Z23

Zoe

I can feel the pull of every stitch as I make my way toward Karai. Donnie is hard at work trying to find me a suppressant for my damned hormones, I've got a screaming baby I'm putting through a cold turkey weaning, Raph is still pissy as hell pounding the crap out a bag, Noah looks like a muted pale shade of green that just breaks my heart about as much as the two loving parents he has doting over him. Leo is talking to Karai at the breakfast table and I've decided, I have some questions to ask her. Something tells me, it's past time I heard her story.

I pour myself a cup of coffee and slide into the seat across from her. Leo's gaze shifts from his tea cup to me.

"Good morning Zoe."

"Good morning Leo." I offer him a small smile and set my eyes on my friend, "Karai."

Karai reads me about as well as Raph does and spins her empty tea cup in her hands. She nods, "Zoe."

I'm not one for beating around the bush, especially when we have a dying baby on our hands. "There's something I don't understand Karai. Do you and Ansgar keep in touch? Just how well do you know him, really?"

Leo's eyes flit to me then to Karai, "You know the hybrid?"

Karai's lips flatten then with a huff that blows her bangs up she slumps back in her chair. "So it's no secret that I was part of the Foot. That Shredder lied to me about who my father was, you guys know all that." She shifts forward, toying with the tea cup again. Her eyes drift up to mine and my stomach rolls. "He funded the program you came from Zoe."

"What?" I straighten, my wounds throb and I slouch enough to take the pull away. What is she saying?

She licks her lips, briefly glancing at a concerned but silent Leonardo. "I know all of the elites, I knew who you were, I- just- I'd never spent time one on one with any of you until... The elites were the guys who made sure things went smoothly at business exchanges. I never had one under my employ, until Ansgar. I worked with him one time on a single mission." She squirms, a slight blush rising to her cheeks and I know she's slept with him.

Leo, knows it too.

"Were we together?" His voice comes out cold, detached, and I fear for them in that second.

"No." She shakes her head adamantly, "I didn't even know you."

Leo says nothing, only nods.

"Then what?" I press.

"It was a brief encounter. I didn't understand hybrid's, how you work, you're differences, until I met you Zoe. Anyway, I never really lost touch with him, we remained friends…" she hesitates, "I gave him the job at the club."

Leo and I both look at her. "What?" we say in unison.

Karai closes her eyes, "I own the club."

Leo sits back in his chair, "Of course. That explains the money that you couldn't possibly be making at a part time job, yet still manage to cover fifty percent of the bills with."

I can't tell if he's hurt, embarrassed or both. When his nostrils flare I decide it's both, tainted with a little anger.

Karai nods, "It was a gift from Shredder before, I knew, the truth. It's in my name so it's not like he could take it away and we need the money."

Leo pinches between his eyes. "Karai, you let our family near this place, you take the women in the family to this place, that he gave you, knowing he could be watching it. Watching you. Ansgar could be working for him, a plant right beneath your nose. What are you thinking?"

She pushes his hand from his face, "That we need money, and that I have everything under control. I have this entire time. I trust Ansgar. The people working in that club, they are loyal to me. Besides we haven't heard anything from Shredder since moving to the farmhouse."

If it weren't relevant to my own life I would've excused myself from the exchange happening between them. But I had more questions, and now, fears. "If he's the one who funded my project, he's the one that owned me."

"And that makes him the one that keeps them hunting for you." Leo closes his eyes, shakes his head.

Karai taps the table with her fingers, "Look at me Leo."

He opens his blues, sets them on her.

"I love you. I wouldn't do anything to endanger our family. I love you and Midori too much. We've come too far. Besides I don't think- he- I think he died – cancer, about a year ago. It's the scientist that are obsessed with the hybrids."

Leo smacks the table, the abrupt motion paired with the loud thwack startling Karai and I both. "You haven't changed Karai, you're still keeping secrets, as good as lies. Someone's leading them, for all I know it could be you!"

I exhale a drawn out breath, "Leo, I'm sure that's not the case. I hardly think Karai would risk you or Midori. And she sure as hell wouldn't have had her enemy's baby. So while I understand your feelings, maybe try to view it from the side of we need the money. Because we do. So if it's your pride that's hurting, that part is not her fault, or yours for that matter. And I hate to tell you to put your feelings aside and deal with them later, but we have an infant in this lair that needs those drugs. We need Ansgar, like right now."

Leo glares at his mate.

I'm proud of her, as she maintains eye contact with him and even more so when she whispers something she rarely says. "I'm sorry."

"Call Ansgar, Karai. Set up a meeting. Let's get him to tell us everything he knows." I glance at Leo, "In some ways we're lucky she has the club, it not only funds us, but now it feeds us intel. Noah would be dead in the water without this resource Leo. He'd be out of time before we found a lead. Think on that at some point."

His face was fixed in an expression that I'd come to recognize as him compartmentalizing, and prioritizing. If I was right, he wouldn't confirm it now. And I didn't think he was quite done with Karai either. "We need a plan."

A small slither of satisfaction crept along my spine. Leo on board, meant Raph on board.

Before I could take the experimental drug Donnie had concocted or a nice shot of Morphine for my throbbing back, I donated a pint of blood for Noah. After that was done, I drank a bottle of water, let Donnie near float me away with a full IV of additional fluids, and ate a meal to make Raph happy. Finally they agreed to set out to finish what we came to do. All the lashing in my head about hypoglycemia, a tiny person like me donating blood, blah, blah, blah. Shut it boys, let's do this.

It's dangerous for our guys to be out creeping in the light of day, but they managed. We were inside the club, that wouldn't open for another four hours. The plan was simple. It was Raphael's intensity that unnerved me, filling my insides with a constant urge to pick a fight with Ansgar; that and the new tension between Leo and Karai, they were all feelings that just weren't helping anything.

Mikey leans against the bar counter beside Raph, looking weary and exhausted. I'd worried over my babies when they simply had caught a bug, what my brother was facing… I cringed. Neither he nor Exodus deserved this. My hands clenched into fists, I would not fail them.

Exodus had stayed at the lair with the babies again, and I couldn't blame her. I'd never leave a fading child either. If you weren't sure if every second may be your last, you cling to what fleeting moments you have. I glanced at Michelangelo again; or you risk them, away, trying to find a cure.

Ansgar unrolls two sets of blueprints on a row of cocktail tables shoved together. "This is the lab," he says pointing to a familiar looking warehouse. I had been close. I knew it. "And this, right next to it, is where King and his hybrids live." Ansgar looks at Leo, "The compound you need, will be in this closet, here, on the second floor. You're best exits are here the roof, or here the basement. The windows are all covered in bars, with boards over them."

"What's the security like?" Donnie asks, eyeing the schematics.

"Cameras, hybrid army, the usual; and of course King and his minions; Teppo the bull, Karney the croc, and Zeus the shark hybrid with a jellyfish sting," Ansgar feigns a grin, "a real blast."

"What's in this for you Ansgar?" Leo asks.

Ansgar laughs, "How about not giving King ninety percent of my paycheck each week just to keep him from turning me over to Stockman and Shelton."

Leo nods, "Fair enough." His gaze drifts over each of us, "Guys, this time, we finish this once and for all. Zoe, with your injuries your on stealth, we want to keep you out of the battle. Your mission is to obtain the drug, and set the charges."

Raph's head snaps up. "Charges?"

Donnie grins, "Charges. We're blowing the joint. Scientist may or may not go up with it, either way-"

"Only the innocent make it out alive," Leo finishes.

I rub my fingers over my itching palms. I like the sound of this already. "Does anyone know what the name of this stuff is? What's it look like?"

Ansgar and Donnie both open their mouths, then Donnie motions to Ansgar, "Go ahead. At least they'll understand what you're saying."

Ansgar doesn't hesitate, and I notice that Donnie's drug must be working because I'm not all flushed and horny listening to him and looking at him. He on the other hand keeps a good distance from me; even puts himself in Raph's danger zone. "It will be in a glass canister, it's a blue liquid. You guys should know it's missing an ingredient, one that would effectively render it a cure for hybrid instability. Without it, it's just a therapy." When he looks at me, a sour taste rises in my mouth. "Fortunately for you the missing ingredient is right there."

"What?"

"You're bone marrow." Ansgar answers me and I look at Donnie knowing it was something we were going to try anyway. Now we knew, we had half of the solution all along, already banked and ready to go in the lab.

"Done," I shrug and look at Leo, "What else Fearless?"

"Donnie is on tech, he has the explosives for you Zoe, see him after we finish here. Mike you're with Zoe. Raph, you and I will keep King busy. Ansgar and Karai, you free their experiments. Guys I want this place cleared of any innocents before it goes up. Once Zoe sets the charges we have two minutes to get out." His eyes roved over us, "Let's go."