AN: Yeah, the Cyrillic messed up. So people the funky stuff is Russian but
FF.net doesn't know it, LOL. It's done in the Russian alphabet because I
couldn't find a translator that would translate English into Russian using
the English alphabet. So sorry 'bout that.
Chapter 54 – Broken Hearted Fools
Stacy and Kale ran to the front door but by the time they looked up and down the street the inky blackness of the night and the rain that had been threatening all evening and was now pouring down had swallowed Kat up.
"Shit. We gotta find her." Kale said, looking up and down the street frantically.
"We got no chance of catching her on foot. You take the Supra, I'll take the Eclipse and we'll go looking for her. You go up the street and I'll go down. If we find her we'll call each other on our cells."
"I don't have a better plan." Kale answered and headed for the Supra.
Both men took off looking for Kat.
*~*
As soon as Kat's brain had computed what she was going to have to do escape for some time alone to think was the only thing she could focus on, so she took off running. She never even thought of the car. In her panic the only thing that occurred to her was to get away as fast as she could. Plus she'd known the guys would have an easier time finding her in the Skyline.
She hadn't known it was pouring rain out though. It had only been a grey, overcast evening, threatening at rain when they'd gotten home but sometime while she'd been on the phone the angry sky had opened up and was dumping a deluge of rain down on the LA streets.
Kat ran for as long as she could. It was a pretty long time and she maintained a pretty good speed while she ran. When she stopped running she doubled over from the pain in her side and just how out of breath she was.
She was also freezing cold and soaked clear through. She started to slowly walk along the deserted roads of suburban LA. Her clothes stuck to her wetly and her hair hung in limp hanks all down her back and over her shoulders.
The rain disguised the tears coursing down her cheeks. At least, she thought, no one would stop thinking she was crying and try to find out what was wrong with her. She had no idea where she was walking and she didn't much care.
All the guys had ever done was take care of her and try to give her what she needed. And now thanks to her they were all in danger. Sean most of all. She knew the guys would go down protesting her plan but the only solution she saw was to give herself to her step dad and let him do what he would with her. If she knew Sean was safe then she could live with whatever else Sergei threw at her.
Her guys had given her 5 years of freedom. 5 years of love. She couldn't repay that by getting them involved in a situation they couldn't handle and couldn't come out on top of. Sean was tough and he could take care of himself. He was smart and he was used to violence, just like all the guys were. But her step father and people at his echelon of the mob played in a different league then Connor and the Tigers.
The Tigers were the most feared gang in LA. They were badass, they ran organized crime in South Central LA. That was nothing to sneer at. But when it came to the MOB they didn't compare. It was the MOB for fuck sake, Kat thought. There was no way her and her team could take on the MOB.
Maybe if they had some way to get more help then just the Tigers. If they could get some faction of the Russians on their side or even if they could get the Russian Mafia to help them. Or if they had a connection to the Italian Mafia. But all those people wouldn't help for no reason. They'd want something and Kat had nothing to offer that people of that ilk would want. She couldn't just approach them and say 'Hey, my stepfather is a top echelon boss in the Russian mob and he has my friend Sean. Help me get him back pretty please?"
It didn't work that way. They'd want her to work for them, boosting cars or something in return for her help. If they found out how good a shot she was they might even want her to be an assassin or hit man and she couldn't live with that. The only viable solution was to turn herself over to Sergei in a public area and make sure that the guys got Sean to safety.
She looked up from the ground, where she'd been watching her feet displace the rain water from puddles as she walked and realized she had no idea where she was. The rain was still coursing down in great sheets that hit her in the face almost like a slap. She could hardly see three feet in front of her through the driving rain and her own wet eyelashes.
She kept plodding along, following the sidewalk, unwilling to go back to her house and watch the guys make plans to save her. Plans she knew would ultimately fail and just result in Sean getting killed and maybe them too. She'd go home just in time to catch her step dad's next call and tell him she'd agree to his plan only if Sean went free and got to leave safely with the guys before he touched a hair on her head.
She sighed. For such a relatively young person she sure had a lot of regrets.
She wished she'd tried to find her real dad like she'd planned on when she'd first run away. She might have lots of family out in the world that she'd never met.
She wished she'd put more effort into her dancing because she knew her mom would be disappointed with her for abandoning it. Her mom had always said that a talent like hers was a gift and it shouldn't go to waste. But then again she was talented at racing too and she didn't think she could do both racing and dancing full time. But she knew she could have put more effort into keeping in shape and practicing more.
She wished she'd lived a better life. Wished she hadn't done a lot of the things she'd done that hurt others. She wouldn't let herself go into great detail on the eve of the last day of her life as she knew it but she'd done a lot of really bad things to people. Most of them were bad people, but they were bad to her because they'd been on other gangs. So that meant that while they were bad to her they might have been just like her guys to someone else.
She wished that she'd gotten to know Leon in every way a woman could know a man. Then she'd have memories of how it was supposed to be between a man and woman to hold in her heart while she was being used as a slave by some Russian Mob boss.
She regretted that almost most of all in a life full of things to regret. If she had a to do list for the last 24 hours of her life, do Leon would be right at the top of the list. And that though made her smile briefly. She'd likely never see Leon again and that was also likely for the best. No need to involve his team in the shit going down with hers. If the Tigers didn't roll in the same circles as her step dad then the Toretto's really didn't.
Next on the list would be find a really straight stretch of road and see just how fast she could push the Skyline before it gave up. She'd always wondered what the top speed for it was tuned like it was. According to Nissan it was 160 mph the way the car came from the factory. Kat would like to beg to differ with them on the top speed of her Nissan. She'd bet it was closer to 250 with NOS if she had enough road to get it up there. But now she'd never know.
The odds of the man who'd own her by the next evening letting her keep her car were slim to nil.
She became cognizant of the fact she was sobbing at that point. She figured she had been the whole way, but she hadn't noticed till then. She was going to be owned by someone. She knew that she'd fight it and whoever this guy was would try to break her. She wondered how long it would take before all the good memories she'd be holding in her heart would be eradicated by the abuse she'd be subjected to and she'd just give up her will to live.
If she couldn't escape, that would happen.
Kat had never prided herself on being a realist. She knew she lived in her own little version of reality most of the time. It was a good way for a girl like her to live, most of the time. But she figured that the situation she was in now was as good a reason to discover reality as any. There was no sense trying to sugar coat what was going to happen to her, not even to herself.
She had more spirit then any one girl deserved to and the kind of person who would barter people in a business deal would enjoy every second of taking every little bit of spirit from her till she was a meek, timid, cowering shell of the person she'd been before.
She figured she'd kill herself first.
She realized she was walking up to a bridge over a river or waterway of some kind. The water was teeming, violent, stirred up by the tempest LA was being hit by. She'd heard they were in for a tropical storm and it seemed the weatherman had been right for once. The wind was howling mad, slashing rain every which way and the night was uncommonly black. Even the street lights did little to lift the gloom of the night.
Kat walked out to the highest point of the bridge and peered over into the teeming water. She noted the railing was about as wide as a balance beam.
She'd done lots of practicing on the beam. Kat wondered what Sergei would do to Sean if she was dead and couldn't show up to give herself to him. If she'd died in some freak accident surely he'd let Sean go. And if she got up on the rail and did her best to keep her balance, say from the highest point where she was standing at that moment, to the other side of the bridge, then it was sort of like letting fate decide for her. If she fell then that was how it should be and if she didn't then that was how it should be. She could give it a try either way. She kicked off her flip flops and stood bare foot on the wet pavement.
She placed both palms down on the rail and pushed up, lightly lifting her feet off the ground, keeping them together and pointed in proper form. She hung off the side like that for a moment, testing the strength of her arms, and waiting for the proper techniques to come back to her. Then she swung her leg over the rail and sat straddling it for a moment, and then with her hands cupping the edges of the rail she again pushed up and got her feet under her. She stood, one foot in front of her, toes pointed straight ahead. She was in a slight crouch for balance and had her arms to her sides.
The wind tried to knock her off one way or the other but she kept her balance and started to compensate her movements for the winds pressure on her body.
She took two dip steps and then did a variety of leaps, landing in place, getting more into it as the movements returned to her mind.
She did some ballet movements on the 'beam'. She had her eyes closed and the score to Swan Lake was playing in her mind. She wasn't in the driving rain in her mind. She was on stage, dancing the role of Odette. The stage lights were hot and bright. She forgot she was cold. She couldn't see anything but the lit areas of the stage, the rest of the room she was in was just a black blur. She knew her mother would be so proud of her. And in her mind her real father was sitting with her mother in the audience watching her dance. She landed a particularly hard jump and stumbled for a moment, cursing herself for getting out of practice. Because of her fantasy she didn't remember she was in a tenuous position on the railing of a bridge.
Chapter 54 – Broken Hearted Fools
Stacy and Kale ran to the front door but by the time they looked up and down the street the inky blackness of the night and the rain that had been threatening all evening and was now pouring down had swallowed Kat up.
"Shit. We gotta find her." Kale said, looking up and down the street frantically.
"We got no chance of catching her on foot. You take the Supra, I'll take the Eclipse and we'll go looking for her. You go up the street and I'll go down. If we find her we'll call each other on our cells."
"I don't have a better plan." Kale answered and headed for the Supra.
Both men took off looking for Kat.
*~*
As soon as Kat's brain had computed what she was going to have to do escape for some time alone to think was the only thing she could focus on, so she took off running. She never even thought of the car. In her panic the only thing that occurred to her was to get away as fast as she could. Plus she'd known the guys would have an easier time finding her in the Skyline.
She hadn't known it was pouring rain out though. It had only been a grey, overcast evening, threatening at rain when they'd gotten home but sometime while she'd been on the phone the angry sky had opened up and was dumping a deluge of rain down on the LA streets.
Kat ran for as long as she could. It was a pretty long time and she maintained a pretty good speed while she ran. When she stopped running she doubled over from the pain in her side and just how out of breath she was.
She was also freezing cold and soaked clear through. She started to slowly walk along the deserted roads of suburban LA. Her clothes stuck to her wetly and her hair hung in limp hanks all down her back and over her shoulders.
The rain disguised the tears coursing down her cheeks. At least, she thought, no one would stop thinking she was crying and try to find out what was wrong with her. She had no idea where she was walking and she didn't much care.
All the guys had ever done was take care of her and try to give her what she needed. And now thanks to her they were all in danger. Sean most of all. She knew the guys would go down protesting her plan but the only solution she saw was to give herself to her step dad and let him do what he would with her. If she knew Sean was safe then she could live with whatever else Sergei threw at her.
Her guys had given her 5 years of freedom. 5 years of love. She couldn't repay that by getting them involved in a situation they couldn't handle and couldn't come out on top of. Sean was tough and he could take care of himself. He was smart and he was used to violence, just like all the guys were. But her step father and people at his echelon of the mob played in a different league then Connor and the Tigers.
The Tigers were the most feared gang in LA. They were badass, they ran organized crime in South Central LA. That was nothing to sneer at. But when it came to the MOB they didn't compare. It was the MOB for fuck sake, Kat thought. There was no way her and her team could take on the MOB.
Maybe if they had some way to get more help then just the Tigers. If they could get some faction of the Russians on their side or even if they could get the Russian Mafia to help them. Or if they had a connection to the Italian Mafia. But all those people wouldn't help for no reason. They'd want something and Kat had nothing to offer that people of that ilk would want. She couldn't just approach them and say 'Hey, my stepfather is a top echelon boss in the Russian mob and he has my friend Sean. Help me get him back pretty please?"
It didn't work that way. They'd want her to work for them, boosting cars or something in return for her help. If they found out how good a shot she was they might even want her to be an assassin or hit man and she couldn't live with that. The only viable solution was to turn herself over to Sergei in a public area and make sure that the guys got Sean to safety.
She looked up from the ground, where she'd been watching her feet displace the rain water from puddles as she walked and realized she had no idea where she was. The rain was still coursing down in great sheets that hit her in the face almost like a slap. She could hardly see three feet in front of her through the driving rain and her own wet eyelashes.
She kept plodding along, following the sidewalk, unwilling to go back to her house and watch the guys make plans to save her. Plans she knew would ultimately fail and just result in Sean getting killed and maybe them too. She'd go home just in time to catch her step dad's next call and tell him she'd agree to his plan only if Sean went free and got to leave safely with the guys before he touched a hair on her head.
She sighed. For such a relatively young person she sure had a lot of regrets.
She wished she'd tried to find her real dad like she'd planned on when she'd first run away. She might have lots of family out in the world that she'd never met.
She wished she'd put more effort into her dancing because she knew her mom would be disappointed with her for abandoning it. Her mom had always said that a talent like hers was a gift and it shouldn't go to waste. But then again she was talented at racing too and she didn't think she could do both racing and dancing full time. But she knew she could have put more effort into keeping in shape and practicing more.
She wished she'd lived a better life. Wished she hadn't done a lot of the things she'd done that hurt others. She wouldn't let herself go into great detail on the eve of the last day of her life as she knew it but she'd done a lot of really bad things to people. Most of them were bad people, but they were bad to her because they'd been on other gangs. So that meant that while they were bad to her they might have been just like her guys to someone else.
She wished that she'd gotten to know Leon in every way a woman could know a man. Then she'd have memories of how it was supposed to be between a man and woman to hold in her heart while she was being used as a slave by some Russian Mob boss.
She regretted that almost most of all in a life full of things to regret. If she had a to do list for the last 24 hours of her life, do Leon would be right at the top of the list. And that though made her smile briefly. She'd likely never see Leon again and that was also likely for the best. No need to involve his team in the shit going down with hers. If the Tigers didn't roll in the same circles as her step dad then the Toretto's really didn't.
Next on the list would be find a really straight stretch of road and see just how fast she could push the Skyline before it gave up. She'd always wondered what the top speed for it was tuned like it was. According to Nissan it was 160 mph the way the car came from the factory. Kat would like to beg to differ with them on the top speed of her Nissan. She'd bet it was closer to 250 with NOS if she had enough road to get it up there. But now she'd never know.
The odds of the man who'd own her by the next evening letting her keep her car were slim to nil.
She became cognizant of the fact she was sobbing at that point. She figured she had been the whole way, but she hadn't noticed till then. She was going to be owned by someone. She knew that she'd fight it and whoever this guy was would try to break her. She wondered how long it would take before all the good memories she'd be holding in her heart would be eradicated by the abuse she'd be subjected to and she'd just give up her will to live.
If she couldn't escape, that would happen.
Kat had never prided herself on being a realist. She knew she lived in her own little version of reality most of the time. It was a good way for a girl like her to live, most of the time. But she figured that the situation she was in now was as good a reason to discover reality as any. There was no sense trying to sugar coat what was going to happen to her, not even to herself.
She had more spirit then any one girl deserved to and the kind of person who would barter people in a business deal would enjoy every second of taking every little bit of spirit from her till she was a meek, timid, cowering shell of the person she'd been before.
She figured she'd kill herself first.
She realized she was walking up to a bridge over a river or waterway of some kind. The water was teeming, violent, stirred up by the tempest LA was being hit by. She'd heard they were in for a tropical storm and it seemed the weatherman had been right for once. The wind was howling mad, slashing rain every which way and the night was uncommonly black. Even the street lights did little to lift the gloom of the night.
Kat walked out to the highest point of the bridge and peered over into the teeming water. She noted the railing was about as wide as a balance beam.
She'd done lots of practicing on the beam. Kat wondered what Sergei would do to Sean if she was dead and couldn't show up to give herself to him. If she'd died in some freak accident surely he'd let Sean go. And if she got up on the rail and did her best to keep her balance, say from the highest point where she was standing at that moment, to the other side of the bridge, then it was sort of like letting fate decide for her. If she fell then that was how it should be and if she didn't then that was how it should be. She could give it a try either way. She kicked off her flip flops and stood bare foot on the wet pavement.
She placed both palms down on the rail and pushed up, lightly lifting her feet off the ground, keeping them together and pointed in proper form. She hung off the side like that for a moment, testing the strength of her arms, and waiting for the proper techniques to come back to her. Then she swung her leg over the rail and sat straddling it for a moment, and then with her hands cupping the edges of the rail she again pushed up and got her feet under her. She stood, one foot in front of her, toes pointed straight ahead. She was in a slight crouch for balance and had her arms to her sides.
The wind tried to knock her off one way or the other but she kept her balance and started to compensate her movements for the winds pressure on her body.
She took two dip steps and then did a variety of leaps, landing in place, getting more into it as the movements returned to her mind.
She did some ballet movements on the 'beam'. She had her eyes closed and the score to Swan Lake was playing in her mind. She wasn't in the driving rain in her mind. She was on stage, dancing the role of Odette. The stage lights were hot and bright. She forgot she was cold. She couldn't see anything but the lit areas of the stage, the rest of the room she was in was just a black blur. She knew her mother would be so proud of her. And in her mind her real father was sitting with her mother in the audience watching her dance. She landed a particularly hard jump and stumbled for a moment, cursing herself for getting out of practice. Because of her fantasy she didn't remember she was in a tenuous position on the railing of a bridge.