Cutting Off the Engine

by Eden Lee Raven

Rating: R for swearing
Authors Notes: i blame the film the fast and the furious for this one.

Cutting off the engine, I pushed myself out of my seat and sat on the wide t-bar of my car. I'd taken the roof off before I hit the track. Always make an impression, right?

The place was crowded, cars lining the quarter mile of artificial track, with their owners walking around checking out everyone else's cars. I watched each one that walked past my MG curiously, hoping to catch a quick glimpse of the raven haired girl I'd come here to see.

"Pop it chiqa." Looking down I saw a tall blonde haired girl stood next to the hood of my car, waiting to check out what was under the bonnet. There was no false sense of illusion that manners mattered here. You didn't come to the tracks, expecting to just watch the show. Unless your car was a complete piece of shit. I kicked my keys up from my seat, where I had dropped them, and pressed the hood release button on the small key panel.

If she was impressed by the way the hood electronically spilt into quarters and slide completely out of view, she didn't show it. I held onto the top of the windshield as the wheel hydraulics lowered the front end of the car, so it was easier to look inside.

To tell you the truth, I had no idea what the hell my engine was made out of. Or what was in it. I'd probably point at all the silver and black chrome under there and say "ohhh… pretty!". My ex and a few friends did the whole engine thing. All I did was design the outside of the car.

From the low whistle she let out, I guessed it was pretty decent.

"Hey Tep! Come check this beauty out!" some guy, I'm guessing it was Tep, wandered over and leaned down to check out my engine.

"Girl's got enough NOS in this thing to blow herself up. SO," the guy looked up at me with startlingly blue eyes, hidden slightly by his blond hair falling into his face. "How's it hooked up? SVP lines, or do you have a SUPCOOP wiring all this shit together?" I shrugged because let's face it, I thought a sup coop sounded like a kitchen utensil. "It's a pretty powerful toy for someone who doesn't know what's in it."

"I never said I knew what was in it. but I do know how to drive it." I flicked my hair out of my face, looking him right in the eye and basically challenging him to challenge me.

"I'd take your challenge, but we got Big-F driving against Snakes tonight, so I can't."
As he said this, a small, plump guy stood in the middle of the track, at the start, and shouted for everyone to shut their mouths. Well it wasn't as if I was saying much anyway.

"Ok, listen up peeps! This isn't a barrel race. Not cents. Pink slips only. We have Big-F in her kick ass Cogsworth. That's the red car for those who are stupid enough not to know what a Cogsworth is." The track filled with chuckles, including me. Not that I knew what a Cogsworth was mind you. But then, I guessed it wasn't the white car because I knew that was a VW Golf. "And Snakes in his.. thing." More laughing. "It's a quarter mile, I have the slips, as soon as someone crosses the red line? It's over."

He turned around then, waving the cars towards the blue starting line, and pulling a white bandanna out of his pocket. Standing in the middle of both cars, he coughed loudly and then simply dropped the white piece of cloth to the ground.

The smell of burning rubber filled the air as both cars spun out of the starts, but it was pretty obvious that the Cogsworth was the better car. Or the better driver. Because sometimes it doesn't matter what's under the hood, just who's behind the wheel.

The blonde girl started screaming at the top of her lungs as the deeply colored blur of red zoomed past us, followed not so closely by the Golf. Everyone who was there were cheering and jumping up and down as the red car crossed the line first. Then the air filled with shouts as the white car spun out and idled over the red line.

A girl with dark hair climbed out of the red car, shit eating grin slapped across her face as she picked up the keys and the slip to her new car. Shaking hands quickly with Snakes, she started shoving her way through the crowd until she reached the front of my car. She declined the offer of a cigarette from Tep and locked eyes with me.

'Big-F' looked better than I could have ever remembered her looking. Black pants, black long sleeved hoodie t-shirt and a black t-top over that. She looked deeply tanned, but then, working in the sun all day on cars would do that to you.

"We need to talk." She said, as a red haired girl came up behind her and wrapped her arms around faith's waist. She kissed the side of her neck softly before speaking.

"not tonight you don't."

"Tomorrow. 2pm. At the pitt stop diner over on tall oaks drive." And all I could do was nod as she walked away from me.

Part 2

After walking around the streets for a while, trying not to look at my watch every ten minutes, I finally decided that five to two was early enough to go wait for faith to arrive.

It was better than being there at half twelve at least.

Stuffing myself into a booth so I could see out of the window at the crashing waves, I pondered what happened last night at the race track. I'd expected anger, hostility. Maybe even a little fear. But not the indifference I found. She didn't seem to care either way, but there was a soft, haunted sadness behind her eyes that hadn't existed before.

"I knew you'd be here early." A deep, husky voice said to me, as a cup of coffee was slid under my nose.

I shrugged and wondered how she could possibly look better now than she did last night.

"So what do you want?" she took a sip of her own coffee and waited for my answer.

"I wanted to know how you were doing."

"I'm doin' fine." Silence loomed between us making the hot air cooler and instantly making me squirm slightly with uncomfortably.

"well, I'm good. And willow's.."

"Buffy. I don't care." She almost slammed her cup down, a she sighed angrily.

What? "What?"

"Those are your friends. Not mine. I don't wanna know how well Red's doing in school, or if Xander's finally made himself useless. I came here for a reason Buffy." She turned her head slightly, looking out at the ocean crashing against the sand, before looking back at me. "I came here to forget."

For endless minutes we just sat there, staring at each other, her trying to convey to me through her eyes exactly what she was trying to forget.

"I have friends here. An apartment, a job, a car, a girl. And ya know what's so different? I can trust them. I can trust them with my life."

"I remember offering you that trust at one time." A small wave of anger grabbed me for a moment, making those words tumble out over my lips.

"Jesus Buffy. You never even tired."

"I tried so hard to help you Faith. And you just threw it right back in my fucking face."

"Ok, so what's my favorite food? Where do I buy my clothes from? Do you even know what town I was born in?"

I opened my mouth to voice out the answers to her ridiculously simple questions, but I closed it quickly, making the mistake of thinking that I knew. I never did. Too wrapped up in my own little world. and even when I did try to help it was as a self righteous bitch, who thought she was better than everyone else.

"See?" she leaned back in the booth, and from a far off, detached place, I oddly wondered how she could possibly wear all that black and not get even a little bit hot. "How could I ever trust someone, who doesn't even know my last name?"

she stood quickly, having come to the conclusion that we'd done talking and that there's nothing left to say. I'd like to say I'm sorry for being such a self righteous bitch, but I didn't think it'd make any difference.

"Coffee's on me." She smiled weakly at me, slid her shades back over her eyes, turned around and walked away, and once again right out of my life.

I watched her through the diner windows. Flicking her hair out of her face, digging in her pocket for the keys to her beautifully deep red car. Slowly sliding the key into the door and turning it quickly.

And as she was doing this, my brain was furiously ticking over. Thoughts running around so fast inside my head that I couldn't even grasp what they meant. Something big must have been going on up there, because a headache twinged at the edges of my mind, as if all the poking and prodding that was going on up there was desperately uncomfortable.

It was the moment she pulled the door handle up that it suddenly came into blinding focus within my cranium, causing me to launch myself out of the booth, almost knocking  over a waitress with a loaded tray, and to the door of the diner.

I yanked it open to the sound of her engine catching and turning over, and I briefly wondered if anyone had noticed that I’d almost pulled the door off its hinges. I knew if I pitched my voice just right, she'd hear me.

"RAVEN!" the car had just started a slow crawl forward, but as that word thundered from my mouth, it lurched to a stop as she slammed on the brakes.

The world seemed to stop spinning for that eternity of a moment, before the car door opened and she stepped out, giving me a small smile as she looked over the top of her sunglasses at me.

I can remember, almost to every detail, about the night I found out her last name. We were in one of the many cemetery’s Sunnydale posses, and the vampire she was fighting somehow managed to rip her jacket. The contents of her inside pocket spewing out over the ground, and when we'd done the dusting, I'd helped her pick it all back up.

Her wallet was opened and I caught a look at her drivers license, where her name was right there to see. I spent the next day or so teasing her about how she was named after a bird, and had the same last name as a business tycoon in Boston.

"I'll be at the track again tonight." She said over the collective noise of the nearby road and her own car engine. I just smiled and nodded slightly, getting the message loud and clear.

I wasn't here to give her a second chance, to let her back into the world in which she never really belonged anyway. I was here to get my own second chance for fucking up so royally with someone who was supposed to be my friend. And she was giving it to me.

"There's hope for you yet summers." She smiled wider at me as she was getting back into her car.

All I could do was stand there smiling, watching her dust trails long after she'd burned away.

Part 3

When I got to the track again, Tep and Blonde girl were standing in the space I was parked the previous night, waving every other car on as they tried to pull in. it was a pretty decent space.

Tep suddenly spotted me and started waving me over like a lunatic, nudging blondie in the side to get her attention, as he stood there, waving his flash light in my general direction.

I quickly checked my rear view to see if someone was behind me, and finding no one there, I slowly crept into the space before shutting off the engine and once again sitting on the t-bar.

"Reserve parking? Damn, I didn't know tracks had gone so high classed." I smirked at Tep as he pulled open my door and stood on the seat, crashing himself down next to me. I watched with mild amusement as blondie climbed in the passenger side and sat on my opposite side.

"Naw. But a beauty of a car like this needs to be in the high end area."

"Fair enough," I shrugged as I looked out over the crowds, spotting a damn nice, black Porsche on the opposite side of the track with its hood up. I quickly released the hood button on my keys, once again holding on as the car lowered itself. "So what you packing?"

"Dark green z3." He pointed to the car next to mine and then pointed to the dark purple car on the other side. “That’s Roddy's car. Took her like, forever to build up because she had to keep working to buy everything for the block."

Leaning over blondie, who I presumed was Roddy, I checked out the red and yellow flaming design that emblazoned the side of her car. It was a pretty beautiful design.

"So who'd you get to do your designs?" hark, she speaks. I actually jumped slightly, because this girl didn't really speak much, from what I'd seen so far, so I was slightly surprised to hear her voice.

"Meaning designed or made?"

"Both."

"I designed, a guy called Xander, made it." I smiled softly at the memory of xander hauling the huge wooden boards over to Ben's garage. He was still covered in the gray and black paint he'd used. And he also had the finishing resin in his hair, making it stick up at odd angles all over the place.

Neither he, nor willow, were all together too happy that I was building a racing machine so I could travel all over the country to race, and to slay. Of course. Last year, I'd finally decided that with giles in england, dawn in new york for school and mom dead, there wasn't really much holding me in Sunnydale.

Well, there was the hellmouth, but it wasn't the big problem it always used to be. Spike was now living in the basement of the high school and pretty much looking after it, and the gang had insisted that they could look after the town with me gone. It'd taken us over six months to build up my car. Of course, it was a rusted old piece of crap when we first found it at the scrap yard.

The design was of a raven's wing, deep gray and light gray mist swirling behind it, surrounding it. if I looked at it from someone's point of view, then I'd have to admit that it was kinda beautiful.

"So, you gonna then?" Tep's voice broke into my random thoughts and snapped me back to the here and now. Which was the race track, and with faith stood right in front of me with a small wad of cash in her hand.

I must have missed something big here.

"Gonna what?" I shifted slightly, hating the fact that they'd caught me drifting off in gaga land.

"Race me. I got 2 large. Willing to risk a little for a good ride?" faith smirked up at me, and I couldn't help but smile back at her very obvious sexual innuendo. And one that hadn't escaped her girlfriend's notice. Who was stood leaning against faith's car with a glare directed towards me.

I kicked open my glove box and pulled out a small, black leather pouch and ruffled around in the wads of money until I found one with two thousand dollars in it.

"Sure. I got a couple rolls I can play with." The short guy came up to us then and took faith's money, and I threw him mine.

"you know the rules girls. No ramming, no more than two big tanks of NOS. the second you spin is the second you loose. Got it?"

"We got it cheese boy." She rolled her eyes at me and then started to climb back into her car. She smiled up at her girlfriend, who was obviously waiting for a kiss, before she sped off, leaving her stood there with a very shocked, very surprised look on her face.

"Did you guys see that?" she turned around and walked up to my car, leaning on the drivers door as she looked up at us. "What the fuck is wrong with her? I mean, last night, after winning her fourteenth car, you'd think she'd wanna celebrate? But no, she just goes right to bed and tells me not to wake her up till she had to go to work."

"Stephi, it's not as if she doesn't work her ass off all the time. We were out here till four last night, and she had to be at work at five. Give her a break."

"Plus, you know she doesn't usually race on weeknights cause of her job."

"Er, guys?" I looked at the three of them in turn before nosing towards the start line. "I kinda got a little matter for two grand to see to? D'ya mind getting off my car for a couple of minutes?"

"Come on blondie, get yourself sorted out. We got some money to tend to." Faith said as she leaned against her car, arms folded over her chest as she waited for me while I carefully slide the roof back into place.

"Shut the fuck up Rav. I'm trying to concentrate, and I can't do that with you going on at me." I was gearing myself up for a race, I needed to control the flows of adrenaline that flooded my body, I needed to remember exactly how to control a spin out if it happened, and I desperately needed to take my mind, as well as my eyes, the hell away from faith's bare stomach.

She was wearing the same kind of black pants as she had done the other times I'd seen her, but this time her t-top had a hood, and it didn't cover her stomach. Which was very probably a distraction tactic because I could see every inch of bared, deeply tanned skin.

I climbed into my car, pulling the door shut and sliding slowly up to the start line before opening the small hatch just below my stereo, and watched as the small laptop slid out and opened in front of me. I caught the hook on the passenger seat and flipped the front of it forward, revealing the two huge tanks of Nos behind.

I flicked the switch just below the nozzles and watched as the electronic system slowly turned them to the right pressure and locked them into position. I had a problem back in new york with one of the nozzles blowing off and trashing my passanger seat because I was going so fast. I still won the race, but it didn't make me feel better about my seat.

I turned back to the laptop and entered in the statistics of the track, the weather, what speed I was looking to go. And if faith's speed from last night was anything to go by I'd be going fucking fast.

Sitting back up again, flipping the seat back into it's upright position, I placed my hand on the steering wheel and looked out my window to where faith was sitting. I could see her typing something into a laptop that came out of her roof, and then looking back down at the seat next to her, flittingly with something there and looking back up again.

Her NOS tanks were under her passenger seat. Pretty dangerous if you hit the track wrong because it can rebound the bottom feet plate up into the seat and blow you the fuck up. But I doubted faith had ever hit the track wrong. And even if she had, it's not as if she wouldn't survive it anyway.

The short man was talking now, stood out on the track in front of us and speaking to the crowd. I got the impression that this was a regular occurrence.

"Ok, normal rules here people. This is a 2G race. in the blue car, that's an MG people, is a new racer. Didn't catch her name, but damn does she have a nice ass." Faith started choking in her car, trying to hide a laugh and I leaned out of my car to yell at him.

"It's not as if you're ever gonna get a hold of it cheese boy!" the crowd laughed, faith started choking harder and short guy looked back at me and smirked.

"Fuck this, lets just go huh?" sitting back down, I watched the hand with the bandanna in it and quickly snapped into first gear, pressing down slightly on the acceleration peddle and glancing at my laptop to see if the NOS was running through my engine fully yet, or if I'd have to wait until I was half way finished for it to kick in.

The readings were on full. Good. That injection line I got a guy in texas to fit seemed to be working. Either that of half my engine was gonna fall out half way to the finish line.

Oh great, I really needed thoughts like that at that moment in time.

TBC