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tori_angeli) wrote2009-02-14 09:52 pm
Endgame, chapter 3
There was an explosion of pain in Michelangelo's face.
His eyes opened, but he wasn't quite awake. There was a face before him when the sparks in his eyes cleared—a boy, no older than himself, with a rough scar over his left eye and a purple dragon tattooed along his jaw. Mike opened his mouth, perhaps to speak, though he was too drugged to be sure. He was struck again, the pain amplified by the drug-induced drowsiness.
“You awake, bitch?” snarled the boy.
Yes, actually, he was, the more he thought about it. The drug was wearing off quickly now that his eyes were open and he was being hit repeatedly. Oddly, though his mind was awake, his limbs were just as heavy and useless. Oh, that's because there were these chains. Attached to his wrists and ankles. They were heavy, too. Mike blinked hard to clear his eyes, his tongue dashing out to run over a new cut on his lip. He was chained up in a dimly lit room, and this kid wasn't alone. Surrounding him were ten or twelve other gangsters. All for little old me?
Yes, all for you.
Mike's stomach clenched. You shouldn't have.
As the gravity of the situation settled on him, the boy pulled back with a grin. That scar...he must have picked at that thing for it to become that prominent. He was probably pretty proud of it. Mike struggled to sit up and realized with a start that the kid was straddling him.
“Because that gives my men fifty-six minutes to do whatever they want with him.”
“Whatever they want, like, what House did with the other one?”
No way, no, no, no, no. That can't happen to me. Not me. Visions of Raphael as he had been for the past eight months slammed into his brain, one at a time. Raph rummaging for a spoon and suddenly forgetting what he was doing. Raph staring blankly at a television screen. Raph immobilized by a sudden flashback. Worst of all, no Raph at all, but a month of silence, a month of no Raph, an invisible Raph, Raph as a ghost haunting his family for their failures.
If it can happen to him, it can happen to me.
“I ain't a hero, Mikey. You...ya shouldn't think a' me like that. It'll getcha down every time I fail.”
“What...NO! Fuck, Raph, you...you came OUT of it.”
“I ain't out of it yet.”
“But you got this far. I don't think I could do that.”
Mike's throat moved, struggled to keep from speaking to someone who wasn't there. I couldn't do that. I'm not strong. I'm not Raph. I'm shaking and terrified and weak and these guys haven't even done anything. If this happened to me, I'd kill myself.
“You got a lot to pay for, freak,” snarled a voice from behind him. “That's five of ours you killed.”
“I didn't--” But there was no reason to protest that Casey, Leo, and Raph had been the ones actually doing the killing, and that was all after Raph had been brutally raped and almost killed. Holy shit, I'm part of some cycle of vengeance, and I didn't even do anything!
The boy leaned in and struck at him again, but Mike instinctively caught his fist before it connected and twisted, his movements slowed by the chains. I have to get out of this alive, his mind screamed at him as his other trembling hand did something of its own volition—it wrapped the chain connected to his wrist around the boy's throat, pulling it tight enough to be a threat. He saw an instant's worth of an astonished, frightened look before he jerked to his feet, dragging the boy with him. There was movement around him. He pulled the chain tighter, and the boy gagged.
“GET BACK!” Mike shouted. Oh god, oh god, I'm taking a hostage. I'm going insane. They'll never fall for this.
The boy's breathing was sharp and ragged in his ears. Otherwise, the room was utterly silent.
Then, a calm voice. “He's bluffing.”
Their selected warehouse was only a few miles away, but Don, stuck at a red light and staring at the GPS he'd installed in the truck, felt like he would never get there. Leo sat in the passenger seat, head leaned back against the head rest and his eyes closed. Meditating. Just like Raph had done immediately after being raped, for four days straight. It had been identical to a coma, only he hadn't been asleep. Nowadays Raph was more prone to taking time out for meditation, although Don suspected it wasn't the absence of thought so much as the organization of thought—one of the ways in which Raph had already grown from his horrific experience. Not that he wasn't still Raph, but that he at least tried.
Leo hadn't stopped meditating since he'd buckled his seat belt. Don was worried.
They had told Splinter they were going out. Their sensei had been quietly reading a Stephen King novel in his room, and knowing how Splinter valued his quiet time, Don didn't want to disturb him. He and Leo had agreed that there was no reason to worry Splinter if they had nothing to back up their suspicion. They would test Leo, and then, whatever the results were, explain the situation to their family.
The light turned green, and Don depressed the gas pedal. Raph had been defiled, violated, and now perhaps the same thing had happened to Leo, only in a different, deadlier way. Please no. Not this. In a sense, maybe Leo had come out of this more affected than any of them, if he was infected. Not possible. We're not even human. It's not worth thinking about. We should turn around and go home and forget about it.
Except I can't.
Maybe Leo was even more affected than Raph now. It seemed a ridiculous thought, because Don's most vivid memory was the sight of Raphael lying motionless in the bathtub, the water sweeping off curtains of filth and the rank of blood and urine, with strands of crimson dissipating from a pool between his thighs and surrounding his leg. But about two weeks ago, Leo had come to him, concerned.
“Don?”
“Yeah?”
“I'm...wondering if this is typical, okay? I can't give you details, but I need an answer.”
“O...kay.”
“Raph had a nightmare last night. He talked a little about it, and...I shouldn't have said anything, I know, but I mentioned something he'd told me about the rape months ago. He didn't know what I was talking about, and not in the way where I could tell he was just denying it. He really didn't know. I mean, I've done the research you have, and...did you ever find anything about repression occurring months after the event?”
“I wouldn't think it would be impossible. I...I don't think it's anything we should worry about. The more he forgets, the better.”
“Right. It's just...”
Leo hadn't finished, but Don understood. Leo knew events of the rape that Raph had forgotten. Since the rapists were all dead, Leo knew more about what had happened than anyone now, and it was a burden to him that he was unwilling to place even a part of on anyone else. Don sometimes considered that to be twisted, but he knew it was not—it was Leo's noble, self-sacrificial side, overruling all else in order to protect his brothers. It was one of Don's least favorite parts of Leo, but he could never label it as a bad thing. It was good and brave and noble and right and Don hated it.
Don's hands tightened on the steering wheel. He wished he could meditate now.
He depressed the brake pedal, swerved the truck into an empty space at the curb, put it in park, and turned off the engine. Leo's eyes didn't open.
“We're here,” Don said softly.
Leo's eyes still didn't open. He didn't react at all for a few seconds. Then, he inhaled deeply and hissed the air out until his lungs were empty. Only then did he open his eyes.
“Then let's do it,” he said quietly.
Oxygen hissed in and out, in and out of Raphael's body. His breathing was raspy now. He wasn't even in disguise, but he didn't care as he leapt into the bed of a truck just before it entered the Lincoln Tunnel. Purple Dragons had taken his brother, and he had been to Dragon Central before. He could only hope they had actually taken him there, and not one of any number of hideouts they had in New York. It was that large, conspicuous building in New Jersey that branded itself into his mind, in the center of the map of his world. He had to get there, and he had to get there soon.
Not just for Mikey's sake. Raph still remembered more than he wanted to remember of rough asphalt against his face, of laughter and mockery and the taste of blood and filth and oil.
“Mikey, the only good thing about all this is that it didn't happen ta you. I couldn't a'...I couldn't a' handled it. Not bein' able ta stop it.”
“You wouldn't've let it happen. So it's moot. No 'what if.' It just wouldn't've happened to me.”
“You say that. But those guys took me down pretty quick.”
“If I remember right, they blundered the whole operation and had to go back later for another try. If they took you down, it was by accident. You've...you've got me outta real tight spots before. Got all of us out of 'em, even. That shows you can do it.”
No. The only thing it showed was that Mike was too dependent, too naïve, and a little unfair, placing all this pressure on Raph. I couldn't keep it from happening to me. I can't keep it from happening to him. He curled in the bed of the truck, hiding from the lights and the eyes of the drivers in the many vehicles surrounding him. I'm not strong enough. I can't protect anyone.
But you're trying anyway.
Yeah, 'cause I have to. Right now, he's sittin' there, thinkin' I'm gonna come for him any second, and I can't let him down.
You're not strong enough to handle it happening to him.
No. I'm damned either way. But I ain't goin' down, I ain't lettin' him down unless I did everything first.
Including dying?
Damn right.
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Your doing a great job of leaving me on the edge of my seat. I just hope I don't fall off. XD