<div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/Mtx59.jpg)</div><br/><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: arial;"><strong>Name:</strong> Allison Leclerc<br/><strong>Title:</strong> The Brains<br/><strong>Location:</strong> Gig Harbor<br/><strong>Tags:</strong> Rurik, Taras</span></span><br/><hr/><br/>As ecstatic as Allison was about winning, a small part of her couldn't help but feel like it was a somewhat hollow accomplishment without any of her friends around to celebrate it with. She'd constantly been glancing over the crowd that had swarmed her for any signs of Natalie or Ryan without any luck, and worse still was the fact that none of her other crew members had arrived at the finish line yet. Only a few other cars had, in fact, but none of the were Taras, Cori or Adriano. <br/><br/>Way too much time had already gone by. If they were gonna finish the race, they'd have been at the harbor already, so the only logical conclusion was that something had happened. Just as Ally's heart caught in her throat from the realization that something had gone wrong and her even more grim guesses about what it could have been, Rurik nearly gave her a heart attack when he shocked her back into reality with his thickly accented voice.<br/><br/>"Oh, uhh, thanks. You too." Her reply was an automatism more than anything else. Rurik had caught her quite off-guard, and Ally was generally gracious even in victory, so she'd just said what she always did when a fellow racer congratulated her. Maybe she'd sounded a little bit dim, but she had a lot on her mind. Mostly questions and very little answers.<br/><br/>By the time that the triad messenger had extended Mr. Kwan's invitation to her, she was genuinely confused and more than a little bit concerned, too. What in the world could he want with her when he was already supposed to meet with Taras? He was the one that handled all of the decisions, not her. Unless they knew...<br/><br/><em>No way, they can't</em>, she tried to tell herself unconvincingly while digging her phone out of her pocket. Her hands trembling with excitement, worry, anxiety and who knew what other emotion, Ally fumbled with her phone's touch screen and accidentally called two of her other contacts before hanging up and finally reaching Taras. Her heart started to beat increasingly rapidly as she held her breath and hoped that he would pick up, and the general chaos encircling her as police sirens were heard getting closer did nothing to help her relax.<br/><br/>"Hello?? Oh fuck, thank god!" Allison exclaimed the second that she heard her friend's very familiar voice on the other side of the line. Still, she'd instantly sensed that something was wrong just from the darkness in his tone. "What happened, where are you guys? The police is already coming, I can't stay." With all of her questions and everything that was happening, she didn't even think to mention Mr. Kwan's invitation right away.<br/></div>