She was wrapped in Leonardo's warm coat and huddled under Michelangelo and Spader's ragged wool blankets. And she was still cold. After supper Mike had dragged her into the corner, where there was a thin mattress on the floor.
"You're going to bed, April. Now. No arguments."
April couldn't think of a single argument against going to bed—she'd never felt this tired in her life. But sleep wouldn't come. Her battle with Angel was looming.
It didn't help that the only friends she had in the world were discussing her fate a few yards away.
Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Spader were talking in hushed tones that carried across the room perfectly, faces serious in the flickering light of Mike's battered oil lamp. April dragged the heavy knit cap that Mike had lent her down over her eyes and ears, but she could still hear them whispering.
"That's thirty-seven," she moaned, rolling over and trying to bury her head even deeper under the blankets. She could hear their muffled exclamations of surprise.
"April, you're still awake? Get some rest, will ya?"
"Sheesh, April—sleep already!"
"You need some company over there, milady? Cuz I'd be happy to—OW!"
She sat up abruptly. Spades was rubbing the back of his head and shooting black looks at Mike, who was grinning and cracking his knuckles.
"Thirty-seven?" Leo asked.
"So far, you've rehearsed at least thirty-seven ways I could potentially get my ass handed to me on a silver platter tomorrow. I was sort of hoping for a more impressive vote of confidence, guys. There's got to be some hope for me, right?"
They shot guilty looks at each other. Leo stood up. "April, can I talk to you for a minute?" He raised an eyeridge at Michelangelo and nodded toward the door.
"C'mon, Spader—time for perimeter duty," Mike ordered, dragging the Captain to his feet.
Leo waited for the other two to leave before dropping to his knees next to her pallet. "I'm sorry—we shouldn't have been speculating about the fight in front of you."
"Or you should have included me in the conversation." She drew the blankets around her thin shoulders. "I guess there's really no way I'm going to beat Angel."
Rising, he pulled her to her feet and led her to the boarded-up window. The night wind murmured a sad lullaby through the chinks in the makeshift shutter. Reaching up, he ripped off the rotten corner of the plywood. "Tell me what you see." His face was inscrutable behind the dark glasses.
She looked out upon the barren cityscape. "The Incinerator, of course." That monstrosity, ablaze with the three-pronged Foot symbol, had dominated the New York Skyline since almost the first week of the Shredder's takeover.
"The power plant, in the distance. Someone's lit the beacon on the roof, so there must be a Market tonight. The Library of the One Truth. The munitions plant and the science complex…the slave quarters—" and the Asylum, she mentally added but would not say aloud.
One building dwarfed the rest: the One Government's central command, the nerve center of the tangled, smoking rubble that New York had become. "Shredder Tower. I think he might be trying to compensate for something…."
She turned away from the window, but he roughly shoved her toward it again. "You're just listing the buildings, April. What do you see out there?"
His hand was pressing painfully into her lower back, forcing her against the wall. Her palms started to tingle with sweat, and her voice shook slightly. "A lot of dust and ash blowing around. The sky looks…lower than usual. Like it's brushing the rooftops. And it's a sick red-black color."
"More," he commanded quietly.
She licked her lips. "I see Legion Bot patrols scouting the streets uptown. I see Utroms in the sky." Suddenly a flood of what looked like black ants poured out of one of the larger brick structures by the river. "There's been a shift change at one of the armament factories, I can't tell which one from here. There's a child in the street down below, picking through a pile of junk next to the sidewalk."
Pinned tightly against the moldy window, she had a vision of the rotten wood giving way beneath her weight, of plummeting eight stories down into a pile of junk in front of a very surprised street kid.
"That's all, Leo. That's all I see. P—please," she gasped.
He released her. Her first thought was to get away, but the expression on Leo's face stopped her cold.
The glasses were gone; luminous hazel eyes, wreathed in jagged scars that trailed across his face like poisonous vines, stared at her, unblinking. She could see herself reflected in them, could see a flicker of red where the light from the polluted sky had bled into his vision. His mouth was frozen in a grotesque parody of a grin.
"No hope, then, April? No hope out there? You see it doesn't matter who wins the battle tomorrow night. We'll still be crushed. We'll be crushed with Angel, or with you." His hands twitched toward the hilts of his katanas as he stared through her for a few moments; she could faintly hear the sound of his teeth grinding together.
"Back off, Leo."
April slowly exhaled as Michelangelo, nunchaku in hand, circled behind his brother. Leonardo stiffened. Then he shook his head as though trying to rid himself of a dream…the glasses were on once more, the face hard and bare of expression.
"Personally, I'd prefer it if you won; Angel's been getting sloppy in her leadership lately. There're more than a few Resistance members who want her out, although the commando units are still loyal. But you have to understand that I have no hope for you, April. There's none left for any of us."
"Enough. I think you'd better take a walk, bro. April doesn't need your brand of encouragement right now."
"Face reality, Mikey. She doesn't have a chance tomorrow."
"Get out. Now."
He shouldered through the doorway past Michelangelo.
"Hey, what's the big hurry?" she heard someone protest from the hall. Spader clumped into the room. "That's one unhappy ninja mercenary, folks," he commented, dropping an armload of fragrant Chinese food containers on the table. "I found breakfast. You can thank me later."
He cast himself down in front of the door, wrapping the edges of his patched cloak beneath him. April had never seen anyone fall asleep that quickly.
"I'm sorry, April, he gets like that at times—" Mike began. She felt the tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes. "—I'll kill him," he finished, his voice harsh.
"Stop. There're a lot of things that I can handle; you guys being at each other's throats all the time is not one of them."
April lay down again in the darkened room, lulled by Spader's soft snore. She tossed and turned on the cold lumpy bed, trying to drive Leo's parting words out of her brain. Frustrated, she sat up again. Michelangelo was at the table, poring over a large sheaf of papers by candlelight.
"What're you reading?"
He frowned and flipped through the dusty pages. "Just Casey's Rule for Single Combat—which, from all appearances, he wrote with Raph during Dollar Draft Night at the Scales. Ha—look at this." He held up what looked like a stained cocktail napkin. "The rough copy."
"You're kidding me."
"Listen, here's rule number one: 'Both fighters must wear approved combat gear: one regulation white goaltender mask.' Rule two: 'fighters are allowed one golf bag filled with the weapons of their choice.'" His blue eyes widened. "Rule three: 'fighters must begin the contest with the approved battle-cry, Goongala-Cowabunga!' It…it sort of goes on from there. But you get the picture."
"I can't wait to hear Angel yell that. Even if I have to eat through a straw for the rest of my life, it will be worth it."
Michelangelo snorted. "Knowing Angel, she'll make it look good."
"I'm a little concerned that I'm fighting for leadership of an organization that bases its infrastructure on secondhand beer coasters." It wasn't hard to interpret the look Mike gave her; well, he was your boyfriend, April.
"Mikey," she continued uncertainly, "Will you be my second?"
"I don't know if that would be a good idea."
"It's just, I was counting on—"
He held up one finger. "Don't say his name—I was just starting to feel better about life. Let's go over our options in the morning, 'kay? I'm wiped."
"What about Spader?"
"He would be one of the options we need to go over."
"But—"
He blew out the candle; she waited as he pulled back the blankets and slid in next to her. Warmth.
"Tomorrow," he whispered. Then he, too, was asleep.
"Hey, Casey!"
"Baaaaaabe! You are fine."
They are embracing. He feels powerful, real, under her fingertips, but she knows it can't be.
"You wanna hit the movies later?" he asks, lovingly stroking her rich red hair.
She wakes up, face wet, reaching for Warmth, for Michelangelo, nestling her grimy cheek against his scarred chest.
"M'here," he mumbles, half asleep. "Gonnawakeupsoon, promise."
Red light pierces the chink in the shutter. Raid sirens wail. Though Mike's room is high above the street, April can still hear the sounds of panic, running feet, crying children in the alley below. Then the roar drowns out all sounds of life: Karai Legions swarming the night, rounding up outsiders and street kids, rocketing through the air only feet away from her head.
Spader crouches by the window, explosive-laden arrow on string, waiting to fire but unwilling to give away their hiding place. The flaring rockets shed light and heat on his unmasked face: it is craggier, older, wiser than she expected it to be. His spiky blond hair is pushed back from his wounded forehead, contained by the bloodstained bandage—a reminder of another battle fought only hours before. His eyes narrow but he does not loose the arrow…he waits.
Michelangelo is searching a navigational chart by the weak light of the candle and shouting desperately into a battered communicator. April can only close her eyes and pin her hands against her ears as another swarm of Bots shatters past their hiding place.
Then silence returns, remade as quickly as it was destroyed.
Spader laughs, his face suddenly young and mischievous again. "Just a random raid," he says, the relief obvious in his voice. "They don't know we're here." He stays at the window, peering out into the gloom.
"They'll know soon enough, and they'll regret it," Mike growls defiantly. But his hand is shaking when he returns to April's side, and she lays a cool palm on his forehead and waits while he falls asleep.
The room is less dark, and she can see him standing guard by the window, peering out through the hole he made, sucking the relatively pure morning air into his lungs like a drowning man.