Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

4

The next day, I sat on the hard stone floor of the turtles' training room, yawning. I wasn't able to get any sleep the night before and ended up spending most of the night tossing and turning. The idea that there was actually something out there that could turn humans into giant rats and turtles into giant mutant turtles was somewhat terrifying, and this had dawned on me the exact moment I had laid down to try to go to sleep. Go figure, right?

Eventually, I had managed to put the idea out of my head and stop worrying about it because with everything else that had happened already, did I really need to worry about stuff like that? I decided that I was on a strict need-to-know basis and the turtles seemed to agree with me because if they had wanted me to know, they would have told me. If I was meant to find out the answers to these questions, then the answers would come to me on their own. I wasn't about to go looking for them.

Now, I sat watching the turtles spar against Splinter and April, and couldn't help find myself feeling slightly awed. And very bored. I mean, martial arts are cool and all, but if I don't like to watch movies about it, why would I like to watch it in real life?

I sighed quietly and stood up. I walked across the room to where all the weapons and armor were, carefully avoiding the training platform. The collection of weapons was amazing. I couldn't imagine how they had possibly gotten all of them. Mom would have loved these.

"Hey, watch out!"

Before I could realize what was happening, I was down on the floor, being pinned to the ground by Michelangelo. "Are you okay, dude?" he asked as he held me down.

"I will be once you're off of me," I said, pushing him off of me. "What the hell happened?" I demanded, looking around at everyone.

"You almost got your head taken off, that's what happened," Raphael said, pointing at something behind me. "Don't you know it's dangerous for civilians to hang around a ninja training session?"

I turned and saw a thin black fan with razor edges, sticking out of the wall where my head had been only seconds earlier. I gaped at it.

"It's not her fault, Raph," April said quickly, glaring at him. She rushed over to me and helped me to my foot. "Dani, I am so sorry. I was sparring with Donnie and I just made a mistake with the tessen. I'm really sorry."

I looked from her to the fan and back again. "Uh, it's fine, I guess. Probably my fault for not paying attention. I was just thinking..." My voice trailed off as I finished the sentence inside my head. "About nothing." I pushed past April. "I'm just going to go out here where I can't get killed."

I walked across the lair to the makeshift living room and collapsed in a black beanbag chair Michelangelo had dragged out of his room earlier this morning. I sank down into it until I was able to use it as a pillow. I hugged the soft, smelly chair close to me and closed my eyes. That was twice in less than a week I had almost been killed. What was wrong with me?

"You know, if you're trying not to get killed, you may not want to hang out with such dangerous people."

I looked up to see Raphael sitting down on the couch beside me. "Like you?"

He shrugged. "Or your gangster boyfriend, Mr. Luke Skywalker."

I scoffed. "He wishes. Anyway, aren't you supposed to be training?"

"Training's over, thanks to you," Raphael informed me, smirking. "For today, anyway."

"Thanks to me, more like."

I looked up to see April, Donatello, and Michelangelo walking over to us. Michelangelo sat in the red armchair by the couch. April and Donatello sat beside me on two thin cushions.

"It's no one fault, dude," Michelangelo said, smiling. "Accidents happen."

Most household accidents didn't involve beheading someone, though.

"Where's Leo?" Raphael asked his brothers.

"Meditating with Splinter," Michelangelo said. "Where else?"

"Are you okay?" April asked me.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said.

"You seem awfully forlorn for someone who's supposed to be fine," Donatello said, catching my fib.

I sighed. "I really, really don't want to talk about it."

Donatello shrugged. "Sometimes talking about it is the only way to make things better."

I focused my gaze on the microfiber stitching of the beanbag chair. "I hate New York." My voice cracked as I said it. "I don't hate cities. Just this one. I hate being here with my dad and his girlfriend. I hate having to go to an inner-city school and things have just gone from bad to worse ever since I got here."

"Well, if it's so bad, why don't you just move back home with your mom?" Raphael asked. He sounded slightly confused. Like he thought I had a choice.

I laughed bitterly. "I wish I could."

"Well, why can't you?" April asked me.

I shook my head. "I've never talked about it before. To anyone. I'm not sure I can. I don't feel ready."

Raphael scoffed. "What, and you think sitting around feeling sorry yourself is going to make things better?"

I looked at him. Why should I tell him – them? They were strangers. They didn't know me, my family, or anything about my life. All they saw was some pathetic girl they had saved. "It's not exactly the sort of thing people like to hear about. That makes it hard to talk about."

"We want to hear about it," Michelangelo said. "We're asking to hear about it, aren't we?" He looked around uncertainly at the others.

"We've kind of been doing that for the last five minutes, Mikey," Raphael said.

I dug my nails into the fabric of the beanbag chair. They weren't going to drop it, I could tell, and as much as the idea of discussing my mother scared me, I wasn't sure I wanted them to. I knew they were strangers – potentially meaningless strangers I would never see or hear from again after today. But maybe that was what made them the perfect people to talk to about this.

The others had fallen silent. I could feel them watching me now. Waiting.

I focused my attention on my fingernails and took a deep, shuddering breath. "We lived in Connecticut in a nice house and we got along great. Mom was a professor at a nearby college." I paused uncertainly. I couldn't believe I was actually talking about this.

"So what happened?" Donatello asked me.

I began to blink quickly as tears stung the corners of my eyes and reached up to wipe them away, but it was too. I was crying. "I came home one day after school. The house was empty, but music was playing – it was Mozart. Requiem. It was my mother's favorite. The house smelled strange. It smelled like cookies. My mom never cooked. I went upstairs and put my books away. My mom had left cookies for me on my desk. I took them outside and did my homework in the backyard. I thought Mom had gone to the neighbors' house and she would be back soon, but when I finished my homework, it was almost time for dinner and she still wasn't home. I called her office at the college, but no one answered, so I figured she must have been busy. I decided to go for a bike ride." I was sobbing by now and there was to stop it. I wasn't trying to stop it, either. "I went through the house to get my bike out of the garage, but the door was locked and I couldn't get in. I tried to get in from the outside, but that door wouldn't open, either. My neighbors from across the street saw what was happening and came over to help. When we realized someone had disconnected the garage door, they called the fire department. The firefighters came and used axes to get in, and that was when they found her. She'd hung herself from a rafter beam in the garage. They brought her out in a body bag with the entire neighborhood there to see. I spent the rest of the night in the hospital, being treated for shock."

And all of this had only happened a month ago. That was why the announcement of my father's engagement to Camille had felt so horrible – more horrible than anything else he had ever done. He knew how upset I was by Mom's death, and why wouldn't I be?

The wounds were still fresh. They hadn't even begun to close when he and Camille had sprung that disaster of an engagement party on me. I couldn't think of a reason why they would choose to get engaged a month after my mother's suicide, except maybe to hurt me. Yeah, they loved each other, but Dad had been with Camille while he was still married to Mom and she divorced him when I was seven. Eight years had been passed since then. They had had eight years to get engaged and married, so why would they think now was a good time for it?

It had been the ultimate betrayal on my father's part. That's why I had left that night. Maybe that's why I followed Luke off the bus. Not because I wanted help, but because I wanted to be hurt more. Because I felt I deserved it.

"I am truly sorry for your loss and the pain you have endured."

I looked up teary-eyed to see Splinter standing in front of me with Leonardo standing in the background. Splinter looked sad and understanding as he stood, gripping his walking stick. He put his hand on my shoulder. "The loss of family is the greatest pain you will ever feel. No one should ever be forced to endure it, but eventually, the pain in your heart will fade as you move on and, perhaps, create a new family for yourself."

I looked sadly at him. "We don't all get to pick our families."

"Just because you're related to someone, that doesn't make them your family," Leonardo said, walking over to me. "Your real family is made up of the people who accept you for you."

I moved my gaze back to the beanbag chair. "I just want my mom back." As I spoke, I could feel myself calming down a little. The sobs were slower now. Less hysterical.

I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me and it felt good.

They had been the perfect ones to tell, and maybe they would become more than strangers to me, but I doubted it.

That night I stood on the steps of the entrance of the sewer lair silently. I leaned against the grimy wall of the lair, dressed in the clothes I had arrived in and a set of fresh bandages. The pounding in my head had gone away a long time ago, thankfully, but there was still a dull ache in the back of my skull and my eyes hurt from crying. My mood was a little better, too.

I didn't feel happy, exactly. I was still sad about Mom and angry at Dad, but I was definitely better. The fact that I was getting to finally go home again helped – I was going to get sleep in a bed again. A real bed!

After I had told them everything that had happened with Mom, everyone seemed determined to avoid the subject of anything that was even the slightest bit sad or depressing. I spent the most of the day playing with them and their collection of arcade games from the 80s. I ended up spending the rest of the day being lectured on ninjutsu and ninja weapons after I had accused Raphael of using a pair of salad tongs to fight dirty against his brothers.

Not that I learned anything, but it was worth it.

"Booyakasha!"

I looked up just in time to see Michelangelo coming towards the steps on his skateboard. He jumped, trying to do some sort of trick, but instead the board went flying through the air in my direction and Michelangelo fell on the floor. I didn't even have time to flinch.

"Mikey!" Raphael shouted as he jumped in front of me and grabbed the board right before it hit me in the face. "Would you watch what your doing?" He threw the board on the floor at his brother's feet.

"Hey, it's not my fault," Michelangelo said, getting to his feet. "I had a board malfunction. Besides, I was trying to cheer Dani up." He flashed me the thumbs up sign.

Trying to cheer me up – how? By attempting to fatally injure me twice in one day?

Raphael growled at him angrily. "And what makes you think seeing your crummy skateboard tricks would make her feel better?"

"Well, everyone likes skateboarding," Michelangelo told him, grinning. "Right, Dani?" He turned to me expectantly.

I nodded too stunned to put effort into an actual response.

Raphael glared at me. "Please, do not encourage him."

That made me feel un-stunned.

I smiled at him. "It's good to have hobbies, though. You know, aside from practicing ancient death arts from Medieval Japan."

"We've been over this, Dani," Donatello said, walking over to the steps with Leonardo, Splinter, and April at his side. "It's called martial arts, not death arts."

I shrugged. "May as well be. It is used to kill people."

Donatello opened his mouth to speak, but before he could April quickly said, "Just give it to her."

"Yeah, whatever," Donatello said. He walked over to me and handed me a small plastic object.

I turned it over in my hand. It was made of green plastic and shaped sort of like a turtle shell. The back of it was made up of a clear touch-screen surface. "Thanks," I said, smiling at him. "What is it?"

"It's called a T-phone," Leonardo told me. "It's so you can use it to get in contact with us in case you ever run into trouble."

"Yeah," April said, nodding. "All of our numbers are programmed into it."

I frowned down at the phone. "Trouble," I repeated. "You guys are expecting me to run into Luke again?"

Leonardo shook his head. "Not necessarily, no. We've got a lot of enemies, Dani, and they've got eyes out all over the city. If any of them saw you with us, that puts you in danger."

"Why, though?" I said. "I'm just some dumb girl you saved. Why would they target me?"

"It doesn't matter who you are," Raphael said. "Not to them. They see you with us, then they assume you're important, and that makes you a target. All they care about is getting to us and hurting an innocent outsider to do that ain't an issue for them."

"Yeah, we're talking about bad dudes, Dani," Michelangelo said. "They'll steal your pizza, your back-up pizza, and your emergency pizza money."

I looked at him with raised eyebrows. "You guys have emergency pizza money?"

"That's not the point," Raphael snapped, punching the wall with his fist. "You need to take this seriously!"

"Raphael is right," Leonardo said, frowning at me. "This isn't a game and like it or not, you're a part of all this now, Dani. So when we get you back to the surface, I need you to be on your guard and to have the T-phone on you at all times."

I sighed as I shoved the T-phone in my pocket. "I'm sorry. I promise I'll do my best to look out for trouble, but this whole thing is just really making me nervous."

"Don't worry about the dangers of the past or the future," Splinter said "or else worry consume you. Worry about the dangers that come at you head-on in the now and then you will be safe."

"Try not to think about it too much," April said, smiling. "If worst comes to worst, you'll end up living down here with us." She walked over to me and before I had to chance to dodge her, she hugged me tightly. "I'm really sorry about your mom. I lost my mom, too, when I was a kid, so I know how it feels." She sighed as she released me. "And please, please come visit us again. I can't tell you how cool it was to see an actual human again."

"Don't give her any ideas," Raphael said before I had the chance to respond. "Now, can we get out of here, please."

"Just hold on a second." I turned to the others. "Thank you for saving me and looking after me these past couple of days. I really appreciate it, and I'm sorry if I was a little less than accepting."

April scoffed. "You took it better than I did."

I smiled at her in excited disbelief. "Really?"

She covered her face as she turned away from me uneasily. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask that."

"It is alright, Daniella," Splinter said as the others laughed. "You are forgiven."

I smiled at him. "Thank you."

"Okay," Leonardo said, "now, we can get out of here."

I waved to Splinter and April over my shoulder as I climbed over the turnstile.

"So," Raphael said, falling into step with me as we walked down the long subway tunnel that led to their home. "You seem to have really mellowed out."

So I had noticed.

I shrugged. "Donnie was right. I needed to talk about it."

"I'm pretty much always right," Donatello said, looking at us over his shoulder. "Remember that and you'll have no worries."

"No offense, dude," Michelangelo said, "but I'm pretty sure you're wrong about April wanting to be your –" He fell silent as his brother pounced him and used his bo staff – see, I can use weapon terminology, too – to put him in a headlock.

"Knock it off, guys," Leonardo called back to them, sounding bored.

I glanced at them as Donatello released Mikey, smiling. They really were like normal boys.

"So that's it then?" Raphael asked me. "You're all better – no more crying, no more fighting with your daddy, and following strange guys –"

"Except for you guys, apparently," I said, laughing. "And did you seriously just say 'daddy'?"

"Just answer the question!" Raphael said, looking away from me embarrassed.

Aww, so he did have a heart.

I sighed and shook my head. "I'm not all better. I'll never be all better. My mother committed suicide, I have no idea why, and I have no one to talk to. Not even my dad. We've pretty hated each other ever since they got divorced."

"Not that it's any of our business," Leonardo said as we passed an old, detached rusted subway car that had been decorated with multicolor spray paint and mounted with monster truck wheels, engine boosters, and something that looked similar to a spray-cannon, "but what brought that on?"

I gaped at the subway car as we passed it.

Donnie grinned at me. "It's the Shellraiser. My invention."

I nodded. "Cool," I said, tearing my eyes away from it. I turned my attention back to Leo. "I've always been angry at my dad ever since my mom divorced him for cheating on her. He doesn't like me because he thinks my mom turned me against him and his girlfriend. He says I'm too much like my mother and that's why we don't get along."

That wasn't true, though. He had turned me against him all on his own.

"No wonder you hate it here," Michelangelo said, walking backwards as he talked to me.

"Hey, Dani," Donatello said, typing away at his T-phone, "what's your dad's name – I need to look up his address."

"His name is Wilson Gio –" I said.

He nodded his head as he cut me off. "Giorgianno. I remembered – oh, and look that you guys live in a nice neighborhood."

I looked at him. "Is that so?"

Donatello frowned at me. "No, not really. Crime graphs says you're two blocks away from gang territory. Didn't your father research any of this before he moved here?"

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Eight years ago – apparently, not."

Why would he? That would require him to care.

Raphael reached into a small satchel that dangled from his belt and pulled out a handful of metallic, star-shaped disks about the size of my palm. "Here," he said, pushing the objects into my hand. "They're shuriken. They're kind of perfect for you because you can practice with them at home without any help from us."

I examined the shuriken, rubbing my fingers across their razor sharp edges. I smiled at Raphael. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." He smiled back.

"Hey, Raph," Michelangelo said, "how come you never loan me your shuriken or your sai or anything?"

Raphael glared at him. "Shut up, Mikey."

The subway tunnel went on for miles before it turned into sewers. I walked on the cement sidewalk above the river the majority of the time while the others sloshed through the stinking sewage. I don't know how long we walked for down there, exactly. It felt like hours or days even. But, eventually, we made it to the surface.

"Up you go," Leonardo said as he helped me up the ladder of the sewer shaft, gripping my wrist tightly.

I climbed up the ladder and crawled onto the cold, wet cement where I collapsed. It was dark. The only light came from a few nearby lampposts that looked just about burned out. We were in a long, narrow ally outside some sort of factory. There were cardboard boxes everywhere and I could hear the sounds of workers yelling, and trucks coming and going. Why couldn't I have been this aware the night I'd met Luke?

Maybe having my skull bashed in changed things a bit.

"You guys have got to find a new entrance to that place," I said, getting to my feet. "How much further do we have to walk?"

"We're not walking," Raphael told me. "And you aren't, either."

I looked at him confused. "Um, what?"

"We're going rough-jumping," Michelangelo told me, grinning.

I blinked at him. "B-but I can't rough-jump. I'm not a ninja."

"Exactly," Leonardo said. "That's why you're not walking."

Before I had a chance to protest, Raphael had picked me princess-style and was parkour jumping up the fire escape of the factory, following closely after his brothers. "Oh, my god, oh, my god, oh, my god," I said, burying my face in his chest as his leapt onto the roof.

"Would you stop freaking out?" Raphael said, looking at me. His face bore an expression of mixed disgust and amusement. "I didn't drop you the night we saved you. I'm not going to drop you now."

He had carried me like this the night they had saved me?! Suddenly, I wanted to kill them.

"I can't help it," I said, pulling the hood of my coat over my head. "I hate heights."

"Boy, you'd make a bad ninja," Raphael said, laughing.

A scream escaped my throat as he jumped and flipped through the air onto the adjacent rooftop. This made him laugh even harder. "What are you screaming for?" he said as he ran after his brothers. "Nothing happened. I've still got you. You're perfectly safe."

I glared as I buried my face further into his chest and dug my fingernails, deep into his warm flesh. "Just shut up and get me home."

If I lived through this, he was dead!

"Okay, Dani," Leonardo said when we reached the street my dad lived on twenty minutes. "You can let go of Raph now. You're safe."

"Here, I'll make it easy for you," Raphael said, dropping me unceremoniously.

I glared at him as I got to my feet. Back to being an ass, I see.

I walked to the edge of the roof. We were on top of the rundown apartment building at the end of the street. I could see my dad's building from where I was.

"Dude, was she like that the entire time?" Michelangelo asked, laughing loudly.

"The entire time," Raphael told him, nodding. "She thought she was dying!"

"You know," I said, turning back to them. "I thought ninja were supposed to be silent."

"So were you," Raphael reminded me. "But you were screaming loud enough for the whole city to hear."

I scoffed as I sat down on the edge of the roof to lower myself onto the fire escape. "Whatever. I'm going to head home now." I looked back at them. "Thanks...For everything."

Raphael crossed his arms and frowned at me. "Haven't you thanked us enough tonight – why don't you just get out of here? Can't you tell we're telling tired of dealing with you?"

The feeling was mutual.

"Be nice, Raph," Leonardo said in a warning tone. He turned to me. "He is right, though. You don't have to thank us so much. We were only doing our jobs. Just be sure to call us when you get in, so we know that you weren't attacked by anyone."

As he said this, I moved my hand to the pocket of my coat where the shuriken Raphael had given me were. "And as soon as I'm done dealing with my dad. Got it."

I dropped down onto the fire escape. A cloud of rust fell down on the alley below. I ran down the steps of the fire escape until I got to the final platform. I found the release switch for the ladder and tried to pull it, but it was stuck.

"Great," I muttered, reaching out as far as I could. "Just great. First, I get my skull cracked open with a two-by-four – guess I can cross that one off my bucket list. Then I find out mutated, smart ass turtles are living in the sewers of New York. And now, I have to jump."

I grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder with both of my hands and pushed myself off the platform. "Don't look down," I muttered as I dangled five feet in the air. "Don't look down."

I began to count backwards from three in my head.

Three.

I could hear the turtles above me, still making jokes about how scared I had been when they had gone roof-jumping, although a part of me was glad they were still there, watching out for me. Raphael was the loudest. He sounded proud of himself for some reason.

Two.

Probably because he had managed to scare a poor, stupid human girl. As if that was an accomplishment.

One.

I let go. I fell through the air and landed hard on my knees. Pain shot through both of my legs and I forced myself to my feet, praying that none of the passersby had noticed my fall. This wasn't like the night I had gotten on the bus and needed saving. The streets had been empty then because of the storm, save for a few people. Tonight there were people everywhere, though, and if I got lucky, they'd just chalk me up to being a drunken teenager, causing trouble and they wouldn't even notice the turtles.

I stood silently in the ally I had dropped into, checking to make sure no one had seen. It was similar to the one Luke had taken me to that night, but then I guess all allies are alike. This was one strewn with garbage and litter with a big, green dumpster at the end of it. Luckily, no one had stopped or was staring.

No one noticed nor cared about me tonight.

I looked up as I made my way out of the ally. All I heard from the abandoned apartment building was silence. The turtles seemed to be gone.

I looked around as I got onto the sidewalk. I had never paid attention to the people who roamed this streets before, but after what Donnie had told me about the crime graphs, I felt like I had no choice. Leo had told me to be on my guard after.

The people looked mostly normal, but I saw one or two with dragon tattoos like Luke's. I didn't recognize either of them, though, and they didn't recognize me. Even so, I kept my hands in my pockets at all times – with one hand on the T-phone and the other on the shuriken. As I walked, I couldn't help but wonder what Mom would think of this – me, her daughter being forced to walk down the streets of New York carrying a cellphone and weapons because she knew there was a chance she'd get attacked.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, I got to Dad's building. I rang the door to his loft.

Five minutes passed.

I rang it again. What time was it? Maybe they were asleep.

Ten minutes passed.

I rang it again, never taking my finger off the button until finally someone answered. It was Camille.

She stood in front of me in a pink tank-top and shorts pajama set that clashed horribly with her hair. For a second, I thought she would hit me again, but instead she smiled. "Oh, sweetie, I was so worried about you. Your father's been going crazy."

I felt my spine go rigid as she reached out and hugged me tightly. "He has?"

I couldn't tell if the sweetness in her voice was real or fake this time. Usually I could tell by my instincts or just from hearing her voice, but after what happened the other night, I didn't know what to think. It had been the first time she'd ever hit me.

Camille pulled away from me, grinning. "Of course he has. He's your father, sweetie, and with what happened to your mother, he's just been so on edge." Her eyes filled with tears as she swept back my hair and saw the bloody bandages. "Oh, my god. Sweetie, what happened to you?"

Just wait til she saw the bruises.

"Um, I would rather explain inside," I said. I met her gaze uncertainly. "If that's okay with you."

"Of course," Camille said, stepping aside and letting me in. "Why wouldn't it be okay?"

I shrugged as I followed her down the hallway to the elevator. I stepped inside of it silently.

We rode the elevator in silence. When we got up to the loft, Dad was in the living room, pacing. His eyes lit up when he saw me with Camille, but not with happiness or relief. He was angry at me. "Where the hell have you been the past two days – what the hell happened to you?"

If he only knew the half of it.

Camille guided me into the book-cluttered living room and I sat down in one of the three leather armchairs. "I asked her the same thing downstairs," she said as she sat down across from me. "She wouldn't tell me."

I looked from Camille to my father and back again. "I didn't say that. I said I wanted to explain inside."

Dad stood behind Camille with his arms crossed. "What happened – where were you? Answer the questions."

"I got on a bus after I left," I told him, remembering the story I had made up for the turtles the day before. The tale that was meant for the police. "I fell asleep and had to get off at the last stop. I was lost and some guy in a gang jumped me, but then some friends from school heard my attack whistle and stopped the fighting. I slept over at their place for the past two nights."

Dad stared at me, calculatingly. "A guy in a gang?" he repeated. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"

Was he serious right now?

"Yes, Dad, I do," I said. "What the hell do you think happened – I got the shit kicked out of me by my pimp!?"

"Well, Dani, I'm sorry," Camille said, frowning at me, "but after your behavior the other night, we don't know what to believe."

"M-my behavior?" I stammered in disbelief. I turned to my dad. "She hit me and you let her. I had every right to leave after that."

"I did not hit you!" Camille said, looking horrified that I would even suggest such a thing. "I don't believe in hitting children."

"I don't know who you think you are, young lady," Dad said, shaking his head. "Running away, making up stories, accusing your mother of hitting you – and you couldn't even be bothered to call us to let us know you were safe."

I stared at him in disbelief. "The guy who jumped me lifted my cellphone – he took my wallet, my keys – everything!"

"Oh, really?" Camille said, smiling. "Then how do you explain this?" She held up the T-phone.

"Wha–?" I was so shocked I couldn't even manage to finish the sentence. "When did you –?"

Camille's smile grew bigger, her eyes shining. "When I hugged you in the hallway – you never were bright, were you?" She laughed quietly before her smile turned into a snarl disgust. "Your father asked me to check you for drugs. Looks like he had good reason, too."

I was already checking my pockets for the shuriken – Raphael's shuriken. But it was too late she had them. She was holding them in her hand as she handed the T-phone to Dad. "Those things were gifts from my friends," I told them. "The shuriken are for self-defense –"

Dad scoffed. "What friends – you don't have any friends. You just moved here. You're always saying so."

"I bet she stole them," Camille said, "that's why she looks like this. Because the shop owner caught her and decided to teach her lesson, but that doesn't matter, does it?" She got to her feet, throwing the shuriken to the floor and crossed the room to where I was. She grabbed me by the jaw, forcing me to look at her. "Because you had no business – none – bringing weapons into this house. I don't care what they were for or whose they were. They are going in the garbage."

"You are garbage." I had meant to think it, but the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Then I was on the floor and my head was pounding again. My barely closed head wounds had reopened and the blood was spilling out. Dad was yelling, but I didn't know if it was at me or Camille. I decided to pretend he was yelling at her because he knew she had gone too far this time.

Camille was the kitchen, though, standing at the counter, raising the meat mallet over the T-phone repeatedly. Over and over again. And Dad was standing over me.

That made it hard to pretend.

We got to the emergency room at three-thirty. They were in hysterics when they told the doctors they had found me like this, being jumped by some teenagers in masks. The explanation for the bandages was that they had tried to fix me up at home, but had failed and the doctors believed them. Why wouldn't they?

People got mugged everyday in New York.

As I sat in the doctors office in a paper gown with Dad and Camille, all I could do was wonder what the turtles would do when I never called them. Would they assume I had no desire to contact them ever again?

Maybe.

I hadn't even said goodbye when I saw them last.

After the doctor left to fill my prescription, Camille stood up and walked over to me. "If you ruin one more detail of my wedding," she whispered to me, "I'll make you sorry you were ever born."