Chapter 4

Keys were not a good weapon. You had to get too close to use them and you needed quite a bit of force behind them to make them useful at all. Dom kept his car keys in his pocket. In his hands he had a wrench from the garage. It looked spotless and new, but Dom would not be afraid to dirty it if he actually found someone walking around shooting people.

The food court was shut down. All the lights and machines were off. Listening hard, Dom heard nothing, not even his own footsteps. If someone else was down here, they were doing a very good job of hiding.

Around the bend from the food court was a set of offices and a meeting room. Dom tried the handles to the offices but found the doors locked. The meeting room had a large window in its wall and was used for birthdays as well as corporate meetings. As he got closer, Dom noticed blood on the window, and his chest constricted. This wasn't from his memory. No one had ever been murdered at the track.

When he reached the door, he could just make out the top of a familiar head of blonde curls leaning against the wall below the window. Below the blood.

"Brian?" Dom asked, pushing through the door. In hindsight, he should have been worried about the shooter being in the area, but in the moment, he could only focus on the bloodied window and Brian's wellbeing.

"Dom," Brian croaked painfully. "No-"

And by the time Dom stepped fully into the room, Brian's voice was gone. More than that, the body was gone. There was no one leaning against the bloodied wall.

But Dom had heard Brian's voice. Dom had seen Brian's hair. And the room certainly looked like a crime scene. The window had blood splatter, and the baseboard was thickly coated with evidence of a mortally bleeding wound. Whoever got shot would need immediate and effective medical care if there was any hope of survival.

Yet Brian wasn't there.

"Brian?" Dom called loudly and leaned back out of the room to check the hallway. No one. No blood. No footsteps. No return shout. Dom was alone.

Wrench in hand, Dom tore himself away from the horrific puddle of blood and quickly continued his search down the hall. Brian was fine. Right? He said he was already dead, and dead people couldn't die. Right?

But the pain in Brian's voice when he called Dom's name was real. And the fear in his 'No' was real too. Dead or not, Dom was certain of those things, and that meant Brian needed his help. Dom just had to find him first.

He searched every bathroom, every closet, every awkwardly shaped nook. He even broke into the offices to check there. Brian wasn't in the main hall. Backtracking, Dom made sure Brian hadn't reappeared in the garage, fixing his car like nothing had happened. But the garage was silent, and the only occupant was the half fixed Skyline.

The stands. Dom jogged to the top of the seats and slowly walked around the entire track, searching all the rows below him for any sign of another person. There wasn't even a hat or a dribble of blood. The longer Dom searched, the more certain he became that the red liquid left behind in Brian's wake was blood. Why a dead angel would leave behind blood was still unclear, but it worried Dom and filled him with a stupid guilt.

The guilt pulled at him and said he should have noticed the blood the first time and asked Brian about it, that he should have known something was wrong. But the logical part of his brain scolded the guilt. Dom didn't understand how the afterlife worked, and Brian never acted like anything was wrong… at least not with him. All Dom could do now was look for his injured friend.

Friend? Dom frowned as he continued to search the stands. He and Brian had barely met, and Dom didn't have any friends… Not anymore.

Stopping by the broadcast tower after making a complete circle around the track, Dom knelt down and strained his brain to think of anywhere else Brian could be. Instead his brain remembered the days before everything went wrong. Back when there had been cookouts on Sunday and racing on Saturday, back when there was no end to the smiles and the laughter, back when meeting Brian Monday morning was all Dom would have needed to invite him to family dinner on Tuesday.

Dom used to have friends. Dom used to be easy to get along with, easy to befriend and easy to stay friends with. He expected only trust and loyalty and gave it back in spades. He didn't need birthday gifts. He didn't need all your time. He didn't need you to be a racer or show up to every party. He just needed to know you were with him if things were rough.

And then things went rough. And it wasn't that all his friends didn't show up. It was that they couldn't.

Shaking his head, Dom headed down the bleachers to find the entrance to the underside. Most of the bleachers were above the main hall and the food court and the garage, but there was a section that was mostly hollow underneath, used mainly for storage.

Ripping the door open, Dom held his wrench high and entered the darkened space. He flipped the light switch and hesitated. In life, this area had been full of random junk. Extra chairs, old parts for the restaurant, bits of cars that might be useful in fixing one of the dragsters, filing cabinets, storage units, replacement lights for the starting signal – the list of items held down there was endless. But the room Dom stepped into was almost barren in comparison.

A couple of boxes were stacked in one corner, but the center of the space was taken up by a long dining table and chairs. There was a grill in the far corner and grass on the floor, and Dom had to take several moments just to breath. It was his old backyard, taken and shoved under the stands. Even the light that had come on when he hit the switch resembled Sunday afternoon sunlight, not a florescent bulb.

"Brian!" Dom shouted when he found his chest hadn't caved in from the surprising sight. He looked back out the door, onto the track, but there was no car speeding in a circle in an attempt to impress Dom. "Brian!" and now the shout was angry, fueled by anxiety and fear.

"Here," Brian said. It was quiet and unlike the conversational calm Brian usually used, but it was still Brian. He was sitting at the dining table, slouching back and not facing Dom, arms crossed around his chest.

Lowering his wrench to his side, Dom felt his insides relax at the sight of the other man. Brian wasn't covered in blood, and that was a blessing to start with. "Brian," Dom said, this time with relief, as he walked over to the table. "What the hell is going on?"

"Nothin," Brian said with a shrug, but when Dom finally got a good look at the blonde, he looked tired. "I see you found something new. Or something old. I guess it depends on how you look at it."

"Bri-," Dom began but found his words covered by Brian's sharp response.

"Dom." And his tone was final. Brian wasn't going to talk about it. Dom could tell, because he knew if their places were switched, he wouldn't tell either.

Grunting, Dom set his wrench down on the table and took a seat across from Brian. He wanted answers, but he was starting to see how this game worked. If he wanted Brian to talk, he had to talk. If he wanted to leave this place, he had to talk. If he wanted anything, he had to talk… even if he didn't want to.

"So what?" Dom asked, crossing his arms like Brian. "You wanted a barbecue?"

"I didn't populate this place," Brian said, frowning. "The layout of the racetrack is all you. You create the place. I just show up in it."

"So I wanted a barbecue?" Dom corrected, his tone sour. He knew how the game went now, but that didn't mean he liked it.

Brian, for his part, did not look offended by the tone. In fact, he looked amused. His tired expression lessened as he smiled, and then there were plates on the table in front of them. Each plate was home to a large, perfectly grilled, chicken drumstick that was lathered in barbecue sauce.

"Were barbecues a big thing for you growing up?" Brian asked. He uncrossed his arms and picked up his chicken. Dom eyed the food warily, but Brian tore into it, instantly smearing the sauce all around his mouth.

"Yeah," Dom said with another grunt. "Every Sunday, my father hosted a cookout for the whole neighborhood. Everyone brought food to share. Kept the neighborhood close."

Napkins were on the table now, and Brian wiped his mouth with one before he asked, "So what happened that you lost all those people? When you lost the house, where were the neighbors?"

Dom sat up straighter and set his arms on the table on either side of his food. "Some had moved on. Some died with my father. Most couldn't do much because of the recession. But I suspect some were just less loyal than they proclaimed to be."

Wiping his hands clean, Brian shrugged but didn't say anything. He wrinkled his nose before nodding his head in a way that suggested another shrug. If he made one more thinking motion, Dom was gonna throw his chicken at him, but then Brian leaned back in his chair and focused entirely on Dom again.

"You ever think Letty misses you?" he asked, curious and conversational and not like he was prying. It was interesting the way Brian could talk like he'd known you for years and you almost believed you had.

"Haven't really thought about it this past year," Dom admitted gruffly, but now he did.

He remembered Letty from when the two of them were both in middle school and she used to beat him at bike racing, and then they both got motorcycles in high school but then sold them after Letty crashed and nearly lost her arm. Cars were Dom's entire focus after that – his every hobby and passion. He was gonna race like his father, and Letty was gonna be his top mechanic… when she wasn't beating him in the off season.

Letty. Over everyone he'd ever met in his life, she was his best friend. When the government took their house, Letty was the one shoving a cop off the front porch and getting handcuffs slapped on her while Dom and Mia were escorted off the property. When their parents died, she was the one planning the funeral because the siblings just couldn't do it. Even though she'd lost her father in the same incident, she was stronger than both of them.

For the first time since Mia's death, Dom wondered what happened to Letty. She'd been held overnight in jail for the cop thing, but they hadn't spoken since. Dom had been too busy trying to find work and support Mia and maybe buy the house back.

Maybe he should have called her when he'd had the chance.

"You know, she's probably worried sick about you," Brian said with half a shrug. "Probably gonna kick your ass when she finds you again."

"Probably would kick yours too if you pulled this shit with her," Dom replied, and at least Brian had the decency to look embarrassed.

There was a moment of silence while Brian took another bite of his chicken and Dom literally swallowed the urge to do the same to his own. When Brian was finished swallowing and wiping his mouth again, they looked straight at each other, and for a long minute they just stared. Something that no longer mattered stirred in Dom's chest, and he pretended not to notice it. In its wake, Dom was left with the image of a blood soaked wall in the meeting room, and that just made his gut twist uncomfortably.

Seeming to sense Dom's thoughts, Brian smiled, tight lipped but not unkind. "Don't worry about it, Dom," he said. "I'm alright."

"Never said you weren't," Dom said gruffly.

"No," Brian agreed and nodded at the plate in front of Dom. "But you were thinking it. Now eat up. It's Sunday, right? Nothing bad happens on Sunday."

With a grunt, Dom finally reached for his food. Nothing indeed, he thought. Nothing except for the day the cops came to take the house aw-

Spitting, Dom dropped the chicken leg and it bounced and fell to the floor. He had barely touched his teeth to it, but already his mouth was filled with its awful flavor. He might as well have bitten into old cardboard!

Across from him, Brian burst into full, barking laughter. The look Dom made in his disgusted shock must have been good, because Brian was actually doubled over with the force of his amusement. For his part, Dom wanted to be angry at the obvious trick that had been played on him and the teasing laughter, but… But Brian was so bright when he laughed and smiled openly like that, and Dom found himself satisfied with sitting back, frown on his face, and letting the giggles die in their own time.

Brian kept saying he was dead, but in the moment he'd never looked more alive. All of his 'guardian angel' bullshit, his wise words, and his pro-life sentiments had fallen off in that moment and he was just Brian. Just a guy who'd tricked a friend into eating garbage by pretending it was cake. It was so utterly human and normal.

And as Dom watched the angel glow with glee, he actually had to agree. Nothing too bad ever happened on Sunday.

Nausea gripped his gut in the next moment, and the frozen feeling from before soaked back into his bones. Dom grimaced in the wake of it and tried to push away from the table, to escape the sudden icy draft, but he found his hands were shaking too badly to move properly and he ended up catching his feet on the legs of his chair, not far enough back, and tripping away from the table instead of walking.

"Dom?!" Brian exclaimed, worry and fear throughout his voice.

The bald man fell against the wall of the stadium and shook his head. His lungs contracted painfully, and he couldn't find his breath. His air came in wheezes and every desperate gasp hurt. Hands grabbed at his white shirt, tugging him to turn away from the wall, and then the hands were pressing against Dom's chest, his throat, his face, and finally his arms.

"No," Brian said like a curse. "No, damn it! Come on, Dom, you're not finished yet. Talk to me, Dom. Dom, breathe!"

Brian's hand shoved harshly against Dom's sternum and he felt the oddest sensation pass through his chest, like he'd just taken the first drop in a rollercoaster… but in his chest and not his stomach. The force of whatever Brian had done pushed the life back into Dom's lungs and he gasped loudly as the oxygen rushed back through him.

They were on the floor now, but Dom didn't remember collapsing. Brian's hand was still on his chest, his other gripping tight to Dom's shoulder, and now that Dom wasn't shaking, he noticed that Brian was. The blonde panted beside him but held Dom's gaze.

"You're not dead yet," Brian insisted, lowering his hand from Dom's shoulder.

Then his face screwed up in discomfort and his head dropped as he gasped in pain. Dom's eyes searched for the cause of Brian's pain and then he saw it. Blood was on the floor below Brian. Blood was coated down Brian's jeans and oozed from between the fingers on the hand Brian now pressed to his own diaphragm.

"Brian?" Dom asked, fear freezing his stomach all over again.

"It's okay," Brian said, but his voice was weak and shaking. "I'll be okay."

"Like hell you will be," Dom shot back and pressed his own hand to Brian's torso, over the wound. "I thought you said you were already dead. Why are you bleeding everywhere?"

"I needed more time… I can't let you die," Brian replied, as though that explained anything. He sagged against Dom, head leaning on Dom's chest and his own hand. Dom cursed and searched with his eyes for something that could possibly block the wound. "It's okay," Brian murmured again and he sounded far away even though he was right there with Dom. "Everything's gonna be alright, Ma. I'm gonna make… everything… alright. I promise."

Then, in Dom's tense arms, Brian became transparent. "Brian!" Dom shouted. And then it was just Dom on the floor, hands and knees bloodied… and utterly alone.