Adrenaline

Blair had been swimming in the heated pool on her floor - that much was apparent by her slight sniffle and the way she walked as if still submerged. Again, Toretto had managed to knock when she was fresh out of the shower - though this time, the Street Queen answered the door in only a white terry cloth robe, gathered modestly to hide cleavage. No one in the compound would dare mess with her and she knew it; this showed in her cockiness and lack of security. No one messed with Blair Hundley if they had two brain cells to rub together.

“And how are we feeling today, sunshine?” Toretto was always the joker, Blair thought as he let himself in after she unlocked the door. Another three days had passed - and as Blair had informed Toretto that her cars would be in and ready, so Toretto appeared on her doorstep again. She rolled her eyes at the tall bald man, slinking back into the bathroom to begin blow-drying her long hair.

Fifteen minutes later she re-emerged, her hair only halfway dried but dressed as nicely as usual. A pair of black skinny jeans hugged her thin legs, which ended in her usual spiky high heels; she wore one of her trademark silky shirts, this one in a subtle emerald green.

“What’s on your agenda today?” Toretto asked from his favorite place- the couch, with a Corona in hand.

“Glad to see you can help yourself there, darling.” Blair sauntered over to the bar, reaching for a glass before remembering how badly her night had been three days ago. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” Instead, she opted for a Corona as well, slicing a lime she had been saving in the back of her fridge. Blair brought Toretto a slice after forcing hers down into the neck of the bottle.

“How high class,” The big man murmured, accepting her offer. “But you haven’t answered my question.” As usual, he thought. It seemed to be the way they interacted now - he asked questions, she didn’t answer them, answered them in riddles, or finally answered after days of asking only when she was fully intoxicated.

“I like the re-growth you have here,” Blair said, after setting down the plate of lime slices. She ran her free hand over Toretto’s prickly-haired head while standing beside him - a head that pivoted on a muscular neck to allow the Californian to glare at the Brit. “Fine. The cars aren’t quite ready this morning, so I was going to take you in to town for some… body alteration.”

“What the fuck do you mean by that?” His brown eyes were concerned, his face crinkled in a way that made Blair laugh. She let her hand slide from the top of his head as she walked toward her kitchen’s counter, sifting through a stack of paper; and returned to Toretto with a picture of a bald man who was tattoo-less and a man with a buzz cut and tattoos.

“Can you tell a difference between these two pictures?” She asked, shoving them into Toretto’s hand and hijacking his Corona.

“Uh, I don’t have to circle them, do I?” Toretto joked. “So you’re telling me if I get some tattoos and grow my hair, nobody will recognize me?” He threw his head back and laughed, shaking the fixtures in the room with the volume of his voice. “Nice try, Blair. Don’t tell me it worked for you.” She tilted her head to the side, running her hands through her hair in an attempt to dry it faster.

“Well yes, it did.” She raised one hand to the buttons of her white blouse, which clearly exposed her arms

“What are you talking about, you don’t have any tattoos and that’s gotta be your normal hair color.” Blair simply shook her head as if to say ‘you silly, silly boy.’ She began to unbutton her blouse from the bottom up, taking her time and great care not to snag the fabric with her nails. “What are you gong to do, seduce me?” Toretto quipped, beginning to feel a little nervous. Finally, Blair shrugged off the blouse, standing before Toretto in just a lacy white bra - which wasn’t the only thing that made his eyes pop.

On her chest was an anatomically correct and labeled heart (how she hid that one in a towel he couldn’t hazard to guess), he could just glimpse a pair of peacock feathers stretching up her left side, the hint of a few words rose above the waistline of her pants and she had a small constellation beginning on her stomach. She had a tiny belly button ring, which glinted in the light from the window, which prompted Toretto to notice her over-pierced ears. Blair rotated slowly, her arm stretched above her head so Toretto could clearly see her peacock feathers - which were exquisitely done, he gathered. The nine planets stretched down her back on her backbone, in Technicolor; a tiny tree on her right hip had sparrows flying off to the left from it, above tiny text that he couldn’t read from afar.

“So how does all of that help you? Far as I‘m concerned, I‘ve never seen it, so it doesn’t alter your appearance.” Blair sighed, shaking her head as she scooped up her shirt from the floor.

“Silly boy. If you knew me from before I believe you’d understand. It’s addicting, you know,” She added, placing her shirt on her shoulders. Toretto bent to retrieve his Corona, trying to read the text on her abdomen; Blair noticed and drew his face up by the chin to look into her mismatched eyes. “Sorry, you don’t get to read that until you know me a little better.” She winked coyly and released him to continue to button her blouse.

“How much better?” Toretto asked, then added; “I’d still be interested in seeing Tver, even if I’m not getting tattooed.” He finished the last of his Corona and then reached for hers, wincing in faked pain as she batted his hand away from her drink. His face was still coated in bruises from the last bout he had with Blair’s ‘fists of fury,’ the black eye he had received from the three convicts was coloring nicely and the swelling from his broken nose had gone down, along with the pain of it.

“Keep your hands off my brew!” Blair swiped her beer off the table. “I thought you wanted a car more than you could ever want to see Tver.” She asked, sipping the drink as she plopped down on the couch - fully clothed once more.

“Tell me about it, then. Convince me I’m wrong.” The man was very hard headed sometimes. “Maybe you can give me my car first and then we can go in to the city?” Blair’s head turned toward him from against the back of the couch, and she raised one already cruelly arched eyebrow.

“Have you ever seen Prague?” Toretto shook his head, of course he hadn’t, what the fuck was she thinking - an American muscle car fanatic, see Prague? “Ok, well have you ever seen the movie Triple X? The one where he’s friends with the guy who jacks cars?” Toretto nodded this time, now coyly sipping Blair’s corona - she hadn’t noticed yet. “That’s Prague.”

“Oh. Then I have seen Prague.” Once again, Blair rolled her eyes at the muscle man, wondering if he would ever be able to assimilate with the culture of Russia.

“Tver’s like that city, only half blown-away and much dirtier. Less… social interest groups, we’ll call them, but more little Mafia things. Mafia Satellites.” She finally decided on a word, and noticed Toretto drinking her beer. “Fine. You owe me another drink anyway - let’s go into the city.

“No, I want my car. Then we can go into ‘the city.’” Toretto mocked the little redhead, his gravelly voice sounding quite comical while he attempted to be high-pitched and squeaky. Blair got to her feet and snatched her keys from the table before rooting around in a lower-leveled cabinet in her kitchen. When she came back into Toretto’s line of vision, she lobbed a stack of bills at his head.

“What is this?” He asked, smiling to one side as he inspected the stack. They were all smaller bills, fifties, twenties, and ten-ruble bills, but the stack was thick. “Where is this from?” He got to his feet, following Blair out the door.

“Well, it’s a little of what I earned from the deal with the Russians.” Down to the garage they went, climbing into Blair’s “traveling” car, a black Range Rover with dark tint on the windows.

They left the garage at breakneck speed - Toretto wondered if Blair knew the meaning of restraint when driving, which was quite hypocritical, as he knew nothing of the word himself. After a few minutes of driving, Toretto began to wonder where the hell this place was - did she have to hide her cars from the masses or something? But as soon as he began to revel about it, Blair took a sharp turn into a blind drive, and after a brief climb up a tree-lined hill, they came to the building.

“It used to be a Nuclear Blast Shelter, from what I can gather anyway. But now it’s all mine.” Blair sighed, watching Toretto as he began to judge the building.

“A little small for a garage, eh?” It seemed that it was a three- or four-car deal, but Blair had a knack for being deceiving from what he could gather. The thing was probably miles and miles underground. Blair laughed as they drove into the opening garage-style door; she parked the Range Rover in one of three car-sized lifts. Toretto watched with interest as the little redhead climbed out of the driver’s seat, closed the gate to the lift and held down a button as the vehicle began to descend. He couldn’t tell how far down they were - Blair’s arm had begun to hurt when they finally reached the end of the lift.

Toretto was forced to jog after Blair, who had immediately stepped off the rickety old lift and started walking in the pitch-black room. She smashed her fist into a button - invisible to Toretto - and he was nearly blinded by the lights that lit down the hall of cars in sequence. They were all black - all of the cars Blair kept were black with dark tinted windows; Toretto couldn’t help but laugh at the uniformity of Blair’s garage. The cars were all parked parallel in their spots - toward the back of the warehouse there were multiple lifts and workshop-like places where the cars could be worked on.

“Like a kid in a candy store,” Blair murmured, watching Toretto begin to inspect each car, moving on down the line after he had assessed each car. She perched on the hood of a long BMW M7, chuckling inwardly at the big man’s antics when it came to cars. He gave each one a detailed inspection, looking under hoods or even completely passing a car when it didn’t suit his fancy.

“I don’t like them.” He called finally, from the other end of the garage.

“You can’t find one car you like, out of thirty cars?” Blair laughed, as Toretto made his way back to her through the double line of cars.

“Well, most of these I won’t fit in, most of them are shitty little things like you guaranteed I’d find in town.” Toretto sounded let down - and he was, he didn’t think her taste in cars would be THIS bad. He was confused when Blair stalked down the line toward him, her heels clicking angrily against the concrete floor.

“Which is why,” She passed right by him, not even pausing to gauge his reaction. Toretto followed her down to the work lifts, where a car was parked beneath a long sheet. “I found you something I thought you would like more than European speed.” Blair leaned back against the stark concrete wall, motioning to Toretto to pull the cover off the car. “It’s not the type of muscle you might want, but it’s muscle at its finest, in my opinion.”

Toretto nearly threw out his shoulder yanking the light sheet off the long black body of the Ford Mustang - a Saleen Model. “Are you shitting me?” The look he gave Blair was nearly frightening, he threw open the hood and stared down at the engine in disbelief. “An Extreme?”

“Found it in a shipment from America, difficult to get over here. It’s an ‘08 S302, 620 horses and it’s only a V8. Impressive, I thought, and I had to have it. It’s going to draw a bit of unwanted attention, however…” Blair saw that her information was lost upon Toretto, who was climbing into the driver’s seat, trying to find how to start the engine without a key. “Darling, it’s a keyless. Put your foot on the brake and press the button.” The engine roared to life, Blair smiled as she approached the driver’s side window.

“Take me into town?” She asked, smiling wryly.

Toretto was all too happy to comply.