Leonardo fought to maintain his practiced calm as he and his brothers raced beneath the city streets. There had been many occasions in the past when he'd asked Michelangelo to slow down in driving one of the Sliders, but this time he wished it would go faster.
His brothers were quiet. There had been some discussion among them up to the point that Leonardo had talked to Luke. Once the blue-masked turtle had outright asked the doctor if Don's condition was life-threatening, however, a tense silence had descended over the Slider.
Leonardo was trying to let neither frustration nor fear get the better of him, but it was difficult. If Mike hadn't felt something, if he hadn't gone looking for Don, none of us would have. We all simply feel asleep with the false sense of security that nothing could go wrong on a little errand like that one. I wouldn't have even noticed Donatello missing until morning.
He wasn't surprised that Michelangelo had been the one to sense that something was awry. The two youngest turtles had always shared a strong rapport, and Mike was known for an uncanny sensitivity where Donatello was concerned.
I'm glad Mike woke up; I just wish I had been a little more aware, Leonardo thought bitterly. It was irresponsible for me to go to bed with him out there alone. I ought to have gone with Donny to begin with…
A hand on his shoulder distracted him from the thought, and Leonardo glanced over at Raphael.
"We're gonna find him, Fearless, no doubt. Everything is gonna be okay," Raphael finished gruffly, probably to mask his apprehension.
Leonardo nodded at his brother, then turned toward Mike who was behind the control panel of the Slider. "What's our position, Mike?"
The youngest turtle studied the display in front of him, reading the map of the roads that were flying by above them with the ease that came from years of experience. "We're only a few blocks out, Leo! It won't be much further."
Leo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He resisted the urge to tell Mike to go faster, and forced a couple more calming breaths. His mind was threatening to spin with the possibilities of what could be wrong with his missing brother, and his heart rate was increasing.
We've got to get there! Why does everything have to take so long?
Minutes dragged by, and he was relieved when he sensed the Slider slowing down. Leonardo got to his feet before the vessel even came to a stop, going to Michelangelo's side.
"Are we close enough, Mike?" he asked.
"The building should be right above us," Mike acknowledged.
His orange-masked brother's words were set off by a text alert on Leonardo's phone. Leo drew out his cell and tapped the screen to read the message, which had been sent by Luke only seconds beforehand. He perused the text silently, and was surprised by how close by his brothers were hovering when he looked up.
"It's from Doc. He found some information on the place we're heading. It's an apartment building that was under construction before the earthquake. The structure went under serious delays, but it's mostly finished now. Definitely not inhabited yet."
"Good," Raphael said shortly. "Then there's a chance nobody saw his shell. Let's go get him, Leo."
After helping to secure the Slider, Leonardo led the way cautiously to the surface. He hesitated at the top of the manhole for a few moments, looking around completely before emerging onto the pavement. He saw what looked like a new development almost immediately, dark and foreboding under the cloudy moonless sky. Leonardo heard a rumble of thunder, but it sounded as if it had come from several miles away.
"How are we doing this, Fearless?" Raphael wanted to know. "Where do we start looking?"
"It makes sense to work our way down from the top," Leonardo said decisively. "But let's take a quick look around the perimeter while we're down here. Be on your guard. We don't know that Donatello was attacked, but it's definitely a possibility."
Leo sensed his brothers huddling in close behind him as he walked around the side of the building, stepping into a shadowed alleyway. If Don's trouble started on the ground, it probably would have been somewhere around here.
The blue-masked turtle studied the pavement and searched for signs of disturbances as they made their circuit. He was in such a state of high alert that he nearly lashed out when someone jerked him by the arm.
"Leo, up, look up there!" Raphael exclaimed.
Leonardo squinted in the direction in which his brother was pointing and managed to make out the end of an insulated cable, tapping against the side of the building in the wind.
"Raph, let me see that kit for a minute," he requested.
Raphael unslung the bag from his shoulder and handed it over. Leonardo searched through the contents of the emergency kit until he located a pair of digital binoculars. Leo fumbled a little clumsily with the device, before remembering the correct way to turn them on.
Leonardo backed up in the alley to give himself space for a better vantage point, then searched for the broken cable in the view finder. He followed where the wire led, and his heart skipped when he landed on what appeared to be a shattered panel of glass. He wasn't able to contain a gasp, and it had both of his brothers crowding him.
"What did you see?" Mike asked.
"I see where our search is going to start," Leonardo said grimly. "C'mon."
The oldest turtle climbed over a dumpster that was directly beneath the fire escape, and began to ascend the side of the building. He felt like he was holding his breath with every step on the metal staircase, anticipation building over what they were about to find. As he drew himself over the front of a balcony, Leonardo swallowed nervously.
He surveyed the scene, noting the piles of tempered glass that littered the overlook like new fallen snow. "Watch your step, guys, there's a lot of glass. The pieces are mostly small, but they could still cut us."
Raphael swore when he dropped onto the balcony beside him. "Shell, Leo, the amount of force to break something like that…"
"Would have been enormous," Leonardo finished. "I have a feeling that cable line factors into this, Raph. Something snapped the wire, and caused something else to come crashing down."
"You're suggesting Donny came crashing down," Raphael said tightly.
"All we can do is look—" Leonardo cut off as the red-masked turtle surged forward, heedless of the glass. "Raph, you have to be careful! We don't need any more injuries on our hands."
Raphael didn't answer him, instead holding up a bo staff that couldn't even be mistaken in the shadows. "He was here, Leo."
"He's still here," Leonardo corrected. "And we're going to find him."
The blue-masked turtle turned around, and found Mike staring vacantly at the ruined panel where the wall of glass used to be.
"Let's go," Leo said firmly. "Stay alert."
Leonardo drew a flashlight out of the kit that was draped over his shoulder, and his free hand strayed toward the hilt of one of his katana as he crossed into the building. The urge to call Donatello's name was strong, but he remained silent.
No sense in giving ourselves away, just in case someone else is here.
Leonardo's eyes roved around the living room that led directly to an open kitchen. The apartment appeared to be nearly finished, to the point that a couple of appliances were already inside. Another large crate was waiting in the center of the living room, and when he got close, it was clear the box had taken some kind of damage.
Raphael came to his side as Leo shone the light over the box and the surrounding floor. The red-masked turtle bent close to the hardwood as Leonardo illuminated it from above, and he traced the surface with his finger. "There's blood down here, Fearless. It almost looks like…"
Raphael trailed off as he searched further around the floor. "Seems like a void. Something was laying here. Something big."
"It's possible that whatever came through that window got hung up on the crate," Leonardo suggested, testing his weight against the box. "It's solid. I think there's another appliance in here."
"But we still don't know if it was Donny," Mike said, from where he'd been quietly observing them. "If it was him, and he was capable of moving, it seems like he would have set off his beacon."
"We have to keep looking," Leo said. He raised the flashlight from the hardwood floor and focused the beam parallel to the shattered glass wall.
On his right, he felt Michelangelo stiffen. The orange-masked turtle darted toward the small center island that separated the kitchen from the living area. From the way his younger brother's shoulders shuddered, it was obvious something had upset him.
"What is it, Mikey?" Leo called.
"More blood," he replied dully, running a hand over the stone surface as he walked around the island. "Holy shell, Leo, the granite is cracked! Something came down on the counter hard enough to…" Michelangelo didn't finish as he suddenly dropped to the floor. "Donny's here, you guys!"
Relief was the first emotion to hit Leonardo as he pursued Mike, circling the island to find his brother crouching on the tile beside the twisted form of the purple-masked turtle. Leonardo forgot to breathe as he took in the sight of Donatello, whose shell was wedged up against the oven as if he'd gotten stuck.
It took Leonardo an instant to realize how close Michelangelo looked to moving Donny. "Don't touch him!" he nearly shouted. "We're not supposed to do anything but put an oxi on him!"
Mike trembled as he gripped Donatello's wrist. "He doesn't have much of a pulse. There's blood down here, but I can't tell…"
Leonardo touched Mike's shoulder with gentle firmness in his grip. "Mike, give me some space for a minute, okay? I need to set up the oxi like Doc said."
"Yeah, Leo. Gimme the light and I'll hold it for you." Michelangelo sounded hoarse.
Mike kept the light overhead while Leonardo positioned himself behind Donatello, and wrapped a tense hand under his brother's neck. Years of training with his Sensei have given Leonardo the ability to determine whether there was a break in a bone by touch, though he was nowhere near as adept as his genius brother.
As he carefully turned Donatello's head, he realized that his brother was still bleeding from serious abrasions on the right side, and the liquid also appeared to be coming from his mouth. Leonardo sucked in a sharp breath as his fingers detected a depression above the abrasions.
"Shell!" he exclaimed when he found his voice.
Raphael was bending over beside him in a flash. "Just hold his head, Leo, and I'll put the oxi on."
Leonardo wanted to acknowledge the red-masked turtle, but he was too distracted by the fact that his brother's skull was cracked.
"Leo? What is it?" Raphael pressed.
"I…um…I'm kind of afraid to move here," he said honestly. "His skull has been fractured – I can feel the indentation."
The flashlight overhead wavered in Mike's grip, and Leonardo heard Raphael's breathing quicken.
"Stay calm, both of you," Leonardo said more strongly than he felt. "I'm just going to keep my hand under him until help gets here. Raph, put the oxi on, and one of you call Doc. Let him know that we found Don."
Leonardo couldn't allow himself to visibly falter again, so he steeled himself to keep calm too. After slowly slipped the oxi over Donatello's mouth, Raphael got back to his feet.
"I'll call Doc," he said flatly.
Leonardo noticed the flashlight moving, and looked up to see Mike's hand still trembling. "Mike, take a deep breath. It's going to be okay."
"This isn't okay, Leo, a skull fracture is never okay! How did this happen?"
"It may have been a giant accident," Leo returned, but even as the words left his mouth, his mind negated them. There were obviously two separate points of impact inside the apartment. Either someone else came through with him, or they caused the second impact after the first had already taken place.
Mike lowered to the floor again and tentatively brushed Donatello's shoulder. Leonardo heard the youngest turtle sniff, and realized Mike was barely fighting off tears.
"He's alive, Mikey, and Doc's coming," Leo told him. "Hold on with me, all right?"
As Mike shifted his spot on the floor with the light, Leonardo suddenly noticed a small pattern on the tile.
"Go back, Mike. Shine the light where you had it a second ago!" he urged.
The orange-masked turtle focused on what turned out to be a patch of dried blood.
"Fingerprints," Leonardo said with certainty. "Do you see the ridges? Someone else was here!"
"But…but, Leo, who else would have been up this high? Donny must have been using the rooftops. We don't exactly run into traffic jams."
"I don't know, Mike, but I don't think this was an accident now. At least, it doesn't look that way. It probably took less than twenty minutes for that particular blood trace to dry, so that means someone else had to be here fairly quickly after it happened."
"Then they left without finishing him off?" Mike wondered aloud.
"Maybe they thought he was dead, or dying. Maybe they believed—" A blaring alarm almost made Leonardo lose his grip on Don's head.
"What the shell?" Raphael clapped his phone shut and rapidly drew his sai.
"Be quiet!" Leo hissed. "There's someone talking."
Raphael swore softly. "I can't believe we didn't clear this place. If I find the guys that did this to Donny, I ain't guaranteeing I can take 'em alive, Leo."
"Mike, go with him," Leonardo directed. "It came from down the hall."
He saw the deep-set scowl on Michelangelo's face as his brother rose to join Raphael. Leonardo tensed as the other two turtles disappeared around the corner of the hall. The strange voice presently grew stronger, and he suddenly realized it sounded more like a recording than a live person.
The red-masked turtle looked sorely disappointed when he reappeared with Mike. "It's nothing but a dang weather radio, Leo, talking about flooding way north of here. We found it in a pile of other stuff the workmen musta left behind."
Leonardo rolled his eyes. Ridiculous. I know Raph was hoping Donny's attacker was still here. I can't say as I blame him.
Mike once more knelt on the tile with him, and he allowed the beam of the light to rest on Donatello.
"Take it slowly, Mike. I want to see if there are any other noticeable injuries," Leonardo encouraged him.
Rather than listening to him, Mike was staring at Donatello's shoulder. "Leo, look at those marks. What do they remind you of?"
The blue-masked turtle bent his head over to get a closer look, then cringed. "Taser burns. Whoever did this was not playing fair."
Michelangelo clenched his eyes shut, squeezing the flashlight so hard in his fist that it looked like he might break it. "I don't feel like playing fair either, Leo. I'm with Raph. When we catch up with these dudes, they're gonna pay, one way or another."