Rebound

Chapter VII

Lisa was struggling to maneuver her way over a plastic baby gate while carrying a stack of newspapers and a binder in one hand with a bowl of chex mix in the other, returning from a trip to the kitchen downstairs. We had been holed up in her room for an hour, while Blue, her lumbering German shepherd dog, waited in a completely fixated sit-stay with his head resting on top of the gate in the hall. "Are you sure I can't take this thing down now?" she asked once she'd made her way back over to her bed to put her loot down.

I eyed the dog distrustfully from where I was sitting on a sheepskin rug on the floor with my shell against the bedside table. "If you do, will he come in?"

"Probably." shrugged Lisa, settling on her bed in a cross-legged position with the bowl in her lap.

"Then no."

Lisa rolled her eyes and began leafing through one of the newspapers, "He is friendly, you know. I was kidding when I said he'd bite your face off."

First of all, let me make one thing clear: it's not that I don't like dogs. I'm sure that for the most part they make upstanding companions. The problems between dogs and I usually boil down to appearances; to them I seem to resemble some kind of walking, talking, sentient chew toy. The life my family and I lead mean I've had some devastating run-ins with guard dogs over the years, most of them shepherds. There's nothing worse than having to fend off an animal trained to attack when you know they're reacting the only way they know how.

But I didn't want to think about that. Snapping out of it, I took in my surroundings once again. Lisa's room was small, but it's high vaulted ceilings created the illusion it wasn't as closed-in as it really was. Her walls were covered in movie posters tacked up over yellowy-orange paint and she'd taken the liberty of painting the defunct radiator red, yellow and green. A Rastafari homage, she'd explained. Her sunken bed, bedside table, desk-slash-TV-slash-computer station and a single book shelf took up most of the floor space leaving little room to walk around. There was dirty laundry and piles of papers, books and DVD cases in every corner. If Mikey took the liberty of cleaning out his junk more than once a year he would probably keep a room like Lisa's.

"I brought this up for you, but Eddie left in the den instead of locked up in his room so I wouldn't expect too much." said Lisa before passing me down the black three-ring bindle she'd walked in with. While she continued reading the paper, I flipped through the pages of hand written notes, meticulous diagrams and illustrations and had to admire her brother's eye for detail, he put some of my own note taking to shame. Sometimes the writing would switch over to a thicker, capitalized print, which obviously belonged to someone else.

"Whose writing is this?" I asked, holding up the opened binder and pointing to a block of text.

"Ehh.. probably Dylan? He's cool, got a good head on his shoulders."

"What does he do for Vision?"

"Besides keeping my brother from running it into the ground?" She asked with a laugh as she crawled off the bed and joined me on the floor to get a better look at the binder. "Nah, I'm glad he's on board. The two of them go way back before Vision and everything. Eddie's staying with him tonight, so I wouldn't be surprised if they've been out working. If everything you've said about Eddie is true, we'll have some things to talk about next time I see him." We both went quiet for a minute and skimmed over the writing on the page, or at least Lisa was. I couldn't concentrate while she was leaning in this close, but didn't know what to say. Finally she stood up to go back to the newspapers spread out across her bed. With her back turned to me, she asked the last question I would ever expect to come out of her mouth.

"Who's April O'Neil?"

My mind was reeling, what on earth was she talking about? Did she go through my phone? I hadn't said a thing to her about April, ever. I cleared the lump in my throat but remained seated, I wanted a smoke now more than ever before.

"I- I don't know, why?"

"Really? She's all over the news right now, they're saying she's a suspect in the disappearance of the CEO of Winters Corp. Things I miss while I'm gone, eh?" Lisa brought the papers over and sat down beside me again, only this time when I didn't say anything she looked up at my face as I took in the photo of April being swarmed by reporters as she was stepping into the back of a black car with her lawyer. I couldn't fool anyone any longer.

"Don? Are you okay?" She asked, though she knew I wasn't. She wrapped her warm hands around one of my clenched fists instinctively, but she sounded unsure of what I was going to do or say next. I could feel tears coming and fought them back hopelessly, not only because of April, but because of how stupid and oblivious I'd been this entire time. I had a hundred questions and not one answer, and what's more, I'd just brought Lisa into the mess.

I stood up and wiped my eyes wearily with my forearm, newspaper in hand. "Lisa, I've been such an idiot. I really need to go home, I'm sorry." I knew how disconcerting I must have sounded but I couldn't bring myself to explain any further, I just needed air. Turning towards the bedroom window, I stopped in my tracks when Lisa cut in front of me and blocked the it with her tiny frame.

"Look at the state you're in, Don! Wait here five minutes, alright? Promise me. I'll be right back. If you leave now I'll never forgive you." She didn't wait for a response, and disappeared into the darkness of the rest of the house with her dog following close behind. I should have left right then and there I but couldn't bring myself to do it. Lisa was upset because I was upset and I didn't need to get into any more trouble than I was already in. I opened the window while I waited and let the cool night air in, while I wasn't looking forward to going back to the lair I knew the long commute home would calm me down. When I heard Lisa's footsteps on the hardwood coming back up the stairs minutes later I took a deep breath and turned away from the window to meet her. She gave me a half-hearted smile as she hopped over the gate and handed me a black canvas tote bag she'd brought in with her.

"What's this?"

"A little bit of everything. I photocopied some articles and notes of Eddie's for you in dad's office. I also wrote down Dylan's address and the information you'll need to pull his records online. Then there's some of that tea you said you have a hard time finding for your dad, and I found those Bollywood DVDs I burned for your brother before I left but never gave you, so they're in there too. The rest is just some stuff for you, um, go through it on your own later." Almost out of breath she grinned, I had no idea what she meant about the last bit, but I'm sure I'd be thankful for it in due time.

Despite everything I'd just learned, her smile was contagious and for the moment I felt a little better. "I hope you're not giving me all this because you're worried I'm taking off for good."

"Well I've never seen you this upset before, I don't know what to think." She looked down at the floor for a second before continuing. "She's very pretty."

If only my brothers knew half the drama of keeping company with women. "It's never been like that, Lisa. If there's anything I've learned the hard way it's that doesn't work, it can't work. Why do you think I-"

"Heh, thanks Don, I get it. So we're cool?"

"Of course. If you can, I need you to find out as much as you can from your brother about the past month or so. We're practically after the same answers, believe it or not. April didn't do anything, and Edison seems to be after what really happened" I pulled back the screen to Lisa's bedroom window and prepared to get on my way.

"How can you be so certain she's innocent?" Lisa wasn't asking this because she distrusted me, but she certainly wasn't going to help out someone suspected of knocking off a CEO of a multinational corporation just because they shared a mutual ninja turtle.

"Because she was with us that night." There, I answered without lying. The details were unimportant right now, and it was good enough for Lisa. Without protest she wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me good bye. For a second I thought she was going to kiss me, but instead she rubbed her cheek up against mine and made a small noise in the back of her throat I couldn't match with any particular emotion. "I'll talk to you soon, okay? Stay out of trouble." I told her in a whisper. She nodded, and when she finally let go and stepped back I picked up my bag and climbed out into the night air without looking back.

Somehow, I'd pulled it all off. I now knew what April was going throuh and my brothers would have nothing on me when I got home. The scenario played out in my head as I hopped rooftops like a movie. Mikey and Raph would have gone to bed and Leo would be waiting up in the kitchen, meditating or practising calligraphy – anything he felt I wasn't practising or taking seriously enough. He'd tell me all about his phone call with April, how he was sure Mikey knew where I was but refused to blow my cover. Then he would go into his lecture on the dangers of going topside alone, how if we couldn't trust each other we couldn't anyone, how he might have expected this from our other brothers but never from me. Up until this point he wouldn't have let me get a word in, not until he was finished. When he finally asked me what I had to say for myself, I would tell him how disappointed I was in him doubting me, for I was out risking life and limb finding out all I could about April and her current situation. Somehow, I'd spent the evening chasing a girl around the city and ended up on her bedroom floor. As much as I hated to, I made a note to stop thinking up these blowhard reviews of my escapades before I ended up blurting them out next time I got into an argument with my brothers. As much as I wanted to stop and see what Lisa had packed for me in the bag, I knew I needed to get going or the lecture Leo had waiting for me was only going to get longer and drier as the night went on.