((A/N: Thank you for all the favorites and follows! I appreciate it a lot! 3 This chapter is separated into sections due to length and to cut down on confusion about what's happening. I put a line to show where the story tapers to a different scene, but the site doesn't show it. So a '#' will be the symbol for that. Enjoy!))
Thinking Positive
Minnie looked at the girl lying on the cot next to hers, Kelsey, one of three of her roommates in, The Safe Haven Manhattan homeless shelter. Kelsey was the nosey one. The one she liked least and the one she'd had the most conflict with since she'd come five days ago.
"What's in the bag dread head?"…"Where ya' from? Haven't seen you in the bread line before."…"Where'd you get them shoes? I didn't see nothin' like that in the clothin' bin."
Questions. Always with the questions. She was so very tired of being asked questions.
If you left in the morning you were asked where you were going and reminded to be back before the doors closed. If you didn't go to chapel on Sundays you were asked why not. If you didn't show enthusiasm for the food—the piss poor bits of charity the kind citizens of New York delivered to you weekly in plastic drum containers you were asked why you weren't grateful.
And oh it was filthy. Everything was dirty. So very, very dirty. The bed sheets were stained, thin from incorrect laundering practices. Children belonging to the other residents ran around, touching everything with their sticky little hands. The elderly gassed constantly, stinking up the place with their unapologetic belching and farting. Old, molded, peeling tile adhesive was there to greet her every day she walked into the showers, trying without much success to cover herself with the proffered, much too short towel.
It was bad. But..not all bad. There were things to be thankful for. For instance…she was still breathing. She was able to open her eyes and sit up every morning—look out the window and see the sun. She had clothes. Nice ones too, courtesy of the fence money she'd taken from her probably by now, late husband.
On the floor was a pair of very well cushioned slippers she'd bought that morning at a shopping center not far away. They were blue, like the pajama's she wore—nothing fancy, nothing anyone would be suspicious of. Just a t-shirt and sweats. The sweats, despite having come from a dollar store were so plush. That was something else to be thankful for. Another thing to be thankful for…something she'd used to carry her through the dark and foulness of all those alleys four nights ago…she never had to see any of the faces of The Sheds patrons again. More even than the feeling—the look of Alfred's nude body as he panted and sweated over her, she couldn't get the faces of those people out of her head. People like the China Town Peach, a hideous woman, thin as a rail, her body a road map of torture. She had always been there. Every night without fail. With that smile on her face—that false happiness that looked so real it sparkled in her eyes. Her Master, someone Minnie knew without a shadow of a doubt was Foot, always ordered the same thing every time he came in.
"Crown n' Coke Minnie Mouse. Pina Co' for Peaches." He would say in his raspy voice, running his tongue across his thick, pouty lips. She had found him handsome she remembered. All muscle and bone with a chiseled jaw he presented an impressive figure in comparison to Al..to the others. It was he, she remembered, that had helped get Al his first fence. Nothing big. Just finding the proper people with whom to dispose of some recently acquired contraband. She remembered him specifically not because of his looks or even his connection to the Foot, but because of how unbelievably cruel he looked. Even the sickest, vilest people she'd met and served she'd managed to find an inkling of humanity in—in the way they'd dealt with Al, with her. There was a code of ethics even the lowest of low followed and while he'd never done anything in front of her that suggested he ascribed to a different set, Peaches face..her mangled, emaciated body..that smile..haunted her. How had she ended up like that? What was her life like before she was taken?
Minnie clamps her hands over her mouth, shuts her eyes and rolls over into her pillow. Hot tears course their way down her cheeks. Every time she thought of her she cried. She tried to put it out of her mind. She tried to think of herself, of her own loss but it was impossible to think that way. It was wrong to think that way. Her sorrows in some part were Peaches sorrows. And Amy's, and Brianne's and all the others. It wasn't just about her.
She presses her face hard into the nylon of the cot, and pulls the pillow over her head. The wool blanket covering her she kicks off onto the floor and instantly regrets it, the cool of the night settling quickly around her exposed form. She didn't look quite as bad as she'd originally thought, she realized, once she'd gotten brave enough to actually stand in front of a mirror for longer than a minute. She'd lost weight. A lot of weight since that night five years ago, but she wasn't skinny. She wasn't bones. There was some depth still. Some small beauty. She'd gotten lucky with Al. He hadn't been the physically abusive type. He'd never hit her, so she had no bumps or bruises. But she had a lot of ugly memories. Memories of things he'd done to her worse than beating.
Images of the bodies..the long dead bodies of the rodents in the closet, still stuck in the snap traps—caked in all that dust—had been a warning aimed specifically at her.
"I'll make you eat it! I catch you in here again-! Botherin' me in my private time—I'll make you eat it!"
Eat his shit. His filth.
Minnie rolls back over, and opens her eyes wide, as wide as she can make them go, until it hurts. Until the ceiling blurs and her eyes start to dry out.
"Think positive. Think positive. You're free now. You're safe now."
There was no point in dwelling on it. The past was the past. She needed to be here in the present..
Kelsey stirs on her cot and sits up sharply.
Minnie closes her eyes again, and reaches her hands behind her head to pull her dreads out from behind her, draping them over her shoulders. They'd gotten so long, coming down to between her shoulders, scratching the back of her neck.
"Sorry. I just had a bit of a panic attack. Didn't mean to wake you."
Her voice sounded so flat and robotic. Was that really her that had just spoken? Had she always talked like that?
"You sure have a lot o' those. You don't think maybe you might need to see a doctor or something? Get some meds to help you sleep? I'm on the struggle over here listenin' to you cry into your pillow every night."
"…"
She really…really didn't like Kelsey. She didn't like her questions—her snide comments. She especially didn't like that face of hers. That round, pudgy, pig face.
"I said I was sorry. What do you want from me? I can't help I cry sometimes."
It wasn't like she was the only one that ever had. It was a homeless shelter. People cried all the time.
Kelsey swings her legs over the side of her cot and scoots to the edge, resting her elbows on her thighs. She is indeed an unattractive piece. Barely above five feet, her short limbs, stubby fingers, and huge eye's give her the look of a frog ready to jump.
She shakes her dirty blonde locks out of her face and puckers her lips, showing off the ring of silver in the center. What was with that? Was it supposed to be cute? Make her look kissable?
"I don't want anything from you. Other than my beauty sleep."
Think positive. What would be a good way to resolve this issue?
An image of Kelsey lying flat on her back with a bloody nose brings a smile to Minnie's face.
Hitting her wasn't an option sadly. Fighting got you kicked out and she didn't want to get kicked out. It was the last place she could think of that anyone looking for her would come. When you had as much money as she had, why would you go to a homeless shelter? Why not leave the country and start over? Some really poor rat bag place where twenty grand meant something?
That was how she rationalized it. And how she hoped The Foot, and other people whose belonging's she'd taken out of that safe would rationalize it.
It was whatever. Even if they found her she had a plan.
The duffle with all her money and belongings was underneath her, zipped and locked shut with a pacsafe bolt—something else she'd got out of the shopping center that week. It was a combination lock. No key for her to keep up with. The jewels she'd taken out and spread through the lining of a jacket, an old parka she'd found in the donation bin. Even if she lost the bag no one would check the jacket. If she lost both…
Then she still had pay dirt. Alfred's stockpile of photo evidence of the misdeeds of his patrons. There was a fully functional computer lab here for the use of the residents. A block away was a library with copiers and scanners. If something happened she still had a chance. She just had to be able to outrun a ninja.
Crap cakes.
Minnie opens her eyes, and turns her head to look at Kelsey who is still sitting up, peering down at her with those big buggy peepers. If she wasn't so short and dumpy, she'd be sort of cute. Her eyes were a pretty color anyway.
"Kelsey?", she says smiling.
Making friends with her would be the more positive way to go. The smarter way to go.
"Huh?"
"I'm pretty sure the soc at the front desk is passed out in the day room by now. I got a little cash. Wanna go around the corner and get a drink?"
Five days was sufficient enough time for them to have conducted their business with Al. Right? They wouldn't come looking for the twenty grand. It was a gift of service. They could always get more high quality jewelry. They had people for that.
"I knew you had money! It's in that bag under your bed isn't it?!"
The rustling of sheets. The sound of bare feet slapping the floor.
"Money?! What money? Who's got money?"
Karen. Another one she didn't like. She hadn't planned for her.
But then she hadn't really planned for Kelsey either. The free beer had been a spur of the moment idea, an idea meant to serve a specific purpose. But then what was one more? Karen was annoying as hell too. Talking. Always talking. She was under 21. Had to be.
"You're going somewhere? Where are you going?!"
What was one more? She lived in the present now. So it was here she needed to put her effort.
Minnie stands up and slips her feet into her shoes. Not the slippers. Boots. A good, sturdy, no-skid pair. Sometimes…not often…but sometimes…you could find some good stuff in that raggedy old bin.
"Keep quiet and I'll let you come along to see."
#
"You don't know where she is?"
"No! No—please Sam! Sam I wouldn't-!"
"You don't know of anywhere she might go? Don't know of any friends she has?"
Sampson pushes the tip of his blade deeper into the old bull's skin, twisting it. A little to the left..a little to the right. His blood flows in a steady stream down the length of the silvery surface arching outward..creating the most fascinating of patterns. It reaches the hilt, pools and collects there briefly before making its way onto his hand.
Alfred lets loose with a surprisingly high pitched scream, his greasy, fat head colliding hard with the tile wall behind him. He is in agony. He is humiliated here..naked in his own kitchen, tied to a chair groaning with the effort of holding him up. He has been here three days alone. Alone with Sampson—The Shredder's sadistic street soldier. The organizer of all his inner-city workings on the Lower East Side. His Peach is here with him not far away watching the preceedings. She's dressed in all the finest brands…Jimmy Choo..Louis Vuuiton…Chanel. Her ragged, ugly skin shows underneath in such clear contrast it's apparent none of the finery was given as a gift. It couldn't have been. No. It was a joke at her expense. Another of Sampson's ways of trying to put out the light you could see still burning in her eyes. Was that twinkle real or fake? Was that smile genuine or had it been trained onto her like the way she wore her hair or how much blush she used to color her face?
Members of the Foot glide silently this way and that through the kitchen, the living room, everywhere there could be potential evidence of where Minnie had gone to. There is no reason for it. They'd already checked the storage closet. They'd seen the empty safe.
Sampson snatches the knife out of the new wound he'd just given, eliciting a yelp from his sag and sorry captive and slides his fingertip down the length of it, inspecting it.
He had all the information he needed already.
"What a stupid, stupid man you are Alfie."
Tears pour forth from his eyes, his pallor darkens, his lips tremble.
"You just keep fucking up."
"Sam! Sam please!
They'd been here three days. There was nothing here. He knew that. The men knew it. There was no reason to stay. No further avenues to pursue. The Shed would be no more once he disposed of old Al.
"I don't know how she got the keeyy! I don't know how she knew about them! Please don' kill me—I got –I got-!"
"Don't give me that shit Alfred."
He'd been here three days. Alone. Tied to this chair, naked. His body shone with perspiration—the struggle to breathe, to endure. On his legs and arms were swollen, festering cuts Sampson had given him over the course of the days they'd spent together, him questioning, Alfred doing his best to give answers. There hadn't been any need to question Alfred. He'd always known he was the slow type. He'd always known he'd slip up in some way sooner or later. You could just tell by looking at him he wasn't very bright. His portly body, unsteady gait, and shifty eyes told you most of what you needed to know about him. To figure out the rest all you had to do was step into his dingy little dive downstairs.
It was a low class establishment run by someone with foolishly high class expectations of himself. All those cute little tables with the red chiffon cloths draped over them and the Febreeze candles to mask the stench wafting down from his apartment-the crystal drinking glasses..the pretty girl he'd had pouring the drinks—his contract with the Foot Clan—it had all been to get closer to his dream of making a legitimate of himself. Becoming someone other than Dirty Al, seller of cheap booze, holder of merchandise.
There was no reason to question Al. No reason to prolong he suffering.
"You have nothing. And you have always had nothing."
Sampson leans in closer to Alfred, his dark eyes roaming, searching for somewhere else to put his knife. Alfred groans, leaning his face away, trembling, breathing heavily. Sampson has an arresting face. He is an Adonis. Standing at a little above six-foot, red haired and brown eyed he is the quintessential component. He is one of the few of the New York branch of the Clan to have ever given Shredder any reason to want to meet with him personally.
Alfred turns his head and looks back, blinking sweat from his eyes. He could see why. He could see why Shredder would use him.
There was nothing in him. Not a shred of human decency..of humanity. He was perfect for the kind of work he did—the abduction and sale of human beings. He puts his knife down, slowly, carroty brows furrowing.
The fanatical haze that had glossed him for the last three days dissipates. He smells something. Something sour.
Sampson looks around him as if for the first time seeing the molded over counter tops, and the bugs skittering over the dishes in the sink. Behind him, seated primly on the nightstand, Peaches appears to barely be breathing. It's the smell. The awful smell of the place.
"Men!"
They are there in a fraction of a silent second, side by side.
"Prepare to torch the building…You."
He points to the one in the center. Foot Ninja do not have names. They do not have numbers or ID tags. They don't have faces. Their identity means nothing once they become Foot.
"Get me some bags. It doesn't matter from where."
They bow and in another silent second they are gone. Peaches too, retreats. Alfred is alone again. Naked in his kitchen. Tied to a chair.
Sampson smiles, and puts his hands to his hips, looking back to Alfred. "Well old man looks like its curtains."
His voice doesn't fit him. It's so raspy. So deep and scratchy sounding. Alfred says nothing, only stares back, mouth agape. He hears glass breaking downstairs and knows from the way it sounds it's his crystal.
"I hope Minnie gets away."
"You do?.."
He feels the point pressing into the side of his neck.
"I'm surprised to hear you say that Al. Especially considering all you said in the beginning. What brings about this sudden change of heart?"
The skin breaks.
"I never beat her. Never. I don't believe in that."
"You believed in feeding her spoiled food. Locking her in dark closets filled with rotting garbage."
"I hope she gets away…"
Sampson shakes his head, sighs, and pats Alfred's sweaty, blonde head before plunging his knife into him completely.
"I hope she gets away too, old man. Sleep tight."
#
3/6/14: April..call me. We should really talk.
"Donnie! C'mon! We're leaving!"
Donatello pushes back away from his computer and stares into the screen for a few more seconds before getting up. He grabs his bo staff from its position leaning up against the wall and stows it away in its customary place on his back.
What else did he need? Or more importantly, what did he think might need?
He looks around the humble jumble that is his work room in specific areas. At specific things. Remote control to the—no. Night vision goggles? No. Net gun?
"Why in the shell do I have a net gun?.."
He scratches his head, trying to think of a time when he and his brother's had ever had need of such a device. Images of all the intergalactic beings and super powered aliens they've faced over the years busting through some of his best laid traps adds to his bewilderment. If an electrified laser force field couldn't keep it at bay how was netting made out of nothing but a flimsy synthetic polymer supposed to be able to get the job done?
He sees the remote control to the Battle Shell and just as he reaches out to grab it, his name is called again, louder, more insistent this time.
Everyone is waiting on him. Raphael is the closest—standing at the foot of the short flight of stairs that leads to his work area. He'd been like that the whole week. Close to him. It was weird. Unnerving..but he appreciated it. Sort of anyway.
Mikey and Leo were at the exit. Or entrance. Or whichever. It didn't matter. He couldn't focus. He glanced back at his computer screen, snatching up the remote to the Battle Shell at the same time, not wanting to make the fact obvious.
No response.
He shakes his head at Raph on his way past, noting the annoyed expression on his brother's face. They make their way out and up onto the surface together in a tense silence.
Michelangelo talks the whole way as per usual and Leo half-heartedly participates. It takes a long time it seems to reach the surface. A long time to remove the manhole cover and an even longer amount of time for them all to get out and onto to a rooftop.
It's cold. Icy and ugly. Steam rises from underground, melting the snow in the streets, creating little, slow running streams in the gutters. Pigeons, those that have for some reason not yet flown south huddle together on the power lines, their dark feathers shuddering in the breeze. Far off in the distance is the smoke from the factories across the East River, pouring forth their poison into the atmosphere—the chemicals causing the flakes in that area to fall to the ground black.
Despite the weather, the late hour, people hurry to and fro down below. In and out of stores. The Laundromat, the liquor store, even some cafés were still open. Directly in front of them was a place they all knew well. Vito's Pizzeria. It was still open, churning out pies—sending its delivery boys to various addresses throughout the city.
Mikey's eyes follow the short black pony tail and formfitting red and white checkered jacket of one of them in particular. He leans forward over the edge of the building. Just a little. Just a tiny little bit. He didn't want Leo noticing and yelling at him to focus. To be vigilant.
Was that her? She did say she worked at a pizza place. He leaned a little further, squinting to get a look at the rest of her ensemble. Pants. Of course. It was cold. But were they tight pants?
"Mikey…stop."
Ugh. Always. It never failed.
Sigh.
"Okay Leo."
((A/N: Phew. Hope you guys liked that. :D Please feel free to leave a review. I like feedback!))
