AN: I am just gonna take a second to apologize to my readers because of the last few chapters. I was hasty to judge when I was complaining that others were being hasty to judge. So I'm very sorry about that. Blame it on the reluctance of an author to stick their own neck out.
But countless amounts of sincere thanks to those that addressed and soothed my mental breakdown.
Addressing one review about these chapters being shorter than Underdog's chapters...this is the first chapter that hasn't been five pages.
Well, I know almost every scrolled right past this, but if one person read this then I'm happy.
Kait turned around to see a beautiful Japanese woman with large eyes, short black hair, and caramel colored skin. The other woman had a hauntingly pretty smirk on her thin lips. "I hope your brother was not too badly hurt." Her accent was as thick as Splinter's. "We only wanted your attention."
"You've got it." Kait seethed, trying to covertly reach in her pocket where her phone was. She might be able to dial Don's number in her pocket.
The woman laughed, hitting Kait's arm, the phone flying out of her pocket and crashing onto the ground. "Don't try and call your creature." She hissed.
Kait nodded, beginning to panic for the first time in a while.
"Now, Ms. Daws, I want you to listen to me. I'm here to try and stop what happened to the other woman from happening to you." The woman grabbed Kait's arm and started dragging her to a car parked by a nearby building.
"You mean Emily?" Kait asked, trying to watch the woman.
She nodded. "Ms. Fredricks did not get the chance to have our warning. We tried to ask her to join us, before she fell in with them, but she ignored us and fought us at every turn."
"Who are you?" Kait asked, her voice starting to shake because she thought she already knew they answer.
"My name is Karai, and I am the leader of the Foot." The woman told her forebodingly before a sack was thrown over Kait's head.
Kait's eyes seared as the hood was pulled away from her as she now sat in a brightly lit room. Karai sat on the other side of the dress from her in a high backed chair. As Kait's eyes adjusted, she looked around. And saw that she was in an office filled with books and weapons while she sat in a plush leather chair.
"I hope you do not think we are too barbaric to deny a woman a comfortable place to talk." Karai murmured, her hands crossing on top of the desk. Her black skin-tight, long-sleeve shirt still managed to not leave her wrists.
Kait gave her a single humorless laugh. "Yes, I do. You have come across as quite barbaric." She motioned to the bandage on her neck. "On top of that, you put Emily in her coma."
Karai leaned up from the chair. "We did not. One member of our ranks did, without my permission, and in self defense. One of your creatures was trying to kill him. Did they tell you that?" Karai's voice dripped with pointed venom, hoping to quickly pull Kait into her plan.
"They did." Kait growled, which was out of place in her tiny frame. "Because he raped her."
Karai leaned back against the supple leather, seeing that her plan would not be as easy as she had thought. "But that was one man, not our organization. I have brought you here to warn you. Terrible things happen to those that become close to the creatures."
"Only because of you!"
"Oh, you will see."
The black car stopped in front of Kait's building only long enough for her to escape before it sped off down the street again. With tears streaming down her eyes, Kait stumbled up the stairs into her apartment, slamming the door behind her. Cujo was startled out of her sleep, meowing loudly and harshly in protest.
"Oh shut up, Cujo." Kait sobbed, throwing her jacket across the room as she stormed towards bathroom. She turned on the hot water as her sobs returned, shaking her entire body. In the hot water, she scrubbed her body down until it was red and sore. She scrubbed as hard and vigorously as she tried to remove every trace of Donatello off her skin that she could.
Karai had opened her eyes. Don wasn't human. None of them were human. They were freaks. They were creatures. She couldn't befriend something like that. She couldn't care about something like that. She couldn't love something like that. The Foot had promised to leave her alone. She didn't need the brothers anymore. She didn't need Don.
Out of the shower and in soft fleece clothes, she grabbed Cujo off her bed and brought her to Kait's bed with her, petting her soft fur as the tears continue to stream down her face. Cujo, as if she could tell what was wrong with her owner, nuzzled her soft face against Kait's, curling up against her chest so Kait could continue to pet her as she fell asleep.
But Kait didn't sleep. She laid there the entire rest of the night, slowly and gently petting the cat. After she had laid there for hours, her alarm clock finally went off. Cujo jumped a few feet up in the air before scampering off to another corner of the apartment. Kait slapped the alarm clock silent, sitting up slowly and trudging to the bathroom. In the mirror, she saw the pitiful creature she had turned back into. Her hair was a stringy mess, her eyes were red and puffy, her skin was pale, she stood with a slight shiver. She was broken.
This was why she was shy, why she always shrunk into a shell when people were involved, why she didn't trust anyone. She always got hurt. From her first boyfriend, her father, her brother, now Don.
As she took a deep breath, Kait could at least console herself that she would be seeing Milo within the hour.
Lacking the will to put real effort into her appearance, she found trouser pants, high heels, and a nice shirt from her closet, brushing out her hair and braiding it before she mechanically walked out to the street to hail a cab.
When she walked into the gallery, recently renovated with new lights, the first thing she sought was Milo. She found his disorderly brown locks leaning over his desk.
"Milo." She called out quietly. They were always the first two at the gallery, so she had no qualms throwing her arms around his neck and holding on for dear life. Confused, he still hugged her back, wrapping his arms around her waist, picking her up a little as he straightened out.
"Is there something wrong?" he asked her quietly, his cheek wresting up against her hair.
She nodded, not letting go of him quite yet. "Greg came to visit me last night." Milo stiffened in her grasp. "But we fought and he left and he got hit by a car and he's in the hospital." She fought the sobs, but she could only do so much. "And I asked them to call me when he woke up, but I dropped my phone and it broke."
Milo nodded against her head, holding her out at arm's length. "You can take my old phone and activate it as yours until we can go get you a new one. In the mean time, go to Greg. He's gonna need you. I'll tell the others you had family issues and that you had to go. I know enough about your stuff to sell it just fine." He walked her to his desk and pulled out a phone that was a few years old, his back up that he kept on hand in case of utter phone melt down.
She nodded and booted up her computer, going through the steps of activating it.
"Could you tell me how he's doing?" Milo asked quietly.
Startled, Kait looked over at him. "Of course."
With a new phone in tow and a gentle kiss planted on Milo's cheek, Kait was in another cab on her way to the hospital, trying desperately to ignore the three messages that Don had left her. She had to force him out of her mind. She knew that. Yet it was still so hard.
At the hospital, she was greeted by a familiar nurse, one of the ones that had seen her the night before. She was an older woman, old enough to be Kait's grandmother almost, with a warm and kind smile.
"Your brother is awake." She told her happily, her blue eyes beaming behind the thick glasses. "I tried to call you but…"
Kait held up Milo's phone. "My phone broke and I just replaced it. Can I go see my brother?"
The woman nodded, guiding her again towards the room. The younger of the siblings was sitting up in the bed, looking out the window until he heard her come into the room. "Hey, Kaity." He sighed, trying to force a smile.
Kait smiled back, gently sitting down on the bed beside him. "Now, how on Earth did you manage to walk into a car?" she asked quietly, already knowing the answer.
He shrugged slightly with one shoulder. "I have no clue. I was blind drunk, honestly." After a deep breath, he looked up at her hazel eyes. "I'm sorry if I worried you, sis."
"If?!" she almost shouted, curbing it to a laugh at the last minute. "Of course I was worried. I was with…" her voice died out as she thought of his name. Minutely shaking her head, she forced herself to continue. "And then the hospital calls to tell me my brother has been hit by a car. I was very worried."
Greg nodded, reaching over to gently hold her hand. The tenderness startled Kait for a moment. Greg hadn't been this kind to her in years. But it took a near death experience to open his eyes. Open hers as well. She sat with him for several hours before her/Milo's phone began to vibrate. The picture on the screen made it clear that it was Milo. Cautiously, she answered it, hoping that Greg hadn't seen the phone.
"How's he doing?" Milo asked carefully from the other end. She could tell he was at the gallery because she could hear Joey's distinct Boston accent in the background.
"Better. He's awake and cognizant. I wish you'd come by." Kait tried to whisper, but even in his imparred state, Greg heard her, mouthing who to her.
She heard him sigh deeply. "I'll think about it. Are you ok, Kait?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." She also sighed deeply. "I just wish things would straighten out a little."
"Tell me about it all later, okay?"
"Okay. I'll talk to you later, Milo."
"I'll make sure of it."
Kait ended the call and looked up at her brother. He looked very guilty as he sat in the bed, his hands playing with each other. "How's Milo doing?" Greg asked quietly, his voice breaking a little.
"He's doing just fine. He sent me here from work so I wouldn't be going crazy. He was worried about the both of us." Kait tried to reassure him, gently squeezing his hand, gaining only a nod from her little brother.
Kait visited Greg every day for a week. She went to work every day. She replaced her phone. Her neck healed without a scar.
She refused to answer her phone whenever Don called. She deleted the texts before she even read them. For a week she had a normal life.
Greg was discharged from the hospital after eight days and was on a flight to Fort Bragg within two hours, a rushed good bye to Kait and absolutely no attempt to contact Milo. But the three didn't expect anything different. Greg thought he would be expected to fly away without a word, and Milo and Kait expected him to leave them behind again.
But life was normal again. She worked at night, but never saw the brothers. She took a cab into work at morning, went out to lunch with Milo, and redid the cycle the next day. For almost a week she thought her life was normal again. She thought it was all behind her.
But then her phone rang late one night, just before Kait was ready to go to bed. She didn't recognize the number, so she picked it up cautiously.
"Kait Daws." She murmured politely.
"Hello, Ms. Daws." A woman murmured back in a thick Japanese voice. "This is…"
"Karai, I know." Kait interrupted. "What do you want?" Her voice was neither cold nor friendly but remained mechanically neutral.
The other woman chuckled slightly. "We need your help. The creatures are becoming a nuisance. We would like your assistance in locating their home so that we can exterminate them once and for all. I assume you have been to their home before."
"I've been there." Kait was becoming cautious now.
"Tomorrow afternoon, will you take us to them?" Karai had leaked some charm into her voice, attempting to sound friendly.
Kait shook her head, even though she knew Karai couldn't see it. "I may hate them, but I won't betray them. They never did anything against me. I won't do anything against them."
"But Ms. Daws, you despise them, you…"
"But I won't let you murder them. I'm not gonna help you, Karai. Don't call me again." She ended the phone call and promptly turned her phone off, tears rolling down her cheeks as she thought about the brothers, of Don.
She dreamed about him that night. She dreamed about feeling his cool, smooth skin against hers, of seeing his smile, of seeing his rich brown eyes. She dreamed of being with him.
And when Kait awoke, she was not disgusted that she had just dreamed of Don's hands on her body, of his lips of hers. In the back of her mind, a part that held the minority, but enough to be heard, she wanted it. But this depressed her even more.
So, in low spirits, Kait walked into work on a Friday morning. Her brother was gone again. Her heart was broken. And her birthday was only weeks away. Unlike most people, she didn't like her birthday. It was a reminder that she was getting older and the world would soon be leaving her behind.
She pushed open the large glass door after stepping out of the cab into the frigid air. Her eyes, as always, looked for Milo once she entered. But, unlike almost every other day in the history of their business together, Milo was not at his desk. He wasn't anywhere in the gallery.
Quickly, her phone was out of her purse. No messages or calls. He always told her if he was going to be late.
Without hesitation, she dialed his number, waiting for him to pick up. One ring before voicemail the call was finally accepted.
"We've been waiting for you to call, Ms. Daws." Karai's already familiar voice purred.
"What have you done with Milo you, you…"
"Silence!" Karai hissed into the phone. "If you want your beloved Milo back in one breathing piece, you will wait for us in your apartment tonight and you will lead us to the creatures. If you do not, we will slit his throat in your living room. After he has died, we will torture you for their home. Do yourself and your friend a favor and cooperate."
"Alright." Kait murmured, ending the call mechanically. After a few moments of shuddering sobs, she pulled her phone up again, dialing a number that made her tears grow into a small river.
"Kait?" The incredulous voice called from the other end, his voice catching.
"Donatello," she sobbed quietly. "I need your help."
AN: Well, I'm sorry this one is a bit choppy. The plot bunnies were being difficult. Well, I hate to leave you with another cliffhanger, but at least this one isn't so bad.
Hope you're still liking the story, even though it isn't much like Underdog, which I think a lot of my readers expected. But I promise there will be parallels. This is kinda one of them. But it takes some thought to figure it out.
As always, comments, concerns, and questions are always welcome.
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
CM