that she was beginning to make sense out of everything, a new question would pop up and send everything into disarray again. Raylen let out a small frustrated whimper and laid her head upon Leon's well-built chest.
"I'll go," she muttered, unsure of whether or not he would be able to hear her.
"You will?" he asked. Raylen thought that she heard a hint of happiness in his voice, but she quickly dismissed the thought.
"Yeah."
"Well, that's good. Why don't you meet me up here at nine-thirty?"
Raylen nodded and stepped away from Leon. She was very perplexed.
"That'll work."
Leon grinned and placed a small kiss on her cheek. "I'll see ya at nine-thirty."
"Yeah, see ya," she responded slowly as she walked toward the driver's side of her car.
Raylen glided into her car and sat in the driver's seat for a moment mystified. Nothing made sense anymore. She had just agreed to go to a street race with a man who she didn't know all because another man she didn't know commanded her to.
What's happening to me? she asked herself. I used to be the one who wouldn't listen to anybody, and now I'm obeying some bald overly muscular man who I've never met before today...
Raylen shook her head and started up her car. The radio began to blare and she reached over to turn the music down, but not too far that she couldn't hear the words. "Blood Red Summer" by Coheed and Cambria was playing. The words floated through her mind as she back out of Toretto's parking lot.
Faint white fingers paint my sleep
Please don't tell my secrets keep them hidden
(You got it)
If the words that matter reach your face from floor
Will you be wondering if, or
(Do I need what is given or honest)
Does it cost me scarring if the words stay true?
Even number your nephew
(I don't want it anymore)
And when the answer that you want
Is in the question that you state
Come what may
Come what may
And when the answer that you want
Is in the question that you state
Come what may
Come what may
In a pain that buckles out your knees
Could you stop this if I plead?
(You got it)
So destined I am to walk among the dark
A child in keeping secrets from
(Will they know what I've done in the after)
In the sought for matter when the words blame you
In a blood red summer I'll give you
(I don't want it)
And when the answer that you want
Is in the question that you state
Come what may
Come what may
And when the answer that you want
Is in the question that you state
Come what may
Come what may
What did I do to deserve this?
The words didn't really make sense to her, but then again nothing did anymore. It was almost as if those forty-five minutes of interrogation had stripped her of every moral she had and were replaced with ones that were so very foreign.
What's gotten into me? she asked herself a thousand times and each time no reply came.
"Just what the hell was that?" Letty asked as Dom took his seat at the small desk in the office.
No response came to her to question. Dom was very clearly ignoring her. He shuffled the various invoices that he had picked up and began to analyze the information that they held.
"Oh real mature, Dominic," Letty hissed. "What are you up to? Run out of skanks lately? Decide that you need more of a selection than that at the races?"
Silence.
"Dom, just answer my damn question. What's with inviting Raylen to the race? You don't even know her!"
Dom laid the invoices down on the desk and slowly faced Letty. Fury filled her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for an answer.
"Do you know who her brother is?" he asked slowly.
Letty stared at Dom as if he had gone mad. "Do I know...of course I don't know. She never told us who her brother was. Why does it matter?"
"Raylen's brother just happens to be Pierce Sanders, the best street race in New York."
A blank look floated onto Letty's face and stayed there for a very long time. "This is all about her...brother?"
Dom nodded. Letty threw her hands up in the air and emitted a frustrated growl. "This is madness. Sometimes you make no sense, whatsoever. Do you realize how egotistical this is? You keep that girl around so that you can become buddy-buddy with her brother?! Dom what the hell is wrong with you, do you have no sense of right or wrong? I mean I can be pig headed sometimes...hell I can even be down right a bitch, but even I know that what you are doing is wrong."
He shook his head before running a hand over it. "That's not what I'm doing..."
"Well, please enlighten me, because I am clueless."
Dom opened his mouth to speak, but shut it quickly thereafter.
"You just wouldn't understand," he replied.
Letty glared at Dom before spinning on her heels and storming out of the office.
"Wouldn't understand my ass," she mumbled before brushing past a bewildered Mia. Letty could feel Vince and Jesse's eyes on her as well as Mia as she jumped into her car and sped off.
One way or another, she would find out what Dom was hiding, even if it would kill her in the process.
Dom ran a hand over his head before picking up the off-white cordless phone that lay haphazardly on the desk. He fingers flew over the buttons as they had done dozens of times before.
"Hey, is Pierce there? Yeah, I'll wait...Hey, Pierce. This is Dom...Yeah, I'm doing good, man. I just wanted to let ya know that your sister is here. She just got back from your parents' house...Uh huh...Don't worry man, she's in good hands. I'll make sure that they don't get to her...You're welcome. See ya in a couple of weeks...Bye."
Dom sat the phone down on the cradle before placing his head in his hands. No doubt that keeping Raylen from knowing that he was watching out for her would be hard. But what would be harder would be keeping her from knowing that there were people after her. People that wanted her and her brother dead.
Raylen pulled up to her two-story house and climbed out of her car. It had been a very long day and her bed was not only calling her name, it was screaming it. She walked through her front yard and up to the front door. It took several attempts, but she was finally able to get her front door open. As she entered, she threw her keys onto the coffee table that sat in the center of the living room. The sound of the door closing filled the once empty house. A sigh escaped her lips as she began to realize that she didn't enjoy coming home to an empty house. Part of her yearned to be with somebody, while the other part feared it. Bad things always seemed to happen to her when she was in relationships.
Raylen stepped further into the living room and peered around. The room was painted baby blue with a sea shell border at the very top. The couches, end tables, and the coffee table were white. Shells of all sizes were places almost at random throughout the room. Several black and white pictures were lined up on the hearth, which was also white, in no certain order. The pictures ranged from those of her and her brother to those of her with her parents. Each photo however held a special place in her heart. She glanced over them, but only one caught her eye. It was one of her and her brother. Pierce was holding her up in the air and she was laughing so hard that you could see tears streaming down her cheeks. That picture had been taken the day that he had left for New York, one of the worst and best days of her life. Worst because she was losing her brother, her best friend in the whole world. Best because that was the day that she had gotten her beauty, a present from Pierce. Every time that she got into the car, she was taken back to the day that he had taught her how to drive a stick. It was quite possibly the best day of her life.
Pierce was five years older that Raylen, which would make him twenty-six. It had been hard having him thousands of miles away, but it slowly became easier for Pierce called her every night to check up on and to make sure that his little sis was doing okay.
Raylen collapsed onto the couch and closed her eyes. Instantly, she fell asleep. Her body was drained from the day that she had had and she needed sleep if she was going to get through the street race. Raylen snuggled closer into couch and began to dream about things that were less complicated than her life at the present moment. Things like Leon.
The sound of a phone ringing drew Raylen quickly from her dreams. Her hands rose up and landed on the end table before searching blindly for the ringing aggravation. Finally, her hand found the phone and pulled it from its cradle. A look at the Caller I.D. told her that it was a New York number.
"Hello?" she said into the phone. Her eyes were laden with sleep. A glance at the clock told her that it was eight-thirty. She had been asleep for five hours but it seemed like only an hour. Her body begged her to go back to sleep and she was sure that it showed clearly in her voice.
"Hey, sis," Pierce screamed into the phone.
Raylen screwed her eyes shut and pulled the phone away from her ear. The distant sound of music filled the phone. She was sure that Pierce was at some hip New York club, no doubt partying it up. That was just the type of people he hung out with. Partiers twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No matter what.
"What's up, Pierce?" she asked as she stood up from the couch, stretching in the process.
"Nothing much," he replied. "Just hanging out at a club with a bunch of friends."
Raylen heard a girl giggle in the background and then Pierce whispered something to her. She rolled her eyes and pulled her hair down from the pony tail that it was trapped in. Her hair tumbled down onto her hair.
"Got company?" she asked, a smirk working its way onto her face.
Pierce chuckled. "You know it."
Raylen sighed and walked toward the stairs that let to the second story. "What am I going to do with you? No telling how many hearts you've broken in the past two years you've been there."
Another chuckled answered Raylen's question immediately. The laugh was code for many.
"One of these days, you're going to be single and alone and all I'm going to say is told ya so."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, I take it that you make it back to LA in one piece."
Raylen padded her way upstairs to her room. She shut the door behind her and walked into her bathroom.
"Yeppers, no problems whatsoever."
She intentionally left out the part about meeting Leon because Pierce was extremely overprotective. If she were to barely mention him, Pierce would want to know Leon's name, rank, and serial number on the spot. No joke.
"Well, that's good. I have to admit I was a little worried about you," he replied. There was something in his voice that hinted that there was a deeper meaning, but Raylen dismissed it.
"You're always a little worried," Raylen retorted, laughing a bit.
"I know, but that's because LA is just such a bad place, and..."
"Like New York is better? Listen Pierce, I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself, and not to be mean or anything but it's not like there's anything you could do if something were to go wrong. Mom and Dad are closer than you are; they would be here a lot faster than you, so stop worrying. I'm going to be okay."
Raylen could hear Pierce sighed. She imagined him standing in the back alley of the club, leaning on the wall. He was probably running a hand through his hair and down to his neck.
"I know, sis. I just get a little crazy sometimes," he replied. He sounded miserable.
She leaned over and turned on the water for a shower before walking back out into her room.
"Pierce is there something you're not telling me?" she asked. It was her turn to be worried. The whole phone conversation was just weird. There was something up, but she wasn't exactly sure what it was. The only thing that she could be sure about, and she was unsure of how she knew it, was that it involved her. Someway, somehow, it involved her.
"Nothing's wrong, sis. Now who's being the worry wart?"
"Pierson Brice Sanders, I swear that if you're lying to me that I'll..."
"You'll what? Fly out to New York and beat me up?" He laughed, whole heartedly. "I'd like to see that."
"Be careful what you wish for," she said with a small giggle.
The mood of the conversation seemed to lighten.
"Well, bro," she said after a moment or two. "I hate to kick ya off the phone, but I've got plans for tonight and I need to start getting ready."
"Oh, really? Do these plans involve, maybe...a guy?"
Raylen rolled her eyes and began to walk back and forth in front of the large mirror that sat on her dresser.
"No, silly, it involves a girl."
Silence.
Raylen clamped her mouth shut and tried as hard as she could not to laugh, but failed horribly.
"I'm just joking with ya. It involves a guy."
Pierce let out a sigh of relief. "Well that's good to know. Anyways, I'll let ya go. I'll see ya in a couple weeks when I come down, okay?"
"All right. Love ya, Pierce."
"Love you too, Raylen."
Raylen turned off the phone and threw it onto her bed, which was decorated in a jungle design. Her whole room in fact, was done in a jungle design. The walls were painted a light beige color with a border running across the walls in the center. Below the border, the walls were painted a dark brown. The border itself had zebras, cheetahs, and elephants painted on them. Her bedding and curtains had the same design on them.
She turned around and walked over to her closet. As she opened the two doors that led into the closet, her eyes peered over the articles of clothing that were hung up neatly.
What should I wear? she asked herself.
After a little while, she finally narrowed it down to two outfits. The first one was a tan colored mini-skirt that had slits up an inch above the bottom of the skirt with a hot pink satin lace-trim camisole and tan heels that were the same color as the skirt. The second one was a little more conservative. It consisted of a pair of low rise faded jeans that always fit just right and a low cut white satin lace-light pink trim camisole. A pair of white high heels were to accompany the outfit.
Raylen growled in frustration and decided to just wait on picking the outfit and ask Mia when Leon took her over to his place. She hoped that Mia lived near Leon. It would certainly make things a lot easier.
As she walked toward the bathroom, Raylen could feel butterflies running amuck in her stomach. She begged them to calm down as she entered the bathroom.
Just don't do anything stupid, she told herself before stripping off her clothes to get in the shower.
Raylen pulled up to Toretto's and waited patiently for Leon to appear. After several minutes passed and there was no sign of Leon, she locked her car and leaned her chair back a bit. Within seconds, her eyes were closed and she felt herself slipping into a deep sleep.
The sound of someone knocking on her window jolted her awake, and caused her heart to top out at one hundred and twenty miles per hour. Raylen glared at the person who knocked on her window, but slowly her features softened. She unlocked and opened her door and smiled up at Leon. He was wearing loose fitting jeans with a white wife beater and a dark denim jacket over that. His hair was neatly tucked under a black beanie and a toothpick idly sat between his lips.
He glanced curiously at her choice of outfit. Forgetting what she had on, Raylen looked down quickly only to smile brightly. She was wearing a pair of black jogging pants and a white wife beater with a pair of tennis shoes.
"I didn't know what to wear. So, I threw on something comfortable and then brought the two outfits that I couldn't pick from to ask Mia about them."
Leon nodded and waited until she grabbed her bag from the car. She shut the door and locked it before following Leon to his car.
"You know," he said wrapping an arm around her, "I can always help you pick."
Raylen shook her head no. "I want it to be a surprise."
"Oh really?"
Raylen shook her head yes and leaned forward. Leon stopped next to car and looked down at her.
"Well, I like surprises," he drawled out before taking the toothpick from his mouth and placing a soft kiss upon her lips.
