AN: I lied last chapter. It's Tuesday of week two. Sorry. Was in a hurry and didn't take time to read back quite far enough. I'm writing so far ahead that this is pretty much new to me as well :D Or at least it's been over a month since I wrote it. Anyway, here's the next chapter. Enjoy.

The Funeral of a Good Girl

By – TempestRaces

Chapter Forty Three – Of Taillights and Great Escapes

"Did anyone think to save me supper?" His single-minded concentration was so focused on food, he walked right into the kitchen and didn't notice the drama happening in the dining room right away. When he looked up, a piece of roast beef hanging out of his mouth, and saw what was occurring in the other room, the food fell unnoticed to the floor. "What the fuck is goin' on?"

"We had a little situation," Leon answered, trying to keep his voice moderate. "We're about to finish it though, aren't we Gorgeous?"

Now that Vince was watching, it put a wrench in the works for her. She couldn't take the high road and admit her side of the guilt. She couldn't appear weak in front of Vince. She kept her eyes locked on Dom's. "If someone sees the stupidity of putting his hands on me when the attention isn't wanted, sure we're done."

"He put his hands on you how?" Vince growled, starting their way. All he could think was that Dom had put his hands on her to touch her in ways that only he was allowed to touch her, his right to feel that way or not irrelevant. Much as he knew Dom hated her and the feeling was pretty much mutual, it was still the first thought that entered his head. His hot blue gaze collided with Dom's and he found the anger at his assumption there. Not that his friend could answer to it, not with a foot in his windpipe.

"I wanted to leave and he thought I should stick around and be subjected to his shit. When I didn't agree, he decided to keep me here against my will."

"So then you pinned him to the wall with a boot to the throat." Vince shook his head. His anger at himself for the way the thoughts of another man's hands on her made him feel made him sarcastic and mean. "Well, that was smart. How're you gonna let him go now? You thought whatever he did first was bad."

"We were working it out until you butted in," Leon growled at Vince with a wide eyed look telling his friend to go fuck off someplace else.

"Oh, really? Is that why she still has her foot against his windpipe?"

"If you'd shut up we would have had it settled." Leon turned back to Tempest. "Come on Temp. Just back off and you and Jesse can go do whatever it was you wanted to do."

"Fine!" Taking the only way out she saw, that of letting Dom go because Leon asked her to, she lowered her foot away from Dom's neck and stepped back a pace.

Perhaps because of the added element of competition added by Vince's words and perhaps because he'd never intended to let things go that easily, no matter what impression he'd given Leon, the second Tempest wasn't controlling him via his air supply Dom came at her. And definitely because of the added element of Vince's presence, Tempest launched herself out to meet him half way, unable to back down. It felt like if she walked away, she would be looked upon as a coward and that she would not have.

"Christ!" Vince roared and made a grab for Dom.

As though seeing the two strong willed combatants actually go for each other jarred them out of their own worlds, Letty, Mia and Jesse jumped up from the table. Leon caught Tempest around the waist and hauled her backward, lifting her bodily off her feet. Vince had a hold of Dom and was cursing as he attempted to hold the larger man back. Dom himself was ranting about smart mouth bitches. Tempest shrieked back about overgrown cavemen who should consider growing hair to keep their brains from freezing. Leon hauled her down the stairs, trying hard to control her and not fall. Jesse followed on his heels.

"What the hell was that?" Leon growled once he was able to set her on her feet in the basement.

"What the hell was that? Are you serious? He grabbed me and wouldn't let me go! What was I supposed to do? Let him order me about like a child?"

"I dunno what you were supposed to do, but pinning Dominic Toretto to the wall with your boot in his own house wasn't it." Leon sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He didn't know where they were going to go from where they found themselves.

"I told you that you had to watch your step around him, cuz. What were you thinking telling him off like that in the first place?"

"Maybe that I'm not his child and that I don't have to answer to him! My god, he went crazy over what? The fact that Leon and I were goofing around and he wasn't included? I would suggest that he knew how Vince was before I ever got here. I'm not the only reason that Vince is behaving badly. Vince is a bigger reason that Vince is behaving badly. And I've never made it a secret that I don't like being held anywhere against my will, have I?"

"Not to me," Jesse answered. "I'm not sure you and Dom ever got to know each other that well."

"Well, maybe not. But common sense—something he clearly doesn't have—should have told him that he shouldn't go grabbing strangers who tell him to buzz off."

"You should have just let it go in the first place." Leon sighed.

"And what, stayed sat at the table until he decided to let it go? Because I wasn't sitting there all night waiting on him to dismiss me. We had plans." Tempest gestured between herself and Jesse.

"He would have ranted a bit, but when he got it out of his system it would have been all over, all without anyone explaining anything or needing to get in a physical fight with him." Leon paced in front of Tempest agitatedly. "At least then I'd know how you were going to get out of the basement alive."

"I'll walk up the stairs and out the door. I'm not scared of him. What is he, two? He can't control himself from grabbing on people when he's pissed?"

"And how are you going to avoid him for the rest of the week you're here?"

"I don't intend to. I expect both of us to let it fade into the background. Either that, or I'll find someplace else to stay." Of course, knowing what she knew about the money she was about to make, that wasn't such a big deal to her. Not that Jesse and Leon knew that. They likely thought all she had was whatever was left from her winnings on race night. Of course, since she hadn't started out with anything and had won the race, she'd ended up with eight grand and most of it was still in her trunk. Add what Harry was giving her and she was going home quite well situated. If she had to spend a grand on a half decent hotel, that was just what she had to do. Given that she'd have twelve thousand American dollars in her trunk by one am, she figured she could swing it. She also decided to go shopping to spoil herself in the morning.

Little did they know, Dom was having a conversation with the remaining half of the team along the same lines.

"I can't believe the little bitch did that!"

"Dom, you grabbed her and told her you'd force her into a chair. You're not her father," Letty tried to reason with her boyfriend. It wasn't going very well.

"No, but she is staying in my house."

"Our house," Mia corrected. "And some people don't like to be touched by strangers. And that's pretty much what you are to her."

"Yeah, she had a huge problem with that when it was him," Dom growled, pointing at Vince.

"I wasn't holding her against her will." Well, not in the same ways, Vince mused to himself and fought the smirk that wanted to accompany that thought.

"She kicked me in my fuckin' throat. Doesn't anyone have any sympathy for that?"

"It's hard to feel sorry for the guy who weighs twice what she does that grabbed her and started to push her into a chair, no," Mia answered. "How afraid of her were you, exactly?"

"I wasn't afraid. I was pissed off."

"Yeah, think she felt the exact same way?" Mia asked gently.

Dom sighed and ran a hand over his bald head. "I don't suppose so. So now what?"

"I don't suppose it's an option for you to tell her you were wrong to grab her?" Letty asked. At the look on Dom's face she laughed. "I guess that's a no."

Slowly everyone but Letty and Dom drifted off to do other things, giving them privacy to finish their talk. No one controlled Dom like Letty. "Things have been strange since she got here. Vince is all fucked up. She's even mouthier than he is."

"But that's just how she is Dom. I gotta figure she was like that before she got here and she's not gonna change for you. She hasn't grown up putting with you like me and Mia have."

Dom pulled a face Letty's way. "Thanks."

Back in the basement things weren't going all that much better. Tempest had disappeared into the bathroom with all her stuff and no matter what Leon and Jesse shouted at her, she wouldn't come out. When she finally did emerge, she'd changed into baggy black combat pants that sat low on her hips, a black wifebeater tank, her black work boots and her hair was neatly worked into a French braid hanging down her back. All her things were packed up into her two bags. She walked without nonsense over to Jesse's side and leaned down to kiss his cheek.

"What're you doin'?" Jesse asked as he watched his cousin stand back up.

"I'm gonna find someplace else to stay, at least for the night." Tempest shouldered her bags, one on top of the other.

"No one said you had to do that!" Leon interjected.

"I said I had to do that. If staying here means allowing that caveman to manhandle me I say no thank you. I have enough money to stay in a motel for the rest of my stay. And at least I'll be able to think, live and speak on my own terms."

Leon took her arm in his hand and raised it to the light. "You know, I don't see any marks here. It's not like he grabbed you and squeezed. He didn't hurt you and he didn't intend to. He's not use to people walking off on him when he's in the middle of talking."

"Yeah, and I don't really care. I'm not used to anyone telling me that I can't leave a room when I'm so inclined. I wouldn't put up with my mom or my boss talking to me like that, let alone some guy I barely know that has no real authority over me."

"Don't go stay in some strange place T! This is crazy," Jesse sighed.

"J, I need some time and space to think. Maybe I'll just go for a drive and see if I can't sort myself out that way instead, but I do have to leave for awhile and be on my own for awhile. So tell me so long, and I'll catch you in the morning, at the latest, ok?"

"Fine," Jesse sighed.

"I'll walk you outside," Leon offered and held up a hand to stop her protest. "I insist. Give me one of your bags."

She handed it over with a roll of her eyes and followed Leon up the stairs. The lower level seemed to be deserted. They walked out the front door and found the Maxima gone again. Leon put her bags into her back seat for her before standing up.

"Jesse's right, you don't have to do this."

"Yeah, I do. I won't give him that kind of power over me."

"You made it worse, Temp, and you know it. You had to go and show off when Vince was around."

"He can't think I'm weak!" she answered incredulously. "He'll never leave me alone if he thinks he can walk all over me."

"No one would ever make that mistake."

"You'd be surprised," she mumbled. "Anyway, I'll be fine on my own for a few hours and I'll see you all in the morning, ok?"

"Guess it'll have to be, won't it?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Be careful, call if you need anything or get into any trouble."

"Yes daddy," she answered with a roll of her eyes.

"I'm serious. You need to listen to me. This city isn't friendly Temp. I can say that as someone who was new to the place at one point too."

"I know it's a harsh kind of place Leo. Don't worry about me. I'll call you," she assured Leon as she hugged him hard before lowering herself into the seat of her Skyline.

"Ok. I'll go console your cousin, whose heart you just broke."

"Jess'll live." She watched as Leon nodded in answer to her statement and headed back into the house. Before she could change her mind, she started her car and backed down the drive before squealing down the street.

The noise brought Dom to his bedroom window, which had a view of the front of the house. "Fuck."

"What?" Letty questioned.

"She just left. Alone."

"Seriously?"

"No, I'm fucking kidding about something like this."

"Well, don't bite my head off over it. I told you to tell her you were mistaken by what you did and you wouldn't."

"So now it's my fault she took off? Like Leon and Jesse couldn't have stopped her?"

"You couldn't stop her from doing what she did to you. What makes them so different?"

"I don't fuckin' know! Now what?"

"Nothing. She'll come back when she's ready or she won't. What're you gonna do? Anyway, what'd you care? Half an hour ago you couldn't wait to see her taillights."

"But now I'm going to hear about it from Leon and Jesse, and you know it."

"I doubt Jesse will dare have anything to say. Leon on the other hand, who knows." Letty knew that the fact Dom would worry about Tempest, like her or not, was going left unsaid. "Either go after her and bring her back, or let it go." She watched as Dom sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh.

"Maybe Vince'll find her. He's been good at that in the past."

"Who knows?"

Dom only shrugged in answer.