A tattooed man with a bloodied t-shirt walked through a dark corridor and knocked the door at the end of the hall. A green light announced him he was now allowed to pass.

"The subject won't talk, sir" he said. A hand came out from a big brown chair holding a cigarette.

"Three months… three damn months and they're still being stubborn" A dark voice said in frustration. The hand disappeared in the darkness with the cigarette.

"I'm getting tired of those freaks already. Send the tape and tell the others to get ready…" the voice said again letting out small smoke circles as he spoke. The tattooed man left the room.

The chair squeaked as the man on it got up and walked away to turn on a big screen that showed two bruised and beaten turtles laying in the cold floor of their cell.

"Such rare specimens... yet so stupid"

…

He didn't want to open his eyes. He was so tired and more bruised than yesterday; he just wanted to sleep.

"Hey…"

That voice and that hand shaking him gently… he knew them, he knew them well. But as much as Mikey knew whose hand and voice was, he was too tired to answer back.

"Mikey? C'mon buddy…" Again, that voice insisted and the hand shook him with more urgency. His big brother just knew how to ruin a good nap. The orange masked ninja slowly opened his eyes and could see the blurry from of his blue masked brother looking at him in concern.

"Hey Leo" Mikey rubbed his eyes. Now the blurriness was gone.

"Nice to see you're awake" Leo smiled at him.

"How long I was out?" Mikey yawned.

"About two hours" Leo sighed.

"Whoa… less than last time" Mikey chuckled but winced when he tried to stretch his arms; they had so many bruises.

His jade colored skin didn't look the same anymore; it had a mix of blue and purple bruises all over it with cuts, some were deep and some weren't; dried blood in some parts of his body and black eye that was slowly fading away.

"How's your leg?" Mikey asked to his eldest brother.

"Still hurts but at least the bone is in place" Leo shrugged.

He hadn't been as lucky as Mikey was… if he could call that being lucky. He had suffered deeper cuts, harder beatings that left bigger and more painful bruises, some broken ribs that had already healed; his leg had been smashed with a baseball bat and now he was in a slow and torturing recovering phase. Leo looked paler than his youngest brother and a little skinnier; food for them was rationed and most of the time, he gave part of it to Mikey; he was way younger than him and needed extra strength for the beatings to come in the morning, afternoon and sometimes even at night.

"What did they do to you this time?" Leo asked.

"Normal morning beating" Mikey leaned on the wall lazily.

"Now I know what I'm getting this afternoon" the eldest turtle chuckled. Mikey stayed quiet, looking at his feet with a small frown on his face.

"Still thinking about them?" Mikey glanced at his brother but didn't answer his question; he turned his gaze back to his feet. Leo moved as long as he could manage and sat beside the youngest turtle.

"I guess I'm just… you know…" Mikey said after a while.

"Keeping hope" Leo completed the statement.

"Doesn't hurt" Mikey smiled a little. It was rare to see him smile nowadays.

"I know" Leo smiled back. Mikey leaned his head on his brother's shoulder.

"You think they're still looking for us?"

"Of course they are. They're our family" Leo said.

"You said you tried contacting with Splinter but you couldn't" Mikey continued.

"I was tired; those guys went rougher on me because I tried to fight back… and… I didn't see the… "

"Could we please don't talk about that, Leo?" Mikey moved away from him interrupting his talking.

"Hey, it's ok" Leo placed a hand on Mikey's shoulder "Sure I was unconscious for a few days but…"

"Leo, you were bleeding to death!" Mikey snarled "Those bastards used your sword against you; that wasn't fair!" Now he was shaking slightly; that was a memory he knew it would haunt him forever.

"I should have noticed it" Leo commented lowering his gaze.

"It wasn't your fault, bro. And please… I seriously don't wanna talk about that" Mikey folded arms.

"Sure" Leo decided to drop the subject for now but he knew none of them were going to forget it.

It had happened the night they were kidnapped. Both of them were surrounded by thugs armed with chains, bats, pipes or simply bare handed. Leo and Mikey tried to defeat them and fought with all their strength but when they defeated two thugs, three more of them replaced didn't know where the hell they were appearing but one thing was clear, they kept coming and coming and didn't let the young ninjas take a break. When they tried to call for reinforcements, their cells were smashed into the wall. With time, they ended up beating Mikey and now they were coming for Leo. His katanas were sharp enough to make a clean cut and that made most of the thugs to back off; he took advantage of this to run and give Mikey a hand but he missed one guy coming from behind grabbing the discarded katana.

Mikey had just noticed this and tried to prevent his brother but the thug had already plunged part of the sword on Leo's side leaving him unconscious and bleeding before Mikey's wide opened eyes. More thugs came from nowhere and surrounded both injured turtles. Mikey tried to fight them back but he was restrained, tied and gagged. As he struggled, the orange masked ninja could see how their captors took his brother's body and threw it into a truck; he could also see how they cleaned up the mess they had done so his brothers wouldn't know they were attacked. Those men had cleaned up the blood, picked up one by one the small parts of the turtle's destroyed shell-cells and made sure nobody was around them spying.

Next thing he saw before he joined his brother into the truck was the faint light of a cigarette and some smoke coming from its owner's mouth that made Mikey sneeze and his eyes get glassy.

"Where are the other two?" the man with the cigarette asked.

"They weren't with them, sir" a bald guy informed.

"These two will tell us where they are"

A hit in the back of his head was all Mikey felt and after that… only darkness. They were now in the Devil's hands… again.