AN: Beware the bad language. There is a lot of it. :D BTW, I love Bryce. I created him to be just a guy in a bar for one scene. And now I have much bigger plans for him because he's the new hotness. I hate it when my bit characters grow lives of their own. This chapter features some angry Vince. I also love angry Vince. :D Enjoy.

The Funeral of a Good Girl

By – TempestRaces

Chapter Forty Five – Of Highways and Headstrong Women

Before Vince knew it, he was watching the taillights of her truck disappear around a bend in the freeway. "Fuckin' son of a whore cock suckin' bitch!" he cursed, just as soon as it was just he and Bryce at the abandoned station. "What was she thinking?"

"I dunno. But by the time you get the truck back to Stephen, you're not going to catch her at the 'Edge unless she wants you to." When Vince realised Bryce was right, an even pithier string of curses rained from his lips.

"I'm going to make her wish she was never born when I get my hands on her, the little moron."

I don't want nothin' to do with this from this point out," Bryce answered. "It's between you'n her. Don't drag me into it."

"Let's take the damn truck back to Stephen and I'll try to figure it out from there."

When Tempest arrived back at The Racer's Edge she parked the car in the open bay and got out. She wandered over to where Harry was talking to Jorge and heard the Latin man talking about how well she'd handled herself. When she walked up to them Jorge excused himself to go help the rest of his crew unload the trailer into the rear of the store.

"So, Jorge says you handled yourself like a pro."

"It would have been really bad if I hadn't," Tempest told him, her face pinching with distaste.

"Why's that?"

"The people handling the deal for the other side?"

"Yeah?"

"Vince and his best friend Bryce. To say seeing me show up was the last thing they expected was the understatement of the century. Vince is likely to skin me alive if he gets his hands on me."

"What're you going to do?" Harry asked. He looked more than mildly worried on her behalf.

"Run like hell, find a place to hole up, and hope he doesn't find me until he's calmed down."

"If he's hooked up with the guy I bought this stuff from, he's a lot higher up than I ever would have given Vince credit for." Harry fished around in his wallet. "Here, this is the card for a nightclub I own. Its open late and I doubt Vince would ever think to look for you there. His focus'll be on hotels and motels. Hang out at the club for a few hours and by the time you find a place to stay, he'll have given up and gone home to bed." He left out the part where he doubted very much she could find a place to crash that he couldn't find her at via her name in the computerized register. Who ever would have given Vince credit for being smart enough to pull off the position it seemed he had?

"Thanks Harry."

"Least I can do. Here's your money." Harry handed her a stack of bills. "I added a little extra for the extra hassle you're going to have now that the team is involved."

"I actually had fun, until I saw Vince sitting on that truck," Tempest answered with an impish smile. "And even then, the look on his face was priceless, and it was even better when Bryce told me he nearly pissed himself when he saw me. They did underestimate me." She checked her cell phone for the time. "Shit, he was going to try to find me here. I better take off before I give him time."

"Catch you later. I'll be talking to you about the Elan midweek."

"Don't remind me I have to spend more time around Dom and his garage to fix your backwards car, Harry."

"Not like yours is any less backward!" Harry called after her retreating back. He chuckled as she flipped him off over her shoulder before getting into her car and taking off with a wave for him to take the sting out of her flipping him the bird. When she was gone, Harry moved to watch the unloading of his truck with a sigh. She'd dug herself in pretty deep if Vince knew what she'd been up to. Not to mention the visit he was likely to have from the volatile man. He had to doubt very much that Vince would take his involving her well.

Well, you've really done it this time, she mused to herself as she followed the directions on the back of the card Harry had given her. Harry's idea was a sound one. She would waste some of her money and kill some time at his club and hope that Vince gave up on finding her in the mean time. When she arrived in the parking lot of the club, aptly named 'Racing Royalty' she parked between a Hummer and Escalade. She hoped the two huge trucks would block the views of her car and keep it hidden from anyone who might be looking for it. It was one huge drawback to having such a rare, intricately painted vehicle. It was hard to miss. Before she got out she thought about what she had on. There was no way she was going into a dance club in what she had on.

Before she gave up and left, she remembered all her stuff was in the back seat. She got up on her knees and turned around in her seat after she turned on the overhead light. Then she started to paw through her bags. There wasn't really enough light for her to see what she was finding, even with the dome light on. She found her heeled boots easily enough, and finally found a pair of black fitted flair bottom pants. She wiggled out of her combat pants, tossed them and her Cat boots onto the passenger side floor, wiggled into her dressier pants and put her boots on. She finger combed her hair out of its braid and looked at her top with distain. She couldn't go in there in a wifebeater. She realized what she could do in an instant. She grabbed her utility tool from between the front seats and flipped the blade out. That done, she held the shirt away from her body and stabbed through it just under her breasts. She used the hole as a place to start and tore the bottom half of her shirt off. Then she sliced a slash through it over her chest on a diagonal slant. Instant skank top, she mused with a grin. Using what was left of the bottom of her shirt, she made a band of black cotton to tie around her neck and a thick cuff for each wrist. Thus properly attired, she climbed out of the car and armed the security before walking up to the door. There was a huge line, but on instinct she went straight to the bouncer at the door. She showed him the card with a grin. "Harry sent me and told me you guys would take good care of me."

Either Harry had called ahead of her or her name dropping had simply worked. She was admitted without a fuss, no line up to wait in and no cover to pay. Once she was in she bought a drink and looked around the place. She didn't see a soul she knew, which perhaps wasn't surprising considering she wasn't from around and had mostly hung out with Jesse since her arrival.

She was looking off to the right when someone tapped on her left shoulder. When she turned to look she found Craig Everett standing at her elbow.

"Imagine finding you here," he said with a grin.

"Harry sent me," she replied with a grin before she could think better of it. Tempest some how knew that admitting what she'd been doing for Harry or why she'd needed to hide would be a bad thing. After all, now if she told anyone what she'd been doing she'd be implicating Vince and Bryce along with herself. "I had to blow Dom off for a night, and Harry told me that this wasn't Dom's scene."

"I think Harry was right. I've never seen him here."

"Thank god. We had a bit of an incident tonight and I definitely don't want my neck within grabbing range any time soon."

"That bad huh?"

"All that and Vince too! What can I say?" Tempest asked with a smirk, holding her arms out to the sides, palms up.

Craig laughed. He couldn't help himself. "You're one lucky girlie, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I guess lucky'd be one word for it. Maybe not the one I'd pick, but it sure is one word for it." She finished her drink and turned around to order another.

Craig waited until she had her drink in her hand. "So, you come here to stand there all night, or are you going to dance at some point?"

"You tryin' to ask me to dance with you?"

"If I were, would you say yes?"

"If you think you can keep up, I'll give you a shot."

Vince flew along the freeway on his way to finish his job for the evening so he could go find Tempest and teach her a lesson about getting involved in things she didn't understand. He didn't really expect her to be waiting for him at Harry's but he couldn't help but hope that just this once, she would have listened to him. He left the truck with his bewildered boss, whom he normally chatted with for at least a few minutes after a job and tore off in his own car. Bryce hanging on for dear life in the passenger seat.

"Slow down V. You and I both know there's no way that girl waited for you where you told her to. Even if she'd planned on staying at Harry's all night, she wouldn't now, just because you told her to."

Vince couldn't help the small smile he felt tugging at his mouth. Bryce was right. That didn't make him slow the Maxima's wild flight down the road so much as a mile an hour. "She can't be left loose alone in Los Angeles."

"If she didn't wait with Harry, how in god's name are you going to find her?"

"I dunno. But I'll have to try. I'm so tempted to take her over my knee and spank her like the three year old she acts like."

"She handled herself pretty good."

"Please don't tell me you're on her side?"

"I don't have a side. For god's sake, I don't want to be in the middle of this. But she did manage to handle herself pretty well."

"Who knows if she would have if she hadn't known us?" Bryce only shrugged in answer and Vince let it go. He pulled up to Harry's store and found the place deserted, just like he'd pretty much known he would. A quick call to a few people he knew told him she hadn't checked into a hotel or motel under her own name in the greater Los Angeles area. He sighed heartily. She couldn't make even this one thing easy.

"We're going to spend the foreseeable future driving around trying to find her, aren't we?" Bryce asked with a sigh of his own.

"I could take you to your bike first." Vince looked over at his friend with an eyebrow raised in question.

"And find out you killed her, or vice versa, when you found her. No thank you."

"Then yeah, we're gonna spend some time trying to find her."

They tried Hector's club, and on a hunch, Edwin's, both with no sign of her. They tried 'their' bar, but as Vince had said to Bryce on the way, she was 'too damn smart to show up there.' It hit Vince like a slap in the face as they were driving around down town. "Harry's club. Bet he thinks I don't know about it. He could get her in fast, send her there. Fuck, he'd feel like he owed her because she only got caught on account of him."

"Worth a shot. We're never going to randomly stumble across her."

Vince turned the back toward Harry's store. The club wasn't even all that far away. They drove past the building first.

"I don't see her car V. Maybe she just ran off to hide someplace. Let's give it up."

"No. She's here. I can feel it. I'm just gonna drive around the parking lot."

"This is stupid V. She's ok and she doesn't want to be around you. Why do you have to take it so personal?"

"Because she could have gotten herself killed tonight. Twice. Once for being so stupid as to get involved in a physical battle with Dominic and once for thinking she was in the league necessary to make deals for stolen shit. Fuck! She's a god damn mechanic from nowhere in Canada for Christ's sake. What the fuck could she possibly know about this kind of shit?"

"Enough to move a car in ways I know I'll never master, and seem comfortable enough packing heat around with her while she's at it." Vince was seriously pissed off. The extent of it worried Bryce in a lot of ways. Vince was hot headed, stubborn, and opinionated. All of the above only got amplified when he was in a raging temper. It seemed that 'Trouble' stepping outside the realm of what he wanted her to do pushed the definition of seriously pissed off to new heights. But the little girl hadn't been totally helpless.

"Don't you go encouraging her to act stupid. I'll kick the shit outta you when I'm done tanning her ass so red she doesn't sit for days."

"Yeah, cause it worked out real well the last time you tried to kick the shit outta me."

"I wasn't this pissed off then."

Bryce only shrugged. He was reasonable confident that Vince wouldn't get in a fight with him over what the girl had done. He watched Vince cut the wheel hard left as the Maxima slid into the parking lot with a squeal. Circling the second tier, he cursed softly under his breath. There was her car. Fuck! He didn't know what Vince was going to do, but he was willing to bet it wouldn't be pretty.

"Bingo. Told you she was here." Vince parked the car with a smug smirk.

"So now what? What're you gonna do? Drag her out of the place against her will in front of two thousand people you don't know?"

"I dunno what I'm gonna do when I get my hands on her, but I do know she can't get away with thinking this was a good idea."

"You're not her father, or her brother, or even her cousin. You're certainly not her boyfriend. So what gives you the right to tell her what she can and can't do?" Bryce knew were he anyone else, he'd be busily picking up his teeth off the ground. But Vince, despite his big words, knew that starting a fight between the two of them could well be biting off more than he could chew. They were more evenly matched than anyone knew, and any brawl between them had a fifty fifty shot of going either way. Plus, when Vince was really angry he got sloppy. Not so as the average person stupid enough to fight him would notice. But Bryce had had his back in one too many fights not to know how to exploit his weaknesses. Of course, that was a two way street.

"I don't care what rights you think I got or don't got."

The reason for all the anger finally dawned on him and he felt like slapping his forehead for missing it for so long. "She scared you so instead of dealing with how that makes you feel you're gonna take it out on her." Bryce nodded in mock understanding. "Makes sense," he finished sarcastically.

"Either shut up or go home."

Bryce shook his head, but he got out of the car and followed Vince to the door of the club. He cursed fate for the same reason Vince thanked it. That Vince was well enough known around the import racing scene that they were let in instantly. There was no question of them waiting in line, and even if the place was a hundred people over capacity already, a member of Dominic Toretto's team was not going to be the person told to go away and come back later.

Pop music was thick on the air inside. The place was packed for a Tuesday night. The dance floor was filled with people gyrating to the beat of yet another song more heavy beats than talent as multicoloured lights blinked and twirled and strobe lights flashed. Bryce headed for the bar. The whole idea of dance music and light shows filled him with revulsion. He fought the need to groan as he looked around. What a place to find himself. He figured that if there was ever a situation he needed a drink to get through, it was this one. The girl wouldn't be far from her beloved car. And that meant she was here somewhere. And when Vince found her, the sparks were going to fly like water on magnesium.

He could actually pinpoint the second Vince found her in the crowd. Personally, Bryce saw the guy she was dancing with first. He was quite tall, and towered over not only Tempest, but most of the other guys on the floor as well. But Vince didn't see the tall man Tempest was dancing with, not if Bryce was reading the situation correctly. No, his eyes had settled on the woman first and hadn't moved yet. Bryce took a deep pull of his beer and waited for the show to get underway. He just hoped that this wouldn't be yet another situation he found himself responsible for keeping Vince from killing someone in.