Chapter 7-"Yoo-Lan-Ghee" (Festival of the Hungry Ghost)
A/N: "Yoo-Lan-Ghee" is a Chinese festival in which people believe that one particular day the gates of hell open and ghosts wander through the human world. People set specially designed money called "hell money" and other offerings outside their houses to keep the ghosts from coming inside and causing trouble. I used this title because the women being abused in these rings have their own "ghosts" or "demons" they always to keep from coming inside with them.
*****
LOS ANGELOS
MAINTSTEM APARTMENTS
APARTMENT #30
*Its just one of those days
When you don't wanna wake up
Everything is fucked
Everybody sux*
Jondy busted her way through the door to her one bedroom apartment. She slammed it shut, locked it and headed to her tiny kitchen. She opened up her banged up fridge and took out a 20 oz bottle of Jack Daniels. She opened the cap and drank straight from it, leaning against the door of the refrigerator.
While she was drinking she felt something in her clothes. She took one hand and felt between her legs. She swore and threw the whiskey bottle at the wall, smashing it into a million piece of glass.
*You don't really know why
But wanna justify
Rippin' someone's head off
No human contact
And if you interact
Your life is on contract*
She entered her bedroom, and stripped. She headed over, completely naked to her dresser and retrieved a black light. She unearthed her underwear and jeans from the pile of clothes she had made and ran the light over them. There was glowing on the crotch of her pants.
She moved the light over her bare thighs, nothing. Zack must've had his pants down, but she didn't so he started cumming on her clothes. She left the clothes in a pile, except for the pants.
Climbing up on her she deactivated the smoke alarm in the room, then took her pants into the bathroom and chucked them into her trashcan.
After pouring some rubbing alcohol into the can she lit a match from the pack she kept in the vanity's drawer to light candles. She threw it inside the trashcan and watched as the whole thing start to burn.
She reached inside and turned on the shower, to ice cold, thankful this time that the building supplied crappy water heat. She let the fire burn while she was in the shower, scrubbing her skin till it was pink. She cut off the water and wrapped a towel around herself, taking another one and blotting out the remaining fire in the can.
After slipping on some clean clothes, a pair of dark denim low rider flairs and a black muscle tank she threw the entire contents of her bathroom trashcan, including the can itself into a black trash bag and headed outside to put it on the curb.
"Hey Sam, what are you putting out so late?" one of her neighbors was outside by the low chain linked fence that spanned the building, smoking a cigarette.
Jondy chucked the bag on the other side of the fence with the others. "Trash" she told him, heading back inside without saying anything more; feeling his eyes on her as she left.
*Your best bet is to stay away motherf*cker
It's just one of those days!!*
*****
SEATTLE
LADDER 12
"Hey man shove over" Kenny kicked Ty with his boot.
Ty sat up and slid over to the other side watching Kenny sit in the now vacant spot that his feet were once in.
"So how's that girlfriend of yours?" Kenny asked
"Fine" Ty didn't say anything more.
"JUST fine?" Kenny didn't believe him.
"Yeah man JUST fine" Ty repeated "Is dating women just all about sex?"
"Depends on the woman," Kenny informed
"Cree's not like that" Ty defended
"You mean she's not one of those sl-"
"No!" Ty snapped "You better watch yourself before you shoot your mouth off bout my girlfriend"
"Sorry man" Kenny apologized "I was just messin'. Didn't mean nothin' by it." He turned to get a quick look at the game. Knicks and Lakers. "She seemed cool." He turned back to Ty "Where do you say she lives again?"
"Los Angeles" Ty told him "She went back to spend some time with her family."
"Her mom's a cop right?"
Ty nodded
"Then what does her dad do?"
"I don't know man I never met him"
"You never asked?"
"What for? I don't grill the women I date"
"You know how fathers are with their 'little girls' dating older men."
"I'm only four years older then her Kenny. It's not sagatory or nuthin'"
"You miss her?" Kenny's tone went slightly more serious
"Yeah" Ty answered back quickly.
"I'd miss her too if I had her"
"Glad I have her then" Ty notified
*It's been too long and I'm lost without you
What am I gonna do
Said I been needin' you, wantin' you
Wonderin' if ur the same and who's been with you
Is ur heart still mine
I wanna cry sometimes
I miss you*
*****
LOS ANGELOS
*Now I'm sittin' here
Thinkin' 'bout you
And the days we used to share
It's drivin' me crazy
I don't know what to do
I'm just wonderin' if you still care
I don't wanna let you know
That it's killin' me
I know you got another life you gotta concentrate baby
Come back...to me
Can you...feel me(Callin')
Hear me...callin' (For you)*
Cree was sitting on the couch in her living room watching an old movie with Jade. "Princess Bride" Something she hadn't watched since she was a little girl. Tonight was girls' night in, complete with chick flicks, they also had "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Ever After", and tons of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Jade curled her legs up on the couch.
"Remember when we use to watch this with our Barbie dolls?"
Cree smiled "And you acted out all of Buttercups' scenes with Malibu Barbie"
"Yeah the bikini she wore kinda gave it away that she wasn't Buttercup."
On the screen Buttercup and her prince, played by Carley Ewes, embraced in a passionate kiss.
Jade turned to look at her sister "Wish you and Ty were doin' that right now huh?"
Cree hit Jade with a pillow.
Jade took it off her, still smiling "So yes?"
The credits were now starting to roll on the movie. Jade muted the TV with the remote "Want to put in another one?"
"In a minute" Cree informed. She climbed off the sofa "All this Ben and Jerry's is making me want real food." she stepped over an empty carton of the aforementioned ice cream brand, setting it on the coffee table. She then headed into the kitchen.
"There's still left over Tso chicken in the fridge" Jade announced
"That'll do it" Cree opened the fridge and pulled out the chicken in it's takeout box. "Amazing how we're Chinese and we still eat this kinda stuff." She closed the fridge and started spooning out her prize onto a plate "We should be sick of it by now."
"Yeah but this is America Chinese Food" Jade informed "It's all fast food modernized and greasy."
"Want some?"
"YE-AH" Jade told her "I love fast food modernized and greasy"
Cree got another plate "Gramma would probably put a curse us if she saw us eating this" she put the empty plate beside hers and started spooning more chicken onto it.
"Cree, Gramma can go suck a lemon." Jade threw back "With all that crap that she did to mom, and to dad" she took the plate when Cree handed it to her, sitting at their round wooden pine breakfast table in the kitchen.
Cree sat down beside her sister, silently agreeing.
"Did I hear my name?" Peter came into the kitchen in a gray t-shirt, jeans and socks.
"Your name's not dad," Cree reminded with a smile in between eating her chicken.
Peter picked up a dishrag off the counter and threw it at his daughter. "Guess I can't blame you for the attitude, since it's one of the things I love most about your mom" he reached into the cabinet and retrieved a glass "Mind if I join you ladies?"
"Sure" Jade told her father.
Peter got the rest of the chicken out of the fridge along with a fifteen oz bottle of Barcadi Rum and a can of coke. He mixed the drinks then joined his daughters at the table.
He looked at the bottle of rum for a moment "You didn't drink out of this did you?" he asked Cree. She was his daughter, but three years apart had brought changes to his baby girl that she didn't have before. So in many ways he was just getting to know her again.
Cree shook her head, setting down her fork "I just had coke"
"Oh" Peter took a sip of his drink, eating a bite of chicken soon after "This is good stuff" he leaned back in his chair "Bet it would piss off your gramma though"
"How come gramma never liked you?" Jade asked all of a sudden.
"Who knows really," Peter confessed, "When me and mom were dating she was still with her first husband, and I told myself that your gramma was upset because of that, even though they were going through the motions of a divorce. Mother's always seem more partial to the man that fathers her daughter's children. And even though he was beating on mom gramma still stuck to him. Then she kinda justified it cause I was black, and not Chinese like him." He leaned forward again, resting his elbows on the table "After a while I stopped keeping tabs on it. I loved your mom, and no one could tell me not to."
"Have some more chicken for gramma" Cree said
Peter looked at her and smiled before taking a huge bite out of a larger piece of chicken from the take out box. His expression changed a minute later "You still having bad dreams?"
Cree stared at her dad for the longest time but didn't say anything.
"You know I'm here for you baby," he spoke out "You can tell me--things. We're tight like that, right?"
"Yeah we're tight" Cree reassured. "There's just some things' that are hard to tell, even to your dad."
"You ever tell your boyfriend about this?"
Cree looked up "There are some things I haven't told anybody"
"Hey it's okay" Peter tilted her chin up "You don't have to tell me now."
"But I won't ever have a 'right time' to tell you dad"
"You set your right time baby" Peter reminded he kissed her on the forehead and released her chin.
She looked down at her hands for the longest time "Dad I-" she looked up "I was pregnant" her gaze was sad but unwavering.
Peter was horrified, but he didn't say anything, but this wasn't out of range. She had been through hell "Does mom know?"
Cree shook her head 'no'
"It wasn't your fault" Peter told her "They used you."
"But it was my fault when I tried to take some piping and kill it dad." Her eyes were watering now. "Other girls, they were given all these men, to screw them until they lost their babies"
Peter had to take a moment then and look away. He couldn't bear to think that this happened to his daughter.
"He found me" Cree went on "and I got what I wanted cause he beat me with the pipe. But then he took me to this man, and, I got what I wanted the second time."
"Cree you should see someone about this" Peter told her "Someone who can help you"
"No" Cree shook her head, wiping her eyes "No one would understand dad. No one knows what it was like there." She looked up to him with such anguish that he had never seen it on another human face before that "I'm not afraid to remember it. Or talk about it." She laughed briefly, sniffing "I'm talking right now. But they'll never understand dad. They'll just shove me full of anti depressants and tell me it's 'okay to feel this way'." She looked him dead in the eye "The only ones who can understand me are Them." She pointed into the air as if "them" were sitting there, chained, tortured, raped silently, waiting to be acknowledged. "And They can't talk cause their not even suppose to exist"
"You hafta talk to someone" Peter told her in a soft but firm voice.
"I'm talking to you daddy" she said "I've had enough of talking to strangers. Please?" she hadn't called him 'daddy' in a long time.
*(When this began)
I had nothing to say
And I get lost in the nothingness inside of me
(I was confused)
And I let it all out to find
That I'm not the only person with these things in mind*
He stood up and so did she and he hugged her, placing one hand behind head, feeling her cry. "It's okay baby" he glanced over at Jade.
She stood up and went over to them. Peter put one arm around his other daughter's shoulders and Jade leaned her head against her sister's back.
*(Inside of me)
But all that they can see the words revealed
Is the only real thing that I've got left to feel
(Nothing to lose)
Just stuck, hollow and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own
I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real
I wanna let go of the pain I've felt so long
(Erase all the pain till it's gone)
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm close to something real
I wanna find something I've wanted all along
Somewhere I belong*
*****
CHINA
*And I've got nothing to say
I can't believe I didn't fall right down on my face
(I was confused)
Looking everywhere only to find
That it's not the way I had imagined it all in my mind*
She climbed out of the alleyway after all the noises had died down. The streets were empty except for the sounds of motorcycle street racers screaming through the alleys and the noises of their bikes with the missing links from their engine chains that made the bikes sound like a million metal nails scraping across a chalkboard all at the same time.
Her wrist was puffed up three times its size now and blood dripped down her leg and onto the filth on the street. She hurried as best she could past the bikers who were too high on "keg rot" (Speed) to pay any attention to her.
She moved on down the road and almost collided into a small child, a girl with no shoes and a dress too small for her.
The girl started to cry.
"Fong!" a woman, her mother called out to her. She ran out from a dimly lit alley way "Get away from that woman!" she raced ahead and snatched her child, scowling at her. "Hooker, why don't you stay with the bikers where you belong!"
"Please" she called out to her, barely above a whisper "My name is Sun-Ju. I didn't want to be a hooker. They took me, they killed my son, they killed my baby. Please believe me."
The woman still looked at her warily
*(So what am I)
What do I have but negativity
'Cause I can't justify the way, everyone is looking at me
(Nothing to lose)
Nothing to gain, hollow and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own*
She eyed Sun-Ju critically, not knowing whether she could trust her. "You bleeding" she pointed at her leg.
Sun-Ju looked down, and then she finally noticed how badly she was bleeding.
The woman was speaking again, so she looked up. She was also gesturing for Sun-Ju to come with her "I fix wounds. But if your lying I have you arrested." She continued waving "Come on, before someone sees us"
Sun-Ju followed. She knew that anyone helping slave ring hookers would be targets for violent retribution by pimps, or also by the cops that aided them. The little girl looked back to her, with wondering eyes. But not unknowing ones, she had seen this before, just never this close.
*I will never know myself until I do this on my own
And I will never feel anything else until my wounds are healed
I will never be anything till I break away from me
I will break away, I'll find myself today
I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real
I wanna let go of the pain I've felt so long
(Erase all the pain till it's gone)
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm close to something real
I wanna find something I've wanted all along
Somewhere I belong*
Sun-Ju was led down a narrow alleyway to a small hut-like house with a single window by the door. There was one charcoal fire pit in the middle of the wooden floor. A bedroom, she suspected, broke off to the left and a single bathroom with no toilet completed the tiny house. The lighting was dim at best, one naked lightbulb suspended from the celing supplying light to the entire outer room.
"Sit" the woman gestured towards a dining room chair. She pushed Sun-Ju down into it and disappeared towards one of the other rooms.
A baby on the floor by the pit stared at her from behind a worn couch. Cartoons danced across the screen on a small ten inch black and white TV beside him. His eyes were so brown they were almost black.
The woman came back and something cold touched Sun-Ju's wrist. She jumped
"Ice" the woman told her, sticking her hand on top of it "Hold"
She knelt in front of Sun-Ju and lifted up her skirt, revealing the bullet wound oozing on her leg. With a thread bare rag the woman wiped away the coagulated blood from the wound, scraping until she got out the grime as well.
Sun-Ju bit her lip, but still she screamed. The woman dipped her finger into a metal bowl and rubbed a salve onto the wound. Then she took another rag and tied it around Sun-Ju's leg as a bandage.
"If blood flow is bad, I cannot help the leg" she had no way to prevent against gangrene, and if Sun-Ju went to a hospital she would be arrested for prostitution and land back in the hands of the same crooked cops who dealt with the Ring.
Sun-Ju looked down at her injury and did not say anything.
"You stay here on the couch." The woman told her "My husband is out of town until tomorrow morning."
Sun-Ju nodded. It was the only thing she could do. She couldn't endanger this woman and her family any more then she had too. This wasn't their problem. The baby on the floor had fallen asleep facing her, and on her left the woman's daughter now stared at her.
"Fong you must go to bed" her mother said to her, ushering her into the room they shared. She picked the baby off the floor, eyeing Sun-Ju as she did so. "My husband comes home at nine o'clock. You must be gone before that"
Sun-Ju shook her head, and watched the other woman retreat into the small bedroom with the baby. She pulled herself off the dining chair and limped over to the worn blue couch. The cushions were sagging, and the back had lost some of its fluff as well but she couldn't complain, it was better then the streets. She closed her eyes. She was exhausted but sleep would not come to her.
*I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm somewhere I belong
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm somewhere I belong
Somewhere I belong*
*****
SEATTLE
CRASH
8: 15 PM
"Glad my girl is aiight" Cindy sipped her beer, looking at Max. The incident from yesterday had scared the piss outta her. "Can't believe some wack job decided to dump some 'unaware juice' into my boo and try to screw her up"
"Some people have a dumb way to get their ya ya's out" Max spoke out beside her. "But no permanent damage. Takes more then that to bring me down."
"Glad every day for it too sugah" Cindy agreed. She raised her beer mug "Here's to this night beein' better then the last"
"Down with that" Max agreed, clinking her mug against Cindy's.
"So-" Cindy began in a 'dish girl' voice "Where's ya squeeze?"
"Workin'" Max informed flatly
"And you couldn't drag him away from it?" Cindy raised her eyebrow at that.
"Not that good with stuff like that"
"Now sugah, don't be lyin' cause you know ya are" Cindy told her "I've seen you command men to ya will with nuthin' more then a bat of those smoky eyes." She took a sip of her beer "You are just like Cree. Our girl was smokin' but she never wanted to hold to it, always bein' modest over her physique."
"With all the stuff she went through I can understand why" Max said
"Straight up" Cindy agreed "Every time I think of that shit" she shook her head almost growling "How the hell can mens do that to sistahs?"
"They're pricks" Max analyzed. She heard a smash behind her and turned. A woman was huddled on the floor by the bar, pieces of a smashed barstool laid beside her.
"Bitch!" a man above her picked up a glass and chucked it at her "I told you to give me ALL the money!" He kicked her and she jumped.
*Walking around I hear the earth seekihng relief
I'm trying to find a reason to live
But the mindless clutter my path
Oh these thorns in my side
I know I have something free
I have something so alive
I think they shoot cause they want it
I feel forces all around me
Come on raise your head
Those who hide behind the shadows
Live with all that's dead*
"What the hell is going on?"
Max turned to her friend "I don't know." She got up out of her seat and ran over to where the woman was crouched. Another glass broke, Max ducked. "Yo asshole!" she grabbed the man's arm when he reached for another glass, bending it back with super human strength until she pinned it behind his back "Where do you get off knockin' around a sistah?"
*Look at me... look at me
At least look at me when you shoot a bullet through my head
Through my head
Through my head
Through my head*
"Hoe this ain't none of your business!" the man spat at her, trying to break out of her grip.
Max pulled harder on his arm, close to dislocating it "I'm making it my business. Why don't you just leave her alone and slink away in the night before I get out my stompin' boots?" she reached around with her other foot and kicked him into a table. Once she was sure he was out she turned back to the woman.
Cindy kneeled beside her as well. "Girl you aiight?"
The woman was still scared and she jerked her arm from Cindy's grasp.
"Max" Cindy said "Look at this"
Max kneeled next to the woman and saw what Cindy was talking about. It was a mark on her shoulder. An oriental character, but wasn't a tattoo, it was burned into the woman's flesh like a brand.
"What the hell did those bastards do to her?"
*In my lifetime when I'm disgraced
By jealousy and lies
I laugh aloud 'cause my life
Has gotten inside someone else's mind*
The woman still looked around frantically. (In Chinese) "What do you want?"
"Shit boo she don't even speak English and that prick was all up on her. Probably liked that she couldn't tell him to stop so he could understand it."
"Thirty-four"
Cindy looked at Max "What?"
"Thrity-four" Max pointed to the branding on the woman's shoulder "It's the Chinese character for the number thirty-four"
"But who the hell did it to her that's what I want to know" Cindy growled
Max went silent for a moment before turning to the woman
(spoken in Chinese):
"What's your name?"
The woman looked at her fearfully and defensive "Why do you want to know?"
Cindy looked astonished "You never told me you could speak Chinese."
"Missions were better for Manticore if their soldiers knew how to speak more then one language" Max stated in English in a low voice. She looked back at the woman, speaking in Chinese again
"Who did this to you?" she touched the mark on shoulder
The woman reared back, still saying nothing.
"I still didn't get your name. I could call you Jane Doe, but why don't you cut the crap and spill your real credentials" she wasn't trying to be cruel. This was just how she did things to get stuff out of people. It was harsh, but most of the time it was effective.
"I don't have one!" she spat "My number's thirty-four. That's the only thing I have that's mine!"
"Are you from a ring?"
The woman didn't say anything, but her look was her answer
"Whose?" Max jumped the gun and assumed her hunch was right "Whose your pimp?"
"What's going on?" Cindy wanted to know, not wanting to be left out of the conversation anymore.
Max looked up to her "She's part of a sex ring. The number's her ID"
"Damn" Cindy cursed
"He doesn't tell me his name" The woman spat to Max, answering her earlier question "He's not stupid!"
"Did you get sold out from somewhere else sides Seattle?"
The woman turned to her angrily "What do you think?"
"Who was your pimp there?"
"I told you already!" she barked
"Not here" Max growled "In China. Who sold you here?"
"How the hell would I know?" she snapped "No one tells us anything. They just ship us around like merchandise!" She shut up "Are you a cop?"
Max shook her head
"Why do you want to know all of this? Huh? He took my sons away and put them in an orphanage! My husband was arrested by the officials for trying to get them out, now they have to stay in the system, and my husband was thrown in jail!"
Max gave a hard look to Cindy
"What?"
"She's not from here" she blinked "Someone sold her here from China. She doesn't speak the language, she doesn't know her way around. It's a way to keep her from escaping"
"Son-of-bitches" Cindy whispered, she looked up "What do we do now?"
Max looked back at the woman "Let me help you"
She sneered "No one can help me"
"You got two options" Max snapped "Either you let me try to help you, or they'll catch you and take you back"
She didn't say anything.
Max took it as a sign and went over to use the payphone mounted by the bar. She banged on the phone, shaking out loose change from the return, which she used to make her call.
"Hey it's me"
"Hey sorry I had to work" Logan's voice announced through the phone "Hope it didn't put a damper on your plans"
"It's aiight" Max looked back at the woman Cindy was helping up off the floor of Crash "I need you to do something for me though"
"If I can I will" he told her "What is it?"
"Not here" she spoke into the phone
(cut to: scene of Logan listening on the phone in his computer room. He's got the phone resting on his shoulder, and he's leaning back in the computer chair. Max's voice is heard through the phone)
"I'm commin' over to your place, we'll talk about it there"
"What's going on?"
(cut back to Max in Crash on the payphone)
"See ya in fifteen minutes" she hung up. Walking back to the woman and Cindy she gestured for the nameless woman to come with her.
"It's okay, just trust me"
*Hey all I want is what's real
Something I touch and can feel
I'll hold it close and never let it go
Said why...why do we live life
With all this hate inside
I'll give it away 'cause I don't want it no more
Please help me find a place
Somewhere far away I'll go and you'll never see me again*
*****
I read a fic a while back that had Max and Jondy were able to speak in Japanese. And I agree with the author's concept that X5's could be equipped with being able to speak numerous languages, not just English. It would make Manticore's assignments go smoother if their creations could talk their way into anywhere.
The last bit with the Chinese woman (yes she is part of that "covoy" that was shipped in the piano box from China in the first chapter) is knowledge taken from a section of United States Congressional Legislature which states that (this is not a direct quote) "parties often take women from foreign countries and send them to places where they don't know the language in order to make it harder for them to escape"
The bit about the motorcycle racing stems from a Time Magazine article called "Speed Demons" profiling the out of control addictions of Speed in China and Thailand. Speed in China is called "keg rot" and there are whole neighborhoods of shanty towns filled with addicts, and at night many young men take speed before holding motorcycle races at two in the morning.
Jondy's little tantrum is to show what I feel she would do if Zack did something like that to her. I'm not a relationshipper between any of the X5 siblings and other X5 siblings. I feel that grew up knowing each other as brothers and sisters and events like that would make them uneasy. Zack didn't love Jondy like a girlfriend, he loves her as a sister, and he did what he thought was one of the only ways he knew of to keep her from getting out of hand during heat.
Max and Cree will meet up again, and Jondy will get to see Max..i hafta establish a reason for both though, and a good course of action to go about it.
Okay, these are long end notes...but..finally...songs used are:
Jondy coming home and tearin up her apartment-"Break Stuff" (Limp Bizkit)
Cree talking to her dad/Sun-Ju in China "Somewhere I Belong" (Linkin Park)
Ty and Kenny talking/Jade and Cree hanging out "I Miss You" (the late) Aalyiah)
Woman at Crash/Max talking to Logan afterwards "Bullets" (Creed)
A/N: "Yoo-Lan-Ghee" is a Chinese festival in which people believe that one particular day the gates of hell open and ghosts wander through the human world. People set specially designed money called "hell money" and other offerings outside their houses to keep the ghosts from coming inside and causing trouble. I used this title because the women being abused in these rings have their own "ghosts" or "demons" they always to keep from coming inside with them.
*****
LOS ANGELOS
MAINTSTEM APARTMENTS
APARTMENT #30
*Its just one of those days
When you don't wanna wake up
Everything is fucked
Everybody sux*
Jondy busted her way through the door to her one bedroom apartment. She slammed it shut, locked it and headed to her tiny kitchen. She opened up her banged up fridge and took out a 20 oz bottle of Jack Daniels. She opened the cap and drank straight from it, leaning against the door of the refrigerator.
While she was drinking she felt something in her clothes. She took one hand and felt between her legs. She swore and threw the whiskey bottle at the wall, smashing it into a million piece of glass.
*You don't really know why
But wanna justify
Rippin' someone's head off
No human contact
And if you interact
Your life is on contract*
She entered her bedroom, and stripped. She headed over, completely naked to her dresser and retrieved a black light. She unearthed her underwear and jeans from the pile of clothes she had made and ran the light over them. There was glowing on the crotch of her pants.
She moved the light over her bare thighs, nothing. Zack must've had his pants down, but she didn't so he started cumming on her clothes. She left the clothes in a pile, except for the pants.
Climbing up on her she deactivated the smoke alarm in the room, then took her pants into the bathroom and chucked them into her trashcan.
After pouring some rubbing alcohol into the can she lit a match from the pack she kept in the vanity's drawer to light candles. She threw it inside the trashcan and watched as the whole thing start to burn.
She reached inside and turned on the shower, to ice cold, thankful this time that the building supplied crappy water heat. She let the fire burn while she was in the shower, scrubbing her skin till it was pink. She cut off the water and wrapped a towel around herself, taking another one and blotting out the remaining fire in the can.
After slipping on some clean clothes, a pair of dark denim low rider flairs and a black muscle tank she threw the entire contents of her bathroom trashcan, including the can itself into a black trash bag and headed outside to put it on the curb.
"Hey Sam, what are you putting out so late?" one of her neighbors was outside by the low chain linked fence that spanned the building, smoking a cigarette.
Jondy chucked the bag on the other side of the fence with the others. "Trash" she told him, heading back inside without saying anything more; feeling his eyes on her as she left.
*Your best bet is to stay away motherf*cker
It's just one of those days!!*
*****
SEATTLE
LADDER 12
"Hey man shove over" Kenny kicked Ty with his boot.
Ty sat up and slid over to the other side watching Kenny sit in the now vacant spot that his feet were once in.
"So how's that girlfriend of yours?" Kenny asked
"Fine" Ty didn't say anything more.
"JUST fine?" Kenny didn't believe him.
"Yeah man JUST fine" Ty repeated "Is dating women just all about sex?"
"Depends on the woman," Kenny informed
"Cree's not like that" Ty defended
"You mean she's not one of those sl-"
"No!" Ty snapped "You better watch yourself before you shoot your mouth off bout my girlfriend"
"Sorry man" Kenny apologized "I was just messin'. Didn't mean nothin' by it." He turned to get a quick look at the game. Knicks and Lakers. "She seemed cool." He turned back to Ty "Where do you say she lives again?"
"Los Angeles" Ty told him "She went back to spend some time with her family."
"Her mom's a cop right?"
Ty nodded
"Then what does her dad do?"
"I don't know man I never met him"
"You never asked?"
"What for? I don't grill the women I date"
"You know how fathers are with their 'little girls' dating older men."
"I'm only four years older then her Kenny. It's not sagatory or nuthin'"
"You miss her?" Kenny's tone went slightly more serious
"Yeah" Ty answered back quickly.
"I'd miss her too if I had her"
"Glad I have her then" Ty notified
*It's been too long and I'm lost without you
What am I gonna do
Said I been needin' you, wantin' you
Wonderin' if ur the same and who's been with you
Is ur heart still mine
I wanna cry sometimes
I miss you*
*****
LOS ANGELOS
*Now I'm sittin' here
Thinkin' 'bout you
And the days we used to share
It's drivin' me crazy
I don't know what to do
I'm just wonderin' if you still care
I don't wanna let you know
That it's killin' me
I know you got another life you gotta concentrate baby
Come back...to me
Can you...feel me(Callin')
Hear me...callin' (For you)*
Cree was sitting on the couch in her living room watching an old movie with Jade. "Princess Bride" Something she hadn't watched since she was a little girl. Tonight was girls' night in, complete with chick flicks, they also had "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Ever After", and tons of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Jade curled her legs up on the couch.
"Remember when we use to watch this with our Barbie dolls?"
Cree smiled "And you acted out all of Buttercups' scenes with Malibu Barbie"
"Yeah the bikini she wore kinda gave it away that she wasn't Buttercup."
On the screen Buttercup and her prince, played by Carley Ewes, embraced in a passionate kiss.
Jade turned to look at her sister "Wish you and Ty were doin' that right now huh?"
Cree hit Jade with a pillow.
Jade took it off her, still smiling "So yes?"
The credits were now starting to roll on the movie. Jade muted the TV with the remote "Want to put in another one?"
"In a minute" Cree informed. She climbed off the sofa "All this Ben and Jerry's is making me want real food." she stepped over an empty carton of the aforementioned ice cream brand, setting it on the coffee table. She then headed into the kitchen.
"There's still left over Tso chicken in the fridge" Jade announced
"That'll do it" Cree opened the fridge and pulled out the chicken in it's takeout box. "Amazing how we're Chinese and we still eat this kinda stuff." She closed the fridge and started spooning out her prize onto a plate "We should be sick of it by now."
"Yeah but this is America Chinese Food" Jade informed "It's all fast food modernized and greasy."
"Want some?"
"YE-AH" Jade told her "I love fast food modernized and greasy"
Cree got another plate "Gramma would probably put a curse us if she saw us eating this" she put the empty plate beside hers and started spooning more chicken onto it.
"Cree, Gramma can go suck a lemon." Jade threw back "With all that crap that she did to mom, and to dad" she took the plate when Cree handed it to her, sitting at their round wooden pine breakfast table in the kitchen.
Cree sat down beside her sister, silently agreeing.
"Did I hear my name?" Peter came into the kitchen in a gray t-shirt, jeans and socks.
"Your name's not dad," Cree reminded with a smile in between eating her chicken.
Peter picked up a dishrag off the counter and threw it at his daughter. "Guess I can't blame you for the attitude, since it's one of the things I love most about your mom" he reached into the cabinet and retrieved a glass "Mind if I join you ladies?"
"Sure" Jade told her father.
Peter got the rest of the chicken out of the fridge along with a fifteen oz bottle of Barcadi Rum and a can of coke. He mixed the drinks then joined his daughters at the table.
He looked at the bottle of rum for a moment "You didn't drink out of this did you?" he asked Cree. She was his daughter, but three years apart had brought changes to his baby girl that she didn't have before. So in many ways he was just getting to know her again.
Cree shook her head, setting down her fork "I just had coke"
"Oh" Peter took a sip of his drink, eating a bite of chicken soon after "This is good stuff" he leaned back in his chair "Bet it would piss off your gramma though"
"How come gramma never liked you?" Jade asked all of a sudden.
"Who knows really," Peter confessed, "When me and mom were dating she was still with her first husband, and I told myself that your gramma was upset because of that, even though they were going through the motions of a divorce. Mother's always seem more partial to the man that fathers her daughter's children. And even though he was beating on mom gramma still stuck to him. Then she kinda justified it cause I was black, and not Chinese like him." He leaned forward again, resting his elbows on the table "After a while I stopped keeping tabs on it. I loved your mom, and no one could tell me not to."
"Have some more chicken for gramma" Cree said
Peter looked at her and smiled before taking a huge bite out of a larger piece of chicken from the take out box. His expression changed a minute later "You still having bad dreams?"
Cree stared at her dad for the longest time but didn't say anything.
"You know I'm here for you baby," he spoke out "You can tell me--things. We're tight like that, right?"
"Yeah we're tight" Cree reassured. "There's just some things' that are hard to tell, even to your dad."
"You ever tell your boyfriend about this?"
Cree looked up "There are some things I haven't told anybody"
"Hey it's okay" Peter tilted her chin up "You don't have to tell me now."
"But I won't ever have a 'right time' to tell you dad"
"You set your right time baby" Peter reminded he kissed her on the forehead and released her chin.
She looked down at her hands for the longest time "Dad I-" she looked up "I was pregnant" her gaze was sad but unwavering.
Peter was horrified, but he didn't say anything, but this wasn't out of range. She had been through hell "Does mom know?"
Cree shook her head 'no'
"It wasn't your fault" Peter told her "They used you."
"But it was my fault when I tried to take some piping and kill it dad." Her eyes were watering now. "Other girls, they were given all these men, to screw them until they lost their babies"
Peter had to take a moment then and look away. He couldn't bear to think that this happened to his daughter.
"He found me" Cree went on "and I got what I wanted cause he beat me with the pipe. But then he took me to this man, and, I got what I wanted the second time."
"Cree you should see someone about this" Peter told her "Someone who can help you"
"No" Cree shook her head, wiping her eyes "No one would understand dad. No one knows what it was like there." She looked up to him with such anguish that he had never seen it on another human face before that "I'm not afraid to remember it. Or talk about it." She laughed briefly, sniffing "I'm talking right now. But they'll never understand dad. They'll just shove me full of anti depressants and tell me it's 'okay to feel this way'." She looked him dead in the eye "The only ones who can understand me are Them." She pointed into the air as if "them" were sitting there, chained, tortured, raped silently, waiting to be acknowledged. "And They can't talk cause their not even suppose to exist"
"You hafta talk to someone" Peter told her in a soft but firm voice.
"I'm talking to you daddy" she said "I've had enough of talking to strangers. Please?" she hadn't called him 'daddy' in a long time.
*(When this began)
I had nothing to say
And I get lost in the nothingness inside of me
(I was confused)
And I let it all out to find
That I'm not the only person with these things in mind*
He stood up and so did she and he hugged her, placing one hand behind head, feeling her cry. "It's okay baby" he glanced over at Jade.
She stood up and went over to them. Peter put one arm around his other daughter's shoulders and Jade leaned her head against her sister's back.
*(Inside of me)
But all that they can see the words revealed
Is the only real thing that I've got left to feel
(Nothing to lose)
Just stuck, hollow and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own
I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real
I wanna let go of the pain I've felt so long
(Erase all the pain till it's gone)
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm close to something real
I wanna find something I've wanted all along
Somewhere I belong*
*****
CHINA
*And I've got nothing to say
I can't believe I didn't fall right down on my face
(I was confused)
Looking everywhere only to find
That it's not the way I had imagined it all in my mind*
She climbed out of the alleyway after all the noises had died down. The streets were empty except for the sounds of motorcycle street racers screaming through the alleys and the noises of their bikes with the missing links from their engine chains that made the bikes sound like a million metal nails scraping across a chalkboard all at the same time.
Her wrist was puffed up three times its size now and blood dripped down her leg and onto the filth on the street. She hurried as best she could past the bikers who were too high on "keg rot" (Speed) to pay any attention to her.
She moved on down the road and almost collided into a small child, a girl with no shoes and a dress too small for her.
The girl started to cry.
"Fong!" a woman, her mother called out to her. She ran out from a dimly lit alley way "Get away from that woman!" she raced ahead and snatched her child, scowling at her. "Hooker, why don't you stay with the bikers where you belong!"
"Please" she called out to her, barely above a whisper "My name is Sun-Ju. I didn't want to be a hooker. They took me, they killed my son, they killed my baby. Please believe me."
The woman still looked at her warily
*(So what am I)
What do I have but negativity
'Cause I can't justify the way, everyone is looking at me
(Nothing to lose)
Nothing to gain, hollow and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own*
She eyed Sun-Ju critically, not knowing whether she could trust her. "You bleeding" she pointed at her leg.
Sun-Ju looked down, and then she finally noticed how badly she was bleeding.
The woman was speaking again, so she looked up. She was also gesturing for Sun-Ju to come with her "I fix wounds. But if your lying I have you arrested." She continued waving "Come on, before someone sees us"
Sun-Ju followed. She knew that anyone helping slave ring hookers would be targets for violent retribution by pimps, or also by the cops that aided them. The little girl looked back to her, with wondering eyes. But not unknowing ones, she had seen this before, just never this close.
*I will never know myself until I do this on my own
And I will never feel anything else until my wounds are healed
I will never be anything till I break away from me
I will break away, I'll find myself today
I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real
I wanna let go of the pain I've felt so long
(Erase all the pain till it's gone)
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm close to something real
I wanna find something I've wanted all along
Somewhere I belong*
Sun-Ju was led down a narrow alleyway to a small hut-like house with a single window by the door. There was one charcoal fire pit in the middle of the wooden floor. A bedroom, she suspected, broke off to the left and a single bathroom with no toilet completed the tiny house. The lighting was dim at best, one naked lightbulb suspended from the celing supplying light to the entire outer room.
"Sit" the woman gestured towards a dining room chair. She pushed Sun-Ju down into it and disappeared towards one of the other rooms.
A baby on the floor by the pit stared at her from behind a worn couch. Cartoons danced across the screen on a small ten inch black and white TV beside him. His eyes were so brown they were almost black.
The woman came back and something cold touched Sun-Ju's wrist. She jumped
"Ice" the woman told her, sticking her hand on top of it "Hold"
She knelt in front of Sun-Ju and lifted up her skirt, revealing the bullet wound oozing on her leg. With a thread bare rag the woman wiped away the coagulated blood from the wound, scraping until she got out the grime as well.
Sun-Ju bit her lip, but still she screamed. The woman dipped her finger into a metal bowl and rubbed a salve onto the wound. Then she took another rag and tied it around Sun-Ju's leg as a bandage.
"If blood flow is bad, I cannot help the leg" she had no way to prevent against gangrene, and if Sun-Ju went to a hospital she would be arrested for prostitution and land back in the hands of the same crooked cops who dealt with the Ring.
Sun-Ju looked down at her injury and did not say anything.
"You stay here on the couch." The woman told her "My husband is out of town until tomorrow morning."
Sun-Ju nodded. It was the only thing she could do. She couldn't endanger this woman and her family any more then she had too. This wasn't their problem. The baby on the floor had fallen asleep facing her, and on her left the woman's daughter now stared at her.
"Fong you must go to bed" her mother said to her, ushering her into the room they shared. She picked the baby off the floor, eyeing Sun-Ju as she did so. "My husband comes home at nine o'clock. You must be gone before that"
Sun-Ju shook her head, and watched the other woman retreat into the small bedroom with the baby. She pulled herself off the dining chair and limped over to the worn blue couch. The cushions were sagging, and the back had lost some of its fluff as well but she couldn't complain, it was better then the streets. She closed her eyes. She was exhausted but sleep would not come to her.
*I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm somewhere I belong
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm somewhere I belong
Somewhere I belong*
*****
SEATTLE
CRASH
8: 15 PM
"Glad my girl is aiight" Cindy sipped her beer, looking at Max. The incident from yesterday had scared the piss outta her. "Can't believe some wack job decided to dump some 'unaware juice' into my boo and try to screw her up"
"Some people have a dumb way to get their ya ya's out" Max spoke out beside her. "But no permanent damage. Takes more then that to bring me down."
"Glad every day for it too sugah" Cindy agreed. She raised her beer mug "Here's to this night beein' better then the last"
"Down with that" Max agreed, clinking her mug against Cindy's.
"So-" Cindy began in a 'dish girl' voice "Where's ya squeeze?"
"Workin'" Max informed flatly
"And you couldn't drag him away from it?" Cindy raised her eyebrow at that.
"Not that good with stuff like that"
"Now sugah, don't be lyin' cause you know ya are" Cindy told her "I've seen you command men to ya will with nuthin' more then a bat of those smoky eyes." She took a sip of her beer "You are just like Cree. Our girl was smokin' but she never wanted to hold to it, always bein' modest over her physique."
"With all the stuff she went through I can understand why" Max said
"Straight up" Cindy agreed "Every time I think of that shit" she shook her head almost growling "How the hell can mens do that to sistahs?"
"They're pricks" Max analyzed. She heard a smash behind her and turned. A woman was huddled on the floor by the bar, pieces of a smashed barstool laid beside her.
"Bitch!" a man above her picked up a glass and chucked it at her "I told you to give me ALL the money!" He kicked her and she jumped.
*Walking around I hear the earth seekihng relief
I'm trying to find a reason to live
But the mindless clutter my path
Oh these thorns in my side
I know I have something free
I have something so alive
I think they shoot cause they want it
I feel forces all around me
Come on raise your head
Those who hide behind the shadows
Live with all that's dead*
"What the hell is going on?"
Max turned to her friend "I don't know." She got up out of her seat and ran over to where the woman was crouched. Another glass broke, Max ducked. "Yo asshole!" she grabbed the man's arm when he reached for another glass, bending it back with super human strength until she pinned it behind his back "Where do you get off knockin' around a sistah?"
*Look at me... look at me
At least look at me when you shoot a bullet through my head
Through my head
Through my head
Through my head*
"Hoe this ain't none of your business!" the man spat at her, trying to break out of her grip.
Max pulled harder on his arm, close to dislocating it "I'm making it my business. Why don't you just leave her alone and slink away in the night before I get out my stompin' boots?" she reached around with her other foot and kicked him into a table. Once she was sure he was out she turned back to the woman.
Cindy kneeled beside her as well. "Girl you aiight?"
The woman was still scared and she jerked her arm from Cindy's grasp.
"Max" Cindy said "Look at this"
Max kneeled next to the woman and saw what Cindy was talking about. It was a mark on her shoulder. An oriental character, but wasn't a tattoo, it was burned into the woman's flesh like a brand.
"What the hell did those bastards do to her?"
*In my lifetime when I'm disgraced
By jealousy and lies
I laugh aloud 'cause my life
Has gotten inside someone else's mind*
The woman still looked around frantically. (In Chinese) "What do you want?"
"Shit boo she don't even speak English and that prick was all up on her. Probably liked that she couldn't tell him to stop so he could understand it."
"Thirty-four"
Cindy looked at Max "What?"
"Thrity-four" Max pointed to the branding on the woman's shoulder "It's the Chinese character for the number thirty-four"
"But who the hell did it to her that's what I want to know" Cindy growled
Max went silent for a moment before turning to the woman
(spoken in Chinese):
"What's your name?"
The woman looked at her fearfully and defensive "Why do you want to know?"
Cindy looked astonished "You never told me you could speak Chinese."
"Missions were better for Manticore if their soldiers knew how to speak more then one language" Max stated in English in a low voice. She looked back at the woman, speaking in Chinese again
"Who did this to you?" she touched the mark on shoulder
The woman reared back, still saying nothing.
"I still didn't get your name. I could call you Jane Doe, but why don't you cut the crap and spill your real credentials" she wasn't trying to be cruel. This was just how she did things to get stuff out of people. It was harsh, but most of the time it was effective.
"I don't have one!" she spat "My number's thirty-four. That's the only thing I have that's mine!"
"Are you from a ring?"
The woman didn't say anything, but her look was her answer
"Whose?" Max jumped the gun and assumed her hunch was right "Whose your pimp?"
"What's going on?" Cindy wanted to know, not wanting to be left out of the conversation anymore.
Max looked up to her "She's part of a sex ring. The number's her ID"
"Damn" Cindy cursed
"He doesn't tell me his name" The woman spat to Max, answering her earlier question "He's not stupid!"
"Did you get sold out from somewhere else sides Seattle?"
The woman turned to her angrily "What do you think?"
"Who was your pimp there?"
"I told you already!" she barked
"Not here" Max growled "In China. Who sold you here?"
"How the hell would I know?" she snapped "No one tells us anything. They just ship us around like merchandise!" She shut up "Are you a cop?"
Max shook her head
"Why do you want to know all of this? Huh? He took my sons away and put them in an orphanage! My husband was arrested by the officials for trying to get them out, now they have to stay in the system, and my husband was thrown in jail!"
Max gave a hard look to Cindy
"What?"
"She's not from here" she blinked "Someone sold her here from China. She doesn't speak the language, she doesn't know her way around. It's a way to keep her from escaping"
"Son-of-bitches" Cindy whispered, she looked up "What do we do now?"
Max looked back at the woman "Let me help you"
She sneered "No one can help me"
"You got two options" Max snapped "Either you let me try to help you, or they'll catch you and take you back"
She didn't say anything.
Max took it as a sign and went over to use the payphone mounted by the bar. She banged on the phone, shaking out loose change from the return, which she used to make her call.
"Hey it's me"
"Hey sorry I had to work" Logan's voice announced through the phone "Hope it didn't put a damper on your plans"
"It's aiight" Max looked back at the woman Cindy was helping up off the floor of Crash "I need you to do something for me though"
"If I can I will" he told her "What is it?"
"Not here" she spoke into the phone
(cut to: scene of Logan listening on the phone in his computer room. He's got the phone resting on his shoulder, and he's leaning back in the computer chair. Max's voice is heard through the phone)
"I'm commin' over to your place, we'll talk about it there"
"What's going on?"
(cut back to Max in Crash on the payphone)
"See ya in fifteen minutes" she hung up. Walking back to the woman and Cindy she gestured for the nameless woman to come with her.
"It's okay, just trust me"
*Hey all I want is what's real
Something I touch and can feel
I'll hold it close and never let it go
Said why...why do we live life
With all this hate inside
I'll give it away 'cause I don't want it no more
Please help me find a place
Somewhere far away I'll go and you'll never see me again*
*****
I read a fic a while back that had Max and Jondy were able to speak in Japanese. And I agree with the author's concept that X5's could be equipped with being able to speak numerous languages, not just English. It would make Manticore's assignments go smoother if their creations could talk their way into anywhere.
The last bit with the Chinese woman (yes she is part of that "covoy" that was shipped in the piano box from China in the first chapter) is knowledge taken from a section of United States Congressional Legislature which states that (this is not a direct quote) "parties often take women from foreign countries and send them to places where they don't know the language in order to make it harder for them to escape"
The bit about the motorcycle racing stems from a Time Magazine article called "Speed Demons" profiling the out of control addictions of Speed in China and Thailand. Speed in China is called "keg rot" and there are whole neighborhoods of shanty towns filled with addicts, and at night many young men take speed before holding motorcycle races at two in the morning.
Jondy's little tantrum is to show what I feel she would do if Zack did something like that to her. I'm not a relationshipper between any of the X5 siblings and other X5 siblings. I feel that grew up knowing each other as brothers and sisters and events like that would make them uneasy. Zack didn't love Jondy like a girlfriend, he loves her as a sister, and he did what he thought was one of the only ways he knew of to keep her from getting out of hand during heat.
Max and Cree will meet up again, and Jondy will get to see Max..i hafta establish a reason for both though, and a good course of action to go about it.
Okay, these are long end notes...but..finally...songs used are:
Jondy coming home and tearin up her apartment-"Break Stuff" (Limp Bizkit)
Cree talking to her dad/Sun-Ju in China "Somewhere I Belong" (Linkin Park)
Ty and Kenny talking/Jade and Cree hanging out "I Miss You" (the late) Aalyiah)
Woman at Crash/Max talking to Logan afterwards "Bullets" (Creed)