I left that room more confused than when I had entered it. I was so wrapped up in muddling through what had just happened that I didn't give Guard Two any trouble when he handed me a pair of garish orange coveralls and pointed me into a bathroom to change.

With the door securely locked behind me, I took advantage of the privacy. Extra lather on my hands made for a quick sponge bath, the first wash my body had had in days. I enjoyed the splash of water on my face, feeling caked with the grime of the streets. The eyeliner was my next victim, and I finger-combed my hair as best I could. For the first time in a week, I looked at myself full-on in a real bathroom mirror.

I blinked dully, not recognizing my own face. My skin was sallow, my eyes ringed with dark marks that were due more to lack of sleep than leftover makeup. The red in my hair was already beginning to grow out, but more distressing than exposed roots was the complete and utter lack of life that accompanied them. All the luster I had once cherished was gone. Unwilling to believe it, I put a hand to my sunken cheeks, once round and healthy. The only thing that looked like me anymore was my nose, sharp and hawkish as ever. I'd dreamt once of saving up money I didn't have for a nose job, perhaps as a gift for getting into high school. That was when I'd still thought high school was a possible, almost desirable part of my future. My thinned lips twisted wryly as I buttoned the coveralls to a level I knew would be just barely acceptable; for all that the Preventor had made me promise to go back to school, I doubted I would make it very much further, regardless. Particularly under Genji Ma's thumb- I stopped that thought where it stood, and opened the door, giving myself back over to the guards.

Beijing being a really big city, each precinct had its own min-jail, for small-time offenders. Drunks were kept there overnight, and delinquents like me were shoved behind bars while we waited for upset parents to bail us out. My first roomie had been arrested for graffiti, which she insisted was art. The next day she was gone, into the arms of a sobbing mother. I looked away. The next was a shoplifter, caught taking knickknacks from a grocery. She shrugged, and kept to herself. She stayed through the end of the week, when a less than pleased father came to ask her if she had learnt her lesson, and she turned on the waterworks to make him melt.

But her leaving marked my first full week in Precinct 44's jail. I began to get freaked out, wondering where the hell Genji Ma was, and whether she had decided to leave me to the cruelties of the system after all. Where were my old teachers, vouching for- well, couldn't be for my stellar grades or attendance. Half of them probably figured it would be good riddance to have me off the streets. But what about Genji Ma? She thought I was her ticket to salvation, didn't she? Why was she leaving me here?! I forgot completely about the man who came halfway across space to help me, and just panicked.

That was before I got Genji Ma's letter.

Dear Chang Wumei:

You are a disgrace to the Dragon Clan. You dishonor your ancestors, your parents, and me. You are a filthy, ungrateful child, and deserve to be put to work for your country. Perhaps hard labor will teach you what I failed to.

-Mao Genji

The use of her full name hurt me more than anything else could have. All my life, she had been Genji Ma, a surrogate mother in every sense of the word... By resuming her full name, Mao, she effectively disowned me.

'Well,' I thought that night, trying to will myself out of the urge to cry, 'that will certainly make it easier to never have to go back...' Shamefully, my will was not enough.

Precinct 44, represented by Officer Xia, did not want to let Chang Wumei go. In fact, all of Beijing wanted to crack down on the teenage prostitution rings making them the black sheep of the country. China was being increasingly pressured to rectify the problem, and Precinct 44 wanted to be able to report that it was, in fact, doing as it had been ordered. Wufei had the arduous task of convincing them that in such a situation, it was far more important to go after the big fish, that Wumei herself was a very small fish, that prosecuting her would be a waste of time and a drain on the prison system, that the man who had wanted her services was a much worse deviant, and that he, a Preventor, outranked every person in the building.

Hence, it took until the following Monday for Wufei get the police to agree to drop the charges and release Wumei. He came himself to greet her, fighting the urge to rub at his tired eyes. Jetlag and long hours spent researching and developing arguments, not to mention drum up backup from old friends in the field, hadn't done his usually strict routines any good. Officer Xia glanced at him, as though she could tell he was feeling low. Wufei ignored her, determined not to show her any weakness. She would only use it to fuel her ignorant mistrust of the Preventors. He certainly had nothing to prove to her.

It certainly was a depressing enough station. The walls were Industrial Cream, and the furniture all looked as though it had been the victims of the many criminals trolled through the building. It made his cubicle look nice.

The same two guards were on duty, escorting the girl in a sickly orange jumpsuit to them. Her scowl matched his mood. Doubtless she would berate him for taking so long- all teenagers were ungrateful. With hindsight, Wufei could even grudgingly remember a time when he himself had been less than appreciative of the efforts other people, particularly adults, went to. He met her furious gaze steadily and took the clipboard from Officer Xia, signing his name to it. Her possessions were thrust upon Wumei and she sneered at Guard One before ducking into a bathroom to change. Wufei waited, drumming his fingers impatiently against his pantleg. Women, always taking forever. At least her face was clean now. Hopefully she wasn't trying to reapply that dreadful makeup.

She emerged without the familiar 'coon eyes, in foul mood that told him she had left the makeup somewhere, probably in whatever alley she had crouched in. She slung the coveralls at Guard Two and presented herself in front of Xia.

"You were lucky," Xia informed her menacingly. "Get caught in my jurisdiction again and you won't be a second time."

The girl rolled her eyes. 'So she's learning it isn't worth responding,' Wufei thought. With a slight nod to Xia, he lead the way out of the building.

Chill air cloaked them the moment they stepped outside, and Wumei gasped. Her school uniform, with its shortened skirt and blouse barely buttoned was no defense against autumn. She crossed her arms under her breasts and tucked her head down, hurrying after the tall men who walked so confidently with his official Preventor jacket keeping him warm. His long legs took him ahead of her easily and she hurried to keep up around the corner of the police building. They walked the length of the block and crossed the street, then another. By then her jaw was clenched and the wind was cutting straight through her thin clothes.

"Hey! Don't you have a car or something?!" she demanded, stopping and staring at his back. "HEY!"

Wufei slowed and turned to face her. She squinted at him through the wind, waiting for an answer. For one horrifying moment, she wondered if she was supposed to follow him at all. Perhaps he had meant to turn her loose on the pavement and leave her to make her own way once more. It made her feel foolish and young; her cheeks burned and her fists clenched.

He blinked, in passing, and shrugged out of his jacket before passing it to her. She stared at it, dumbfounded, while he hailed a taxi and opened the door for her. Wumei felt her face contort, trying to ask the question... Why? He gave the slightest of shrugs and entered the cab, allowing her to slide in beside him. "Do you need to get anything?" he asked.

"What?" Wumei blinked, completely mystified.

"Do you have any possessions you need to get?"

She leapt to block that idea before it could go where she desperately didn't want it to. "I'm not going home!"

Wufei sighed- was there no convincing this child? "We're not going home. You were living..." he glanced at the taxi driver, waiting for instructions. "Here, weren't you? So, did you leave anything there?"

She felt herself flush, but regained her dignity. "Yeah. I did." She gave the address to the driver, and tried to sink through the back cushion of the seat. The Preventor jacket still sat in her lap, and she wondered what he meant her to do with it. Wear it? A glance out the window reminded her that she might have the need to when they reached the ancient apartment building she had stashed her stuff in. ...what would he think when they pulled up in front of a slum? He probably wouldn't be surprised.

Wufei watched the traffic as they slowly progressed. The address she had given was a few blocks from where she had been arrested. He didn't know if that was a positive sign or not. It would be too much to hope that she had been living better than she had been working. Truth be told... she wasn't.

As they approached, the city deteriorated. Graffiti. Duct taped windows. Makeshift habitations. It was all there, all declaring Wrong Side of the Tracks, and other euphemisms for You Don't Wanna Be Here. At every block Wufei thought it couldn't possibly get worse... and then it did. The brick building Wumei directed them to stop in front of had an actual hole in its side, which the teenager nimbly navigated. Wufei hesitated. He would lose her inside such a place, but was that such a bad thing? No, whispered the voice within him, diminished over time but still very present, that told him the world had turned its back on him numerous times in the past, so why bother trusting it now? Yes, insisted the part of him that had made him come to Earth in the first place, to aid a crying girl. Resolutely, he followed her in.

She was descending a set of concrete steps to the basement, her head just disappearing. Wufei followed, careful for any weaknesses in the building. How long ago had it been abandoned? Five, fifteen, fifty years ago? He gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness and almost immediately she was in front of him again, clutching a girlish bookbag. He rose an eyebrow at the anarchy symbol sewn over her school insignia, and went back up the stairs. He counted every step in the dark behind him, determined not to turn around. He had to trust that she would follow him from Hell. Another man had not trusted his lover to do so, and his own folly had sent the woman back to suffer. Wufei would make no such mistake.

He turned only when she moved past him and to the entrance, taking a last look at the stairs. How many other people lived here? he wondered, and, shaking his head, followed her back to the cab.

"Where to now?" asked the driver, in a thick accent from one of the mountainous regions.

"Beijing Capital Interspacial Airport," Wufei replied, and the girl beside him stiffened. His jacket rustled, and he realized she was wearing it.

"We're flying somewhere?" she hissed.

"Yes. I have to be back at work tomorrow. I've already been gone too long."

"So, what, you're just going to take me with you? Or are you abandoning me here?"

Wufei looked at her, unable to fully mask his irritation. "The terms of your release were that I would take you into my custody. Your guardian could make a case to have you back. In the meantime, I'm your guardian and your probation officer." 'That look of disgust does nothing for her features...'

"You're my what?"

"Either way, you're coming to L5 while we sort it out. If you can prove that you're not as much of a delinquent as they think you are, you might even be lucky enough to achieve emancipation." He eyed her untidy self. "But that would probably take a very good day for a very generous judge."

Wumei sputtered. "You can't do that! ...Can you?"

Steadily, he replied, "Look at the emblem on that jacket, Chang. As an man of the law, I can indeed take you into custody." She continued to spew nonsense protests. "Of course, instead of giving you a spare room and some spending money, I could just check you in to the Preventors' Detainee facility until we reach an agreement."

That made her blood run cold and she looked at him in horror. Go back to jail? Supposedly the Preventors were, on the whole, kinder than regular cops, but who really wanted to test that theory? 'I never had pocket money before...' She tried to shake the insane thought from her head. She barely knew this person! And now he was taking her to an airport to fly her off the frigging planet to- live in his spare room?! She fought to breathe, clutching her bag for any tiny emblem of support she could find. Her eyeliner... Oh Maybelline Gods... Maybe he's not a rapist?