"The path to paradise begins in hell." -Dante Alighieri
Chapter 14 - The Secret Paradise
With a groan, he rolled and flailed frantically for the brief second that he became airborne. The floor introduced itself with a violent smack; sending bolts of pain through his throbbing skull.
"Urgh," he moaned and tasted dried blood like chalk caught between his teeth. He worked his tongue back and forth, grimacing as he cracked his eyes open; blinking rapidly, trying to orientate himself with his surroundings. All he could see was the gauzy blur. Pastels in varying shades and the wooden brown of the floor.
As his body awakened, it complained in a variety of pains; all shapes and sizes registered: throbbing, dull aching and a prominent sharp jab, like an enormous needle in the side of his head, from his temple down through his jaw. For a minute, he thought it might be broken. But no, he gently tapped along the bone with the tips of his fingers, nothing more than some tenderness and swelling.
He sniffed. The mingled scent of powder, citrus, honey, and sandalwood reached him. Something richer as well, a musky, unique, but not necessarily an unpleasant undertone. It made his mouth water. He turned his head, breathed the strange scents in and calmed himself. The delicately perfumed air was a stark and bizarre contrast against the iron, brittle taste of blood in his mouth; the pain ricocheting through is prone body.
What the? He frowned. Perfume . . . ? That couldn't be right. Where the hell was he?
A murmured rumbling sound, soft and consistent, reached him. He froze as he recognized it as voices. Then panicked as a set of hands alighted upon his shell. Shuffling back on his palms and knees with a growl, he bunched himself into a corner of pillows. Muscles coiled and ready to spring into a fight.
Then the images in front of him caught up with his brain. The growl hitched in the back of his throat and he choked.
Two figures crouched before him, one normal, and the other not completely human. Definitely not human, actually. The one closest to him was an obsidian black, her flesh shimmered as though scaled, though he could see no such reptilian skin, only the flat smoothness as he had.
There were fiery red with intermittent stripes of yellow running up and around her arms, her broad shoulders, and elongated neck, gathering in tighter lines near her jaw and traveling to either side of her face. The yellow and red broke into intricate designs as they swirled alongside the slightly protruding squared snout.
A pair of startling golden, vertically slit eyes stared at him and blinked sideways with an opaque nictitating membrane. She tipped her oval-shaped head to one side. Her tongue lashed out from the little inverted 'v' shape of her lips. It flickered long and pink, forked at the end, the tips were black.
"Ho-ly crap," Mikey whispered.
Her voice was rich, low and surprisingly deep, with an accent he couldn't place, "De boy scared. Confused." When she opened her mouth, he expected to see a pair of fangs, but instead, there were no teeth that he could make out. None at all.
She glanced at her companion, a delicate-looking human woman who never took her flat obsidian eyes from him. Her long dark hair hung in straight sheets over her narrow shoulders. She remained watchful and strangely unconcerned. Her skin bore the pale blankness of a statue carved from stone.
The mutant shook her head on her elegant neck. "Just look at him bruises. Swollen eye. He in pain. Dieter, dat animal."
The snake-like woman hissed and the tongue flicked out again. She coiled her clawed hands into fists and stood suddenly, making Mikey jump. She stood up and turned to face someone approaching them from behind that Mikey could not see. Over her shoulder she promised, "One day, Phuong. I'm going to end dat beast. I'm going to get out of dis hellhole and get home to Dekese."
Phuong rolled her eyes. "Calm yourself, Vannda," the woman said and her voice was also heavily accented, sounding similar to Master Splinter. But her voice was light, a murmur; whispery and thin, slipping from between a tiny mouth framed by pale lips. "You serve nothing in getting angry. Only to get yourself beaten again. Fool you are with that temper."
Mikey looked between the women. Beaten? A fierce surge of protectiveness washed through him. No one, especially no woman, mutant or otherwise was going to be beaten while he was around. He sat up straighter, but said nothing as Phuong went on.
"Besides," she said in that same, bored tone, though some hard light entered her eyes as she continued, "You go home to what?" She made a sound like Raphael sometimes did, a huff of dark humor. "Just like in An Giang. They'd burn you at the stake for what you are. Or worse. Stop pretending that you have anywhere else to be but here."
Vannda clenched her fists, her shoulders tightened.
The tone softened, but only a little. "Face truth. You are safest here. Where you belong. Where we all do."
"Bah."
Mikey bristled. First they mentioned being beaten and now burned at the stake? What was this woman talking about? He had to get out of here.
"Who are you people? Where am I?" Mikey asked, eyes darting around, trying to remember anything between showing up at Fiona's little trap and being beaten by a group of cowards and waking up here. "Are you . . . are you prisoners here?"
The woman's eyes glittered with humor, but her ghostlike face remained passive. "I am Phuong. That," she gestured to the snake-like woman who glanced over her shoulder, "is Vannda. You are in what is called Des Geheimnis Paradies."
"The Secret Paradise. Bah! More like Hell on Earth."
"Vannda exaggerates. It is her nature."
With her hands outstretched in a peaceful gesture, Phuong stood up, the gauzy light blue gown she wore fell in pleats over her thighs. She stepped aside just as Vannda did the same, sitting on the edge of the bed that Mikey had rolled off from.
"It's all a matter of perspective. Some of us are simply grateful to be alive. Considering what our loving families and communities would have done to us had we not been recruited."
"Bah!" Vannda crossed her arms and her ankles. Mikey noticed her bare feet only sported four toes. "Bonjour, turtle-boy," Vannda said with a nod and a turned-down smile to Mikey. Her tongue flicked again. "And for de record, I speak only truth. It Phuong who lives in a dream. Unlike de rest of us." Then, "Dieter dropped him last night, while you were working."
Mikey eyes fell on the girl who stepped forward between them, the one Vannda had just addressed. His eyes widened.
She was not much taller than him, and a mutant as well. Widely spaced chestnut-colored eyes glared out from beneath a fringe of bangs that framed a light green, slightly rounded face. A pink ribbon held the end of a long brunette braid which draped over one bare shoulder down to her waist. She wore a thin robe with intricate embroidery running throughout in golden threads depicting flowers and hummingbirds. Coiled loosely around one ankle looked to be the end of a tail.
Next to her, protectively held beneath one slim, green arm, clutching at her hip, was a child. A mutant child.
"Mona, Mona! Do you see?! It is as the men last night said! Another boy," the child rattled on, voice thickly accented with an Indian accent. He glanced up at the one who held him so protectively against her side. "Finally!"
He cracked a smile, revealing a pair of tiny fangs. He was covered in fur colored in tawny gold with darker patches, spaced in bunches; a pair of amber eyes glittered curiously at him from above a rounded snout with a pale pink nose. Whiskers twitched as it sniffed in his direction.
"Uh, hi."
"Namastē, I am Tahir." The boy released the mutant named Mona and gave him a shy wave and then a formal half-bow. Then he shyly pulled at the collar of his over-sized t-shirt, fidgeting.
"Mikey," Michelangelo replied. He sat back on his haunches, returning the wave before he caught himself. The mutant girl narrowed her eyes, considering Mikey with obvious suspicion, but said nothing.
"Hm, so it's you."
Mikey blinked uncomprehendingly. "Do I . . . know you?"
Over her shoulder, she said to Vannda in a clear American-sounding voice, "There was a group of customers who came in last night. Soldiers. Venom from the uniforms. Not the typical fare. Yvette told me in the kitchen. They came in a helicopter with Madame Sophia. Most went to the west wing for the regulars, but a few came through Specials. I had to help Tahir." She ran a hand over the boy's head, ruffling the thicker fur behind his ears.
"Then we had hospitality and custodial work the rest of the night. But, luckily, as I was serving snacks, I overheard there was a mutant taken in. The entire battalion wouldn't stop whispering about a turtle," she shot a look at Mikey, "and a girl."
Vannda thought on this, then shrugged. "No one called on me, so here I be, deaf and blind to news. When this one thrown into de room, I stepped from out the toilet. Caught sight of Dieter, a few soldiers in hallway, but no girl." She glanced at Phuong. "Maybe she not like us?"
The woman shrugged, looking bored. "I know nothing. I was occupied with my patrons, as I am compensated for. But, I never pay attention to the nonsense the customers say. I could not care less. It serves nothing. Unlike you two, I do not wish for discipline. I do not care to be beaten."
Ignoring that, Mona said, "Well, I heard something else that was interesting. Something we might be able to use. But that depends." She nodded her head in Mikey's direction but locked eyes with Vannda.
Vannda's gave her an intense look in return, on the edge of her seat, but Phuong shrugged again. "Peh, it makes no difference. Leave me out of your plotting."
Mona glared at Phuong, then she turned her gaze to Mikey. She was staring at him with a piercing look.
He squirmed, then before Mona could ask whatever it was she was about to, said, "Look, I dunno how I got here, or why the heck I'm here with you, but I got a pretty good idea that whatever it is, it's bad."
He started to stand up and Mona placed herself in front of the boy, balling her fists and spreading her feet into a fighting stance. "Back off, Freckles."
Vannda placed her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Easy, woman. Remember. He's not customer, Mona. He's fresh meat."
Mikey swallowed at that. Mona relaxed, but eyed him warily.
With a sigh, Phuong said, "No surprise. Look at him. Another freak," as she said this, her eyes grew entirely black, skin rippled and colored until it look like flames flickered across the surface of her throat and cheeks before turning back to the pale flesh, "like the rest of us."
Mikey's mouth dropped open. Phuong stepped away from the group, quietly making her way through the room to sit on an overstuffed love seat. She picked up a book from the armrest and went back to reading.
His eyes shot around the room and he took note that he was in a massive dorm room or communal bedroom. Two dressing tables sat covered in perfume bottles, make-up and other items. There were piles of books, mounds of discarded clothing, and pillows scattered everywhere.
There were three doors along one wall, paneled with mirrors. One side was open revealing a walk-in closet. There were several beds made up in different colored blankets and matching pillows, all in hues of pink, purple, emerald green and one in tucked up next to the green one, this one sported blankets with an outer space theme of planets, rocket ships and stars throughout. Resting upon the pillow was a well-worn teddy, slumped over slightly.
For some reason, Mikey felt a lump half-form in his throat.
He jumped as a furry little hand took his. He looked down at the boy who's rounded ears pricked up to attention; the very tips black and spiked in a long tapered bit of fur.
"I am glad he is here with us now."
"Tahir," Mona hissed. "You don't know this turtle-guy!"
"No. But I like him." Tahir giggled. "He has a happy face."
Her mouth pressed into a disapproving line as Mikey grinned.
"Want to be friends?"
"Sure, kid." Mikey's brows raised as he looked up at Mona scowling at him. The grin faded. He blew out a breath and said, "Okay, I get it. I think, well, some of it, I get. Or at least, I'm beginning to form a picture. But look, I come in peace, all right? I just want to get out of here and get back home to my family."
Phuong snorted from behind her book. Vannda and Mona exchanged glances.
Tahir grinned up at him. "We are your family now."
"Oh, uhm, okay. Thanks, but I'm still getting my shell out of here."
"Hold on, Freckles. What about the woman you were brought here with?"
He blinked, at a loss.
"Well?" Mona pressed. "Doesn't she mean anything to you?"
Mikey frowned, thinking hard. His memories were clear and besides Fiona, there was only the one blonde that he caught sight of before he'd been knocked out.
"Uh, you mean," he screwed up his face with recollection, "That blonde lady. Barb, uh, no. Bonnie! That's it. You mean Bonnie? I think I know her, yeah," his face brightened and he snapped his fingers. "Casey's party. That's where I know her from!"
"Very good, Mikey! You figured it out!" Tahir shook his hand where he still clasped it.
Mikey chuckled. With his free hand he tapped the side of his head that wasn't bruised. "If my noggin wasn't caved in a bit from fighting Schwarzenegger, I would have remembered sooner."
Tahir covered his mouth, suppressing more giggles.
Mona exchanged a look with Vannda. "No. Not Bonnie," Mona said slowly with a deepening frown. "Your pregnant wife."
# # #
In between the hazy darkness and flashes of painful, bright light, there was the thrumming sound of thunder on the horizon of her consciousness. The rumbling growl of anguish. She didn't want to meet with that storm her body struggled through, so she shied away from that reality as much as possible.
She was aware of movement; the dizzy inertia of being moved by some outside force. Of temperature change from balmy to frigid. The fresh scent of impending rain supplanted by the harsh, brittle scent of chemical cleaners. Anti-bacterial sprays and the cottony, suffocating smell of gauze and bandages. The pristine burn in her nostrils of a place sanitized for medical care. Surgeries.
Karai shook her head and moaned. She was promptly shushed by a black woman in a paper mask. Rage flared, incendiary, blinding, but fleeting. There was no strength to feed the fire. No oxygen left for breathing.
Sounds flared and died away. Voices ordered in a foreign language, one she thought she recognized as Spanish, but muddled with German. Female, male. Barking, answering, ordering, apologizing. Taking turns with language like children on a see-saw at the park.
The image pinched her heart for some reason and the lights were gone again.
When her eyelids fluttered once again, she winced as the noise returned. Assaulting her raw eardrums. Too loud, forceful. Again, confused. Though maybe, she realized, there were several people speaking all at once, so that all the spoken language merged into a rolling, tumbling ball of nonsensical noise. Whatever the case, it was too grating, too big. The pressure of it threatened to crack her skull. Each time she surfaced the pain drove her back under.
But not the next time. The next time she surfaced, she fought the pull back to unconsciousness. Dragged herself to break the surface tension by the threads of her fury.
With all of her willpower, she struggled to remain awake. Despite the electric shards of pain running up and down her spine, the odd watery feeling sliding through her hips into her thighs down to her shaking, slightly bent knees, she fought her way towards clarity. The voices were gone but the thunder on the horizon racked her body now. Pain ignited and danced with glee over the terrain of her body.
She was clad in a paper gown. In spite of her body perspiring, she shivered.
Her sweating hands groped the sides of the hospital cot she found herself strapped to by wrists and one large band across her chest. Her feet were numb with the cold. Her heels braced against some icy metal stirrup and one of them slipped only to crash back down against the rigid edge. She sucked in a hiss of pain as her toes curled; felt the sharp awareness of the cut on her foot ring out over the crushing cramps crippling her torso.
Something pressed upon her face and her eyes crossed to see it was an oxygen mask. Karai gulped in momentary panic. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to breathe normally.
Stay calm. But the pain! Ignore it, fool. Figure out what is happening.
Her eyes rolled in muted terror as they darted about, taking in her surroundings.
Where?
The last thing she remembered was something about a helicopter. She nodded, thinking. That's right. Leonardo, he called Dr. Tsuneo. He came, just as he had promised. Karai laid back and closed her eyes. Then she was saved. She must be at the Dr.'s arranged location. Where he promised he could deliver this miracle safely. Away from prying eyes. Away from her father's knowledge or judgement.
She was safe. She was safe. Only . . .
The machines measured out her heartbeat. The silence weighed down like a blanket over her quivering body, a trial of sweat meandered down the side of her jaw. A frown tugged at her brows. She pulled on one wrist cuff, yanking on it with a grunt.
No. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
The remembered images of blocking arms and swinging fists rose up . . . the helicopter, there had been a fight . . . Dr. Tsuneo, what happened to him? And a woman's voice, then her wretched face took shape. Sophia Brokker!
A flash of anger gave Karai strength to wrestle against her restraints; doing nothing but hurting herself more. Panting, she resumed taking stock of her surroundings, looking for a way out, ignoring the fact of the pain radiating throughout her body, the weakness in her limbs, the dizziness and fatigue even now threatening to pull her back under.
She had to get out of here!
Calming her breathing, she glanced around as much as possible; lifting her head several inches from the pillow and grimacing against the cramping in her back and between her legs. She flipped a damp strand of hair from her face with a jerk of her head. Eyes wide and searching, huffing through the mask.
Bright lights glared from the ceiling, making no room for shadows. She was surrounded by machines in different sizes, beeping and blipping, tubes and various lines connected her to them. Dials and blinking screens covered the steel surfaces. Just beneath the sound of the machines was a steady thrumming.
Her breath froze in her chest as she realized it was the sound of the infant heart monitor.
Fighting panic, she continued her inventory of the space. An IV drip delivered saline and a metal tray held nothing but a squeeze bottle and two syringes right besides her. Behind this, a long counter. There were instruments, gleaming in the harsh white light of the room, lined on a white towel next to a sink. She couldn't make out what they were. It didn't matter.
Karai turned her head. On the opposite side of the narrow room, more of the same, except the upper half of the entire wall was made up of what looked like mirrors. Most likely, two-way. She was being observed, she was sure. Her jaw clenched, the muscle jumping.
Her pale, ghostly reflection stared back; like a wraith sitting in the room with her. Karai frowned at her ragged appearance. How drained. Her eyes circled and cheeks hollow on either side of the oxygen mask. She shook her head. The damp hair hung in limp strands on either side of her face, barely moving with the motion.
She looked like a corpse. With a shudder, she swept her eyes from her reflection, swallowing dryly. There was also a rolling cart with a plastic basin on top of it. The sides of the basin were clear and low. Inside of it a tiny medical cot. Beneath it more dials. The bassinette where newborns were evaluated, cleaned and weighed.
She pulled at her restraints. Her cheeks puffed with the effort. Thrashing until she slumped back, wrists sore and starting to bleed.
"Mmph." Her tongue was a ball of wheat, poking the tender insides of her parched mouth. She winced and tried again. "Leo . . ."
Blinking, her head flopped back onto the flat pillow, startled by the sound of her voice, so thin, so weak. Startled more that his name was the first she spoke. And why should that surprise her? She loved him, didn't she? She did, but she hated this. This vulnerability. This weakness. She wanted this child, but hated what it had done to her: rendered her useless. Pathetic.
Her jaw clenched and her eyes burned. Her gaze roved down to the swelling stomach that blocked her view directly in front of her. The huge inhuman bulk of it beneath the paper gown. The source of her weakness. The reason she'd been captured and the love of her life taken away to most likely be tortured once again. Possibly killed.
And this time she was in no condition to come to his aid. She could do nothing to help him. Nothing.
Her eyes pinched closed. Dammit.
Why had she ever fooled herself into thinking there was a life for her and Leonardo? Dr. Tsuneo had warned her. He had wanted her to end the pregnancy as soon as he learned of the paternity.
# # #
"Karai," the old doctor stared at her from above his half-moon spectacles, "you cannot be serious. This-this cannot be. I would advise strongly against seeing this to term. I can help you. Please allow me to take care of this for you."
She moved to cover her slightly swelled stomach, to shield the life within, but crossed her arms over her chest instead; jutted out her chin. "It's not your decision."
Dr. Tsuneo regarded her coolly, but not unkindly. "Your father -"
"What my father doesn't know can't hurt him. He will remain unaware as I stipulated in our agreement."
The doctor sighed and sat back in the chair. He glanced out the window, listening to the sea breathe as it rolled across the sand and the gulls cry as they endlessly circled. Searching. He removed his glassed and rubbed at his eyes. When he turned his attention back to Karai, there was a deep sadness in his eyes. "You have been like a granddaughter to me. And so, I will give to you the advice I would give to my own flesh and blood."
Karai braced herself, tightening her arms across her chest. This man had been nothing but good to the Oroku family. Had seen them at their best and worst. And Karai, if she was being honest with herself, did see him as something like family. Despite the urge to order him to be silent and do as he was told, she remained still. She was paying enough to have him here, she didn't need to be lectured. But she remained quiet. Eyes glued to one side. But listening. He was all she had, in terms of someone to trust, outside of Leonardo.
"Bringing a child into the world is an honor, one not without grave responsibility. And that is in the usual case. You are taking on much, much more by giving life to such a thing."
Her face snapped up, speaking before he could continue. "It's not a thing. My husband is not-" she caught herself with the widening of the old man's eyes.
His eyes bore into hers until she cast them to the floor. "I see."
Her mouth worked and she sat forward, gripping her knees. "I know what I want. I know what I'm doing." She looked up. "The rest of it," she fluttered one hand through the air, "the rest of the world - everything else - can go to hell. I'm in control here. I'm having this baby. No matter what."
Tsuneo shifted in his seat. "Well. Your mind is made up. Yet." He tried again to reason with her, to make her see the enormity of what she was actually doing with this decision. "I do not think you fully understand the risks."
Her eyes narrowed. "I know what I'm doing."
Dr. Tsuneo continued to look as though he wanted to say more. His eyes were watering and filled with an unknown sorrow. "That may be true. But the price exacted for this," he sighed, "life, this path, you have chosen . . . it will be extraordinary. Perhaps more than you realize. More than you might be willing to pay."
Karai stared at him. Fear dogged the edges of her reason. She shoved it away. "I'm not afraid. Not of this or anything else. Can you help me get what I want or not?"
After a moment of silence, he nodded, "I will help you."
She sat back, relieved.
"But," he added with a deep sigh, "I am afraid for you."
The girl, looking so vulnerable and foolish to him, so terribly young, smirked.
"Well, don't be. I can handle anything. Our love," she added with the fierce confidence that only the very young and naive boast,"can withstand more than you know."
# # #
Karai slammed the back of her head against the pillow in frustration; thrashed it from side to side.
She had to get up, off this bed. To find Leo and get out of here. But then she remembered the blood, the cramping pain before Tsuneo had arrived, the helpless feeling as she slumped in and out of consciousness while all around her the world was breaking apart at the seams; the terror of feeling that her body was rejecting the life nearly grown within her. The life that was created from the love she shared with Leonardo.
And the fright of helplessness returned in full rendering her infuriated and weak. From between clenched teeth she groaned and then sucked in air as hard as she could.
"Aaaangh-ahaaah!"
It came out frail. Feeble. Breaking into a gasping sob.
This wasn't how this was supposed to be.
A/N: Thank you for reading! Hope you are still with me and not sharping your pitchforks and lighting your torches just yet.
Save them for later.