She always imagined the underbelly of the city would be quiet. No car engines running, no horns honking or people filling the air with too much noise.

Just to be alone with her thoughts.

Just her and the trickel of water moving along the old red bricks..

Maybe the occasional rumble of a subway car from far away. How peaceful it would be to crawl into the earth and away from all the people and noise..

How wrong she was.

Rachel had changed her mind about being anywhere under the city.

Right about the third time she slipped and bust her ass on those old red bricks, and then again when the deafening roar of a subway car over head caused the sagging tunnel header to quake threatening to collapse above her and raining pebbles down around her. The dirty water, while not septic was still foul smelling and so not where she wanted to spend her eternity, if in fact the fucker collapsed and crushed her into it.

Fuck. That.

On top of it all there was a roaring in her ears that may or may not have been her own blood racing through her head. Her heart was pounding in her chest, pistoning blood through her veins and pumping the adrenaline in her system to muscles already near collapse and others previously unused.

Parts of her wanted to shrivel up or burst into flame while her brain was busy making those same muscles get her Away from danger. Wherever the hell that might be.

She could swear that every breath she took was loud enough to draw the attention of every nefarious creature these tunnels housed to her location. Hoards of monsters were surely hunting her at that very moment, ready to sink their fangs into her neck.

That was in between the earth shakes and horn blows.

The water pipes rattling along the walls and the air vents hissing at every turn.

She never stopped running though.

Not when she tripped and tore her knee.

Not when she ran face first into a low hanging pipe running through a cross section. Her face would just have to catch the fuck up with her body.

Cuz bitch was haulin some serious ass.

Now Rachel was no coward by any means but she was also no Superwoman, and she sure as hell didn't think herself unintelligent. You have to weigh all aspects of a situation before you jump into it. That being said; Under Normal circumstances she would stand her ground. But when you find yourself half naked and unarmed, in an underground hideout; One that you have no clue how to navigate, with God only knows how many enemies gunning for your ass.. Sticking around to be a hard ass is -well.. Stupid. And she Sooo wasn't about to poke the hell around in 'Buffalo Bill's' basement tonight either. Clarice, she was not.

Uh uh. Nope.

She just hoped she found a way out before she ran out of steam. Or they found her. The adrenaline crash that was sure to follow this shit was gonna be epic. She just hoped she was still alive to have it. And preferably somewhere a little bit less disgusting at least. There had to be a way out of this hell somewhere.

She figured out quickly she was in some sort of sewer system as soon as she made it out that door and bee lined across the living room of their hideout. Thankfully these were storm drains however and not sewerage tunnels. The smell alone in those could knock a person out. Not that this shit was pleasant or anything. But she had hoped to find some sort of street access by now.

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes but it felt like she had been running down tunnels for hours. Her hands were scraped from before but now sported new cuts and scrapes from the uneven walls which morphed from crumbling concrete and re-bar to brick and steel back to concrete and brick again.

Her head was bleeding again from her beating earlier and if the moisture running along her hairline was any clue it was a nice open wound. But she couldn't bring herself to touch it and find out. triage could wait till later. Escape, now. Medical care, after.

God these tunnels were old too.

Obviously no longer maintained by the city but there still had to be a way out. She just had to keep moving.

Her dive watch was a life send. Though it didn't have a lit screen, the face, hands and hours were a luminous green that in this vacuum of light provided enough glow for her to see a little. Not much, but enough to make out the shapes immediately around her. Unfortunately it didn't warn her about the low hung pipes and fallen headers or she wouldn't be sporting another bleeding head wound. Or maybe it was the same one and she just made it worse..

Pushing herself roughly off of the wall again as she tripped she righted herself once again and tightened her makeshift coverings and continued down the passage, careful not to step into the trickling water more than necessary.

Making a turn down yet another tunnel when her path was blocked by metal bars her heart nearly beat out of her chest and a hysterical giggle fell from her lips as she noticed a faint light coming from around the curved pipe.

Nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste she ran for the exit she knew had to be there.

How many people survived this sort of thing? She wasn't even sure about the statistics but the chances of escaping from a group of killers underground or above had to be infinitesimal.

She was never taking anything for granted again.

She was going to quit smoking and eat right and take yoga and bungee jump and sky dive and a million other things people do when they touch death and walk away changed.t

The light grew in intensity as she neared and the sight of the rusted out ladder leading to what could only be freedom and fresh air had panic clawing at her again. They could still catch her and stop her, she wasn't out yet. But it was so close.

The short ladder was a few feet from the ground and she had to pull herself up with her arms.

Muscles protested the movement but she grit her teeth and put all she had left into pulling herself up. Cursing her lack of upper body strength as she struggled to gain purchase on the only thing between her and fresh air. She mentally added Gym membership to the list of things to do once she was free and used her legs to awkwardly walk her feet up the wall and onto the bottom rung. Standing up she reached for the manhole cover. A single car passed by overhead and she screamed for help, knowing the streets were empty at this hour and that no one would hear her.

Frantically shoving at the cast iron lid that did not want to move caused her to slip, sliding down several rungs before catching herself again and scrambling back up. She knew she was on the edge of becoming hysterical for real.

Those thugs were going to find her and she wasn't sure she would make it out of their hands again.

At least not in any form one would consider 'alive'.


Raphael had a good idea where she was headed. There weren't too many options for her tonight.

Donnie had many of the tunnels closed off to divert the flood waters from the storm above. One of the many things his genius brother had done to add protection to their new home was create a water diversion system for times just like this. A couple taps at his nerd station keyboard and viola! Tunnel doors closed in a dozen different pipes and water flowed harmlessly down or around the lair leaving them dry as a bone and luckily for him... with one way out.

This was gonna be cake.

Even without the lack of hiding options she was still making this too easy for him.

Fear is the easiest scent to track, its strong and sour, an affront to the senses, really. It burned his nose and urged him on, the sooner he found her the sooner he could make the smell stop.

One good pinch of the carotid and shed be out and he would be on his way home for some shut eye. Felt like days since he had sleep. Going on three actually..

If he didn't get some Z's soon he was gonna drop. Even Mutants have a limit, he learned that when he was a teenager, mutagen only heals so fast and what did Donnie call it... syncope? Prolly just a fancy word for faintin. Cause that's what happened to him. Would be the result of lack of rest even for Them after so long.

That shit was embarrassing.

Nothin worse than loosin a fight with Leo.

Unless its loosin a fight with Leo cause you pass out like a feinting goat in mid lunge and face plant at his feet proving his point that ya aint been takin care o'ya self.

That bastard was smug for days.

So grab the girl. Toss her ass in Leo's lap and get some shut eye.

Leo was worried she could be in league with one of the gangs runnin around or worse in with Hun or the Foot. They all beat on each other more often than not. Its possible he and his brothers managed to interrupt a drug deal gone bad or somethin. Who knows. Fearless just wanted to be sure. If she did have any useful information then Leo could handle gettin it outta her.

Raph was pretty sure she was innocent, but with the murders recently and the lack of leads, it wasn't worth taking the risk of assuming her innocence and missing out on some crucial piece of information. If she was clean then they could let her go, she didn't have to know who they were. They were ninjas after all, knock her out, blind fold her and question her from the shadows.. easy as pie.

Just had to catch up to her ass first.

His body moved silently through the sewers. His muscles twitched with anticipation. She had no clue what was really hunting her.

The chase always brought out something dark and primal within him. It was unlike any high he had ever experienced, maybe it was a throwback to his animal genetics or maybe it was his own twisted instincts, he didn't know. But of all his brothers he enjoyed hunting down his targets the most. His senses sharpened and he felt Alive. The only time he didn't hate his inhuman half.

He really began to embrace his animal nature after his sixteenth birthday. That year he learned no matter how Human he and his brothers were, no one would ever accept them as more than what they looked like on the outside. Walking talking turtles. Not People.

So why try to be something you aint, right.

Sensei once told him something that stuck with him. It was during that same time when he was really at his lowest, he said that, " To know oneself is to be empowered Raphael. But when you truly begin to accept yourself, you will be invincible."

He decided then that he would do just that. No one would ever hurt him again. He would accept what he was, ALL of what he was. He stopped hoping for anything more than being seen as an animal. A monster and a freak.

And He Owned It.

His daylight alarm went off on his t-phone. "Shit!" 10 minutes to sunup. Raph put on an extra burst of speed. He had to catch her before she made it out of the sewers. If she managed to make it topside he wouldn't be able to follow her with the sun coming up.

He tracked her scent toward the only split in the pipe hoping she had chosen the left hand culvert which lead into a nice little dead end but he cursed again when her smell went to the right. Straight for the 5th street manhole cover. That road was just busy enough to keep him underground during the day but not so busy that she wouldn't be able to crawl out into traffic and not get hit.

Double fuck.

He took the turn toward the exit ladder just in time to see her creamy legs taking the last steps up into daylight. He roared as he lunged for her feet, his hand closing around air as she slipped through his fingers into the street above. The blaring car horn and her startled scream nearly drowning out his own roar of defeat.

The fuckin bitch made it! Shit..

He peeked through the manhole enough to see she wasn't hit and the driver of the car was helping her to her feet. Her wild eyes met his for a fraction of a second and he suddenly felt like all the air had been sucked out of him. Even scratched and beaten she was beautiful.

Her long hair was wild. Framing her angels face like a halo of fire in the early morning sunlight. Her body was scantily covered by the ripped sheets she had tied around herself but not so much as to be indecent.

Raphael's mouth went dry in that instant. She looked like a warrior princess struck down in battle and he wanted to be the one to pull her to her feet.

One look into her eyes though and he could see the fear and anger that had become so familiar to him. What he saw in her eyes once again reminded him that he was not like her.

He never would be and for whatever reason for those few moments he had forgotten.

He suddenly wanted to hurt her for reminding him of what he thought he had moved past.

He slowly moved back into the shadows. His nostrils flared and he clenched his green fists until his nails bit into his palms. She wouldn't get far.

He had her scent.

He knew her face.

He would find her.

And he hoped with everything in him that she would run when he did.

Flipping his phone open he dialed his geeky brother.

Don answered on the second ring and Raph was already en rout to the lair. Water splashed his wet shorts as he recalled to his brother what had happened. He could hear Leo curse in the background and knew his older brother had been listening too.

"You got anythin on dis chic bro? Address or somethin?" Donny was clearly distracted but multi-tasking as usual.

"Mikey! get outta that! I believe so Raph, hold on a sec. Your on your way back to the lair?"

He could hear Donny rustling through junk in his lab and Mikey's whining about new tea cups or some shit. "Yeah." He huffed as he ran. "Coming down the green-way now. You got somethin or not genius?"

"Yeah, umm .. let me just see here.."

"Nah bro, please jus take ya time," he snarked, "its not like we got a girl runnin around up dere who knows how ta get ta tha lair or nothin!" His Brooklyn accent was getting worse by the second.. Raph rolled his eyes trying not to scream at his bro. The need to track the girl down was clawing at him and he felt surrounded by idiots. Course who was da idiot dat let ah go topside huh? Raph almost snarled at himself.

"Were in luck Raph, she had her drivers license in the back pocket of her jeans. I have an address and a name. Shes a local."

"Good. We get ah tonight."

"Leo says its a go."

"Good, dat chics mine." He hung up his phone and smirked to himself in the darkness of the tunnel. He was gonna show her real fear.