The fluorescent lights overhead were buzzing too loud. That's the first thing I noticed, then the bright light tries to penetrate my eyelids and yet I opened them. I winced and tried to shield my eyes only to find my wrist is strapped down. Both wrists are as well as both of my ankles. "No." I breathed out in terror.
Voices could be heard coming from my right and I twisted to look. My sight was of a mirror with a severe glare in the wall, an empty instrument table a few feet away and a door with no handle near the mirror. The muffled voices then turned to screams of agony as I started to thrashand try to get away. That's when I heard the door open and fear froze my body perfectly still in the middle of the table. To my relief and horror, the body that followed the pounding footsteps belonged to Raphael Hamato!
"Lizzy! Thank God, you're okay!" He cried in his accented voice, cutting the straps and freeing me.
"Raph?! How did you get here?" I asked in shocked joy.
"I followed those guys who kidnapped ya." Was his short and sweet reply. It was as Raph was hastily taking off his sleeveless jacket did I realize that I was naked. As he wrapped me in his warm statement piece the scenery changed. It was a cold and rainy night, his hands giving me a comfortable feeling as the protectively slid down my shoulders to take my hands in his.
'Oh Gods no, please not this night!' I silently prayed as I watched the love of my life get down on one knee before me.
"Elizabeth, elope with me and let's runaway from these lives of ours, together?" Raph asked as he pulled out a simple banded ring with an infinity symbol engraved around our initials.
Tears filled my eyes as my body betrayed my mind and nodded. Raph stood and leaned in to kiss me when a gunshot rang out into the night! His now limp body fell into my arms and I screamed! Momma then stepped into the alley light and said in plain and clear english; "I warned you." The raised gun sparking before my eyes was the last thing I saw.
My eyes shot open to my room, randomly illuminated by flashes of lightning as rain pelted my windows. My heart was racing wildly and a cold chill ran down my spine with the ghostly gunshot ringing from my night terror. 'Raph doesn't know about my past. He's still alive and one of my closest friends...even though he doesn't know it's me.' I repeated over and over until my heart slowed to a normal pace.
I sat up while wiping my eyes and cheeks from tears that I could no longer feel. Glancing over to my alarm clock I groaned at the green glaring two thirty a.m. "Sometimes I get more sleep than others. Damn night terrors! Just when you think that you're getting used to them; they get worse." I muttered, my tail twitching in my annoyance.
"Forget it! I'm not going back to sleep." I stated in frustration. I kicked my blanket off of me and swung my feet over the edge of the bed. I then scooted my butt to the same place and fell down to the main floor of my apartment. "Best part of living alone, no pants required." I softly cheered to no one as I made my way to the bathroom.
My tail swung freely between either side of my knees with my walk, the smooth padding of my leathery feet allowed for a near silent gait. That and almost five years of training and work as an assassin for Momma. The lights in my bathroom came on automatically when I walked in, crossing my mirrorless double sink vanity that was in front of my four foot deep bamboo jetted bathtub. I reached a corner for the toilet that I really needed and when I was done I rounded the next corner for my walk-in real rock rain shower. I turned the water on to just below scaling hot and then stepped back to remove my pajama shirt and undies as well as turn on my heated towel rack.
'Thinking of him...I should check my phone when I get out, Mikey has probably blown it up by now.' I thought to myself as the steam reached my sinuses. I stepped into the warm water and watched as the steam filled the glass door that I shut behind me. The water really didn't feel more than mildly warm to my skin but it started to work miracles on my shot nerves.
I washed with a coconut body scrub, my dead skin was pulled down the extra large drains that were designed for us reptiles. Lingering in a while longer in the water, I allowed the actual memory of THAT night to play out. 'Maybe I'll be able to get a few more hours of sleep if I do this.' I thought, doubtfully hopeful.
I was in my room at Momma's country home, packing. I was to meet with Raphael Hamato in a hour and a half back in the city. He asked me to pack a weeks worth of clothes and meet him five minutes to midnight behind the club where we met for the first time. I had a gut feeling that we were going to run away from our lives of crimes and at the young and naive age of sixteen, I was happily ready to go with the boy I loved.
I slung my backpack over my shoulder and was just opening my bedroom window to leave when the door opened. "So it's true then? You're going to leave me for my enemy." Momma spat as she leaned her massive grizzly bear body on the door frame.
"Momma!" I cried out in alarm, the fear caused me to jump and fall back into my room.
"You lost right to call me that! No child of mine would betray me like you!" She growled low in her broken english. She rose from the door frame and walked in to tower over me in her menacing way. Normally that would work on me, only this time I was determined not to be intimidated away from the one I loved.
"I'm leaving. I am following my heart and running away from here with that I love who loves me back." I stood then, getting in her face and holding her gaze even though I was internally terrified.
"After I took you in and made you strong?! You would be dead, if not for me! I welcomed you into my home!" Momma roared.
"Maybe then I would have been at peace! Not, reliving the broken pieces of four years of torture and Hell! Everytime I try to sleep it's there! The knives, the drugs, the chemicals, their hands all over me!" I screamed back, tears spilling forth unwelcomed down my hot cheeks.
"Fine. You feel that way? Then go. But when he asks you to MARRY him, you will say no." She ordered.
"Why would I do that?" I challenged in my anger and fear stricken tone as my blood burned.
'Because if you say yes, and run away with that boy; I will kill him and drag you back here where you will train to be my Shadow. To kill my enemies without question or hesitation. So you will tell him no in most heartbreaking way you can think of." Momma's threat then cut through my bravado. I fell to the floor in defeat and shame, her command was just as heartbreaking as the task.
"Please don't make do that?" I whimpered as the tears flowed even harder.
"I'm not making you do anything. I'm giving you a choice." She countered in a cold tone.
"I'll tell him no and pledge my undying loyalty to you but please! Let me keep him and his brothers as allies!" I begged. My rational thinking left in my desperation to keep the one I loved at my side as I had promised him I always would.
"Not good enough! He is the son of my enemy! If he loves you like you say, he will not give up! You must make him give you up!" Momma argued, and as much as I didn't want her to be right...I knew she was.
*Time skip*
I'm waiting under the lamp by the backdoor to the club, my hoodies hood keeping the rain off my head. Mentally I going over all the ways I should try to do as Momma ordered as painlessly as possible. But I was drawing up blanks, every scenario he either figured out what was going on and was killed or he was his usual stubborn and killed. I had to make it as brutal as possible and play on his insecurities and fears. I was pulled from my dark thoughts by strong arms pulling me off the wall and into a warm toned chest.
"I'm glad you came." Raph's deep accented voice whispered into my ear as I nuzzled into his shirt, memorizing his scent.
"Of course! I promised I would." I whispered back, praying that my breaking heart wouldn't be heard. I must have grabbed onto him too tight because Raph chuckled and asked if I was nervous. "Only a little, I mean, are we really doing the right thing?" I asked allowing some of my fear to slip out. Raph only chuckled again at my response before pulling himself out of my embrace to hold my hands.
"Look Toots, I know that you're worried about Momma Bear and my dad, but together," It was then that he got on one knee, "Together you and I can escape from here without a trace! Will you do this, with me as your one and only?" Raphael asked while pulling out the simple banded ring with the infinity symbol around our initials.
I was almost willing to say screw it to Momma's plan, but it was then that she stepped around the other end of the alley and flashed me her gun, a silent reminder and warning. I looked back to Raph who was still on his knee waiting, and I forced a smile to my lips as I started bawling my eyes out. I took the ring from him and watched as he smiled so brightly to me, for the last time. I learned then how to put a titanium barrier around my heart as I forced my sobs to turn into cruel barks of laughter.
I smashed the rock that was at my fist level in my shower, pulling me out of the worst part of that night before it began. The water was now running cold and my muscles and joints were stiffening. My tears were a hot contrast as my heart clenched tightly at the knowledge of what I did next. 'I know his brothers have moved past it, but he hasn't and I haven't forgiven myself for it either. He didn't deserve that.' I told myself as a constant reminder and punishment for giving in to Her like that. I peeled my now bleeding hand out of the wall and held it in the cold water before I turned it off and stepped out.
I walked across my heated tiled floor to the vanity and used my uninjured hand to pull out the first aid kit that I keep under the left sink. It was a minor cut from the jagged edge of the rock I smashed, the bleeding had actually stopped. I still wrapped a larger band-aid around it, shoved the kit back under my left sink and grabbed a nice heated towel from the rack.
Securing the fluffy, warm fabric to me I made my way through my apartment, up the loft to my bed. I grabbed a plain gray sleeveless turtleneck sweater, no pun intended. That was followed by black skinny jeans and fresh undergarments. Once I was dressed I fell face first into my queen sized mattress. Eventually I rolled onto my back and pulled my secret personal phone out from under my pillow. As I expected; I had five text messages from the youngest Hamato brother.
11:12 p.m. "Hey Angelcakes! You awake? Wanna go dancing?"
12:12 a.m. "I'm going to take your silence as a "You're asleep right now so the answer is no."
1:45 a.m. "Hey! If you wake up because of a night terror, here's a video of a cat playing 'Chopsticks' WITH CHOPSTICKS!"
2:01 a.m. "Hey Angel, I'm drunk as shit! See?!" Attached was a picture of a very plastered Mikey.
2:27 a.m. "Do you see this?! I look hot as f***!" Attached this time was indeed a very attractive photo of Drunk Mikey. Only this time he was holding the edge of his shirt in his teeth, and he had undone his belt and zipper on his pants. The only thing holding his pants up was his hand that was holding his crotch.
I shook my head in an innocent show of disapproving approval. Nonetheless I saved the image and replied; "You my friend are shit faced and in the last leg of your season. Drink water and go home to bed!" It was after I had hit send did I realize that the last text from him was received over a hour and a half ago. 'Oops, I hope I didn't wake him.'