Bottlecaps: Okay, this is where Starr meets Rei and she talks about her past. In the next few chapters, she is introduced to the bladebreakers and she gradually becomes friends with them. And now I'm going to shut up otherwise I'll end up spoiling the whole chapter.

Disclaimer: Me own beyblades? Your have got to be kidding me! What world are you crazy insane people living in?

'Thinking'

A lot of people think that when your unconscious and then wake up, your eyelids magically flutter open and the first question you ask is "Where am I.?" Well. That is NOT true. And I should know.

My mind woke up a long time before my body did. Everything around me was black. I sat on the darkness while my conscious brain analyzed the situation. I remembered everything that had happened. My dad shooting me, my escape to freedom, someone holding me. That last thought caught my attention. My question was "Who held me and carried me to wherever I am now?" At that, something started glowing from inside my pocket.

"Charity?" I half-asked ,half-thought to myself. Charity was my bitbeast. I had received her not long after my father had started beating me in his drunken rampages. She had comforted and guided me and given me strength when I started to feel like walls of darkness were closing around me. She found me, stuck by my side, gave me courage. She was everything to me.

" Starr. It's okay. You will be alright. You did it, Starr. You escaped. I am so proud of you." the angel's kind words comforted me. Yes. She looks like an angel.

Charity's wings are a brilliant white. And her eyes are a clear crystal blue. In her humanoid form (which I described above) she looks like a young child with hair almost the color of snow and it flows all the way down to her knees. In her bitbeast form, she is a large white wolf. Her eyes turn yellow and her claws are as sharp as diamonds.

"I'm tired, Charity. So tired. I just... want to rest." I could barely keep my eyes open. I started to drift into a heavy dreamless sleep.

"Then you rest. I'll be here if you need me." her soft ringing tones echoed in my mind as darkness settled over me and I was completely out cold.

I hadn't been sleeping for very long when my body decided to wake itself up. I didn't want to return to the world of the living, but quickly my body dragged me back to reality before I could do otherwise.

My eyes snapped open and I took a deep breath. I was lying on my stomach so I realized that somebody obviously was aware of the long bloody welts that covered my back. Several bandages wrapped all the way around my body from my stomach to my back. My right shoulder was in a cast. 'I must be in the hospital. How else could I have a cast on my arm?'

Just then I heard someone walking towards me. Since I couldn't turn over because of my back, I panicked and tried to move away. A soft moan escaped from my lips as pain shot through me.

" Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you, although, by the looks of it, somebody did a pretty good job of it. My name is Rei. What's yours?"

Rei. Rei. I liked that name. Rei. I figured he must have been the one to take me to wherever I was now.

'Now here comes the question'

"Where am I?" I asked. I knew I was going to be there for some time so I wanted to know where I was going to be staying.

"Well. Right now your at my house. I was out for a jog before my training and I saw you running. I watched you stop, look back at something and then your started falling. Luckily, I have some cat demon in me and I was able to catch you before you fell."

"Training? For what? And cat demon? You're a cat demon?"

"Beyblade training. No, I'm not a full cat demon. Only half of me is cat demon and the other half is human. Now, would you please be nice enough to tell me your name?"

I sighed. I wanted so badly to just leave my past behind and start over new. Name included. But I guess some things have to stay. He certainly did have a way with people. Normally, if it were anybody else, I wouldn't have spoken to them at all. I'm not shy, I just don't really like talking to people.

"My name is Starr." I said calmly, almost coldly. 'Why does it seem like every time I talk, I say something rude or mean? I should've been nicer to him. After all, he did practically save me from my father.' I shivered as I felt a sudden chill pass through my body.

"Are you cold?" asked Rei, concern in his voice.

"I'm fine. I'm not cold." I lied between my teeth. 'Why is it so hard to lie to him? Maybe it's because he seems to already trust me although he only met me not that long ago.'

"No, you're lying. I can tell when somebody is lying and I know you are. Why are you lying to me?" asked Rei. A hint of sadness floated in his voice and flickered in his eyes.

He stood up and walked out of the room, returning only a minute later with a blanket. He gently placed it on me and started to leave.

"Don't go." I pleaded. "Please. I feel safer with you here. I don't want him to come back and get me." 'Gosh! What the heck am I doing. I wasn't supposed to be asking him to stay here with me. I'm supposed to be independent! Hello! What am I thinking!'

"Fine. I'll stay, but only if you promise to tell me some things about yourself. It's not every day that a girl comes from the middle of nowhere and then collapses on the street with injuries."

I couldn't believe him. I don't know why, but he was really convincing. It seemed like maybe he'd had his own experience with hell. He certainly was observational. His attention was focused solely on me, and not in a bad way. He was curious, I knew that. And I also knew that he trusted me and for that reason, I trusted him. I had to tell somebody about my past because it hurt too much to keep it locked away inside me.

"Fine. I will." I watched as he sat down and waited to here what I had to say.

" My name is Starr. You already know that. I'm 15 years old. My mother was raped and then shot when I was seven. She was dead before medical help arrived. They never did find her killer. My father started drinking not long afterwards. He said he couldn't live without her because she was everything to him. One day, after I had turned eight, I came home from school and he was drinking. When he saw me, he dropped the bottle and he started hitting me. I soon learned that if I came home from school and there were empty bottles on the floor, I would end up being beaten. One time he even slashed me on my left arm with the jagged edges of a broken bottle." I paused and shifted painfully so he could see the long pale scar running up my arm. I continued. "He said that it was my fault that she had died. I hated being hit. At first, it was only hitting. Then he found things to hit me with that would cause me more pain. He said that I had to suffer for what I did to my mother. I didn't know what he was talking about. But he didn't care. Some days I would miss school because I was lying in my bed, unconscious because of being thrown against a wall or being pushed down the stairs." I stopped. Silent tears slid down my face. My voice just left me and I sobbed. Rei helped me sit up and then, he did something that surprised me. He hugged me, gently to avoid hurting me. He rocked me slowly as I cried into his shirt. For the first time in seven long years, I felt free. I felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.

"It's going to be okay, Starr. I promise. You can live here with me if you want. I swear, I'll never let anything happen to you. He won't find you here." Rei said.

I was shocked. I had never had any friends. I hated talking to anybody, but somehow this person seemed so very different from everybody else. I could talk to hi. He didn't judge me for how I looked. He didn't care. All he knew was that I had gone through hell and wanted to make sure that I never had to go through it again.

"Thank you." I whispered. "Thank you so much. But you know I'm not done telling you about me, right?"

"Yes, but we can talk more later. I imagine it was very hard for you to tell me everything that you did to almost a complete stranger." he explained.

"You aren't a stranger." I said. "Your just a friend that I've never met before. We can be friends right?" I asked. For some reason I thought that he would just leave and abandon me. I'd been so alone in my past except for Charity and I wanted to spread my newfound wings of freedom as far as I could.

"You thought that I wouldn't be your friend? Of course we will. And later, I can introduce you to my friends. Okay?" Rei smiled and laughed.

"Okay!" I said, genuinely pleased.

"Now I'm going to go to bed. It's around eleven thirty and I have to sleep because I'm not vampire. Try not to move around to much otherwise the bandages could come loose."

"I hope your not a vampire."I smiled.

"I'm not. Trust me. Goodnight. I'll see you in the morning."

"You think I'm going to move around a lot in this condition?" I pointed to my bandages.

"You never can be too careful, you know?"

"Night, Rei." I turned my head and closed my eyes. I heard him walk lightly across the room and flick the light switch off.

"By the way Starr, I really like your eyes. They're very pretty."

I smiled deeply into my pillow. I wasn't sure if he knew how much that meant to me but it felt like my life was back on track and things couldn't possibly get any better. Before I knew it, I was

asleep.

Yay! I finished the second chapter. My life is spared. I think I did a pretty good job. If you people hate it, that's fine with me because I'm satisfied with it. I just hope that I lived up to your expectations. If you have any suggestions or comments, or ideas I can use to make it better, you know what to do. Thanks for reading. bottlecaps