Jay yawned as woke up to the sound of his alarm and the smell of eggs and bacon. He had a small smile on his face as he got dressed and walked towards the kitchen. There he found Skylor, Kai, and Nya making enough breakfast to feed an army. By now the trio had been living with him for just over a month and he was glad he offered them a place to stay. Morro, Chen, Clouse, and Iron Baron had been denied bail and would be remaining in prison custody until their trials in six weeks.
Kai and Skylor would have to give testimonies in court against Chen and Clouse.
Due to the amount of overwhelming evidence against him, Iron Baron had no choice but to make a plea deal in order to avoid being given the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. Due to the fact that Morro wasn't being charged with rape or any of his business with Chen, both Kai and Skylor wouldn't have to go on the stand against him, which everyone was thankful for. Kai was now two months pregnant and Jay noticed the symptoms.
He was experiencing horrible morning sickness, mood changes, and very bizarre cravings.
One time Nya caught him eating potato chips dipped in chocolate and peanut butter. At two months pregnant, Kai didn't have a visible belly just yet, although he complained that he had been feeling a little bloated. To Jay and his two boyfriends, however, he was still as good-looking as he had been since they first met him. Since the day they had moved in, Nya had still been going to school as normal while Kai and Skylor had been looking for a job.
Unfortunately, it wasn't as simple as that.
The criminal cases of Morro, Chen, Clouse, and Iron Baron had been all over the news and all media outlets. Nearly half of these reports included Kai and Skylor's full names and included details about the case, mainly about how Kai tried to accuse Morro of rape but there wasn't enough evidence. Kai was already having a hard enough time finding a job with very few qualifications and being pregnant, but these news reports were making it impossible.
The trio was too scared to leave the apartment sometimes and Jay had to drive Nya to school.
"Morning Jay!" Kai smiled warmly, causing butterflies in the ginger's stomach.
"Good morning, any plans today?" He asked. Now that Morro and Chen were locked up, Jay, Cole, and Zane had been encouraging Kai and Skylor to leave the apartment and get adjusted to normal life again.
"I have to meet with a lawyer to talk about Chen's assets since I'm his next of kin, but I'm just gonna tell him where to shove it." Skylor scowled at the sizzling bacon and eggs as she scooped it off and onto a plate before handing it to their host.
"I've gotta cram for a test after the fourth period." Nya groaned with dread as Kai chuckled.
"What about you?" Jay asked the brunette.
"Nothing really, might sort out the laundry or go out and get some coffee." He shrugged and the others barely managed to contain their joy and excitement. This was the first time Kai was willing to leave the apartment since Jay had let them move in. Soon Jay had left with Nya to drop her off at school and go to work and an hour after they left Skylor headed off to meet with this lawyer about her father's assets. Kai sat in the apartment alone, looking through the different channels but quickly got bored.
With an irritated sigh, he stood up and picked up the hamper from the bathroom.
The apartment building had ten washing machines and ten dyers down in the basement for tenants to use whenever they wished. The landlord told his tenants that they had to write their names and apartment numbers down when they used the laundry machines so he could add the cost onto their rent, and if he found out they hadn't, he would evict them. As he reached the ground floor and wrote his name and apartment number, he noticed a woman watching him but he chose to ignore it.
He began walking down the stairs and could hear the woman following him down.
Again, he shrugged this off, thinking she lived in the building as well and was just coming to collect her own laundry. As he tossed the dirty clothes into a washing machine, he felt the woman's eyes on his back and he acknowledged that she was just standing in the middle of the basement and had not made a move to collect any laundry. It was then he finally saw that all the other machines were empty, meaning the only laundry down there was his.
"Excuse me honey, are you Kai Smith?" The woman suddenly asked in a warm, gentle voice and this caused Kai to turn around and get a good look at her. Her ginger, short hair was tied tight in a bun and revealed a chiseled, lived-in face. Her narrow mint green eyes set elegantly within their sockets. Her knee-length dress flowed from top to bottom and had a small keyhole neckline. The dark purple, velvety, buttoned-up fabric of her dress covered her stomach.
The continuous flow was broken up by a wide black belt worn low around her waist.
Below the belt, the dress opened up to the left but was not too revealing. The front of the top dress was shorter at the front and curved outwards, the back continued to flow a small length behind her and ended in a broad curve. Her sleeves were almost the length of her arms and narrow. Their flow was broken up above the elbow where they changed color to an ivory white and where they're divided by small, modest bands. These were the same fabric and color used to outline the sleeves and end of the skirt.
She had a pair of black flats on her feet and black tights.
"Um, yes, do I know you?" He asked, racking his brain for any memory of the woman, but came up blank.
"No; but you know my son, Morro." She replied and Kai's eyes widened in horror as he dropped the now empty hamper on the ground. "I'm his mother, Wendy."
"W-What does he want f-from me?" He whimpered, backing up slightly.
"He doesn't know I'm here." She said as she fixed Kai with a stare that reminded him of a disappointed parent and held up a newspaper. Kai looked at it and saw the front page was about Morro and how he had been accused of raping Kai. "I just think we need to have a chat about these lies you've been telling."...
Nya sighed as she buried her head in her textbook, trying to ignore the stares and snickering behind her back from the other students in the library where she was studying for her upcoming test. By now everyone knew that her brother was a prostitute and was allegedly raped by one of his clients. Unfortunately, kids could be cruel and rumors started spreading through the school like wildfire. While many people were sympathetic some others weren't.
Some students would make passive-aggressive comments to her about her brother but so just outright made fun of him in front of her.
What made Nya's blood boil were the one or two students who had the nerve to say that if Kai's allegations were true then he deserved to be raped just because of his job. Nya was about to put her books away and leave when she noticed her friends sitting at a table nearby. She was shocked she hadn't noticed them earlier. Normally they would call her over so they could study together. She frowned as she gathered up her books and walked over to their table.
Her friends noticed her but quickly turned back to their books, pretending they hadn't seen her.
"Hey guys, mind if I join you?" She asked as sweetly as possible.
"Actually, we're almost finished here," Dareth said, not looking up at the noirette.
"Oh, um, well do you want to do something after school?"
"Won't you have to check in with the witness protection program?" Pixel asked, finally looking up at Nya. Pixel actually seemed genuinely curious and didn't have any aggression in her tone of voice.
"No, we're not with witness protection anymore." She replied, feeling a little uncomfortable.
"If you don't mind me asking, what was the reason you guys went into witness protection?" Harumi asked with a smug grin.
"I-I just came to see if we could study together, but I should get going." She replied, trying to stay relaxed. When they realized she wasn't going to give them any gossip Harumi scoffed and her smirk vanished.
"Oh come on, we all know your brother wasn't really raped so what was the real reason?" She huffed and Nya froze as Dareth laughed.
"Why don't you two go ahead and I will catch you later?" Pixel quickly suggested and with a roll of the eyes, Harumi and Dareth walked away and out of sight, leaving Pixal and Nya to talk in private. As soon as they were alone, Pixal placed a comforting hand on Nya's shoulders as the noirette attempted to hide her tears.
"How would you like to walk with me to our next lesson?" She offered with a kind smile. Nya could only shake her head, not trusting her voice, and forced her legs to move as fresh, hot tears rolled down his cheeks...
Kai could only stand there in shock as he stared at Morro's mother's shoes while she spoke softly and calmly to him. She didn't sound angry or condescending at all. If anything, she sounded like a mother just trying to protect her child as kindly as possible. Kai knew that if the shoe was on the other foot and someone was accusing Nya of a horrible crime he would probably start a riot. The only difference was he knew Nya would never do something like that and Wendy was no don't in denial of her son.
"I can't just stand by and watch my son's life get turned upside down by allegations that simply aren't true." She explained in the same gentle voice as before and Kai finally looked up to met her eyes.
"I'm not a liar."
"Look, we've all done things we regret." She said as she took a step forward, but Kai stepped back until his back was against one of the washing machines, effectively trapping him. "Sometimes we've had too much to drink and woken the next day feeling foolish." She added and Kai immediately knew what she was implying.
"You've got no idea what your son's capable of." He whimpered with wide, tearful eyes.
"My son's a gentleman, he's been raised to respect people but labels like this stick and it really isn't fair." She frowned and Kai's blood began to boil.
"Isn't fair?" He seethed as a few tears fell from his amber eyes. "What isn't fair is being drugged and raped!"
"I know my Morro, and I trust him." She stated firmly. "You really need to think about the consequences of what you say." She warned, but Kai just shook his head in disbelief.
"I-I can't... imagine how hard it is to accept that your son drugged me, held me down, and did what he did; but it happened, and that is the truth but he's going to get away with raping me!" Kai exclaimed, becoming more and more hysterical with every passing second.
"Don't ruin an innocent man's life for nothing!"
"And yet he'd know all about ruining lives, wouldn't he!" A new voice suddenly snarled and they both turned to see a livid Cole standing by the stairs that led out of the basement. When he came to visit the apartment he saw no one was home and when he saw the hamper missing he went to see if Kai needed help with the laundry. "I mean, Kai has to live in a body that doesn't feel like his own because your son violated it! He might seem decent and respectable but you know nothing about him! Your son's not innocent, he's a monster; and even though he won't be charged with rape, he's still going away for a very long time."
Wendy said nothing as she gave Kai another look before walking away.
As soon as she was gone, Cole pulled Kai into a protective embrace and let the brunette sob loudly...