*Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.
*Author's Notes: Here's chapter 28 of 'Slash's Revenge' and it's a dramatic one, just like I pointed out in the last chapter.
Thank you all so very much for reading. I'm super grateful to each and every one of you. *virtual hugs*
Okay, onto the chapter!
CJ
Chapter 28 – Worst Fears
A silent scream was stuck inside his throat, as though his voice box had decided to call it a night without his say-so. Mouth hanging wide open in a desperate attempt to take in precious oxygen that just wouldn't come, the distraught turtle stared down at the bed in utter disbelief. His hands were trembling like fragile leaves clinging to a tree. His heart was beating so hard, he was pretty sure he could actually see it banging against his plastron. He worried the thick scutes covering his upper body weren't enough to contain the vital organ thumping out of control inside his chest.
To say that he was terrified would've been putting it mildly.
Panic was overriding every one of his senses, to the point that his entire body had temporarily shut down on him. He couldn't even shake his head in denial. None of his limbs would respond to his simple commands to move, paralyzed with dread. All he could do was continue to tremble and blankly stare at the disheveled bed sheets while he gasped for air that didn't seem to exist.
The same three words kept repeating in his brain, like a badly scratched record, skipping over and over again…
This isn't real!
This isn't real!
His wide eyes scanned the room, frantically searching for someone who wasn't there.
This isn't real!
This!
Isn't!
Real!
He couldn't trust what he was seeing – or rather, what he wasn't seeing.
It appeared to be just him and the shadows, but he knew better.
He had to be there, hidden somewhere inside the dimly lit room.
He had to be.
When the frightened turtle was finally able to draw in a much-needed breath, the first thing he attempted to do was cry for help, but all that came out was a sickly sounding wheeze. His voice still refused to cooperate.
Maybe that's because, deep down inside, he knew if he made any kind of noise, he was going to get pummeled within an inch of his life.
Breaking out into a cold sweat, his oversized eyes combed the room, once again, only to confirm he was, in fact, all alone.
No!
This can't be happening!
I was only gone a couple minutes!
But the startling truth remained: the youngest turtle had managed to lose his brother. His unconscious, critically injured brother whom he had been specifically placed in charge of watching over.
Breath coming in hysterical gasps, Mikey took a giant step backwards, as if afraid of the empty bed before him.
His brother was gone.
Raph was going to kill him!
They were ALL going to kill him!
Mikey racked his addled brain for answers that wouldn't come.
How could Donnie just up and disappear in the shape he was in? Especially with a badly infected leg.
Unless –
NO! No, no, no, no, no, no.
Shaking his head from side to side, Mikey tried to push away any thoughts of Slash.
There had to be some other explanation. One that didn't involve the big, ugly, heartless monster that had hurt Donnie.
Think, Mikey! Think! If Leo was here, what would he do?
Flinching at his own question, Mikey realized with sudden, gut-twisting humiliation that his oldest brother wouldn't have lost Donnie in the first place. Neither would Master Splinter, Raph, April, or even, Casey.
Awesome job, Mikey. Way to totally blow it.
Okay. Gotta keep it together here. You can do this. Just focus, dude. If I were Donnie, where would I go?
Less than a second later, Mikey's eyes lit up like a Roman candle. The answer was so painfully obvious, it may as well have flicked him right in the beak.
If Donatello was still somewhere in the lair, there was only one logical place the genius turtle would go. The same place he seemed to spend about ninety-nine percent of his free time. The same place they constantly had to drag him away from because he'd never leave if given the choice.
How could Mikey not have figured it out sooner?
Running on faith, the youngest turtle hightailed it out of Donatello's room and made a beeline straight for the lab. The normally heavy metal doors slid open with relative ease. Mikey would've liked to have thought it was because he was such a beefcake, but he was guessing it probably had something to do with the adrenaline now pumping through his system. At least, he thought the word was 'adrenaline' or something along that line. Donnie had told him all about that stuff and how it can make you super strong when you get stressed out. And boy, was Mikey stressed out right now…
"Donnie? You in here, bro?" Though he had spoken in a whisper, Mikey's voice seemed to echo throughout the cavernous space, almost hauntingly.
It felt strange being inside the lab after all this time. The air that filled Mikey's nasal passages was stale and dank, not unlike a sewer, but this was somehow different. It smelled… off. Like no one had stepped foot inside the room for ages.
Without the glow of the overhead lights or the sound of Donatello tooling away at something, the lab took on a creepy quality. A great, big space full of elongated shadows and memories that made Mikey's heart hurt.
"Donnie." Michelangelo called out his missing brother's name just a hair louder than before, but he still kept his voice at a whisper. He wanted Donatello to be able to hear him, while at the same time, he needed to avoid waking up anyone else in the lair.
Just as Mikey was about to call out his brother's name for the third time, he felt a startling presence in the room. One that practically made his blood turn to ice.
Someone was in the lab with him, and it wasn't his brother.
Before Mikey even had time to eke out a whimper, he could feel the presence breathing down his neck, slow and unnervingly steady.
Michelangelo's whole body was quivering like a mountain of green Jell-O as he turned to lock eyes on the figure now towering over him.
"S – Sensei!"
Seeing the unmistakable panic radiating in Mikey's wide eyes caused Master Splinter to seize hold of his youngest son's shoulders and gave them a firm shake. Then came a distressed voice that didn't sound as though it actually belonged to the Ninjutsu master.
"Michelangelo! What are you doing in here? Why are you not looking after your brother?"
"I… I – I – " The words wouldn't come, trapped behind a tongue that suddenly felt as though it had been inflated to ten times its normal size. The smallest ninja of the clan peered up at his father and could see the fear and disappointment written across Master Splinter's face. That expression was nothing short of devastating.
Splinter had entrusted Mikey to watch over Donnie and the youngest turtle had failed, epically, proving once again that he could botch up even the easiest of tasks.
Mikey had never felt so ashamed of himself in all his life…
"My son?"
Tears began to stream down Michelangelo's already water-stained cheeks as he spoke in a soft, croaky voice. "I – I'm sorry."
The grief-stricken apology caused Splinter to gasp out Donatello's name, and for a moment, all the distraught father could do was just stand there, shaking his head in disbelief. That is until his two eldest sons came bolting inside the laboratory with their weapons drawn; both turtles eager to protect their home and family at all costs.
"What the heck is going on in here?!" Raphael lowered his sais, but not his defenses. He bounced his intense gaze back and forth between his father and youngest brother, anxiously awaiting a response. Anything that might explain why the four of them were currently standing inside the lab.
Donnie's lab.
The unsettling realization hit Raph at the exact same moment it did Leonardo. But whereas the hotheaded brother was temporarily rendered mute by the initial shock, the eldest turtle was anything but speechless.
"Mikey! Why aren't you with Donnie? You're supposed to be taking care of him!"
Recoiling at his oldest brother's harsh tone, Michelangelo let out a feeble whimper, but received no sympathy from Leonardo, or anyone else, for that matter. They were all staring at the youngest turtle with criticizing eyes as he stood there, cowering like a child afraid of a monster underneath the bed.
If only it were that simple. Some beast lying in wait. At least then, there would be something to fight.
As it was, there was nothing the highly trained ninja could do, other than just stand there, dumbstruck.
He felt utterly helpless.
Just like he had the first time Donnie had gone missing…
"What did you do?" The bitter accusation from the oldest turtle felt like a sucker punch to the gut. Mikey knew Leo was only lashing out because he was scared, but that didn't make it sting any less.
Mikey was scared, too.
Terrified to be more precise.
"I didn't do anything! I just left for a couple minutes to use the bathroom! That's all!"
A few stunned seconds passed before Raphael found his voice again.
"And then what? You got lost and somehow wound up in the lab?"
A part of Mikey was thrilled to hear his hotheaded brother's trademark snark had finally returned, but another part of him resented the fact that he was clearly being belittled.
"No! I was just – " Without warning, the sentence came to an abrupt halt. Maybe that's because there was no easy way for Mikey to break the news that he had lost his brother.
They were never going to forgive him…
"You were just what, Mikey? Tell us what happened!" The anger Leonardo had exhibited just moments before had transformed into something far more desperate.
Mikey suddenly felt as though someone had hit his internal panic button. Like every last breath was being crumpled and wrung out of his lungs. But despite the oxygen deprivation, he still managed to find enough air to render a screechy response.
"I don't KNOW what happened, okay?! One second, he was there, and the next – "
Once again, Mikey couldn't finish what he had been trying to say, but there was no need to. He could see by the mortified look on the others' faces that they had pieced it together.
Not all that surprisingly, Master Splinter was the first to react. Without so much as a word, he sprinted out of the lab as if the whole place was about to blow, leaving his youngest child to fend for himself. It was essentially like throwing poor Michelangelo to the wolves.
It didn't take long for Raphael to start tearing into Mikey; his already growly voice coming out in a ferocious roar. "You LEFT him!?" For added emphasis, the hotheaded turtle forcefully jabbed a stubby forefinger into the center of his baby brother's plastron.
"Y – You guys were sleeping! I didn't want to wake anybody up!" In a shameful attempt to save his shell, Mikey tried to back away from his volatile brother's advances, but he ran smack dab into Donnie's worktable.
There was nowhere to go.
Raph was going to crack his shell for sure.
"You were supposed to be watching him, Mikey! How could you just leave him all alone like that?"
"I didn't think anything bad would happen!"
"You NEVER THINK, Mikey! That's the problem!"
"I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!"
"Enough! You two can argue about this later! Right now, we need to focus on finding Donnie!"
Hearing Leonardo yell the word 'enough' instantly triggered a flashback in Raphael's mind. A flashback of that fateful night in Donnie's lab…
"Raph, that's enough!"
"No! It's not enough! All you ever do is put everyone in danger, Donnie! You're supposed to be the smart one, but you ruin everything you touch! You're the reason Spike's gone! I lost my best friend because of you! It was all your fault! If you weren't such a walking disaster, he'd still be here!"
Now, after all that had happened, Raph was once again allowing his temper to spiral out of control. He was standing there, chewing out one of his younger brothers.
Had he learned nothing, just as Master Splinter had said?
"I'm sorry, Mikey. I shouldn't have yelled at you. I know you'd never do anything to hurt Donnie."
"It's okay, Raph. I totally deserved it. I shouldn't have left him."
As touching as it was to witness both Mikey and Raph own up to their mistakes, Leonardo hardly thought it was the time for the two of them to seek out absolution.
"Guys! Donnie's missing! Remember?" The obvious bite in Leo's tone silenced any form of rebuttal; reality hitting the younger turtles like a ton of bricks.
For a moment, there was dead silence, as both Raph and Mikey tried to recover from the blow Leo had just delivered. If the orange and red-masked brothers weren't feeling consumed by guilt before, they certainly were now. Their oldest brother shouldn't have had to remind them that Donatello was in danger. This was clearly something that should have went without saying.
Realizing time was of the essence, Leo shifted into leader mode with the assumption his two brothers would eventually snap out of it and stop feeling sorry for themselves.
"Mikey, you said you only left Donnie's room for a couple of minutes. How long ago was that?"
The youngest turtle's forehead furrowed in deep thought while he processed his eldest brother's question.
"Well, when he wasn't in his room, I ran straight to the lab. Sensei found me about thirty seconds later, and then, you guys came in right after that, so it's probably only been like five minutes. Ten minutes tops."
This information made Leonardo's steely blue eyes nearly double in size. "So, you didn't check anywhere else in the lair?"
"No. Like I said, I went straight to the lab." It took a little while, but the light bulb soon went off in Mikey's head. "You don't think he's still in the lair, do you?"
"It's a definite possibility. And even if he isn't here, he couldn't have gotten very far. Not in the condition he's in." The words had no sooner left Leonardo's lips when he realized just how cold they must have sounded. Like Mikey and Raph didn't already know that Donnie was in tough shape. Perhaps if circumstances had been different, Leo would've stopped and apologized for his bluntness. As it was, the leader fought tooth and nail to keep his outward appearance the picture of neutrality. Anything that might paint the illusion of composure. "We should start by searching all the rooms. Raph, you check the kitchen. Mikey, you check outside the garage. I'll check the Dojo."
Leonardo and Raph were just about to spring into action, when their baby brother's quivering voice stopped them in their tracks.
"But what… What if he took him?"
From the moment they had found out Donatello had gone missing, all three of the genius turtle's brothers had been trying their darnedest to convince themselves that Slash had nothing to do with this. That Donnie had simply wandered off because he was delirious with fever. But Mikey couldn't stand there and deny it any longer. Not when his brother's life was on the line.
If Slash had, in fact, come back for Donatello, every single second counted.
Raphael, however, was not willing to face the horrible possibility. They had just gotten Donatello back. The thought of Slash taking him away again was far too much to bear.
The hotheaded turtle balled his hands into tight fists as he spoke, spitting out the words like they were venom.
"That monster wouldn't dare step foot in the lair! Not after what he did!"
"You don't know that! He said he had a turtle to catch. We all heard it! He probably knows this place like the back of his hand. What's to keep him from – "
"It wasn't him, Mikey! Don't ask me how I know. I – I just do." There was so much conviction in Raphael's claim, Leonardo didn't have the heart to disagree. Even as the little voice in the back of his head kept telling him his baby brother's concerns were completely warranted.
Slash knew exactly where the lair was.
Worse yet, he knew exactly where Donatello's room was.
With Mikey away from his post and everyone else sound asleep, there was nothing to stop Slash from making off with their unconscious brother.
It would've been all too easy.
No! Quit thinking like that, Leo! Master Splinter would've sensed something…
"Okay, okay! One crisis at a time." Leonardo wasn't even sure if he had spoken these words aloud, they'd sounded so surreal. Not that it really mattered whether his brothers had heard him or not. The words had been strictly meant to calm him down. Anyone else who had been appeased was just an added bonus.
"Leo?" The utterance from Mikey was more like a strangled sob than an actual word. His weepy eyes gazed into Leo's, silently begging for an escape from the pain. It was enough to make the leader's steadfast poise nearly falter.
Clearing his throat of any apprehension, the eldest turtle did his best to console his baby brother. Not out of a sense of moral obligation as the leader, but because the sad look on Mikey's face was tearing his soul to shreds, strand by strand.
"It's gonna be all right, Mikey. We'll find him." Though he realized it probably wouldn't be much consolation, Leonardo placed a hand atop Michelangelo's shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Something their father oftentimes did to comfort them during times of hardship, but Leo knew from experience, the gesture didn't always help to ease the pain. Especially when one of your family members was missing.
Sure enough, Leonardo felt Mikey's shoulder droop in his taut grip, verifying the youngest turtle was just as miserable as before. Then, came Michelangelo's small voice, withered and cracked, like paper in fire.
"But if anything happens to him, it'll be all my fault."
Raphael shook his head from side to side; an obvious show of disagreement. "No. No, it won't, Mikey. We all know who's to – "
Before the hotheaded turtle had a chance to finish taking the blame, a resonating voice cut him off.
"My sons! Come quickly!"
An instant later, all three brothers were sprinting out of the lab, heading straight in the direction their father's frantic outcry had come from.
To be continued…
*More Author's Notes: I know, I know… Another cliffhanger. It's kind of my thing. ;)
So, what do you think is going to happen?
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I hope you are all safe and sound. I will continue to pray for you and your loved ones during these uncertain times.
Thanks so much for reading.
CJ