The same day I met the rest of the family, I was introduced to a few luxuries I hadn't had at extended ease in a while. That being a wider range of clothing choice and a shower. I wasn't unhygienic, I just needed small packing size and fast washing capabilities in New York. Here at the lair in the sewers, as so kindly shared with me by Raph, I was given different clothing and a shower I could use for as long as I wished. I chose a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve from the selection they had and followed Don to the bathroom. As soon as I was in the bathroom and was able to lock the door I had my back pressed against the nearest wall and was counting my breathing.
I shouldn't be this nervous, it wasn't like they were keeping me captive, and I wasn't confined to the house. I could leave, I could go do my 'job', I could have any of their food, I had a wide range of clothing choice, and besides Leo the others seemed pretty warm to me. The thought of simply living in these people's presences was what was daunting though. The need of communicating, talking, and having to act civil and dress appropriately were my issues.
I took a deep breath and counted to five as I walked through the bathroom. Bathtub/shower to the right, toilet straight ahead, a closet to the left that held towels, and a mirror beside the closet. Pretty straight forward.
I set the clothes down on the countertop of the sink and leaned against it. I stared at myself, turning my face back and forth in the mirror to see how I looked. There was no dirt as expected after being carried through the sewers and sleeping for two days, and the tan I thought I had was gone, washed away by the mirage the dirt had created and leaving behind pale skin. I looked sickly, but that was to be expected. I'm not too good with finding meals now that I'm staying in one place, and the blood loss from the bullet couldn't help too much either.
I glance at my injured forearm and questioned why the hell I needed a brace for a bullet wound. I unclasped the brackets that held it together to see my arm, and threw the brace in the sink. I squinted and stared at the very thin stitching that weaved a star through the hole. It was the size of my pinky nail and had scabbed freshly. It was safe to put under water, or I assumed so because Donatello hadn't said otherwise, which was exactly what I did. I enjoyed a very hot, and a very long shower. A luxury I haven't had since Indiana, when Laura and Tom took care of me. What were they doing today? Let's see, it's Tuesday, so it is schooling and work per family member, and afterward they'd head to the grocery store.
When I finally left the confines of the bathroom, it was after I'd spent several minutes picking at my new clothes. They fit like a glove, but the material was not something I wore ever. I swear it was wool or some other itchy fabric as I made my way back down the stairs to the vast expansion of the living room. I didn't make it halfway down the steps before I heard shouting. A complete one-eighty compared to earlier, and I was about to twist on my heel and leave for my temporary room when I heard the shouting voice sounded feminine.
When the female voice stopped, a Brooklyn accented voice took up space after it, which was a voice I did know. I trailed the steps down slowly, much quieter than before, and paused at the base of the steps to take in the scene. Raph stood up against a red-headed woman. He was backed by Donnie and a human man that was as tall as he was muscled. The red-headed woman, and indeed she was a woman and no teen, stood against the three guys, backed only by Leo, who looked conflicted to even be on her side. Mikey stood off to the side, half in the confrontation, half watching TV.
When Leo saw me, that was when he took action. He stepped towards the woman who was shouting abuse at Raph and placed a three fingered hand on her shoulder. His touch looked like it was the only thing that stopped the woman at that moment, and it made me wonder the why of the situation. Why did she listen to him?
"April, whether you think it was right or wrong, it was Master Splinter's orders. We can't disobey. You can't, not in this home." He murmured to her as he changed his attention from me to April. Raph full on the changed direction of his head to stare at Leo, and his twitching hands ceased to go for his belt, where his three-pronged weapons of some sort rested.
April turned to look at the turtle hominid, and I could see the flex for control she used to listen to the turtle.
"What were you thinking Raph," She asked, and changed attention back to the defendant of this conversation. She continued, "You brought one of New York City's most wanted criminals into your home ! Where did that seem like the right thing to do?"
Raph seemed to grow an inch under her words, even though they were true.
"She was hurt, I wasn't goin' ta leave her ta the dogs!" He answered. The comment was touching, and repetitive to his previous reasonings. It seems he truly does care what happened to me as a human being.
"Come on April, if Raph decided she was worth something, if Master Splinter decided she was worth it, I think we should give her a chance. I mean at the very least, before we start calling for bloody murder. Who knows, she could actually be a cool person. I mean, these guys were." The tall, black-haired man said, and clapped Don and Raph on the shoulders as he said it.
"They weren't killers." She answered, clearly used to the tall man's ways in the way she crossed her arms and stared at him. Tall Man squared his shoulders and stood taller.
"Glossing over the fact that we've all maimed and nearly or actually did kill someone at some point, I think she still deserves a chance." The man said. Leo's eyes glanced over at me at the Tall Man's words and then were gone in a flash.
"Is it just me or is Casey actually making sense?" Mikey asked from over by the couch. A snicker went through his brothers, and Casey turned his head to stick his tongue out at Mikey.
"No, he makes sense, Mikey," Leo answered.
"Course I do, I'm the man," Casey said, and puffed his chest out in a comical Tarzan way. In near symmetry, Don and Raph glanced at each other and brought their elbows up into Casey's sides in a playful taze. Casey's breath left him in a whoosh and he let go of the two to grab his sides as he fell to his knees, crying out, "Man down!"
A laugh escaped my mouth before it registered I made a noise, and suddenly all of their focus was on me. April looked like she was about to charge me, but Leo grabbed her shoulder tighter to keep her in place. Raph and Don spun around at my sound and stared in a similar surprise. Casey created the biggest reaction. He spun on his knees and landed his blue eyes on mine. He stared in surprise for all of two seconds, and then he grinned.
"Black Mask Terror!" He exclaimed aloud enough I noticed a lilt of an accent to his voice. "Come here you."
He stumbled to his feet and moved towards me with arms open wide like he was about to hug me. Raph appeared behind him, grabbed his shirt, and tugged him away from me. Casey stumbled back, clearly surprised from being stopped.
"Don't get too close Casey, she doesn't like being hugged. Or touched for the matter." Mikey muttered. He sounded as down about it as Casey suddenly looked.
Seeing the turtles next to these two clearly human people was a good shock to how different they were. The biggest difference was amusing to me, and I fought a smile at how comical Raph and Don looked next to Casey. The turtles were about my height range; Raph was my height as far as I could tell, Donnie was a few inches taller, Mikey was the shortest, and I never got close enough to Leo to know how tall he was. All four of them were dwarfed by how massive Casey was, though, and it was really funny actually.
Casey looked at me with his head tilted to the side, which reminded me a bit of a lost dog. That look changed quickly though as he smiled again very quickly. He brushed Raph off, which made the red-masked turtle stare suspiciously at the tall man. Casey took a step up to me, maintaining a courteous distance of several feet, and then proceeded to bow.
"Casey Jones. It's nice to meet you, Black Mask." He murmured, his tone and etiquette a difference to the grin that still marred his face. I looked at him, surprised, because this man looked like he clearly enjoyed meeting me, and even the nickname he'd given was different from what I'd been called before. The Black Mask Terror, or Night Terror. I don't think I'd encountered "Black Mask" anywhere as a stand alone.
Casey stood back up with hair flying, which marred the imagine of etiquette he attempted to portray. I looked over at Donnie and Raph, and even at Leo, because I was at a loss of what to do with the man. It was a hard enough time talking to Don, Mikey, or Splinter, and so far Leo has avoided me at all costs. Raph was easiest to talk to so far, but I put that more on the fact we were Night Watcher and Black Mask Terror, rivals in everything except real life, and he'd been the first to talk to me. Casey I had no idea what to do with.
"Um... Elizabeth... Call me Liza... Nice to meet you... too? You aren't going to try and kill me?" I asked as I got straight to the point.
Casey's face turned blank for a moment, and he did the head tilt thing again.
"Lie-zuh. Not the name I imagined for New York City's killer." He said, more to himself than anything. I waited patiently, because I expected him to continue. He realized I'd said more when I continued to stare at him and jumped to talk. "Oh! No, I'm not gonna attack you or anything, and neither will April. I personally think it's kinda cool, you fighting crime the way you do. If you're worried about April, don't be, she's... Protective, mostly, of us. She shouldn't be too hard on you."
April, from behind him, glared at his back, and clearly did not share that sentiment. I looked at her full-on and caught her green eyes for a split second. She stood tough and strong as she stared back, but I saw her shoulders relax a micro-fraction.
"April wasn't wrong, she does kill people." Donnie piped up. Casey shrugged.
"People die everyday. She's just speeding up the process for the bad ones." He answered. Donnie looked taken aback, like he hadn't thought of that before, or maybe surprised Casey had said something intelligent.
"Wow Cas, you actually said something intelligent." Don complimented, confirming my thought. It took me as long as it took Casey to realize the backhanded tease to his statement, and then Casey did a very loud 'Hey!'
"I don't know," Leo muttered to April, answering whatever she'd asked. He faced Raph and asked, "How old is Liza?"
Raph's face scrunched up, and he thought hard for a split second. Don also took the question, though it hadn't been directed at him, and thought about it.
"I don' know," Raph admitted, and turned to me. "How old are you?"
"Sixteen," I answered. I got mixed reactions; from a snort from Casey to surprised looks from the turtles to a strange mix of surprise and mild horror from April's face. I focused on her, because she had the most interesting reaction, and raised my good eyebrow.
"So young." She murmured, and it will go down in history that that was the first words she ever said to me. I sighed heavily and rubbed at my face.
"I'm seventeen soon if it makes you feel any better," I muttered.
"Not really," She answered. "Why do this to yourself?"
"What else do I have to live for," I answered, moving my hands away to stare at the redhead. "I ran away after my family was murdered in a mass homicide from a guy who was bored with his job. I walked away from the ability to have a normal life to get here, and experienced a bit of what the world has to offer along the way. I'm not really a useful member of society during the day, but I'm a useful member of society at night, so why not use it to my advantage? Conk a few heads before my head is conked."
The redhead looked at me like she was trying to understand me, seemed to catch herself, and muttered to herself as she walked towards the dojo.
"Step one of winning April O'Neil over complete," Casey muttered as he watched the woman go. I blinked and looked up at the man with furrowed brows.
"Liza, how is your arm?" Don asked. I moved my head from an awkward angle to a more natural one, and lifted my arm unconsciously.
"Good. Scabbing." I answered. Don nodded and with an awkward wave drew me away from the scene of crime and to his room. I left the room with Casey and Mikey in it, taking the escape gladly as we left for Don's room, the room I noticed at the far end of the hall upstairs.
I sat down on a bed filled with mechanical means and blueprints, holding my arm unconsciously now that attention had been drawn to it. I watched Donnie as he silently mused about his drawers for whatever he had to help my arm. I was fine with the silence, I'd barely shared three words with him in the time I'd known him, which wasn't long, and in those three words, he'd already stopped my arm from bleeding, pulled out the bullet, stopped the infection sure to happen, and given me a bandage. Stitches and a brace weirdly enough, but still a bandage.
I studied him a bit more thoroughly now that I was given the chance. He was still lanky, but he was also muscular in a way similar to Leo, mostly muscles with very little fat, but the compression in the only chair in this room told me he sat down a lot. For all the exercise he must go through, it seems technology and facts were his go-to for fun. He was a thinker, not the brute.
"You stare a lot." He murmured. He pulled out some stitching thread, different kinds of stitching thread, and began to go through them. I glanced at his face at his comment, and then looked around the room. It was organized, messily I'll add, but I bet he could find a two cm wide Phillips screwdriver in under three seconds if I asked. The walls were like the rest of the house, lined with the weird light I couldn't figure out. His bed was made, half of it covered with stuff, the other half empty and used. The main theme was the computer, this bright monitor that was well beyond its age, but it worked like a new computer. The keyboard was thin and didn't seem to be wired to anything, and the mouse was hidden under a stack of papers, something about missing profiles.
"Things are interesting here," I said as I moved to the blueprints tacked to the walls, but backtracked to the missing profiles list again. I asked, "Why a brace?"
He started a search for something up high and came back down with another brace. He grabbed a towel and tossed it to me. I caught it with a free finger, and proceeded to stare at the thing. What did I do with this, bite it?
"The bullet," He started, grabbing a bottle of who knows what. "Fractured your ulna, just an inch from the Carpel. I would have put a cast on you, but I lack the necessary tools, though I don't think you would enjoy it if I did that."
"You'd be right," I answered, and started to remove the brace at his non-verbal command. He glanced at me from his tilted head and then back down at my hand.
"Not your first wound?" He asked as he took the brace from me.
"You should know that. I did wake up clean." I answered, and watched him thread a needle, just in case my arm needed re-stitching. He smiled shyly and awkwardly, and he cheeks did a strange thing where they darkened. A blush, I realized.
"Guilty as charged. I didn't take everything off, just the necessary things to clean you adequately." He said with his smile. I raised my scarred eyebrow at him, and the corner of my mouth tugged up. He turned to me to face me fully and walked up with confidence. He grabbed my hand without prior askance, and I was struck by the texture and temperature difference. He was cool, cold almost, and while his grip was gentle I could feel the leathered skin against my callus palm. His felt human enough, albeit cold and large fingered, and I watched his hands as he moved my wrist and hand around.
"Bullet scar?" He asked, cutting my reverie.
"Attack from a homeless guy I tried to help." I hissed with the burn of the alcohol.
"The other one, the one with an entry and exit wound?" He asked as he rubbed a cotton swab on my arm that numbed it. Carefully, with thin scissors and steady tweezers, he undid the thread that held the stitches in and pulled them out of the healing skin gently.
"A pipe went through my stomach. In through the back, out through the front. I got it from the train crash." I answered, and for a moment I wondered if he knew about it. He'd read my history apparently.
"The fading cut over your breastbone?" He asked, gesturing to my sternum as he said it. I looked at my chest, even tugged my shirt sideways to see the scar. That one should have faded by now.
"Tried to bathe a cat a few years ago. Swore to god it faded already." I answered, and looked back up at Donnie. He pulled the last stitchings out, and began moving the skin around, testing its healing stage.
"Considering you walked across America, I would have expected more scars." He murmured.
"I had a friend walk with me. He made a lot of things bearable until I got to NYC, and then parted ways from me." I answered with a single shoulder shrug. I missed Hitoshi, but I wasn't going to mourn him. I knew these last three years that he would leave when I reached my destination, my misery stemmed from being without him for the first time in years.
Donnie looked up, and then back to his work. There was a moment of silence, which I broke when I started feeling the prodding of his fingers as he checked the bones.
"Are you four related?" I asked. Donnie didn't pause in his movements when he responded, and I found it interesting how easy this was for him. It seems he does this a lot, probably on his brothers.
"I don't know. We were mutated before we could really remember anything. Master Splinter found us in the sewers and helped us. All we know is that we came from the same pet store." He answered. I widened my eyes while an image of a turtle showed up in my head.
"So you were..." I brought my hands together in mock size of a baby turtle. Donnie chuckled at me.
"Yeah." He answered with a grin. I tried to imagine it, four turtles the size of my hand with weapons strapped on and masks over the eyes. I pressed my lips together to stop the smile that threatened to break from the image. It was made harder when Don started to smile wider.
I attempted to calm down while Don finished his prodding and did a quick bandage, but the image of four turtles the size of my fist fighting people the size of humans was invading my head, and each image was funnier than the last. I lost it when Don looked up, finished wrapping my arm, and I saw the humor in his eyes.