"No." My laugh turns into a sob as the snow shifts and throbs around me. "He put something in me. I'm seeing things. Crazy things, scary things," I say in a rush.

"Okay, settle down. Where are you?"

"I don't know." I let out another sob.

"Damn. Listen, Nivi, you have to go find something, a street sign or a building name." At the thought of leaving my little corner, another sob escapes me. "Find something, anything," he begs in a desperate tone.

Fear fills me at the thought of going back out on the street. "I don't think I can."

"You can. I can't come to you unless you give me a clue where you are." His voice is now harsh.

It's not real. "Okay, okay," I say, inching my way along the wall.

"What are you doing right now?"

"Walking, walking with the wall," I reply, trying to keep my terror in control.

"Huh? All right, just keep moving." His tone is now smooth and patient.

I'm about to step out. "Can I come back and hide after?"

He pauses and yells something. "What's the wall look like?"

"Falling bricks, a broken wall of fallen, tumbling bricks," I say.

"Yeah, you can hide there." Stepping onto the sidewalk, I hear him shout to wait at someone. "Just answer when I call out your name."

"I'll try." The cracked sidewalk moves. Hills and valleys form. I step on each moving target with caution. My legs tremble, but I force myself forward even though I want to run back behind the wall and cry.

"Can you see anything?"

A building looms in front of me. "Yes." A car passes and I jump back.

"What?"

I force myself to look up. "A sign, but I can't read it." I hold in a sob.

"It's all right. Walk closer and concentrate on the letters."

His voice soothes me enough to tiptoe across the moving sidewalk until I stand under the sign. "It's Br-Brown and...Cheese, no Chase." The pulsating building is large and windowless. "I-I think it's a warehouse."

"Okay, just a minute." I catch the words GPS and warehouse while I stand there on the sidewalk trembling in fear. "Nivi?"

"Un-huh." My voice sounds weak to my own ears.

"Go back to your spot just stay with me on the phone."

"O-okay," I say, walking on the sidewalk now full of gaping holes.

"Are you behind the wall?"

"Al-most there."

Once back in my corner and feeling a touch more safe, he asks me to stay on the phone. He tries to keep me talking with questions about my life, my school, and my family, but I'm too wigged out to form coherent answers. So he tells me a story about butterflies and love in ancient China.

I think.

His words float around me. Some I catch, others escape. I can make out two lovers and a tragedy that keeps them apart. The words don't matter though. His voice, smooth and deep and rhythmic, tells a different story. The bricks may still be moving and the snow breathing, but I am sure of this-he loves whoever told him these words.

The two lovers escape and fly away in the form of butterflies while I fall in love with the sound of his voice.

Chapter 13*Snow.

I don't open my eyes when he pulls me up, or even when he softly says my name. I'm too afraid my wild, drug induced imagination has conjured him up. Until I inhale the scent of soap and wood. I can't imagine that. Opening my eyes, I catch a glimpse of his blurry face and throw myself at him. I bury my face in his shoulder while both laughing and sobbing. Even amid the breathing snow, I feel safe in his arms.

"Whoa, it's alright," he says against my ear. "You're safe now." Another sob escapes, but inside of his embrace, I believe him. He feels secure, solid, and very, very real. He holds me for a moment longer then says, "Let's go. You're a block of ice."

I have to force myself to release the canvas of his coat. Hand in hand, he leads me to the street while I keep my gaze on the ground. Although the ground is cracked and uneven, the breathing buildings are more threatening.

The view inside the cab causes me to tilt back, but Jai gently pushes me forward into the dark, upholstered cave. My eyes dart around the enclosed space. The ceiling breathes down on me. The glass wavers and a stale smell fills my nostrils. My stomach rolls. I clutch my abdomen as sweat surges out of every pore of my body.

"Hey, she better not puke!" The threatening words coming from the orange fuzzy hat has me scrambling for the door handle.

"Don't worry, she won't," Jai says, grabbing my hands. He wraps an arm around me and tucks my head against his shoulder. "Just take us back to Canal Street."

Safe again with my vision blocked, my body calms until orange hat starts driving. The motion of the vehicle makes the rolling in my stomach build into a storm, a tsunami forming within me. I bury my head deeper into Jai's shoulder and inhale his scent.

"You pick up junkies a lot?" the voice in front asks.

"Just drive old man," Jai snaps.

"Yeah, you just remember no hurling."

The ride is pure agony. While Jai rubs the skin of my hands and my knees, I pant against his coat. His hands help calm me, but the movement of the car supersedes everything. Soon the building wave will hit shore. Every turn, every stop, every push on the accelerator builds the storm within me.

When we stop, Jai doesn't need to help me out. I fly out of the cab and would have kept going, yet he holds my wrist in a steel grip. While he pays the driver, my body trembles. Two steps onto the sidewalk and the trembling turns violent. The wave in me crashes against my rib cage. I gasp and bend over. My insides eject everything as the cabbie had predicted. I hear gasps, swearing, and Jai's *shut ups' from above as I continue to heave. I'm too nauseated to feel embarrassed. Once done, Jai helps me stand and digs in my bag.

"Here." He hands me the first thing he finds. I wipe my mouth and drop my hat on the splattered mess across the sidewalk. He pulls me away. "I'm not getting that."

"I don't want it," I mumble, refusing to look at my battered breakfast.

After turning a corner, he drags me through a doorway. The smell of laundry detergent and the sound of pressurized water make me realize the long rows of shiny boxes are washing machines. Are my clothes dirty? Had I puked on them? The rush of embarrassment sweeping my body causes me to shudder.

"You okay?" he asks in the between the rows of metal.

"What are we doing here?" I whisper while sweat pours out of my skin. My clothes stick to me. My skin is clammy. I can feel temperature again.

"Taking you someplace safe," he says as his hand pushes me behind a counter.

We enter a world of colors hanging in the air. Colors encased in translucent covers. Bags and bags surround us. Air blowing the plastic from above makes the space whimsical. A small, old man materializes from between the bags. His eyes are mean and beady. "You promise. No more. No more strays."

What am I a cat?

Jai speaks back, but I can't understand a thing. Chinese, I guess. The words sound angry. The man's gaze hardens at Jai's harsh words. He marches away with a huff.

Jai helps me down a dark staircase. We travel through rooms filled with boxes, go down a long tunnel, and end up in a small cemented room. I prop myself against the wall while he opens the doors of a tall cabinet and wonder what is going on, but I don't have the energy to ask. He takes something out of his pocket that looks like a garage door opener. I hear a soft click and gasp when he pushes the back of the cabinet open.

"Where are we?" I ask.

"Home," he says, shutting the door behind us.

He lives in a basement under a Laundromat through a cabinet? Feeling like Alice in Wonderland, I wonder if I'm still hallucinating. Instead of a rabbit hole, I've fallen into a washing machine.

At the flick of a switch, a single bulb hanging from the rafters illuminates cement walls. Not much of a home. We pass a shabby table surrounded by metal chairs. At the ancient refrigerator, he snags something before pulling me into a small room lit by the glow of a huge aquarium. He urges me onto something soft and shoves a bottle into my hands. "Drink this."

I take a sip of water and stare in amazement at the fish swimming by. Then another and with a final gulp I empty the bottle. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was.

Jai kneels before me and I stare at the shadows the dim light creates on his sculpted face. "What are you doing?"

He pulls my boot off. "You need to rest."

"Here?"

"Yes." He tugs my other boot.

"With the fish?" I wonder aloud.

He urges me back. "They'll watch over you."

I shoot up. "I want you to watch over me."

His face softens. "I will too," he says, pushing me back down again.

The warmth of a blanket covers me. With the knowledge of his presence and the hum of gurgling water, I plunge into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter 14*Snow.

I wake with a cloudy head. The dark beamed ceiling and cement walls puzzle me. The soft trickle of water brings back a myriad of muddled memories: a fish tank, Monotone Smith, his needle, the man with the melting face, and Jai coming to rescue me. I spring up at the thought of him, remembering his promise to watch over me. But across from me sits a girl flicking through a glossy magazine. Her eyes scan pages while her fingers snap through pages. Um, I'm pretty sure I've never met or even seen her before. "Who are you?" I ask, breaking the silence.

Her dark eyes flip to mine for a quick second. "Song," she says, licks her finger, and pushes another page over.

I blink in confusion. "Where's Jai?"

She flips another page without looking up. "He had things to do."

"So he left me with you?" My tone borders on incredulous.

Her eyes roll. She still doesn't look at me. "Like I said, he had things to do."

Still confused, I look around the room. The lamp behind her on a make shift desk reaches into the shadows. The entire wall, except for the center desk, is a huge bookshelf made of bricks and boards full of floor to ceiling books. A giant red rug covers the floor. Banners with Chinese symbols hang from the opposite wall and a large mat like the ones used in wrestling leans against the bottom of the banners. The fish tank fills up the end wall and under that are more piles of books. "Where am I?"

She slaps the magazine shut and with a curled lip says, "Under Chinatown."

I ignore her animosity. "You mean in a basement?"

"A person," she gives me a pointed look, "who doesn't know where they're going could get lost down here for weeks."

Wondering if that's supposed to mean I shouldn't be here, I shake my head as if to clear it. I'm not sure if it's the drug Smith injected me with, the situation, or the rude girl. I'm guessing my confusion is a mixture of all three.

Her arms cross over chest as she stares at me with contempt. "Years ago, this apartment was used for human trafficking. Over fifty people were locked in here nightly." She raises her round chin. "Now it's a poor couple's apartment."

The heavily enunciated word couple hangs in the air until I realize she must be Jai's girlfriend. I look at her more closely. With large almond shaped eyes, pale skin, and short, sleek hair, she's very pretty. She also looks a bit spiteful with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed. It's quite evident she's not happy I'm here. And to be honest, I can't help feel dislike for her too. Petite and graceful she's the opposite of lanky me. And to think I tried to flirt with him when this was waiting at home. Ugh. Could I have been more of an idiot?

Desperate to get away from her narrowed gaze, I swing my legs over the side of the mattress, which is on the floor, and the room sways. I sway with it.

She raises a brow at what has to look like a drunken display. "You gonna fall?"

That's quite possible, but I'm quite sure she won't be helping me up. I bury my head in my hands as the room spins, the bookshelves tilt, and the fish swim in a circle around the room. "I'm alright," I mumble through my fingers as the wooziness slowly passes.

When I sit up, she motions toward the door with a flick of her wrist. "There's a bathroom across the hall." She then picks up her magazine from her lap and starts pushing pages.

Slowly wobbling into a stance, I watch her flick pages less than two feet away from me. She's so flippant, so icy. I can't believe Jai left me here with her. From what he said when he got me the taxi, he knows she's crazy jealous. I stumble past her almost hoping I'll fall and crush that petite frame. Somehow, I make it across the hall and inside the tiny cement room. Though the sink and toilet are chipped, the walls cement block, and the bulb above naked, the room is spotlessly clean.

At the sink, I splash cold water on my face again and again hoping my mind will start working normally. The water helps a little. Though still fuzzy, I hope I can put at least two thoughts together. I stare at the wet droplets on my ashen face in the tiny speckled mirror. Okay, I'm in a basement, under Chinatown with a jealous witch because my chauffeur tried to drug me. My temples throb as I frown at myself. Stupidly, I feel lost without Jai. The thought has me leaning against the wall and groaning. Again, I'm such an idiot.

I finally open the battered bathroom door to find Song waiting in the hall. She holds my book bag out. "I couldn't find a coat."

I shudder, recalling how I left it with Smith. "I don't have one."

"Here," she lifts the book bag out until I take it, "I'll get you something." She disappears down the hall. Still in a fog, I wait in the dark hallway and grip my bag until she comes back. She tosses a sweatshirt at me. "That should be better than nothing."

I set my bag down and tug the shirt on like a robot. While too tight-it must be hers-the shirt smells freshly laundered at least.

Biting her lip, she watches me while twisting her hands nervously. "You ready?"

Though not sure for what, I nod.