Denim dropped the phone. Connie's voice became an abstract noise in the distance. She slid to the floor, the cold concrete beneath her doing nothing to stop the room from spinning. She thrust one hand out to stop herself from collapsing. Lowry had her. He had Alli and he did unspeakable things to that mutant. He was a sociopath, a murderer, and he had her daughter.

She retched, barely felt the cool fingers pulling back her hair, a second set thrusting a trash can in front of her. There was nothing to throw up. Leo's voice was distorted. A whirl of turtle and human legs began moving methodically around her. So many voices, orders being given. Leo had her phone. Mikey took it, was talking.

Denim's stomach heaved again, her heart pounding so hard she thought it would explode. Her blood was electric, thrumming hard in her fingertips. Where did he take her? Had he hurt her? Hurt her… Denim's blood flashed hot. I'll kill him. I'll kill him. Oh. I am so gonna kill that son-of-a-bitch.

Baby girl, when I get you back, no one on this planet will keep us apart.

She swiped her eyes, scanned the room from one end to the other. Everyone was busy, appeared to be arming themselves. April was tying her hair back, while Karai selected a sword, and Donnie was reaching for something Denim couldn't name. Michelangelo was still on the phone, one hand holding it, the other slipping shuriken into a utility belt. All the while, Leo was still giving instruction.

Michelangelo would want her to stay, and there was no time to argue with him. She was through with that. She would show him she who she really was, what she was capable of, and get her daughter back all at the same time. Besides, if he knew what she was going to do he would only try to stop her. She slunk out the door, found her legs shaky but functioning. Spying a door on the far side of the room, she slipped out.

XOXOXOX

There wasn't a crowd on the street, at least not in the spot she emerged from the manhole. She was glad for that. It was dark out too, another something in her favor. She'd take it. The street at the far end of the alley, however, was bustling with people. She couldn't tell from there if they were friendly or hostile. After tightening her shoelaces and sweeping her hair back into a tight knot, she pulled her hoodie up. She slipped into the flow of people, realized they were just civilians, not part of a riot. After determining her location, she understood why, she was near the library. All of the riots were near the police station.

She made her way toward Connie's. It wasn't far. A ten minute jog. But when she rounded the corner to her street, she found it filled with news vans, reporters, and police cars. Had Connie called the police? Had Mikey told her to? She slipped into the alley that ran behind the houses.

Denim didn't knock on the back door to Connie's brownstone, instead pulled the hide-a-key from beneath a flower pot to get in. "Mom! Mom!" She ran from room to room looking for her, found the first floor empty, raced upstairs and ground to a halt outside Alli's room.

Her daughter's scent assaulted her. Every maternal bone in her body wanted to crumble, to curl up around herself, pulling everything that belonged to her little girl close so she could breathe her in, have her near. Which was exactly what Connie was doing.

It was the normal thing to do and if Denim didn't get Alli back, if she didn't know where or how to find her, or even who had taken her, she might curl up beside her mother-in-law and weep. But Denim had the answer to all of those questions. She knew what she had to do. She just needed two things to get the job done.

"Connie." Denim stood in Alli's door, trying not to let the details distract her. The soft pink walls, the tulle curtains, the stuffed animals overflowing from her toybox… The little music box on her antique-white dresser with a picture of Denim and Kyle on their wedding day taped where the mirror should be. Denim shouldn't be paying attention to any of this. Not when there was work to be done and her daughter to bring home. "Connie," she repeated.

"Denim?" Her mother looked up from Alli's pillow, red-eyed from sobbing.

Denim took a deep breath, tried to calm her racing heart, struggling to fight the panic that beckoned her. It won't help. It won't help. "Mom, I need Sugar. Do you still have her?"

Connie's brow furrowed. "She's in the safe with Daisy and The Musketeers. Don't worry, I keep them locked up when Alli's here. She doesn't even know I have them. Do you think they stole them, too?"

Denim snorted. "They stole Pretty and the boys. The police have my Beretta and I'm going to need more than a .38."

Connie sat up. "What are you talking about? Tell me that Michelangelo isn't behind this," she sniffled and sighed, "I was just talking to him and he seemed really upse-"

"You know what, Mom. It turns out this isn't about mutants at all anymore. Not really. It never was. I mean that might be how it began but, that's not what any of this was. Michelangelo was just the push Keith needed." Denim's eyes watered.

Connie's feet slid to the floor. "Who's Keith?"

"Keith Lowry was Clarence Abbott's father, one of my targets in the war. Keith has been offing every sniper that fought on our side, because he didn't know who did it. Only I'm pretty sure that now he knows it was me that killed his son…" Denim swallowed the lump in her throat, tears slipping down her cheek. "He took Alli knowing I'll come for her. So I need Sugar, because Keith plans to kill me with my own rifle."

Connie's mouth hung open, but Denim didn't wait for her to react. There wasn't time, she wasted too much already. She ran downstairs to the library and reached for the family portrait over the fireplace, protecting the massive safe behind it. Denim turned the dial, knew the combination, Kyle's birth date, by heart.

The safe opened and she grabbed the long box, the attachments, her ammunition, and the bottom garment box, hers, which rested beneath Kyle's. She glanced at the flag they'd given her after his funeral. She hated opening this safe. It hurt like a punch to the gut every time she set eyes on its contents. She loathed that her past was as dark and repulsive as it was, but above all she would kill the asshole that took her baby because of it.

With shaking hands she loaded the rifle and her supplies into her soft case. She laid the stocked bag on the cherry desk and set the garment box alongside it. With a deep breath, she opened the box, moved her uniform aside, and reached for the black bodysuit beneath.

It wasn't a gilly suit, although she and Kyle each had a trunk of those in the basement. This was something snipers didn't have standard prior to The Mutant Liberation War. Because many of the battles were fought in the city, and she did most of her work at night, this was one of her primary uniforms. It fit her like a glove and made her damn near invisible at night. Well it used to, prior to Alli. Denim sighed. She weighed the same but her shape and changed a bit. She hoped it still fit.

She stripped down in the library and was struggling with the zipper when human fingers closed the back, her mother's voice steeling her resolve. "Bring her home, Denim. But don't kill that man. You can't raise Allison from jail."

Tears streaked Denim's cheeks, but her jaw was clenched. "Well, you be sure to tell her how I got there." She turned picking up the rifle bag. "And don't leave anything out."