Roxanne writing will be in italics. Just a reminder. Sorry for the wait, m'dears.
It began when I came to this city to live with my aunt and uncle…
I grew up in a little town in Illinois, about forty miles from Chicago. There's nothing special about the way I grew up, I'm just your typical farm kid.
Aunt Maria was born in Peru and adopted into our family when she was seventeen. My dad's older than her by a year. My mom and dad are very conservative Christians, so when they found out I'm a pagan, they sent me away.
"Whoah, whoah, whoah! Pagan? As in witch?" Raph half yelled. Roxanne shrank back in her seat, whimpering.
"Raphael!" Leo growled. He was furious. She was in pain, thrown out of not one but evidently two homes, and scared. Raph had to go and make a big deal out of her religion. Even Donnie was glaring at him.
"Sorry, sorry. Jeez, chill. Go on," Raph threw his hands in the air and then slumped his shoulders.
They sent me here to live with Aunt Maria and her family. The only problem is that she's a very strict Catholic, and I had to stay "in the Broom Closet" so to speak. Last month Maria found out and threw a big fit. She kept screaming I cursed her, her children, her husband, and her job. I got out of there as fast as I could.
After about a week on the streets, a man strolled up to me and offered me a job as a janitor at his lab. I thought nothing of it, I was just glad to have a job. He offered me a ride there to "show me the ropes" and "get me familiar with the place" and I (stupidly) accepted. Once I got in the car I remember a horrible smelling rag being pressed to my mouth and nose. The next thing I remember I was strapped to a hard hospital bed with the same man leaning over me.
She stopped there, a sickened look twisting her pretty face. Leo very gently rested his hand on her upper arm. She was petite, he noticed, as his large hand enveloped her bicep. Long thin fingers rested gently on his in a 'thank you' gesture. "Can you tell us what the man looked like?" Donnie asked softly. She picked up the pencil again.
He wore sunglasses even though the day was overcast. His hair was black and slicked back. He wore a suit. His smile reminded me of a snake. His aura was cold, confused, and vicious.
"Did you ever hear his name?" Leo prodded.
I was drugged most of the time I was in the lab, but I do remember the name Bishop.
Alarmed breaths were hissed in through three sets of teeth. Bishop. The sick, alien obsessed, over powered government flunky that haunted some of their worst memories.
"Can you tell us what happened?" Raph asked, uncharacteristically quiet.
They kept me in one of those super-sized dog crates with one other "experiment". There were several of us, but they're all dead now. They'd take us out and inject all sorts of serums into us. It really started to hurt about a week in. I was there about two months. Other than that Bishop and his flunkies didn't want anything to do with us.
My 'crate-mate' was a little boy named Samuel. He was my
She stopped writing then. She remembered when "sissy" turned into "mommy", when that little boy saw her as the mother he never had. Tears threatened to fall as she pulled in a shuddering breath.
"Roxanne?" Leo barely more than whispered. "You don't have to write more if you don't want to-" She shook her head violently and took another deep breath.
I'd like to tell someone. Do you mind? She looked up worriedly at her hosts. All three immediately assured her. She nodded and swallowed. Sam was only five; he was the youngest of the 'experiments'. At first he called me 'sissy', but eventually that turned into 'mommy'. Her hand was shaking hard, making her writing hard to read, and a tear slid down her cheek, seemingly without her notice. Leo felt as if someone dropped a stone through the bottom of his stomach. I tried to protect him, but they always managed to restrain me when they dragged him away. He died a week before I escaped.
She had to put the pencil down. She buried her face in her hands and took deep, shuddering gasps through her roughened throat. The turtles were at a loss. Donnie felt a little nauseous; how could someone be that cruel, in the name of science no less! Raph's stomach was rolling violently, and he desperately wanted to punch something. A child! They killed a child! What Leo felt was an actual, physical pain in his chest. His stomach simply wasn't there anymore and a giant hand was squeezing the life out of his heart, he was sure. He rubbed his thumb over her arm were his hand still rested.
"I'll go ask Mikey if he wants something to eat," Donnie said quietly, and hurried out.
"Look, Roxanne, I'm sorry … fer tha', ya know, witch thing, an', ah, bein' a little gruff an all," Raph mumbled out an apology. She peeked out from behind her hands long enough to give him a watery grimace that really was supposed to be a forgiving smile. Raph understood, and patted her other shoulder on his way out.
She leaned heavily into Leo's hand when it was just them in the kitchen. "I'm so sorry…" he said, his own voice surprising him. It was low, closer to Raph's timbre, and rough; somewhat watery sounding. She gripped his hand in response, and didn't let go for a very long time. He sat there, all but embracing her, afraid of hurting her back. Great, heaving, sniffling breaths were the only sound in the room for a very long time. Eventually she reached for the pencil again, much to his surprise.
After looking at Leo very pointedly, she wrote: Sam had blue eyes.