Raphael's point of view:
There were very few things in my life that made me scared enough to barf. The fear of anything happening to my brothers was one. And, Splinter being angry was the other. Normally, he was calm, peaceful, and unshakably serene. Growing up, he would roll his eyes at our antics and sigh something out, like "Kids," or "Please, be more careful, my sons."
He very rarely got pissed off, but when it happened, it was absolutely terrifying. He'd get really, really quiet, and inhaling deep breaths, and that silence would always be like waiting for a storm to break. The look he gave Karai made my blood freeze. I saw him eying Karai, his yellow eyes narrowing in rage, and the snarl making his hackles rise.
Splinter didn't seem to really care that much about answering Karai's question. Hell, he didn't answer her at all, except to lash out with the speed of a striking cobra, and club her across the temple with the blunt pummel of my sai. I watched the shock flicker across her face before she toppled into a heap, spilling in front of Splinter's bloodied robes like she had been chopped down at the knees.
He bolted forward, curling his claws into her hair and hauled her up backwards, one wiry, furry arm knotting itself like a vine around her neck. He dragged her back up to her knees with one savage yank. She didn't have much choice. If she had stayed on the floor, her neck might have been snapped.
I heard her grunt and then the long thin whine of terror as Splinter held the sai to her throat.
"Let my sons go, or I will slit her throat." He hissed as he slid the sai's point into her quivering skin and drew a trickle of red.
I saw Karai's face twist up in terror as she flinched. She really, really thought that there was a chance that he would kill her.
So did I, actually.
Karai managed a sliver of a whisper, as she snapped a curt order to her little troop. I saw them all look at each other stupidly, and wait for some idea of what to do.
"What makes you think that I have allowed Leonardo to live, rat?" She managed to hiss out as she tugged at his arm, hoping to gain some sort of leverage.
He growled and tightened his elbow, and her cruel question dribbled off into a strangled yelp.
"Raphael." Splinter said my name quietly. I winced when I saw his yellowed-eyed squint and that tortured look on his face.
"Leave this place, my son."
Karai narrowed her eyes, and I saw that smirk wither across her lips.
"Raphael. Normally, you would have a much stronger answer than just this….silence. Are you injured? Or are you, perhaps…..dead?" Karai was nearly purring the questions.
Dead, nope, not yet, anyway. But there seemed to be quite a good chance that I didn't have much longer to live. I was curled up with my shell braced against the wall, and the couch still shoved out from where I had kicked it forward. Yep, the last great act of my life was kicking a couch and dying in the Lair. It was worth it if at least Donny and Mikey had more time to run. I took some sad satisfaction in knowing that they were as safe as they could be in the situation.
So, I did the next stupid thing. I decided to run my mouth and give my baby brothers a bit more running time.
"You know damn well I ain't dead." I snapped.
"My son! Leave!" Splinter barked out the order, and I heard the edge of panic when I didn't shoot to my feet to either run away, or take a swing or something. I could haul myself a few inches at a time by crawling up the wall and using my good arm to grip, if I had that kind of time. That was it. There wasn't much of a chance of me making a run for it, when I couldn't get up, and no chance at all of fighting with my injured arm cinching up and aching.
Yeah, the whole thing just sucked. I didn't really have much time to think things through-not that it would have done much good.
Karai's eyebrows crawled higher and higher on her forehead when I stuck out my good arm to wave sarcastically. By then, some of the braver Foot had regained some spine, because they managed to find my little hidey-hole behind the bricks, yank me to my feet, and unceremoniously dump me to the ground in front of Karai's nice, shiny black boots. I managed to get a good swing to one face, but that was it. I landed with a curl and a grunt of pain, cradling my arm against my plastron and fighting back the tears from the agony that shot like a spike of lightening through my wrist bones.
I didn't bother to rise. I couldn't at that point.
"Raphael! What are you doing?! Why did you not flee? Why are you still here?!" Splinter nearly choked as the sai trembled. He stared down at me, eyes glittering.
Karai narrowed her eyes into mean little slits as she looked at my arm. It was still wrapped, but the bandages were sullied and my fingers swollen and the wrist dangling uselessly.
"He did not run away, because he cannot." Karai purred out, with a smirk. "I know, rat, that you have four of these..abominations you consider to be your children, but yet, I only count two."
She looked at me, her dark gaze lingering curiously over my bad arm, and the scars that were etched over my shell. She was drawn up short by Splinter's jab, but now, she seemed more annoyed by it than terrified.
"Where are your brothers, turtle?" Karai snapped. I hitched my good shoulder.
"Damned if I know. They ain't here."
Raphael squinted at me, and I quickly tilted my head towards the Lair's exit with a tight little smile. Whatever happened now, Mikey and Donny were out of the Lair.
Meanwhile…
Donny's head was throbbing as he instinctively raised one hand to massage some of the ache from his temples. He and Mikey were still huddled to the little refuge that Mikey had dragged them, the long back hallway that spiraled outward towards escape. It was a remarkably intelligent choice, given the panic of the moment. The echo factor would alert them both to any intruders well enough in advance to flee. If there was another explosion, the two walls of bricks would provide a bit of a protective buffer….maybe.
Donny put a shaking hand to the bricks, felt the cold reassurance and shut his eyes to collect himself.
"Donny? What are we going to do?"
Mikey stared up at him, his eyes huge and scared. The blood dribbling down the cut from his eye made him look even younger as he looked at Donny.
Donny drew another shaky breath, gentled a palm over Mikey's shoulder. "Right now, we need to put as much distance between the Lair and us as possible. Come on. Let's go."
Mikey tensed under Donny's grip, and shrugged it off in bewilderment. "What? Donny, we have to go back! We can't just let Master Splinter and Raphael be captured or-"
"And what exactly do you propose we do, Mikey?" Donny snapped. "If we storm back to the Lair, we're only going to be handing ourselves over to be butchered. We're outnumbered. We're weaponless."
"Donny, that's our brother and dad we left back there! With the Foot! For all we know, Karai could be killing them right now!"
"And we're not going to do them any good if we get ourselves killed. Which is exactly what will happen if we go back." He said, curtly.
"But-" Mikey was silenced when Donny gave him a shove forward hard enough to make Mikey stumble.
"We need to get going. Now." Donny snarled quietly, as he gave the darkness over his shoulder a worried look.
"So, that's it,then. Your idea is to just run away and save your own skin." Mikey hissed as he caught himself from falling.
"No, my idea is to save both of our skins from the Foot so that we can think of a plan and save our family. That's my plan. You got a better one?"
Mikey miserably shook his head. "No. But we can't just leave them to die, Donny! We can't!"