He had no idea how long he'd been sitting there listening to that woman's voice. She would get hoarse, she would pause for a couple of minutes.She would start again. Hour after hour, never rushed, always content to drone out begets and thines.
Not that he was listening. After a while it had become white noise in his ears. He sat there and felt the throbbing in his head go down, slow and steady. As the pain went down, his mind grew clearer, and he was able to think about where he was.
Maybe one day he'd look back and find it funny. He'd battled ninja, aliens, robots, monsters, and there he was caught by a bunch of culty religious types who apparently wanted his blood because he sinned.
But it wasn't really funny at all. There was Kate, hanging over the room like a ghost. Hanging over him.
These creeps should have at least taken them together, if they held them both guilty of some crime. At least he could've been there with her, knowing what was happening. Taking the heat off her onto himself. Saving her, somehow.
She'd never really needed him to rescue her. Not before now. Hell, that had to be one of the reasons he liked her so much. She may not have been some warrior princess, or Karai - she was a normal person in a tough neighborhood who could and would take on everything from a serial killer to a giant, judgmental mutant turtle to keep the people she cared about safe.
They'd cry for her in the hood. Her uncles would be furious - they'd buried her mother just a few years back. The working girls would take it hard - she was one of them. Their champion when no one else was looking out for them. And them dying was supposed to be over with. Done, once the asshole killing them was thrown in jail.
Hell, and her dad was still in prison. She said he'd relied on her visits. A criminal, yeah, and a bad one, but he felt a little sorry for Andrew Fadillah, knowing he'd never have that warm smile across the glass from him again. It'd make prison that much worse, no doubt.
There were a lot of people out there who'd be worse off without Kate around. That was something Stephen and his group - however many there were - didn't seem to think about.
Sin, God. Bibles and repentance. Raph didn't know about any of that crap. He didn't honestly care. Splinter raised them to believe in the value of an innocent life, and that was obviously something these fuckers didn't get.
Maybe he was a soulless beast, maybe not. He didn't see that he was that different from anyone else walking around. He had a family he loved, he had a girl he cared about and would've fought like hell for if he'd gotten there in time. He risked his ass time and again for people who would never see his face.
He wasn't evil. Kate told him that, and Kate went to church.
Seemd like the whole frigging hood went to church. He'd always thought that was kind of funny. These people weren't pure or innocent. The thugs on the stoops, the girls working the corners, the old men and women and the foul-mouthed kids, they'd every week get dressed up in their best and go sit together and talk about God in whichever kind of church they ended up at.
Kate told him all about it, during one of their endless talks about their different lives. She said God was most important to people in the hood - to people anywhere who were broke, hurting, suffering with no end in sight. They had to be able to hold on to the idea that someday, in some other place, their suffering would be worth it.
"People have to have hope, Raph. Some of 'em got no hopes in life that they can see, so they put all their faith in an afterlife where their suffering will be rewarded. Yeah, they sin, but you won't find a place where people believe more strongly in the power of Jesus and faith."
Raph didn't know about religion. He didn't think he'd be inclined to believe in it. But did know about faith and hope, and he understood where Kate and her neighborhood came from.
These people? Stephen and this woman reading the Bible to him from behind a closed door? He didn't get that.
Leaving a girl…a good girl, damn it, smart and beautiful and a decent, kind girl…dead on the floor of her apartment, cut open, left to rot. That wasn't about faith or hope. That couldn't be about any God Kate understood.
Things were gonna suck when he got out of there. He had gotten so used to having a place to run off to where his brothers wouldn't follow. A friend, a smiling face. A warm voice, and that obnoxiously soft curly hair. He would miss talking to her. He'd miss popping in, knocking on the window. Watching her face light up each and every time he showed.
He'd miss staying over. He'd miss those moment where talking and grins led to longer moments of eye contact, and volume dropping, and words laced with innuendo making them laugh until she'd reach for him, or he'd reach for her, and it wasn't funny anymore. It was breathless and soft, skin against skin, finding new places on each other that caused shivers and groans.
He'd been awkward every time they did something different, but she had looked at him with wonder and heat in her eyes, and nothing more. The disgust never came. Curiosity, yeah, there was a lot of that, from both of them. But never disgust. She had never looked at him like some creature she couldn't understand.
First time he'd felt her hand sliding between his legs and up into his shell to touch him, he'd been awed by it. She didn't care, that was the wonder. Right shape, she'd said with a heated smile, and the size would make Shug jealous all over again.
She'd told him once that people like her, from the hood, with doubtful futures, didn't care much about a perfect ideal happiness. They learned fast to figure out what made them happy and go at it as often as they could.
He had made her happy, so she didn't bother looking at him like an animal. He was her happiness, and she could've cared less what form it took, she just enjoyed the hell out of it while she could.
He understood that. What chances did he and his brothers have for happiness? They could laugh with each other, enjoy the adrenaline-fueled rush of a fight. Pal around with the two humans who called them friends. That was it. There wasn't anything more to look forward to. The things that kept them from finding more in life were never going to change. They'd always be walking, talking freaks in a world full of people who craved normality.
So he absolutely understood seeing something that might make things better and grabbing it hard and fast, without thinking about whether it would be considered proper or right by anyone else.
Maybe Kate herself hadn't been the biggest draw. Maybe it was the happiness. Things had fallen the way they had, and if she'd been anyone else maybe he would have been just as happy.
But as he sat there he thought about her a lot, and his mind played back weird things. The nose she hated so much, the clothes she wore when she was working - tight, short, and like a lot of the girls she looked dazzling from far away. But up close the threads showed.
She liked old music. Old R&B, and she actually had a record player in her apartment left by her mom. She'd play old albums - Aretha Franklin and Billie Holiday, and though they were always background Raph thought he knew most of the songs by heart. Those women sounded the way Kate felt. Smokey and low, living through pain and not faltering.
He could sit on her couch for hours and watch her tidy up the place, shaking her ass to the music, talking aimlessly about some part of the life there that he was curious about. Or sometimes her dad's family in Lebanon would call and she would answer them in Arabic, and he'd listen in interest. She admitted once to him that she was lost after the small talk was done, but didn't want to admit to family how half-assed her Arabic was. But he loved to hear it. Flowing and strange and harsh in ways, but exotic.
Maybe he would've been happy with any girl, but he doubted somehow that he'd ever have gotten close enough to another girl to find out. Things had gone right for them. Right in a lot of bad ways, maybe - people died, and he had come close to estranging his whole family - but even bumpy roads could lead to good places.
No. She was special. She was his, and that meant everything.
These people didn't know her. They knew things they shouldn't have known - his name, for instance, and he had to figure out how that happened. But they didn't know her. They didn't know him. They didn't know any damned thing.
It was cold in his little cell,and the blinding lights never let up for a moment. His throat was dry, his stomach had growled, but he couldn't do much about those two things.
When he got tired he slouched on the floor, tried to curl his arms over his face to sleep. But the voice reading the Bible stopped, and suddenly music, deafening and high choral voices singing about heaven, had blasted in through the window.
No sleep, Stephen had said. Raph sat up fast, and it was shut off. The voice began its reading again, and there he was.
It was a lousy kind of eulogy for Kate's life. Somewhere she was probably lying in a morgue, and word had spread around the hood. Her uncles would arrange to bury her. There would be a service. Maybe people would ask about him.
Soon as he got this mess he was in sorted out, he'd go by. He'd see the grave and maybe go by the apartment. Say hi to Shug.
Then he'd get back home and begin living without having her around.
Mike turned on the TV and backed up a few steps, blinking at it.
Picture appeared, and voices spoke. Some cooking show. Pasta.
He turned it off and sat heavily on the couch. No, no TV. Wasn't right, was it? Kate was dead and Raph was out there and he was going to sit and watch television?
It was just that there wasn't much else to do. It was daylight, and as if to spite them and their desire to search the sun was out and the sky was blue, and there weren't even clouds to hide under.
They were stuck, unable to go look. Wherever Raph was he had to be stuck too. And man, what was he even thinking? He had to know his bros would help him find these…these whoever who killed her like that. He had to know at least Mike would help. He was Doodlebug, damn it.
Raph might be in trouble. Might be stuck somewhere, or caught, or hurt. Or lost. Anything. Anywhere.
Leo'd been right the night before, Mike had realized. The city was too damned big, and since they had no idea where to start they had no idea where to look. Things like grid patterns and search techniques lost their value when it was a whole huge city with boroughs and islands, and they were chasing a ninja who didn't want to be found, and who had always been able to close his mind off from them when he wanted to.
He just wished...he wished Raph had waited. Had asked them. No, maybe since he was wishing for impossible things he should just wish none of this had ever happened.
He'd been jealous, a little. He'd almost come to resent her coming by, and Raph going to visit her. Them spending so much time together, obviously happy. But jeez, they could spend day and night attached at the hip, lip-locked or groping or being completely obnoxious together if it meant she could come back and Raph would be safe.
Mike glanced towards the dojo, where Leo was, and Don's room, where Don sat locked at the computer doing endless searches.
His eyes went to Splinter's room, and something made him stand up.
Their father would understand his discontent. Mikey wasn't usually the type to go in search of flowery speeches and meditation, but he thought it might help. And Splinter wouldn't question him. He'd just speak.
But halfway to the door the phone rang.
He sighed and changed course, heading for the pay phone. With any luck it was Casey. With any luck Raph had gone to him for help.
The door to the dojo opened just as he picked up the phone, and Leo looked out, still and solemn.
"Hello?"
"We don't wish to make enemies of you."
He blinked, frowning at the phone. "What? Who is this?" They didn't get a lot of wrong number calls down there, but he figured it was one of the rare ones.
The voice was male, the tone polite. Almost formal. "What we've done we had to do. We don't wish to make enemies of you turtles, but neither could we stand by and let those acts continue."
Mike's throat went dry. He gestured at Leo, gripping the phone hard. "How'd you get this number?"
"That's unimportant. I'm calling so you'll understand, we have nothing against the three of you that remain. We hope your good works will continue. But judgment must be rendered."
Leo stood at his side when he looked up, and Mike met his eyes. When he answered the guy on the phone, he spoke just as much to Leo. "The three of us that remain?"
Leo's face shifted, went hard.
The man on the phone hesitated before answering. "We don't want to kill him, you know. We didn't want to kill her. But we don't serve our own wills. We serve the Will of God. We serve a Higher Power, and when a beast so openly, so wantonly shatters the Lord's commands, we have to act."
Mike held the phone out, wide-eyed, letting Leo listen.
Leo snatched the phone. His mouth was already open, ready to let the man have it, but he hesitated. His mouth closed. His jaw set. He gestured at Don's door.
Mike went, fast, knocking and moving in without waiting for an answer. "Don, someone's got Raph."
Don was out right behind him, and they clustered around the phone.
Leo ignored them, listening hard. His hand was wrapped around the phone so tightly his knuckles were pale. When he spoke it was through gritted teeth. "You're saying you don't want anything from us? Why call here? How did you find our num--"
Mike leaned in, trying to hear.
Leo brushed him away. "What the hell does that mean?" He looked up at Don. "Leviticus?"
Don's eyes narrowed in instant thought. He turned and moved back to his room.
Mike stood, undecided, looking after Don and at Leo. He stayed where he was, mostly because he knew whatever Don was thinking he would tell them, and Leo could get closed-mouthed.
"Alright, you've said your piece. Now let me say mine. You're bringing God into this? I'm telling you that I will swear on God and the Bible that if you hurt my brother, if you kill him, we will find you and we will send you to see whether or not God appreciates what you're doing."
Leo squared his shoulders and held the phone out.
Mike grabbed it, but it was a dial tone when it reached his ear. He frowned and hung it up and faced Leo. "Well?"
Leo's eyes were strange. Wild. "They took him. He didn't run off, they took him from her apartment."
Mike grimaced, but in an odd way part of him was relieved. Raph hadn't tried to do it alone. He hadn't run off.
Which only left the question - "Who are they?"
"Hell if I know. The guy kept saying 'we', so I assume he's part of something bigger. Or maybe he meant him and God. He sounded like a nutcase."
Don appeared in his doorway and moved out to them, a thick book in his hand.
Leo glanced his way. "They say they've got him and they're keeping him, and whether he gets out or not is up to him."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know. He was rambling. Leviticus and some numbers and God. Damn it!" His hands were fists. He looked like he wanted to hit something. Hard.
"What were the numbers?" Don asked, the book open.
Mike leaned in and squinted. The Bible. He supposed he wasn't too surprised that Donnie had a Bible. Probably had the Koran and the Bhagavad-Gita too lost on his overcrowded shelves.
Leo frowned, thinking. "Twenty, and…sixteen."
Don leafed quickly through the book, and slowed his search on one page. He scanned it, and he looked up.
"What?" Mike asked fast.
Don swallowed. Something in his eyes matched that fury in Leo's face. His shoulders went back, his usual unshakeable calmness looking ruffled.
Mike nearly grabbed the book from him. "Donnie? What's going on?"
Don's eyes dropped back to the page. "Leviticus is a book in the Bible. Twenty sixteen is chapter and verse."
"Read it," Leo said, his voice cold.
"'If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.'" He shut the book. His eyes rose again.
Silence fell.
Mike's eyes stayed on the shut book for a moment, then looked up at Don, and over at Leo. "They're gonna kill Raph?"
"Apparently they're giving him a chance to atone for his sins first." Leo swallowed suddenly and turned away. "But right now I don't care if he fakes them out and shows up here tomorrow safe and smiling, without a scratch on him.We're going to find these guys."