Disclaimer: Sadly, I own nothing but season three and the movie.

Chapter Four

It was late the next morning when Rei woke up to the sound of Kai's voice. He was making an appointment to speak with the principal at 11:30. She rolled over to look at the clock; it read 10:13, which meant she had about an hour to get ready.

"Alright, we'll be there then. Thank you very much. Goodbye." Kai hung up the phone with a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck in a tired fashion. He looked over at Rei and gave a half smile. "You're up."

She nodded, sitting up. "So...we're gonna talk to the principal today?"

He stood with a nod going over to the dresser. "Yeah. We need to be ready to go soon. I've already showered, but I figure you're going to shower before we leave. I don't have any under clothes you can wear, but the shirts should fit and the pants'll be fine if you wear a belt." He pulled some clothes out of the dresser and opened the door to the left of it. "You can shower in here. There are fresh towels and such in the cupboard." He set the clothes on the sink counter and showed her where the towels were. "I'm going to go make brunch. Come down when you're done and we can eat."

She mumbled a thanks and he left to go make brunch. She stripped off her night clothes, looking at herself in the full length mirror. At all the scars and bruises. She pressed a hand to a scar over her ribs; it was from when she'd been shoved into the corner of the table and broken a rib that had pierced her lung. He had then made sure her drug her to the bed before beating her. He'd almost been unable to explain his way out of that one at the hospital.

She sighed as she stepped into the shower and washed quickly. She dried and dressed, thankful for the long sleeves of the shirt that covered all of her arms. The pants hung loosely off her hips and didn't require a belt. After she was dressed and her long hair braided, she went down to the kitchen to eat with Kai, who had made simple sandwiches for them. She sat at the table across from him and nibbled on a sandwich.

"Are you sure you want to do this Rei?" Kai could tell she was worrying over the meeting.

She shook her head. "No...but if I don't do it now...I'll either kill him...or myself." She put down her half eaten sandwich and sat back in her chair. "Like they say, it's now or never, I guess."

"Alright, let's go then. I'll drive and you can get your car later." With that, they left the house and headed towards the school. The short ride seemed to last forever, yet still not long enough in Rei's mind. When they arrived, Kai had to coax Rei out of her seat because she was refusing to get up.

When they entered the school building, lunch period had just stared so the halls were teeming with students heading to lunch and their lockers. Of course, no one could stop staring at the red, teary eyed Rei and the fact that she was clinging to Kai. Mariah, who had been talking with Emily about the script, noticed the sudden quiet in the hall and saw that the center of attention was Rei and Kai.

"I'll continue at rehearsal, Emily. See you in Physics." She shut her locker and hurried over to the two. Unable to get any information out of them, she settled for glaring at everyone who had yet to return to their normal activities. When, they reached the office and had taken seats, while Kai signed them in, Mariah crouched in front of Rei and whispered comforting words, hugging her and kissing away th tears.

When Rei was relatively calmer, Mariah went to Kai to find out the situation. "Kai! What did you do to her? I've never seen her like this before." she said in hushed tones so as not to disturb Rei.

"I didn't do anything. But if she hasn't told you the problem then I can't tell you wasn't wrong. She only told me because I found out. Don't worry though; we're going to try to fix this today, or a least end it."

Mariah gave a confused look. "I can understand that, but why are you helping her? You have no reason to."

"I'm helping her because I went through the same thing with no one there to help me. I'm not going to let her turn into me. We're going to get her all the help we can so that she can forget what happened and move on."

He could tell from her look that she was grasping on to some of what happened at least. "Her...he did it, didn't he? Whatever caused this, Mr. Shang did it, didn't he. Her step father?"

Kai nodded gravely and went to sit next to Rei. Mariah took that as her cue to leave as Rei turned to Kai and cuddled into him. He allowed her to, putting an arm around her and rubbing her back.

It wasn't long until they were called in to see the principal. Mr. Dickenson was an understanding old man. He was kind and fair to most; although he enjoyed to tease his favorite student, Tyson. Who, coincidentally, was leaving the office as the came in. "I'm telling you I didn't do it Mr. D!"

"Of course you didn't Tyson. Now, off to class with you." Tyson went off with a pout, brushing by Rei and Kai without a glance, to occupied with his own troubles. He sighed as he watched the other stomp away before turning his attention to Kai and Rei. "Ah, I've been waiting for the two of you. Come in, come in. Sit down and we'll talk."

Rei sat quietly next to Kai as he explained why they were there, then answered the questions that he could. She just stared off into space, tuning out what was going on around her. She'd become rather good at that over the years. She stayed like that until she heard Kai softly calling her name and shaking her shoulder. She looked up at him blankly before snapping out of it, muttering a 'what.'

"Rei, Mr. Dickenson needs to ask you a few questions, alright? Can you answer them?" Kai kept his voice quiet. Rei gave a small nod of her head, and meekly answered the questions asked. It was mostly questions about how she wanted to handle the situation. They were definitely going to take Shang to court, but then there was the question of who would take care of Rei who was not yet a legal adult. Also about the fact that Rei would definitely be made to see a psychiatrist about what had happened.

They spent most of the afternoon talking to Mr. Dickenson before deciding that it would be best to contact a lawyer before doing anything else. There were only interrupted once during the meeting; the secretary came in to tell them Mr. D had a call from a parent worried about his child never coming home the day before. It was Shang. Mr. D took the call, saying that Rei hadn't come to class that day, technically not a lie. Shang hung up after that, with the intent to file a missing persons report.

"We'll have to act faster now. Kai, get a lawyer on this as soon as possible. Keep Rei out of sight as much as possible. If any police see her, you could be arrested for kidnapping. Rei, can you stay with Kai for now?" She nodded, obviously shaken up about having come that close to being caught by her father-at least in her mind.

They left his office after that. As the were leaving the parking lot they realized Rei had no clothes to wear and that she couldn't stop by her own house to get clothes. Kai had to admit that while she looked quite cut in his clothes, she probably be more comfortable in clothes her own size. They decided to stop by Mariah's on the way home and get some of her clothes.

They were there soon and it wasn't but a few seconds later that Mariah came out a practically tackled Rei in a hug. She lead them into the house, currently devoid of parents, and they situated themselves in the living room. Let the questions begin.

"Oh god, Rei! Where have you been? Where did you go? Why were you seeing the principle today? What happened with Shang?! I know he hasn't something to do with this! Miller was freaking out that you were gone today! You can't just disappear like that with out telling anyone! Your stepdad's already called me trying to find you! I told him I didn't know where you were, I wasn't sure if I had told him I'd seen you or not so didn't; was that the right thing to do? Oh, I hope it was! I didn't mess up did I?"

When she finally stopped for air, Kai interrupted. "Not so much at one time Mariah, you'll overload her. Rei has been with me since yesterday. We had to speak to the principle about something important, and yeah it had to do with Shang. You're going to have to tell Miller to give out parts to the understudies, we're not going to be able to do it if all this goes right. And yes, it's good you didn't tell Shang you'd seen us." He spoke slowly in an effort to calm Mariah as well as Rei, who was just staring wide eyed at Mariah as if she was speaking a different language, which it probably sounded like she was.

"We're just here to see if Rei can borrow some of your clothes. Because of circumstances, she will be staying with me and she can't go home. It's best if we don't take her out anywhere, so we can't go shopping. That just leaves borrowing from you. So can you take her back to your room and help her pick out some clothes; just a couple days worth. We'll return them later, alright?"

She just stared in disbelief for a few moments. "Wow...I think that's the most you've spoken besides from a script...I'm stunned and amazed." She shook herself out of her stupor. "Uh, yeah I guess Rei can borrow some of my clothes. Come on, Rei, let's go pick some things out." When Rei didn't respond, she grasped the others hand and pulled her up to her feet. Rei seemed to refocus then. "Come on, let's go." Rei nodded then and followed Mariah back to her room, glancing over her shoulder at Kai, who gave her a small yet reassuring smile.

As Mariah went through her clothes picking some out, asking for Rei's opinion on some, she began to realize that Rei really was in trouble. She had said she was going to pack her some things that she knew Rei would object to with out thought, yet Rei had merely glanced and shrugged, lost in her own thoughts.

Her thoughts were mostly about school and how she would handle it with all this breathing down her neck. The one thing she knew for certain was that she wanted to continue with the play. It would distract her from thoughts of everything else. She loved how she could lose herself to the music when she was singing or dancing. And now she had to stay at Kai's house, which meant no more dance class for a while. She frowned as she thought of this, sighing. As long as in the end she could go back she'd b fine, she guessed.

"Alright, Rei. Let's take these out so you can load them up in the car and get going." Mariah had gotten clothes that she knew Rei would actually wear, and already had them packed up in a bag for Rei to take.

"I want to continue with th play...tell Miller we'll be there tomorrow." Mariah was surprised into silence at the announcement and just watched as Rei walked past her and out into the living room where Kai was patiently waiting for them. Well, maybe not so patiently. Everyone has a limit and he was reaching his by the time they came out. "I'm ready to go, Kai." Rei slipped on her shoes and went to wait by the door for him.

Kai turned to Mariah, who just shrugged, as confused by Rei's behavior as he (and I) was. He took the bag from Mariah, nodding his thanks, before leading Rei out to the car an loading things up to go. As they pulled out of the drive way and started down the road, Kai noticed a car pulling up in Mariah drive way. He could tell from the type of vehicle and the lights in the rear windshield that it was a police car. He just hoped that Mariah was smart enough to say she hadn't seen Rei or they would be in trouble. He made sure Rei didn't notice that the police were already starting to look for her; she didn't need anymore stress than she already had.