Pain lingers in every point of my body. My wrists are sore from the chains that string me to the wall, as are my feet. My stomach feel like it has been sliced into pieces, due to the amount of times they've hit me. And my neck feels like it's barely hanging by a string. Overall, miserable is an understatement. I'm dying.

My favorite time of the day is when they leave me hanging by my chains, slamming the heavy door behind them. They usually leave me like that for a few hours, telling me to think about whether or not I will cooperate next time they come in. It's my favorite time of the day simply because it's the only time they aren't hurting me, emotionally or physically.

I prefer the RBMC; and that says a lot. Compared to here, the Mutant Headquarters run by that psychopath scientist seems like Heaven. Here, they don't feed me at all. I haven't gotten any water or food and it's seldom that I get any sleep, hanging by chains all day, everyday.

Overall, it's exactly how I would have pictured the Dark Angels Headquarters. Cruel, raw, and merciless. The only thing that they do give me is the time and date. Every time they come and visit me (visit is hardly the word for it), they provide me with the date and time of the day. Of course, it isn't for the right reasons. They do it to torment me; to try to convince me that I won't be rescued.

The sound of the heavy, bolted door to my cell has become my worst nightmare. So naturally, when I hear it opening, I automatically cringe and stare at the floor. I hear footsteps walk in and my heart begins to quicken.

I feel someone grab my chin and thrust it upwards. I'm staring at Melinda Crespo. After a few moments of her eyes staring down at me, she reaches up and punches my nose. I scrunch my nose up to try and cope with the pain. Tears stream down my face from the sting of it, and I have to bite my tongue to avoid letting out a cry.

I had been wrong about Melinda Crespo. There are things that even our Headquarters doesn't know. Melinda is supposedly the serpent of the pack; but she never does the dirty work; never hurts anybody with her own hands. That's an error in our data work. She's the worst of them all.

If I ever get out alive, I will sure have a lot of new, accurate information to give to the Headquarters.

"Have you thought about it?" Melinda asks me, her eyes narrowing, as if she's daring me to speak. I don't. So she kicks me in the stomach; not that she wouldn't have if I had responded.

"You know," Melinda says, backing away and staring at the wall. "You know, you really can't win this. You can fight and rebel all you want, King. The result will always be the same." She pauses. "You can fight. You may even die trying. But you will never win."

It's barely an internal punch.

"And your little friends." She pauses again. "They aren't coming for you. They don't even know where you are."

"They'll figure it out," I croak. Big mistake.

Melinda turns back to me and before I can blink, there is another pain in my stomach. Her face is expressionless, and she begins slowly walking towards the wall, just to give herself something to do.

"But they won't," she says. "And even if they do, there's absolutely no possible way that we could miss four large ugly mutants. It's impossible not to notice them." I bite my lip—which has split and is bleeding.

She's right; at least about that. It's hard not to notice four large green mutants just waltzing in.

"Or do you think that they'll somehow find a way to sneak right on in? Do you actually believe that they're capable of that?" Melinda asks, her dark eyes boring into mine. I don't respond and she kicks my stomach again.

"Your silence will get you no where."

"Talking won't either, so I don't really know where your issue lies in the matter," I retort and she slaps me, surely leaving a bright red hand print on my cheek.

"Nor will sass," she hisses and I nod my head the best I can.

"That's why I'm sticking with silence," I respond and she glares at me, kicking me in the stomach again. I'm sure that all this abuse is going to affect my health for a long, long time. Maybe even permanently.

"Well you aren't doing a very good job at it," she observes, crossing her arms. "So what is it about those mutant friends of yours? Are they clever? Are they strong? Are the determined? Smart? All of the above?"

"You missed a trait or two."

"You aren't very good at this 'staying silent' thing."

I didn't respond.

"You're never getting out of here. And if you do, it's sure not physically." I know what she means. I'm going to die in here; or at least that's what she thinks. But I know that I won't. The turtles...my family...they'll find me right? I'm positive that they are searching for me right now.

But six days. I have been missing for six days. And it has been two days since I was transported into this persecution. Have they given up? Simply buried a bodiless grave and claimed me to be dead; gone forever?

No. No, they don't give up. They'd never give up on anyone...but will they give up on me?

I try to push the negative thoughts aside and think about everyone I didn't give a reason to hate me.

Mom. She's my mother; of course she will do everything in her power to find me.

Rose. Even though we fight (a lot), I love her and she loves me. We're sisters and I'm pretty positive that despite any fights we have, she'll never stop looking until Mom stops looking.

Mallory. She's my best friend and one heck of a fighter. She's determined and strong and always has been. She'll probably still look for me even after she's down in her grave. And likely, she'll find me.

The turtles. Despite the fact that the past couple of weeks I haven't been too kind to them, the last few days before I disappeared, almost everything had been almost back to normal. Raph was back to teasing me and Mikey was back to his prankster self. My bond with Donnie never really left.

But Leo. Will he forgive me for all I'd done to so desperately push him away? I love him still, but I don't know if he knows that. Does he still love me? Even after I've constantly and persistently shown no positive care for him, when really I'm just scared?

I don't realize that Melinda has been kicking and punching me. I'm far too lost in the thought of Leo to notice; nor do I care. She's shouting in my face and I can feel her spit fly from her mouth as she screams in rage. But I manage to tune almost everything she's saying out.

Leo. Come on, Lexi. Think about Leo. Think about all the memories you have with him. Remember when you first met him? You were so scared because you woke up and you thought that you had left your katanas at the fight; but you were so relieved when Leo came in and he handed you your katanas. He had said that he knew how it would feel to lose his weapon.

And remember the time when you went shopping with all the turtles? You had barely known anything about Leo at the beginning of the day, and by the end, you both acted like you were best friends. You even started a cute little show with him: the Lexi and Leo show.

Remember the time that you woke Leo up early in the morning by taking a video of him, and it turned into a snowball fight at seven in the morning? Remember how happy you were and how the snow was as of pearls and the sunrise was beautifully blended into the whiteness of the snow.

Remember the walk that you had with Leo at the Farm House? Instead of getting a ride with everyone else after going to pick out a tree for Christmas, you two walked the rest of the way, talking and learning things about each other. You even stopped multiple times to take pictures with each other.

The video camera. Leo still has it. I wonder if he ever just picks it up and looks through the videos and pictures, just to catch a glimpse of how things used to be.

Before I know it, there's a slam of a door. I'm thrown out of 'La la Land' and find myself alone and in pain, still strung to the wall.

LEO'S POV:

You wanna know what's kind of dangerous? Adrenaline and love swirled together. Especially when you're standing outside a highly risky Headquarters where evil mutant soldiers roam 24/7.

In my current situation, I'm probably very lucky to have others with me; despite how loud they're being. If I didn't have eight people's lives in my hands right now (nine, including myself), then I would have stormed in as quickly as I could. I need to make sure that Lexi is okay. And the adrenaline that runs with me as we hurry through the night doesn't mix all that well with my love for Lexi.

"Man Leo," Raph mumbles, shaking his head. "You'd think that the lair was on fire, by the way you're rushin'."

"Yeah bro," Mikey says, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Just chill; we'll get your girl back." It takes all my might not to shove his hand off of my shoulder. I want to scowl and turn to him and say that I can't "just chill".

"Whatever. Can we just...hurry?" I'm anxious to rescue Lexi and my voice lets everyone know that. So they don't question it or try to calm me down in any other way. We just continue to wait outside the building.

"Okay," Donnie begins, glancing over at everyone. "Remember the plan: we head in, with our weapons hidden. Leo and I are going to distract the guards by explaining who we are, and the rest of you need to hurry inside as fast as you can. They won't throw us out because of our excuse." Everyone looks like they understood (all except for Mikey, but we have already explained to him several times).

While everyone else hides, Donnie and I appear at the door of the building. It's clear that the RBMC wouldn't be right there on the first level—it may be a few levels down. Donnie knocks.

After waiting a good two minutes, I knock; this time, with more force. The longer we stand out here in the summer warmness of the night, the quicker my anxiety grew. What could they possibly be doing to her? Starving her? Beating her?

I'm grabbed from behind. I shriek as my arms are twisted and I'm pinned to the ground. My face is smashed into the hard floor; surely preparing to leave a mark.

"Wait!" Donnie's voice is sturdy. "We were sent; sent to come see Russell Burgess." The pain in my arms doesn't go away. I'm not being released quite yet.

"Dr. Burgess did not tell us about visitors," A deep voice from behind me says. "How do we know that you are speaking the truth?"

"We were sent by Rachel Bennett," I manage to mumble, through my face smashed against the hard concrete ground. "She sent us to pick something up." There is a pause and then the deep voice speaks again.

"Dr. Burgess, there are two men out here who are claiming to have been sent by Dr. Bennett. Verification?" The deep voice confuses me, but Donnie looks to me and mouths the word, 'microphone' and points to his ear. The man must be calling Dr. Burgess on some sort of radio. After a few moments, I'm released.

Rubbing my arms, I scramble back to my feet. I'll be sore for a couple days; the one that had a grip on me really had a grip on me. I feel like my arms are bound to fall off any second now.

"We apologize for the inconvenience," The deep voice says. "Please follow us."

My eyes widen when I see that the man from behind me isn't a man at all; he's more of an oversized lizard walking on two legs. I'm sure that that's how people see us (even though we aren't lizards).

Donnie and I follow the mutant (but not before giving a glance backward, just in time to see everyone else scurry inside and hide, before the automatic doors slam shut).

We walk for a long while before we arrive at a door. I wait for the mutants to open it but they simply look over at us.

"Go ahead." And with that, they hurry away.

"Well," Donnie begins. "Are you ready to save Lexi?"

"Do you even have to ask that?" I mumble, reaching out and twisting the knob open. I push the door and look up to see a very open room full of cells. They're all dark cells, each of them with a different aura seeming to surround them. None of the atmospheres look very good.

Standing in front of one of the cells stands a man. He has his back turned towards us. His light gray hair is frizzy and sticking up everywhere. As he stands—hands clasped behind his back—we can hear some mumbles coming from near him. He's either mumbling to himself or having a one-sided conversation with the mutant in the other cell.

"Excuse me," Donnie says, as he slowly approaches. The man doesn't turn around. "Dr. Burgess." He turns around and his eyes widen when he sees us.

"Are you the two young men that have been sent by Dr. Bennett?" he asks turning, his hands still clasped behind his back and his eyes shining with some confusing form of admiration.

"Yes," I manage to say. I wonder where my lack of confidence comes from. "We were sent from Rachel Bennett. She...she wanted us to bring back one of your prisoners." I'm struggling with my words and it's making me annoyed.

Dr. Bennett simply looks very perplexed.

"Prisoners? I hesitate to describe them as such. They're more like my pets; I train them and I help them become better; stronger." I almost laugh at that. Right, I think. Listen old man, Lexi is stronger than you could ever train her to be.

"Her name is Alexandra King," Donnie says. This makes Dr. Bennett seem even more confused.

"Dr. Burgess had no idea that we had managed to kidnap Alexandra," he admits, looking somewhat sheepish. "We were planning on surprising her; make her proud."

"Well she found out and she wants us to pick her up," I say. "Unharmed and healthy. Do you think you can do that?" The sudden fear in his eyes surely provides mine to be filled with anger.

"Oh well, you see...we have some...co-workers, I guess you could call them. They were helping us; they knew of a small family of mutants that we could very much use in our army of mutants. Alexandra knew about these mutants and we were trying to slowly get an answer out of her. We weren't pressuring her, hurting her, or making her feel bad in any way that we knew of." I don't like how he's speaking past tense. "In fact—"

"Is she here or not?" I snap, biting my lip to keep from showing my anger. I pretend to miss the warning look that Donnie shoots me. We both know that if either of us show any care more than that of the orders from Dr. Bennett, we'd be caught.

"Tell Dr. Bennett that she is no longer here," he says slowly. "The co-workers of mine didn't think that my methods would work." I open my mouth, about to ask him where she is now; but Donnie beats me to a question.

"What were your methods?"

"I give my pets room to eat, sleep and think. They're even allowed to leave their cells at times, if they're acting correctly." he answers, looking somewhat proud.

"What about your co-workers?"

His face darkens. "They're a bit...impatient. They think that violence, torment and anger are more effective ways to work."

I feel my face heat up in anger.

"And you just gave her to them?" I rage and Donnie steps on my foot hard.

"Who were your co-workers?" Donnie asks slowly, looking away from me and back to Dr. Burgess.

"They were called the Dark Angels," he says gravely. "They weren't all that wonderful of co-workers, but they had good intentions, despite their flaws which were so very—"

"Do you know who they are? Do you know what they could be doing to her right now?" I'm not just angry anymore; I'm absolutely fuming. Donnie takes my arm and pinches it, which actually hurts, considering how thin human skin is.

"We'll be leaving now," Donnie says, loud enough that wherever everyone else is, they'll be able to hear. "By the way...do you happen to know where the Dark Angels have their lair?"

"I do not," he says, shaking his head. "Please tell Dr. Bennett that I truly am sorry. I would not have given Alexandra away if I had known that she would want her healthy and unharmed." Well that's comforting.

"So you think that they might be hurting her right now?" I exclaim, clenching my teeth together.

"Well of course," Dr. Burgess chuckles. "I mean, these are the Dark Angels we're talking about. I'm sure that her life is just hanging from a tiny little thread by now." Without realizing it, I reach out to punch him. But Donnie pulls me back—as I shout angry words at him.

"Sorry, thank you, bye," Donnie calls, pulling me out of the room.

I leave the RBMC with more disappointment, fear and anger than I've ever felt in my life.