Chapter 8

Mikey jumped up with a start at the sound of footsteps rushing into the lair. He glanced at Karai. She could only stare back at him, giving him no encouragement or dissuasion. He raced out of the room. Karai scooted to the very edge of the bed, wondering what they had found and if Leonardo was okay. She strained to listen. Her heart thumped in anxious dread. Surprised at how much she hoped he was not harmed. And not just for her own safety. As much as she tried to deny it to herself, Leonardo held a special place in her mind. He intrigued her. Fascinated and thrilled her, to be honest, and while it was the source of her teasing, she rather enjoyed his rigid good-guy persona. Raphael's rough voice, thick and hoarse with tears, had the hair on the back of her neck raising.

"Get out of the way, Mikey, he's hurt. He's fuckin' hurt, okay? Move!"

They stormed into the room. Karai tucked her legs under herself and sat on her knees, leaning forward for the handcuff securing her. Raphael came in first, Leo bundled in his arms like a sleeping child. Michelangelo scurried around him like an anxious terrier. Splinter followed behind, assisting and supporting Donatello into the room. Part of Donatello's face was coated in drying blood from a superficial wound above his brow. He rubbed the grime from his eye with the back of one hand. Then broke from Splinter's side and hobbled over to the cot that Mikey had pulled over for Raph to set Leo down upon. Everyone was speaking at once, shouting questions and no one was listening to each other. "What happened?" "Give him some space." "Watch his head." "Don't jostle him, Raphael." "Why isn't he awake?" Donatello pressed his mouth into firm line, then pushed Raphael out of his way from where he hovered over Leonardo's huddled form.

"The first aid kits, Mikey. Get them."

"All of them?"

Raph and Don turned their faces to him and snapped at the same time, "Yes!"

Mikey raced to the cabinets and started pulling out boxes of gauze and bandages, and then two shoe boxes, stacking them in his arms. Karai bit her lip, straining to see what was happening, but Raphael's shell and Master Splinter's body were blocking most of the view. Everyone was shifting and moving but she couldn't see anything useful. She could only see part of the blanket hanging off the edge of the table. Her heart thundered in her ears with her rising panic. Leonardo was not coming home on his own feet. They had to carry him. That information alone was enough to send a thrill of terror through her. She ran her free hand through her hair and wished someone would tell her his condition and what had happened.

A very small part of her wondered if they had encountered her fath-the Shredder during the rescue. She wondered how she'd feel if they told her they had killed him. The vindictive side of her wished it had happened, only that she was the one to do it, the soft child within her, worried for his safety. And she damned herself for it. She chewed on her lip, mind racing, holding her breath. Feeling as though she were on the verge of losing her wits. This was all so messed up. Not for the first time, she wondered how she found herself in this upside down situation.

Behind Michelangelo, Donatello started to carefully unwrap Leo from the blanket. Some of the blood had stuck and he needed to peel the material away with a grimace. His brother twitched. Raphael fidgeted where he stood, blinking and glancing from Don to Master Splinter then back to Leonardo's face, pinched with distress.

"Can you give him somethin', Don? He looks like he's in pain."

Don shot him a glance and shook his head. "I'm sure he is, Raph."

"Then give him something," Raph hissed and grabbed Don's wrist. Master Splinter placed a hand on Raph's arm. Raph shrugged it roughly back, glaring at his father, releasing Donatello in the process.

"Don't touch me!" Raph snapped, eyes flashing.

Master Splinter's face darkened. "Raphael," he said in a warning tone.

Raphael puffed his chest, staring furiously up at his father. Splinter met his defiant gaze and held it. He understood that Raphael was upset, but his disrespect would need to be curbed before it got out of hand. For now, his main concern was Leonardo's health. He shifted his gaze back to Leonardo and only then did Raphael drop his eyes. Mikey brought the kits, tumbling the gauze from his arms onto the small table that Don had pulled over.

Donatello hissed in a breath as the last part of the blanket covering their battered brother fell away. Raphael and Splinter turned in unison and their eyes raked over the condition of Leonardo's body. He bore no padding, no mask. He lay exposed and vulnerable under the bright lights of Donatello's lab. His arms and legs were sliced in long and short lacerations, most had clotted but some oozed and others, deeper ones ran in thin rivulets over the contours of his muscles. Where he wasn't cut, his flesh was dark with bruises. His plastron was laced with cracks and gashes. His throat bore the telltale markings of strangulation. His face was bruised in places but mostly unmarked.

Raph's attention snapped back to Leonardo's face as he moaned softly and trembled. He started to pant from between gritted teeth.

"Don," Raph said and there was pleading in his tone.

"Let me see what he needs first, okay? I-I have to make sure it's safe to give him something. I dunno if they drugged him, too. I mean . . . he was . . . he was . . ."

Donatello's thoughts zeroed in on where they had found him; laying spread eagle on the Shredder's bed like that. He didn't want to think it, but had to consider what might have been done to his big brother. His eyes inadvertently swept to Leonardo's privates, still hanging limp and mangled between his legs as if he didn't even have the strength to draw himself back up under his lower plastron's protective plating. Donatello cringed as his eyes took in the bruised flesh of his brother's most tender, sensitive body part. There was no doubt that he'd been molested besides beaten. And if he'd been raped then they either drugged him first or . . . he swallowed . . . didn't. By the looks of Leonardo's injuries, he probably wasn't drugged. It looked as though he'd fought with everything he had.

His heart plummeted and he felt sick, in fact, his stomach rolled violently and he pressed the back of his hand to his lips, closing his eyes. But he steeled himself. He had to be strong for his family. For Leo. He tried to speak, but his voice was a whisper, thready and weak, "He was probably not drugged. But I-I still have to be careful . . ."

"Why can't you just –"

"Raphael," Splinter cut in. "Allow Donatello to do what he deems necessary without further interruption."

"Look at 'em! He's hurtin'," Raphael gestured to Leo with both hands. "Oh . . ." he stepped back and chuckled darkly, eyes wild and glassy. Splinter stiffened. "That's right, I forgot, you don't care if he's suffering. What did you say back there," he placed a hand on his forehead, then dropped it and snapped his fingers, "Oh yeah." He dropped his voice, mocking his Sensei's voice, 'Leonardo, what have you done?' What have you done. That's what you said." He jabbed a finger in his father's direction, voice rising, filled with hurt and accusation, "I heard you. Like this was his fault. His fault that he ended up Shredder's fuckin' rape toy!" Raphael was out of his mind now; shouting; voice cracking, shuddering with barely suppressed fury. His face was full of hatred and defiance, but also despair and grief.

Karai pressed her free hand to her mouth and clamped her eyes shut. She shook her head once in denial of what was just said. It couldn't be true. It couldn't be. Her fath-the Shredder . . . was not capable of such monstrosity . . . and yet . . . and yet, those girls. Those poor little girls she had seen in the hallway that night. The one keening in terror was years younger than her, so very small. Their dresses that she had thought sported a pattern of large red blossoms, that only later did she realize were actually splotches of dripping blood and gore against the pale fabric. Her stomach roiled as her throat tightened.

Fears, repressed and denied, surfaced. Her skin crawled with memories of her fath-the Shredder gazing at her, as she stood, wrapped in a towel, fresh from the bath; or coming in from the dojo, sweaty and panting; his eyes filled with something she couldn't comprehend at the time. Both her innocence and her affection for the man she identified as her father blinding her to the hunger laid plain. Why hadn't he ever acted upon it? Her relief was tempered with the twisted knowledge that it existed in the first place. Her stomach heaved and she felt dizzy.

Donatello paled to a light green. His mouth hung open at Raphael's outburst and hysterics. Mikey's face bounced between his father who stood in seething, silent fury and his raging insane brother, with eyes huge and fearful. In the last twenty-four hours they'd all been stunned and felt betrayed and none of it was easy to accept or deal with and Raphael had never been one to handle emotional upheaval well. But Michelangelo did not want his family to crumble right before his eyes. He had to do something before his entire family imploded. He reached out and took Raphael's arm with both hands.

"Shut up, Raph! Shut up!" Mikey brought one clammy hand up to cover Raphael's mouth. Raph swatted it away and jerked back.

"It's true, Mikey!" Now the tears were spilling down Raphael's face. "He-He . . . we found 'em on the Shredder's bed like this!" He spun around and pointed up at Master Splinter. "Y-You told us he'd be okay! That he wouldn't be harmed if he-if he was good, oh god. If he was good. Leo," Raphael grabbed the sides of his head.

Master Splinter took a threatening step in Raphael's direction. Mikey reached forward again and pulled on his brother's quaking elbow. He wrapped an arm around his chest, yanking him closer.

"Shut up, Raph! Shut up!" he pleaded.

Splinter's voice boomed over them, "Leave this room - my sight – immediately, Raphael."

"Make me!" he roared and his eyes were brimming with fresh tears, chest heaving, fists shaking violently. Raph jumped forward out of Mikey's grasp and his hip caught the blanket, the motion pulled it free from where it was still covering what remained of Leonardo's left arm.

Mikey made a soft desperate noise from the back of his throat. He immediately fell back from Raphael. Then lurched forward and gripped the edge of the cot, then one hand shot to his mouth as his eyes locked on Leonardo's arm. From the corner of his eye, he saw Raph who look back at him, panting and miserable.

"What happened to his arm?" Mikey rasped, his tone rising to a squeak by the end of the question.

All eyes went to Leonardo's arm, bound in wide, filthy bandages, half hidden by his quivering torso.

"I don't . . ." Donatello began, but froze as Raphael gently cradled his brother's appendage with two hands exposing the fact that it ended just past his elbow. There was a heartbeat, then another as the four of them stood in horrified, stunned silence processing the fact of Leonardo's missing limb.

"Oh no, please. Th-they didn't . . ." Donatello murmured, voice breaking on the last word; shaking his head in denial.

"Oh, fuck, Leo," Raph choked, he placed his brother's arm back to rest at his side. He spun around and crouched into a tight ball, covering his head with his arms as he groaned and heaved a dry sob into his elbows. His anguish spilling out in wordless sounds.

Splinter's stomach dropped. His jaw fell open and he staggered forward, and swayed, making a strangled whimpering noise that none of his sons had ever heard him make before.

"No, please. H-His arm." Mikey's bottom lip trembled as he looked at Master Splinter then back to his brother laying before him. He started to bounce on the spot. His voice rising and wavering, "His arm! His arm! Master Splinter, his arm!" He shouted in a shrill tone and then broke down into babbling hysterics. Donatello grabbed him and pulled him tightly into an embrace as Mikey's legs gave out and he collapsed to the floor, dragging Donatello with him.

A choked, half-finished cry of distress, swallowed back but not before it erupted free came from behind them. Raphael's face shot up. His eyes fell on Karai, pale and trembling on her knees on the cot.

"You!" he snarled and leaped to his feet. He lunged towards her, hands in fists. "This is your fault!" He leaped forward as Master Splinter shouted and moved to stop him. But he was already on the cot, punching at her as she blocked with her free arm as best as she could. She cried out and fell back and he was on top of her, grabbing at her face. She thrashed and felt his fist grip her by the top of her head, then began slamming it into the wall behind her. Her fingers pulled and dragged against his chin and shoulders as she screamed. Her legs kicked uselessly, her knees banging against the back of his shell.

He slammed the side of her head again into the bricks; snarling, fangs bared; eyes blank with rage that he could no longer control. He released her but his hands went to her throat. Tightening. This was her fault. This was all her fault. Foam sprayed her face as he swore, mostly incoherently, but venomously and filled with pure hatred. The terrified voices of his family faded back as his mind settled on the grim satisfaction of doling out the justice that this brother's suffering demanded. For he'd be damned if he would spend another second of his life allowing her to live while his brother languished in his own private hell.

Karai choked and cried, sucking through gritted teeth to breathe. Her head thrashed from side to side. The pressure in her chest was now filling her head and she felt like her eye balls were going to burst from their sockets. Her fingers became clumsy and her struggle waned to feeble movements.

"S-stop."

Soft as a whisper, the command from the familiar voice cut through the haze of his rage like a beam of light streaking through an inky black sky. The voice that he feared he'd never hear again. Leonardo. He was awake. Raphael stiffened. He released her and twisted. She fell back, coughing and choking, sucking in air in great gasps. Everyone spun around at once.

He'd come through the haze by degrees. The light hurt his eyes, but blinking, he managed to crack them open enough to see. The harsh illumination had him fearing that he was once again in the Kraang's lab, his breath hitched in fright, but then the sound of his family shouting, his father's voice ordering Raphael to stop had him shuddering with relief. He was home. They had come for him after all. Though how or more importantly, why, remained a mystery.

His body was afire with pain. It was hard to breath without sending sharp spikes through his side. With painful effort he turned his head and rolled his blood shot eyes to the side. He made out the form of his brother on top of someone near him. Wrestling against the person. The others were grabbing at him, the one beneath was struggling; slender legs kicking uselessly. Desperate sounds came from her. The noises sent a tremor through him.

Images from the bathroom flashed through his mind and his heart started to race. The men holding him down, shouting insults in his face, thrusting into him despite his struggling; mocking his efforts to squirm free; shifting places and delighting in his impotent rage and staggering fright as they took his innocence; tore it from him and mangled it; leaving it bleeding and shamed, forever altered; violated and broken.

No. Not again. He had to stop this. They were hurting her. He couldn't let them hurt her!

"S-Stop."

The voice that rose out of him did not sound right to his own ears. It was raspy and frail. Weak and feeble. Just speaking the word sent waves of rippling pain through this bruised throat. Then they all turned to him and he quailed beneath their astonished expressions. Cringed beneath the weight of their attention. He made a small cry of fright as they rushed to him and he shrunk into himself, away from their gasps and cries of relief and questions. The room spun wildly and he sunk back into the sweet relief of darkness just as he felt their hands intrusively touching him.

A/N: Doing my best. Hope you enjoy - I appreciate all the feedback, sweeties! xo