While they stand there, Cook pulls me toward the alley opening. I'm guessing he's trying to ditch both of them. "Stop it!" I dig my feet into the cement. I'm so not going with him. The closer I am to Jai, the safer.

Kevin glances at us. "Mao if you take off on me," the tugging stops, "I'm going to kick your ass after I kick his." His hard glare returns to Jai. He tugs off his coat and throws it on the cement. "Now you're going down," he says then jumps and spins into a kick across the spilled trash.

Jai stands still and watches the boot coming at his head. I try to yell out but it comes out in a garbled mess. Just as boot treads connect with his face, Jai grabs Kevin's leg, twists his own body, and pulls down. Hard. It's like he plucked Kevin out of the air.

Kevin plummets onto the cement before rolling through the spilled trash. He lays there and groans. I'm desperately praying he won't get up, but in seconds, he's standing then leaping at Jai, who steps back, spins into a sideways arc, and catches a jaw with the fastest kick I've ever seen. Kevin flies through the air and hits the cement with an echoing thud.

This time he doesn't get up.

His limp body has me ecstatic, but Mao yanks me out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. "Jai! Help!" I yell before yanking back, pushing at him, and kicking his shin.

"Stop it!" He cuffs me with an elbow to the cheek and stars mingle with neon lights. My vision's clearing just as something hits Mao from behind. He stumbles and lets me go. I stumble too, but strong hands straighten me.

Relief floods me at the touch of Jai's hands on my waist until Mao scoops up the knife still lying on a patch of ice and points it at us.

Jai pushes me behind him. "Do you really want to join your friend on the ground?"

The knife quivers. Mao glances at the figure lying in the trash. His eyes flick to me. Greed shines from their depths, making me wonder just how much I'm worth. "We found her first," he says before taking a deep breath and lunging at Jai.

Jai pushes me away and sidesteps the attack. Mao stumbles then lunges again. A duck and a leg sweep have him tumbling to his knees and hissing as he skids across the icy cement.

"You done yet?" Jai asks.

Weaving, Mao gets up, gives Jai one last heated look, and takes off.

As he runs away, I realize I'm free. I'm safe. Slowly reality breaks through the shock of what just happened. Yet...though safe now, Smith is after me, my father doesn't believe me, and I can't go home. I fall against the brick wall and frustrated tears explode in a waterfall.

Instantly, Jai comes and tugs me into his arms. "It's okay. You're okay." He pulls me closer as I still sob. Though I do feel safe at the moment, I can't stop crying. "Come on Nivi, you're all right."

I shake my head, pull away-even though his embrace warmed me from the cold-and wipe my nose like a toddler. I look up at him. The left side of his face is red and puffy. But right now I'm selfishly worried about me. "For how long? My chauffeur drugged me. People are chasing me for-for some awful reason. And you...why are you here?"

His dark gaze rests on me for a long moment before he finally says, "I came looking for you. I figured you'd get lost or in trouble. You should have waited for me to get back." He wraps an arm around my shoulders and steers me toward the sidewalk before I can complain about his girlfriend practically kicking me out. "Come on. He's," Jai nods behind us, "not going to stay down forever. I'll help you get home again."

At the word home, I dig my feet into the cement. "I can't go home."

"Why not?"

"Because my father refuses to believe me, he thinks I'm nut-nuts." Saying the word aloud is harder than I thought. Jai tilts his head in question. I shake my head. "He thinks I made up Smith's attack. But those guys...they knew my name!"

His expression is contemplative until he says slowly, "Yeah I don't think home is a good idea right now. Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know." Tears start to well again. I'm falling apart and I can't seem to control it. "I lost my bag...my money...my phone..."

"You can come back to my place." Jai steers me toward the sidewalk again.

I don't budge. "What about your whacko girlfriend?"

His hands on my arm freeze. "My girlfriend?"

"Song," I say as if her name explains everything.

His head snaps back as his eyes round in horror. "Song's not my girlfriend."

I cross my arms. "You could have fooled me."

"I'm telling you she's not, but we have to go. He's going to be up soon." This time he grabs my hand and tugs on that.

I still don't move. "Who are those guys?"

Jai starts tugging again. "I think they're part of the Tong." At my raised brow, he adds, "A gang here in Chinatown."

Trash rustles in the alley. Kevin's moving. Ugh. I'm not sure what to do, but staying here with psycho Kevin isn't an option. At a dead end, I let Jai lead me out of the alley and back toward his underground apartment.

Chapter 18*Snow.

After racing through Chinatown, we're back in his basement bungalow, sitting at the beat up table under a naked light bulb. Luckily the apartment is minus one resentful female. Apparently, the lying bitch flew the underground coop. And yeah, now that I'm out of danger my temper is seriously flaring.

Jai leans back in his metal folding chair. "I'm not sure what Song was up to. Maybe she was just worried about me." He puts his hand up when I open my mouth. "It does sound like she was trying to make us look like a couple. We're not. She's only fifteen and I'm almost eighteen." He leans forward with a look so intense it stretches the skin across his angular cheekbones. "But tell me why would Song and me together bother you so much?"

My hands underneath the table dig into my thighs. Shit. I feel my face begin to warm. There's no freakin' way I'm letting him know about my silly crush. How embarrassing. I slowly lay my palms down on the rough table surface and collect my thoughts. Think of something plausible. "It wasn't so much about your being together...it was more about her acting so jealous and rude. She made me feel like I was imposing."

He watches me before his intense expression fades. "Well, I'm sorry she was rude. She's really not like that." Could have fooled me. "And I apologize for leaving you with her. I just had some things to take care of...things that couldn't be ignored."

"Like what?" I ask more than happy to change the subject.

The whack of the door on the cement wall interrupts our conversation and a boy emerges into the room. "Dinner!" he yells, holding up fistfuls of plastic bags. He drops the bags to his sides as his eyes travel over me, a horrified expression stiffens his face. "Who's she?"

Turning around, Jai gestures to me. "Juan, this is Nivi."

Hello," I say with raised brows. Since we're in Chinatown, I expected him to be Asian like everyone else. Although he has dark hair, his name is obviously Hispanic.

His angry eyes ignore me. "I thought you promised Feng Lu you wouldn't take in anymore?" His tone is angrier than his eyes.

"She's only staying for a while."

"Why?"

What is everyone's deal around here? Is this some sacred, secret society?

"She's just staying until things cool down at her house."

Juan's stare snaps from Jai to me and back again. "Is she going to work like the rest of us?"

Jai shakes his head. "She's not staying here that long."

"Song ain't going to like it," he says, throws the bags on the table, and stomps out of the room.

Ah, even this boy knows how territorial Song is about Jai. I question Jai with a look while the sound of a door slamming echoes through the apartment. He goes to the fridge. "Don't mind him. He's a little grumpy from bussing tables all day."

My brow scrunches. It has to be past ten at night and this boy is coming home from work? "He can't be more than thirteen."

Jai sets a cup on the table. "He's twelve to be exact."

"He lives here? He works all day? At that age?"

"Tired of his old man beating the shit out of him, he ran away from home." He fills the glass with milk. "When his foster parents didn't treat him much better, he took to the streets."

"So you took him in?" I ask incredulously.

He nods. "After I saw him scrounging in dumpsters a couple of times."

"Wouldn't he be better off living with a family and going to school?"

"Probably." He shrugs. "After his experience he won't go. I tried taking him to social services. Twice. He just comes back."

Wow. Poor kid. "Okay, but what's with all the hate?"

Jai ruffles though the bags. "He's just worried that's all. No one knows we all live here. We like to keep a low profile. Anytime someone new comes they freak out."

"So Juan thinks I'm going to report him?" And Song thinks I'm going to steal you away?

"Yeah, something like that." Gripping a Styrofoam container and grabbing the glass of milk, he says, "I'll be back in a minute." He pauses in the hallway and looks over his shoulder. "I wouldn't try to take off. Those guys will still be looking for you."

Frowning, I watch him disappear around the corner into the hallway. I turn back to the table. Okay, so maybe I was thinking about taking off. But with no money and an unbelieving father, I have nowhere to go. I'm still unsure about staying here with Song and now Juan.

The door opening again breaks me from my thoughts.

A boy, maybe age fourteen or fifteen, stands staring at me. He has dark hair and a round face. The surprised O of his mouth slowly turns into a grin. "Hey beautiful- " he starts, but a push from behind has him snapping his mouth shut. He whips around and shouts in what I guess is Chinese.

Another boy pops out of the doorway. They yell and shove each other. I can't understand a word. Regardless of the language, the words are heated. Kicking at one another, they crash past the door into the cement wall. I jump up. Wrapped in a mutual headlock, they are about to collide into the table, the food, then me.

"Ping! Chang!" Jai's shouts stop them from crashing into the table. They drop their hands instantly. "What the hell are you doing?"

The slightly taller one points at the other. "He's trying to make me look like a fool."

"You are a fool," the other one says with a laugh.

Jai shakes his head and gestures to the table. "Juan brought dinner."

They immediately sit and ruffle through the bags. Other than a minor difference in height, they look like twins. Both have thick, dark hair and wide grins.

"Nivi," Jai says, gesturing to each of the boys digging through the bags of takeout. "This is Ping and Chang," they grin at me, "or as Juan refers to them, the butthead brothers."

Their grins expand.

"Hi," I offer not knowing what else to say.

"You Jai's girlfriend?" Ping, the slightly shorter one asks.

My eyeballs almost pop onto the floor. "No," I blurt out, realizing since they don't know his girlfriend it really must not be Song. Jai hadn't really sold me on his denial earlier.

Jai shakes his head. "She's just staying here a bit till things cool down at her house."

Chang flips a lid open and looks at me with a speculative gleam. "Where's she staying?"

"In my room," Jai says.

My mouth opens to question that statement, but Ping slaps Chang on the back. "Friends with benefits."

I'm about to go off on butthead number one when, whap! A sauce-covered mushroom hits him in the eye and his brother Chang bursts out laughing. "I'll be sleeping in your room," Jai says nonchalantly. "So one of you can blow up the air mattress after you eat."

Ping wipes his eye. "You do that again and I'll-"

Jai grabs a napkin. "You say anything like that again and I'll pound your face into the container in front of you."

Chang laughs again. Jai silences him with a look.

Ping glances at me and opens his mouth. At Jai's steely expression, his jaw snaps shut. He reaches for a fork with a sullen face and then I'm forgotten as the brothers shovel in food.

Jai sets two plastic cups next to the milk. "You hungry?" he asks me. I shake my head. Though I should be, the thought of food still has my nervous stomach turning. He glances at the human shovels at the table. "Come on." He gestures toward his room across the hallway.

Inside, he goes to the aquarium and sprinkles food across the water's surface. I plop down on the chair in front of the desk. "So you're all just a bunch of kids living on your own?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, I suppose. I told you about Juan. The brother's parents are working off their gambling debts in a forced sweatshop. They also work in a restaurant. Song and her mother were brought here as slaves. She escaped and somehow she found me. She sews fake designer purses."

"And you take care of them?"

His head tips in thought as he sets down the fish food. "Kind of, but we're all just trying to survive."

To think I thought my life was bad. Jai's roommates give *poor me' a whole new meaning. I wonder how bad his story is, how he came to be a delivery guy living in a basement with a group or orphans. "Your parents?"

He glances at the bright, nibbling fish. "My mother's gone."

"Oh," is all I say. Gone in like dead? Gone in like left? I'm not sure what he means, but that ends the topic. Of all people, I know what it feels like to talk about such a subject. And I'm more than aware he left out his father. Knowing my own strange relationship with mine, I don't ask about his either. Suddenly exhausted, I bury my face in my hands. "I don't know what to do, how to make my father believe me."

"Maybe you should try talking to him again."

"I tried. He just dismissed me," I mumble through my fingers.

"What about your mother?"

I swallow the dry lump suddenly stuck in my throat. "She's gone too."