Chapter Ten: Nee

My heart is pounding, my palms growing damp. I'm afraid to reveal this secret to him, but I know that I have to tell someone. And who better to trust than the turtle who befriended me from the very start?

I take one more deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. "Do you remember the night that Raph took a shuriken to the thigh?"

Mikey blinks. "Honestly, it had slipped my mind until you said something. We were worried that he was going to bleed out before we got back to the-" He pauses, frowning. "Wait. How did you know about that?"

"Mikey...the shuriken was mine."

"What?" he whispers, his expression betraying his growing horror.

"I...it was a lucky shot. I wasn't aiming for him. Raph just happened to be there at the wrong time."

"So that makes it better?" Mikey asks, scowling. "Just because you weren't aiming for him, it makes it okay? You almost killed my brother!"

I reach out towards him, hoping to calm him down. "Mikey-" He flinches away, his hands coming up in a defensive block.

"Stay away from me!"

That's when I see the tears in his eyes. That's when I realize that he's not really angry at all. He's terrified.

Terrified of me.

The knowledge breaks something deep inside me, and my shoulders sag. Feet pound on the floor, and his brothers burst into the lab not a minute later, their weapons drawn.

Leo takes quick stock of the situation: Mikey, with tears beginning to roll down his cheeks, standing as far away as he can get. And me, my face pale and my eyes wide, my hand still stretched out towards him.

"What did you do to him?" the leader asks, his expression darkening immediately.

And then I realize something else. It doesn't matter what I did to save Mikey, or what I do now. They'll never truly trust me. Ever.

"It doesn't matter," I reply dully, my gaze sinking towards the floor.

"The shell it doesn't!" Raph snaps. He grips my arm so tightly that he's almost cutting off my circulation. "You hurt him, and I wanna know why."

"I didn't...I didn't touch him."

Donnie, who had been examining his little brother all this time, looks up. "There's not a mark on him," he confirms.

"Mikey," Leo begins gently. "What did she do to you?"

"She told me...she told me that she..."

I'm waiting. Waiting for his condemning words. I deserve it, I know. I deserve everything I'm about to get.

Then something goes wrong. Mikey freezes in place, his mouth open. His eyes roll up into his head and he collapses onto the lab floor. Leo, Donnie, and Raph are at his side instantly.

But as soon as I make a move towards him, Raph pulls out his weapons, glaring at me. "Don't you ever come near him again," he hisses. "You hear me? If you so much as breathe in his direction, I will beat you black and blue and drag your sorry carcass back to the Shredder myself."

I know that the words he speaks are the truth. And that's the final straw. Tears slip down my cheeks as I run out of the lab and into the tunnels, leaving the painting – and Mikey – behind.

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