Chapter 67 – Broken Smile
Kat took her bike out under the protest of both Connor and Stacy. Neither of them wanted to see her riding something so dangerous and fast in her frame of mind but she wasn't taking no for an answer. She did wait for Connor and a few of the other Tigers to get their own bikes out of the garage but then she was off like a rocket. Connor did his best to keep up with her and did ok, but his bike wasn't as new or as designed for insane speed as Kat's was.
Kat had only one thing on her mind, seeing the house where Sean was being kept. She figured if she could just see it, just know he was there, she would somehow feel more confident about the whole undertaking. She raced through the night time streets like they were lit by the midday sun. She'd memorized the route to where Sean was and she simply picked out the shortest path out to the Bel Air neighbourhood Sean was in. The others simply followed in her wake. The Toretto's were in their cars some distance behind due to the difference in speed between a sport bike and a sports car.
Kat was leaning low over the tank of the bike, all her hair tucked under her black helmet which came equipped with black out visor. She had the visor down even though it was night time just in case anyone should see her. She knew her step father wasn't expecting a motorcycle riding hoyden two days from now, he was expecting a scared little girl, a girlie girl who wore dresses and toe shoes. She had to almost figure that she could walk right up to Sergei in her motorcycle leathers and he'd never know who she was. He was still holding onto a 5 year old image of her.
She skidded onto the street Sergei's house was on and let the bike coast along. The rest of the Tigers followed her lead. They didn't need to draw attention to the fact a strange pack of people on bikes were roving the neighbourhood. It wasn't the type of neighbourhood to get a lot of bike gang traffic. The pulled up in shadows across the street from the house itself and a few houses down. The Toretto's pulled up a few moments later and followed suit, cutting lights and engines before they could become intrusive to the normal evening routine.
"So this is it huh?" Connor asked the group in general and Danny Williams answered.
"Yeah. This is it. Have we all seen enough now? Can we leave before someone sees us?"
Kat took her visor up on her helmet, knowing taking it off would likely draw attention to her pale hair, even in the shadows they'd found under an old oak tree. "No, we have not seen enough. How are we supposed to get in there again?"
Danny pointed down the north wall. "See that tree?" Kat nodded. "Well, there's another tree inside the fence as you can tell and it will make the perfect place to land. We'll go over there." Danny figured there was no point continuing to fight with the girl since it was clear no matter what she said everyone was going to take her side. They obviously treated her specially.
"I still don't know why we don't just go get him now and leave one of my brothers there to keep radio contact." Kat scowled and looked around the house. They were lucky the house was on the corner of two streets meeting and they didn't have to cut across any one else's property to get to the shady area that Danny had indicated.
"There's too much chance of Sergei dropping in and finding all his men incapacitated that way. If he finds all his men knocked out and one of his sons maintaining radio contact without calling for backup he's going to know they've both gone native on him and he'll move the other two."
Kat sighed. "I guess." She got back on her bike. "Let's go check out Long Beach."
"That's a bit of a ride." Danny said, glancing at the people riding astride.
"Thanks for the concern but even though it's been awhile I'll be fine on the bike. If you guys don't want to come you don't have to but I have to see this place tonight or I'm gonna go insane." Kat finished and flicked her visor down. Danny gave her a look that clearly said he figured she was already insane. She caught his look, shrugged, started her bike as quietly as she could and gave a hand signal to her group to move out. They all followed her out of the shade at a dull roar. As soon as they were a few minutes away that dull roar became an all out cry as Kat and her friends opened up the throttle on the bikes.
Dom in his RX-7 and Vince driving Nyssa's Skyline were doing a credible job of keeping up with the bikers as was Leon in his own Skyline but most of the other cars had fallen behind.
Danny had no idea why he was still involved in the whole mess in which he'd found himself. He was not use to being this out of control. Even when he was working for Sergei he was in a position of authority. Only the man himself and his older son had any say over his position in Sergei's world. Now he was essentially taking orders from a girl who looked like she was about 15 years old and a group of people that under normal circumstances he'd toss in jail. He could understand her being upset but she was so pushy and arrogant. And her friends just pushed her on and made her think it was fine for her to be how she was.
He could get her friend back with on his own with a few of his co-workers from the FBI. But they hadn't wanted that, they wanted to go in like Rambo and play rescue heros instead. He'd agreed to help, to be the inside contact for them but he honestly hadn't known what he'd been getting himself into.
Not to mention being reunited with his sister the way he had been. That had been a huge shock. He'd known it was going to hit Nyssa hard to be told he was dead but the promotion had been huge and had been his way into undercover work, just what he'd always wanted.
He'd known that with their father in jail there wouldn't be anywhere for Nyssa to go but the bureau had assured him that they'd take care of her, that she'd be ok. To find out that they'd left her without a penny to her name and with that abusive asshole their silly, flighty mother had married had been a huge shock to him. He had never thought that the bureau would mess up so bad.
And they'd driven his sweet, innocent, baby sister into the arms of a thug. A gun carrying, street racing, trash talking, scruffy, disreputable criminal. A street racing, disreputable criminal who was driving his legitimately built Skyline in street racing. A criminal who'd corrupted his baby sister into street racing herself. A gun carrying thug who was sleeping with his sweet little baby sister. It was almost more then Danny could take. Not to mention his sister had been exposed to the horrible influences of both Kat and this Letty girl who lived with Dominic Torreto. Kat was the worst influence he could have hoped for. She talked trash and looked and acted just like the Gangster Thug Barbie he'd accused her of being.
The whole lot of them didn't have to worry, he knew all about the little truck incident, as it was now referred to in the bureau, and he was none too thrilled to be working with Brian Earl Spilner, AKA Brian Edward O'Connor. O'Connor had flipped and gone Native on both his own PD and the bureau.
All over some Italian broad.
As far as Danny was concerned fellow officers were blood, brothers, and blood was thicker then water and brothers came before broads. He didn't care that as far as Bilkens and the FBI were concerned O'Connor had redeemed himself. He hadn't redeemed himself to most of the officers on the force.
He put his mind back on the road and tried to keep it off the man driving what use to be his favorite possession. His Skyline.
Leon was also holding his own with the crowd of bikes. He knew they were going slower then they could so that the cars could sort of keep up with them. He watched Kat take one hand off her handlebars, flip her visor up and yell something at Connor, who yelled back. They both then flipped their visors down and sped off alone together, leaving the other Tigers and the cars behind as they raced off down the highway.
It was clear that Connor could not keep up with Kat. He tried but in the end she got ahead of him and stayed there. By a considerable margin at that. Leon didn't know how she did it, was so fearless when it came to any kind of speed at all. Vince and Letty of all people had a phase of motorcycle riding but when they'd tried to teach him he'd done it once and went back to his car. Scared the shit out of him.
It was so much ready power, so much more so then even the Skyline. The wind was right there, whistling past your head and shoulders, hips and legs. The ground was too close at every turn, the cars too close at all times. There hadn't been enough metal between him and all the other people sharing the road so he'd given up on it. Hadn't been for him was the reason he gave Vince. He'd never have admitted he was too scared to do something Letty was reasonably good at but he had been.
Kat it seemed had no such issues. All he could see of her was her uniquely shaped tail light. He knew that she was barely keeping her cool with him and he hoped it was just because of the stress she was under and what he'd said to her the last time they talked. He was still hoping when the dust settled they'd be able to talk things over.
He hoped nothing went horrible wrong and took the focus away. He had to settle some things with her. Owed her a huge apology. Dom pulled up beside him in the other lane and waved. Leon waved back and hit the gas.
It had been a long time since he'd raced Dominic and it was just the sort of thing that might take his mind off things for awhile. He and Dom were fairly closely matched and Leon had known at first that his job and his place to live had depended on Dom's good will, so he'd never raced to win after the first time. He'd kicked Dom's ass the first time, but he'd had to prove the point that he could drive and the kid could build cars.
He sighed when he thought about Jesse. The kid had already been through so much and Leon didn't like it one bit that he was being put through even more. It seemed unfair that they cleaned up their act only to have something they really had nothing to do with come back and bite them in the ass like it had. And it wasn't fair that it was Jesse that it had happened to. If this guy wanted to get back at Kat then Leon figured that he should be were Jesse was. Jesse and Kat were just friends, it was Leon who'd been involved with her. He knew his guilt that it was Jesse who'd been taken not him had been a large reason why he'd treated Kat like he had.
But that didn't make it ok.
Dom watched the round tail lights of the Skyline rush away from him and smiled. So Leon wanted a bit of a challenge did he? Dom was ready to oblige him.
"You gonna take that Dom?" Letty asked from beside him. He put his hand on her knee for a second.
"Of course not baby." With that he used his hand to downshift into 4th and then 3rd, his RX-7 able to rev way higher then Leon's Skyline. He started to gain on his friend.
"Think you can catch him?" Letty asked cheekily.
"Hell yeah." Dom answered and pushed the A/C button, causing the assembly to pop out of his dash and reveal his 'magic NOS button'. Letty laughed as Dom pushed the button and the two were tossed back into their seats. The rushed rapidly up beside the roaring Skyline and soon came level with Leon's passenger side window again. Dom this time waved and hit his NOS again. Leon could only watch as the small red car zoomed out of his sphere.
"Zoom Zoom!" Leon parroted the Mazda commercials and hit his NOS, racing up behind Dom again.
Kat glanced back in her rearview and saw Connor was only a few yards off her tail. She moved her gaze farther back still and saw the dueling yellow and red cars. She laughed. She figured the racing bug was therapeutic for more then just herself. Her theory was pretty much confirmed when she saw the purple Skyline join the battle. She turned her gaze back to the road ahead.
And realized she was rushing up at the rear end of a car much too fast to avoid hitting it by slowing down. She cut out into the left lane sharply and narrowly missed the car that was there. Righting herself she roared ahead and cut back into her previous lane and hit the gas again. She was embarrassed by her mistake and wanted to get away from anyone who might have seen, figuring she was in for it when they got back home. Either Connor would pick on her for her slip or he'd yell at her for almost getting herself killed.
This motorcycle thing was more complicated then she remembered and she admonished herself to keep her mind on it, not foolish people playing foolish games.
Everyone had seen Kat's close call and the horseplay stopped afterward. They had things to do and it didn't include anyone having a wreck. They pulled into Long Beach. Kat stopped the bike at a roadside gas station and set it on its kick stand. She got off and leaned on the side, helmet under her arm, enigmatic look on her face. She was waiting for Connor to bring it on. She figured she was in for a doosie of a lecture. Connor pulled into the station a few minutes after Kat.
"You shouldn't be on that thing!" Connor didn't disappoint her. He opened in a deceptively calm voice.
"I made a mistake." Kat answered and shrugged. The rest of the group caught up and got out of their cars.
"You made a mistake that coulda got you killed!" Connor switched to yelling.
"Oh well." Kat said, unfeeling, and looked at her nails. "Besides, I didn't did I?"
"You would have if you'd been one second slower."
"Yeah, well I wasn't so get over it!" Kat snapped and yelled back at her friend.
"I want you to leave that thing here and ride with me for the rest of the night." Connor said in his most reasonable tone.
"Hell no. I'm fine. I'm riding my own bike. Everyone makes mistakes Connor."
"Not you Kat. Not when it comes to driving that bike or your car. It just shows how far off the road your mind is and you can't ride like that."
"I lost concentration for one second Connor Black, and it's not like you've never done it before." Kat said in a very firm tone. "This conversation is over. I'm not riding bitch with you and I'm not leaving my bike here."
"Fine, see if we care if you turn yourself into a grease spot on some highway!"
"Fine, maybe I will then!" Kat snapped and got back on the bike and kicked it over with a roar. "Lead the way to this fucken house cop boy." She glared at Danny.
Danny started to turn red and obviously had something to say. Dom leaned over and said something low to the man. Whatever Dom said made Danny calm down some and he moved back to Brian's car where he had been riding.
Brian and Danny moved out and the rest followed. Kat brought up the rear, not wanting to think about people staring at her back. Connor stayed close.
They found the spot they'd work from when they moved in for real and scouted the beach. They then decided to head for Connor's house again. This time Kat took off as fast as she could. She arrived home some time before the rest of the group and by the time they got back to Connor's she'd taken the Skyline and left a note telling them all that she'd left for home.
Stacy and Kale decided they wanted to stay at Connor's for awhile to give Kat a chance to cool off, but Dom and his group decided to go home since there wasn't anything further they could really do for about 36 hours. They were about half an hour behind Kat.
When they pulled into their own driveway Leon looked over and saw Kat's garage door was open and the inside was lit up like midday. He decided to go over and try to talk to her, just to see if she'd hear him out. She was clearly trying to live on the edge and he thought maybe if they settled some things she might calm down.
He walked slowly up her driveway, feet dragging. He knew he could be in for a knock down drag out fight and he wasn't looking forward to that possibility. He got to the garage door and looked in. Kat was leaned over the left side reaching down in behind the intake toward the turbos.
"Whatchya doin?" Leon asked from the door, not fully in the half moon of light from the garage so his face was still shadowed.
Kat looked up. She'd know the voice anywhere, she didn't need to see the face. "Car's not working right." She growled and looked back down into the engine compartment.
She couldn't believe on top of all the other things that had been going wrong she'd have car trouble too. It was the height of unfair. She tucked a piece of hair that had missed her ponytail behind her ear.
"What's wrong with it?" Leon asked and moved closer. She hadn't told him to go fuck himself, a good sign he was sure.
"One of the turbos isn't spooling up. It's lagging like a sonabitch."
"So what are you doing to it now?"
"Removing the turbos so I can find out which one."
"That's a big job. You want a hand?"
"You saying you don't think I can do it on my own?" Kat looked up, on her defensive.
"No. Just offering." Leon said and looked down.
"I guess." Kat conceded ungracefully.
"Well, if you're sure?" Leon gave her a final out.
"Yeah, it's fine. I guess I could use a hand getting the intake stuff off." Kat moved over and Leon grabbed one of her socket sets out of the open tool box and started taking the intake duct work off. They worked in silence for awhile. He thought the whole time about how he could broach the topic he really wanted to talk to her about. He decided he'd just have to go ahead and do it.
"Kat?"
"Yeah?" She grunted as she started to loosen the nuts holding her strut tower brace against the pillars of the engine bay.
"I want to tell you something."
"Ok." Kat didn't look at him, she just kept working. Leon took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry for what I said to you last night."
"Really?" Kat asked sarcastically. She wasn't going to make it easy. He had to admit he'd have been more shocked if she had gone easy on him.
"Yeah, really. I guess...Well...I was just more upset with myself then you but I took it out on you."
"I see." Leon could tell she didn't really, but thought it was the right thing to say.
"No, you don't. I guess I was feeling guilty about the fact that it was Jesse that was involved. It should be me in that house right now not the kid and I took how I felt about that out on you. I'm sorry." Leon lifted on of the intake assemblies out of the car and went to work on the other one.
"You were right to take it out on me. I did bring it all on. I've accepted it, so should you." Kat glanced at Leon and went back to her work again. She was being far to flip about the whole thing to suit Leon.
"No I should not have blamed you, I should have blamed the asshole who started the whole mess because he's the only one who did anything wrong. But I mean, it was only almost a year ago that Jesse was almost killed, and that should have been me too. I was the one who went along with Dom and Jesse always went along with me. He never should have been involved and it was all my fault for always going with the crowd and never doing my own thing. If I'd have told Dom no way then Jesse would have followed my lead and stayed out of it too."
"The kid threw down a slip to a car he didn't own at race wars. How is that your fault?" Kat glanced his way again and then again turned back to her car.
"I set the example when I got the Skyline and I didn't stop him. I let him do it. He thought the driving he did with Dom had made him better to the point he could run with Tran and instead of tell him no way I let him do it."
"And never letting people make mistakes is so great for them too. That's why I'm so perfect. What would you rather, that he ended up as spoilt and self centered as I am." She gave him a sarcastic, broken smile.
Hearing her put herself down again was more then Leon could take. He felt responsible for the first time Jesse got hurt, he felt responsible for Jesse being involved in the mess he was in now, and he felt responsible for Kat feeling how she did about herself. He tried to fight it.
First he just sniffled. He kept working and he thought he was going to be fine. But then he thought about the fight that Kat had with Connor at the gas station and remembered just how low her opinion of herself really was and then sniffling wasn't enough.
"Do you want a Kleenex?" Kat asked, having no idea why Leon was sniffing all of a sudden. He just shook his head and tried to retain his composure. A tear fell off Leon's cheek and splashed onto the second intake. "Are you crying?" Kat asked incredulously.
"No." Leon lied and kept working, looking down.
"Yes you are. Why?"
"Because it's all my fault. Jesse, and how you talk about yourself, all of it. I did that to you. I'm the one who's horrible, not you." Leon gave up pretending like he wasn't crying. It was hard work and it was obvious she knew he was.
Kat couldn't believe he was really sorry for all he'd said. She had felt like he was right, and to find out he'd hadn't really meant it but said it out of anger that was more with himself then with her made her feel better somehow, like it was understandable if not justifiable that he acted that way. But then she felt bad that any guy as tough as Leon had been driven to cry in front of another person. She knew she hated it and she imagined that he must feel the same way.
She took a step closer to him and gently touched her fingertip to one of the wet tracks on his cheek as if to reassure herself that the whole situation was for real. He looked down at her, watched something soften in her eyes. She looked like the epitome of woman in that moment with her melting green eyes.
Melting for him.
She tentatively wrapped her arms around his waist, offering comfort but unsure if it was welcomed or not. She tightened her own grip when he wrapped her in a crushing embrace of his own and sobbed into her hair. She lay her head on his chest and gave in to her own tears with quiet grace. After a few minutes he lifted his head, feeling much better after getting his feelings out.
"Kitten?"
"Um?" She murmured without lifting her head.
"Do you think we have a chance?"
"A chance at what?" There were so many issues going on in her life right now she didn't know how to answer that without knowing if he meant a chance to figure out what was wrong with her car, or a chance to win the war against her stepfather.
"A chance at us?"