Chapter Ten
Blackthorn

"difficulty (to overcome)"

Disclaimer: I do not own the series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Like, at all. It and all its respectable characters are © to Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, and ViacomCBS and Nickelodeon. However, all writing contents and semi-plots here are © to me, unless it is stated otherwise. All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I do not own them.

Summary: Life had been simple. Shay moved away from Los Angeles to Montana's deep northwestern woods with her kids. She had a ranch and house. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than L.A. Thing is, she hadn't planned on hosting a bunch of mutant turtles that stemmed from old comics, movies, and shows. Just how far will she and her kids go to protect them from their tight knit community?

Notes: Hello, hello! Apologies for the delay. This draft had been easier to pen than the actual chapter itself, but I'm glad to have it down. The meat of things will be coming and how!

Also, this chapter, in a way, is a dedication to those who suffered through insufferable bosses and here's to hoping we can have a way to get back at them.

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"Do what I do. Hold tight and pretend it's a plan!"
— The Doctor, "Doctor Who"

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"Soooo…a little birdie told me that you were seen out and about in Kalispell last night."

Shay rolled her eyes as she squeezed a little tighter on the handle of her ax until her knuckles undoubtedly turned white. She saw the lazy Cheshire grin from her burly friend, Rick, as he leaned forward on the back of the chair he was perched on. He wore a casual outfit of worn blue jeans, work boots, a Punisher t-shirt, and a dark riding jacket over that. His dark hair was a disheveled mess and it looked like he'd given up on shaving his face, as he had a row of stubble coming in.

"And? Is there a point to this? Because I'd like for you to get to it." Shay shifted in her stance, locking her knees and twisted her hips. With a grunt, she heaved the ax, launching it midair at the height of her throw. It went sailing and struck the thick wooden target downrange. It was a few rings shy of the center bullseye. She cursed at length under her breath.

"I heard from this little birdie that this was a date. How'd you even manage that? I thought you were content to be a 'crazy divorced witch woman of the woods', if I'm remembering correctly."

Shay tilted her head to glare at Rick; dead, dull-eyed, and annoyed all rolled into one flat expression. He guffawed, broad shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

"Awww, you're so adorable when you look mad. Like a little chihuahua trying to look like a Doberman!"

"Fuck you, man. I'm a goddamned tiger compared to you, motherfucker."

That only elicited another round of roaring laughter from the man. Shay slid closer to Rick's chair and promptly kicked it over, sending the larger man tumbling to the ground. Rick began cursing loudly and glowered up at Shay. She smiled innocently and turned back to the target downrange, another ax in hand. She rubbed her thumb along the grain of the handle.

"Fucker."

She blew him a kiss and winked. "Call me a chihuahua again and see what else I'll do to you, bitch."

Rick pulled himself to his feet and righted the chair before returning to his previous position. "You are one mean, old, bitter bitch, you know that? I'm surprised you even got a date. You chase off anyone who comes within a six-mile radius of you showing even a hint of interest for you!"

"It was all Georgina's doing. I was only really there for the sushi and drinks."

"Ah. That explains it." Rick remarked, nodding sagely all of a sudden. "Makes a whole lot more sense. Wanna know what else I heard?"

"No, please. Tell me what happened at the date that I was present for, because I apparently don't know what went down."

"I heard you actually had a good time! Good for you! So, when's Romeo come back around? Hopefully he'll ask you out instead of Georgina having to arrange everything for everyone, as usual."

Shay shuddered. 'Romeo' was definitely not a comparison she would wish on anyone, even someone such as Andrei. "You do realize that Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy about a budding young couple who were in lust, and not actual love, right? It was a cautionary tale, not a love story. A straightforward and easy man with his writing, Shakespeare was not."

"Oh, whatever. C'mon. Details, woman!"

"Oh, I think you've got the details covered, Rick—and why the hell do you even give a shit? You jealous or something? You wanna date me?" Shay mocked the man with unflattering kissy faces before whirling back around and hurling the ax in hand at the target. This one struck closer to the center.

"Don't make me sick this early in the day. Seriously. If there's one thing I've learned about you, it's that you're a fucking mess; a whole-ass mess of a package that I wouldn't want to touch even with a ten-foot pole in hand. If I had to choose between dating a zombie and you, I'd go with the zombie."

"Wow. That just knocked my self-esteem six feet down into the dirt. Tell me how you really feel about me as prospective dating material." Somehow, that comment made her blood boil and lanced her to the core at the same time. When she tossed her next ax, it actually hit the bullseye. She didn't feel the elation she knew she should have in that moment. Her stomach was still knotting itself together.

What's worse was that Rick was right and that's what made her so mad, so upset. She was a whole mess masquerading as a human being who had her shit together. She was one disaster away, one loosening of the right thread, from unraveling and falling apart completely.

"You're just not my type, but I'm sure you're somebody's," Rick said with a roll of his eyes. "Who knows, maybe there is someone out there for you who won't give a shit about…all this."

He waved his hand vaguely to Shay, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.

"You just motioned to all of me," Shay snapped defensively, scowling at Rick. He only resumed grinning at her like a Cheshire cat and shrugged.

"Yeah. Exactly. You get what I'm saying."

And apparently tall creepy guys who stare and not say anything are the ones I'm attracting lately, she thought and wondered in silent misery if she should be grateful for the attention. Shay let that idea roll around in her head and she balked at it after deliberation. She slid the last ax from her belt off and eyed the target downrange. God, maybe George has been right all this time. Maybe all I really need is to just get laid.

This one found its mark right beside her last ax, right in the center of the bullseye. When her stomach twisted once more with misery, it wasn't at her lack of dating prospects. It was her lack of coordination on the bullseye with her aim. Two in the center. Three on the outer rings. Two outside the rings. The rest had failed to find a mark at all and were lying on the ground.

"I'm gonna lose this fucking tournament…"

"With the way you're working on that target, most definitely," Rick chirped in chipper agreement. "And you know what that means! Loser buys all the drinks for the winner on tournament night. Might wanna gird your wallet's loins for that. I plan on absolutely wrecking it."

When Shay glanced over her shoulder at Rick, his face was pinched in mocking kissy faces aimed at her. She half-wished she still had an ax in hand, if only to cleave that stupid grin off his face.

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Monday rolled in, slow and languid. Sunday had blown by in a hazy blur and Shay, as she groped for her phone to silence the wake-up alarm. She was wishing she had enjoyed it more. At least dinner last night had been a success.

Shay rolled over and pulled herself to her feet, going through the morning motions. She got herself ready and dressed, got the kids going and fed. While they ate, she ventured out to conduct her morning rituals of taking care of the animals. Tlitoo wasn't there to greet her, and she noted Leonardo's absence as well.

Cold shoulder for not being here most of yesterday, she absently asked herself as she led Nightshade out of her stall and into the paddock for the day. The mare nickered quietly and drew her long head across Shay, pinning the woman briefly to the horse's side. She tried to break free, but only half-heartedly so. She gave up rather quickly and took a few minutes to pet and rub the horse's head, softly cooing to her.

"Awww, I know, Shade. I love you, too. Who's my best girl, huh? That's right, you are. You're my best girl…"

Shay returned to the house, sporting quite a bit of horsehair clinging to her clothes, which only reminded her that she'd need to brush the horses down. Shay batted at herself, trying to dislodge as much as she could out on the back patio before stepping inside. She hurried the kids out after they gathered their school bags, and bid them goodbye when the bus came by, giving them goodbye kisses before they hopped into it together.

A thermos of coffee was already on the kitchen counter, waiting for her when she returned. The stark scent of it was what caught her attention before she saw the thermos itself. Leonardo was sipping from his own mug, leaning against the counter. Michelangelo was seated at the kitchen table, enjoying a bowl of cereal. She saw that once more, there was a lack of Raphael or Donatello in sight.

They really are scarce in the mornings, she noted quietly, approaching the kitchen island and scooping up her coffee. She caught Leo's eye and raised it in thanks with a nod. Her foot collided with something and she glanced down to see her bag there as well. She smiled, and nodded again towards the blue-banded turtle as she stooped to pull the strap up onto her shoulder.

"Have a good day at work."

"Thanks. I'll try. Hey, where's everyone else?"

"Raph's not a morning person, like, at all," Michelangelo answered before his older brother could. "And Donnie said he's 'working on something'. Did not elaborate."

"A way to make money," Leo said, glancing at Mikey, who only shrugged and yawned before spooning another bite into his mouth. That caught her attention.

"A way to make money? What does that mean?"

"Tech stuff, mostly. His specialty."

"Why would you guys need to make money? I've got this, I already have a job, I'm handling things."

"We can't, in good conscious, continue to not provide something in return for all you've done for us. We can at the very least find a way to repay you for all you've done: a roof over our heads, food on the table, keeping our secret…it's a lot you and your family has done for us. More than we could have asked for."

Conflict immediately warred inside her. She didn't know whether to be insulted or concerned or absolutely shitty. Was it that obvious she was beginning to feel stretched on her budget with the addition of four bodies in her household? She'd already been somewhat precarious when it came to the budget of feeding the horses and the goats, the dogs and the cats...

"I…I really wished you'd asked me first, instead of just assuming I couldn't handle the finances. I mean, I—I didn't even give any conditions whatsoever about needing to be repaid and I wasn't going to. Did you just assume I was holding out for reparations?"

Shitty. She was leaning towards shitty and affronted. She bristled when Leo straightened and tilted his head to peer down at her, which—to be fair, she was short, but it wasn't the matter of height that got to her. It was the way he stared down at her. Like she needed to be educated or reminded that he was in the business of decision-making and she, insultingly enough, wasn't.

Like her opinion didn't matter in this situation and only his did. Like her authority in this household had somehow taken a backseat to his.

"That isn't why we're doing it. It's part of it, yes, but we just felt that we should pitch in more and help out, wherever we can. Doing chores around the place only goes so far, but it doesn't help pay the bills."

"Excuse me? I'm not one of your brothers, where you just get to decide what's what and I have to go along with it. This is my house. I would have liked to know about the concerns all of you might have had—and not just you determining what concerns were and what weren't relevant. If you were so worried about my financial situation, I don't think the solution should have been to immediately to go behind my back and then expect me to be okay with it after the fact."

Thorns prickled along the backs of her ribs, and it hurt to breath the tighter they dug in. The edges of her tongue piercing were scoring the roof of her mouth as she clenched her jaw. The growing lump in her throat or the heat flushing her face weren't helping matters, either.

Did he really think she'd be okay with this? That she wasn't capable of being part of the decision-making process, especially considering this was her fucking house? Did he really think that she couldn't handle things, couldn't help them to the best of her abilities? Did he think she needed some sort of compensation out of pity?

Rick's comment from the other day struck her dead center to the core in that moment. She was a whole-ass mess and frankly, she wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to touch her with a ten-foot pole if it meant avoiding her altogether. Was this Leo's way of doing just that?

Shay only broke eye contact so she could check the time on her phone and let out an annoyed sigh through her nose. Time to go or she'd be late to work.

"You know what? I gotta go to work. You know, to make the paycheck you apparently don't think is worth enough to support this place and everyone in it."

Shay made a point of ignoring her thermos as she marched right out the house, carrying only her bag on her shoulder and car keys in hand.

Mikey stared at the spot where Shay had disappeared from before slowly shifting his attention to Leo, eyes wide and round. He had expected a cool and collected look on his older brother's face. Instead, he was surprised at the dumbstruck expression painted on it. It was a rare occasion, but that look came along once in a blue moon. April was perhaps the only other person who could have painted that look on Leo's face without breaking a sweat. Well, her and Master Splinter.

From across the room, Raph's laughter lilted into existence. The burly turtle was at the foot of the stairs, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and looking pleased as punch.

"Wow, Fearless. She sure told you, huh? Probably shouldn't have had Donnie going behind her back like that. Even I coulda toldja that was a bad idea from the start. Actually—wait! I did. I did say it was, didn't I?"

And there it was. Leonardo's composure was back into place. He pinched his lips together, eyes narrowing as he drew his attention to bear on Raphael.

"I stand by my decision. We're not exactly being productive here and it's the least we can do. We shouldn't be sitting around doing nothing."

"Trying to force her to go along with what ya want—that's gonna end in disaster, I'm tellin' ya right now, Leo. But sure. 'You know what's best', an' all that." Under his breath, he added, "Just another repeat of April all over again."

Raphael waved dismissively at Leonardo, shaking his head before slipping outside through the back door.

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"You look like a hot mess. You doing okay or are you falling apart or something?"

"You know, I'm getting real tired of people calling me that to my face or insinuating it all the same, lately."

Georgina drew back, brows raised in perplexity.

"Okay, wow. Hostile. Care to share, or are you going to be a scathing little hellcat all day long?"

Shay pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling pressure already building up right behind it. She should have taken the fucking coffee with her. Now she was paying for it because of her damned pride…

"Nothing, it's just…something Rick said the other day." It was half-true, after all. It didn't help that Leo seemed to have added gasoline to the fire, even if he wasn't aware of it.

Christ, I really am a mess, aren't I? Maybe Peter's right to hate my guts. Maybe I'm just a walking disaster of a person who shouldn't even be here on this earth anymore…

"Oh, honey, fuck Rick. He's just a bitter asshole who wishes he was half as amazing as you are. What'd he even say to you?"

Shay breathed in deeply, fighting back the prickling urge to cry. She couldn't do that here, not now. Not with Peter prowling around outside on the gallery floor, when he could burst in on her and see her as a fucking mess on the floor, a sorry piss-poor excuse of a human being who can't even keep her houseguests happy…

"Forget it. I'm just…tired. And cranky. I'm sorry, George. I'll buck up."

Georgina looked like she wanted to argue otherwise—but she simply pursed her lips and gave her friend a nod.

"You know I'm here if you wanna talk," was all she said before she slipped out of the office. Shay continued to breath in deep until she calmed.

Stupid. Stupid picking a fight like that. And for what? Because you got pissy about something that wasn't even that big of a fucking deal. Because you were prideful and stupid. Because you got mad at the truth-bomb Rick dumped in your lap, like a stupid fucking child…

Shay quietly came onto the gallery floor and went through the motions. The day passed slowly, agonizingly. She was more than grateful that Andrei hadn't showed up, but Tyler did. He flirted with Georgina for the better part of an hour once she came from her lunch break. That left Shay with Thomas and she spent the last half of the day training him on the paintings they currently had in the gallery.

"What about that art show that we've got in a few weeks?" Thomas piped up in the lull between her lessons. Shay was slow to perk up to his inquiry.

"What about it?"

"It-it's my first," he said, looking paler than moments before. "I don't really know what's going on with it. Peter keeps telling me to ask you guys, but I—I…well I, uh…"

Shay cursed softly under her breath. Of course, Peter would blow it off and leave it to her or George to explain. He couldn't even have the courtesy to let them know to do so, the asshole. Typical.

"It's a new artist we're going to be showcasing for the summer season. New and upcoming, his name's…god, what was it…Haru Saka. He does a lot of wildlife paintings, most of it inspired by Yellowstone, but there's a few outlier pieces from other places in the world. He's even got a few underwater ocean and lake pieces, but I don't know if we'll be displaying any of them."

She frowned, trying to recall all the details. "It's funny…we were supposed to be fielding a different artist, but they backed out at the last minute, and Haru filled in their spot almost immediately after. It's really weird how he came out of nowhere like that. Like he was waiting for it or expecting it to happen."

Then again, there had been a handful of other artists, if she was remembering correctly, who were wanting to display their work in Whitefish. It was a nice place for tourists to gawk at their works, maybe even be tempted to buy impulsively while on vacation. Even though Shay herself has lived here for three years, she often found herself drawn to the antique shops around her, wanting to have some new piece to nail to the wall or display on a table or bookshelf in the house.

That was certainly how Peaches the Mountain Lion had come to be in her place, after all.

Shay shook her head and patted Thomas on the back reassuringly.

"You'll do fine. It's going to be running into the evening, sure, but that's overtime we all get paid for. I'll try to pry more details out of Peter, and if he won't say anything, we can grill Julian when he comes in tomorrow. Sound good?"

Thomas appeared placated by the promise and nodded to her before she directed him to begin end-of-day cleanup. She watched the kid scamper off and only added to her growing mental checklist of just one more thing she had to worry about.

A tap on her shoulder drew her attention. She turned to find an older woman sheepishly waving at her and motioning toward the other end of the gallery. She was dressed a little bit more fancifully than one would expect in a small tourist town.

"Excuse me, but can you tell me a bit more about this piece that's down over here, please?"

It didn't take more than twenty minutes to go into the details of the gallery painting and the artist who created it. The woman dithered for only a few minutes before she burst out that she just had to buy it. It took another ten minutes to finish ringing the woman up. It was when Shay had completed carefully wrapping up the painting for safe travels that she noticed she hadn't seen Peter in quite some time. Georgina was off helping another customer, while Thomas was cleaning up as directed. Chelsea, as far as Shay was aware, was out due to her kids having caught a stomach bug or a summer cold of some sort.

It made her nervous that Peter had been MIA for quite some time. She last saw him on the floor earlier on, but since then, well…

She caught George's eye and gave her a wave, indicating she'd be heading to the back for a minute. The other woman flashed a thumbs up to her before turning back to her customer and resumed chatting animatedly with them.

Shay headed to the back, hesitating briefly when she heard the door leading to the back lot opening. Her hand remained on the knob, growing slick with nervous sweat as she stood there, contemplating. Fuck it.

She pushed the door open, only to find the office empty. The door leading outside was propped open, the early evening sunlight filtering in, bright and cheery. She caught a whiff of something, and she almost immediately registered it as smoke. The first thought that came to her was Peter was having a smoke, but after another curious sniff, she realized it didn't smell anything like cigarettes.

Shay was about to head back to the gallery floor when she saw that her bag was gaping open like a mouth, exposing all her things, except for her little red notebook. She paled and rushed forward to the back door and froze when she saw Peter standing next to a trashcan, staring down at the flaming mess within.

The dots connected immediately then and there when he snapped his head in her direction and smiled coldly at her.

The lighter he had in hand flipped shut, loud as thunder, as he pushed past her back into the gallery. Shay could only stare mutely as paper turned to ash in the blink of an eye.

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Shay couldn't feel her body the entire drive home. It had been one pasty blur, all colours and shapes, but nothing registered until she was sitting in front of her house, truck engine idling. She had the radio blaring, but she couldn't tell what was playing; it was all garbled, unintelligible noise. Shay groped at the knobs of her radio and clumsily snapped the volume down. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

The quiet did little to soothe her nerves. George's words from earlier had done even less.

The realization that she was going to lose her job because of just how much Peter hated her was finally dawning on her. He'd burned her book. He'd burned all the written transgressions he'd committed against her or Thomas or anyone, really, that she had witnessed, all the information she had, all the dirt she'd collected.

Even George had added her own entries to the book from time to time.

I should have typed it all up. I kept telling myself to and I never did and now—

She was screwed. Monumentally, irreversibly, and solidly fucked.

Shay jumped when her phone began buzzing. She largely kept her phone on silent when at work and had forgotten to return it to its usual noisy status. She immediately saw that it was George as she unplugged her phone and opened her messages.

'We'll figure this out, don't freak out! I won't let you lose your job. Peter won't get away with this.'

The gaping hole where her stomach once was would argue otherwise. Shay refrained from saying as such. It wasn't going to help anyone, and there was no point. Shay sniffled and rubbed at her cheeks. They were still wet and she hurriedly set to scrubbing them, checking her reflection to clean any out of place makeup she had to fix.

As soon as she stepped into the house, however, a switch went off inside her. Her kids were on her within seconds, and so were the dogs. Shay grinned and gripped them hard in a bearhug, swaying back and forth with them. Korra was the first to wriggle free, deciding she'd given enough of her presence to her mother, but Cas remained behind. Shay swept him up hugged him tighter.

Evergreen kept leaning on Shay from behind, whining happily as her tail beat at the back of Shay's knees and thighs. Chief scrabbled around them and she had to push him away, laughing while she did.

"Oooh, my baby boy. Mommy missed you, sweetie."

"I had a good day at school!"

"That's fantastic!" She warmed at the news. Even Korra had mumbled something about having a good day, to which Shay was also glad for.

"Did you have good day at work?"

Shay hummed back at him. "I sold a painting. It was a pretty one too, and pretty expensive to boot."

"Which one was it?!"

This was their little ritual, just her and her little boy. Shay pulled her phone out and selected the album she'd made of all the pictures she'd taken of the paintings from work. She scrolled through and picked the one she'd sold. Cas grabbed her phone and blew up the frame.

"Wooooooow. That's a really pretty one! I bet the lady who got it is really gonna like it!"

Shay's brows beetled at his comment, and she canted her head to the side. Cas, in turn, rolled his eyes.

"You sell a lot of paintings to a lot of ladies," he explained, as though she was a little bit thick in the head. She thought on this and realized that he was actually right.

"Huh. I do sell a lot of paintings to women, don't I?"

"That's because you're an artist and they trust your word on the art. The boys who come into the gallery are pretentious and stupid. Duh."

She was rather proud of his proper use of 'pretentious' and beamed at him. It also drew a genuine laugh from her and for a moment, she could almost forget her earlier troubles. But they lingered at the edge, waiting to creep back up on her. It made skin prickle and the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention.

A soft clearing of the throat caught Shay's ear and she turned her head in the direction it came from. Donatello stood outside the doorway leading to the game and rec room. He gave Cas a little wave when the boy turned to look as well.

"Hey, Cas…is it okay if I steal your mommy for a minute? I've gotta ask her a few things."

"Oh. Okay. But don't take too long, I'm hungry!"

"You're always hungry," Shay retorted with a small smirk. Cas scoffed as he started to stroll toward the living room.

"I'm a growing boy! I need food!"

"Oh, yes. Of course, how could I forget?" She chuckled and added, "I'll be there in a minute to start dinner. Why don't you get all the ingredients out for dinner—but don't touch the knives or anything! I mean it!"

"Okay, Mommy!"

She watched him go, and with every step he took, the smaller her smile grew until it faded completely. She turned to Donatello, the weight of her day settling back onto her shoulders once more.

"Is this about this morning?"

"No—well, partly, but that's not…" Donnie paused, regathering his thoughts. "It's part of it. But I just wanted to ask if…you were okay. I, uh…saw the message on your computer pop up. I wasn't snooping or anything, it just showed up while I was…working."

That indignant prickle began trickling back and it took every ounce of sheer will to force it back down. "Right. From George—Georgina."

She backed up until she felt the front door to her back and sagged against it, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Do you…wanna talk about it?"

"No." She replied quickly, groaned, and shook her head. "Yes. No. I don't know. Today's just been…a lot."

She didn't fight it when Donnie gently guided her into the room and quietly closed the door. There was a reassurance in his gentle but firm grip. It was dim inside, just the way she liked it. She collapsed onto the little loveseat, melting right into it. She caressed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, gently massaging the area.

"Bad start to my day. Bad end to my day. What's to talk about?"

"You might be losing your job. That's…more than just a bad end to your day, I'd wager."

Shay peeped her eyes open and rolled her head over to look at where Donnie had taken a seat in her computer chair.

"I got mad at your brother this morning."

"I, uh…yeah, I heard. I tried to tell Leo that you should be brought into the fold, that we should have discussed things with you first, but he, well…"

"Decided what was best for everyone without asking?"

Donatello winced before nodding. "Yeah." He paused before lightly laughing. "You know, he tried that once with April. It did not end well for him then, and you'd think he'd have learned from that experience. When she was done with him, he avoided her for almost two weeks after that!"

That brought a wistful smile to her face. At least I'm not the only who didn't just sit by and let him steamroll over like that.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I really am. I tried to tell Leo that it would have been better if he spoke to you first, to make sure that you were all right with things beforehand." He gave pause to allow the weight of his words to hang in the air between them before continuing. "But I also know that he had only good intentions behind his reasons. We've been here for well over a month and...it hasn't been hard to see that things have grown tight. Pickings have been getting slim."

She hated that he was right. She hated that she had to agree, even when she didn't want to. She hated that her pride was still being a stuffy little thing, rearing its ugly little head back and screaming klaxons in her head to refuse the help at all.

"Leo just wanted to make sure that we're helping while we're still here, in any way we can," he finished, holding his hands up in a show that he's said his piece and was done. Shay mulled over his words. She'd been mulling over the morning situation for the better part of her day, stewing on how things had gone down.

Finally, she gave a curt nod. "I'm sorry. I'll…talk to him later. And I…I appreciate the offer. Especially now since…" Her shoulders sagged and the misery came rushing back in all over again. She ducked her gaze, finding the knots and grains of the wooden floor at her feet suddenly more enticing to look at. Donnie shifted in his seat.

"What happened at work?"

"I've…talked about Peter before. He's an asshole. Hates my guts. Blah, blah, blah." Shay groaned softly, running a hand over her face. It was growing hot and the lump at the base of her throat was getting bigger. "I, uh…I had this little notebook. Every time he did something shitty, or shady, or was just a fucking asshole to me or to anyone else in the shop—or when he let Chelsea go for the day when she needed to stay, or…whatever the case might be. I wrote it down. Sometimes George wrote something down too, and even Thomas asked to put down something once or twice. Poor kid's scared stiff of Peter, but the asshole treats Thomas better than he does me. And George pasted a couple of screenshots she printed of our schedules before Peter got his hands on them and doctored them up with last minute changes. Or of text messages he's sent to her badmouthing all of us, or his thoughts on trying to…well…you get the idea. He's a fucking asshole."

Shay shook her head and she struggled to remember every little detail she'd written down in the book. There was just so much packed in the last two and a half years. She'd only started just the past year, but there was still so much. Maybe she could cobble up together something tonight on her computer. Maybe George could resend those screenshots…

How many times has Peter let Chelsea leave when the gallery had suddenly bloomed with bodies, and they needed all hands on deck? How many times had Peter bailed randomly and made her, Georgina, and Thomas handle it alone while he hid away in the back office, doing god knows what…? How many times had he threatened to fire Shay for nitpicky and petty details that didn't even matter or had no impact on the shop, like a stupid trash bag accidentally being left overnight in the back office? The bathroom not being scrubbed spotless? A light being left on overnight? How many times had he called Shay and forced her to come in on her scheduled days off, under threat of firing her if she didn't?

"He burned it today at work, out back behind the gallery. All that evidence built up against him, just…gone in a flash. Poof. I caught him burning it and he just…walked right past me and I—I couldn't say a word. I froze up."

Nearly a year's worth of work, gone.

"Oh, that little red book you carried around in your bag? I scanned it for you. I figured it was important." Donnie said breezily, swiveling in the chair to face her computer screen. He was already working at the keyboard before Shay registered his words.

"I…I'm sorry, what? You-you what now?"

"I scanned all the pages you had filled out about a week ago. I skimmed a few entries and whoo, boy. Your boss sounds like a piece of work. Glad I did, too."

He offered her a thin smile, his eyes glinting mischievously over the tops of his glasses. Shay rolled to her feet and stumbled over to the computer desk to gawp at the screen. A PDF window sat open, and the very first thing she wrote in her book was displayed in her semi-legible chicken scratch handwriting. She took control of the mouse and began scrolling through the pages. She paused at several, and as she read through them, she could easily recall the day the events happened, when she had taken the time to write things down, how long she had stewed over every incident.

"Holy fucking shit—DONNIE! Donnie, oh my god!"

She flung her arms around his neck, pulling him into a tight embrace. Donatello fumbled, taken aback by the sudden burst of energy from Shay.

"Omigod, omigod, omigod! You just saved my ass! Holy shit!"

Everything was going to be fine. In that singular, definitive moment, everything was going to be fine. Her job was safe. Peter would get his comeuppance. She could focus on other, far more important things.

Like spending more time with her kids before she had to send them off to spend the upcoming summer with her ex-husband, as dictated by their custody agreement.

It was her year to pony up airfare money to fly them to Wisconsin.

In the past, Peter had refused her enough time to take off to drive to and from Wisconsin—something she would have much preferred to do. It was by far cheaper, but he had treated her like a child; that too much time away would make her lazy.

If she had been Chelsea asking, she knew he'd have given her all the time in the world, and then some…

Shay shook the thoughts away like clearing cobwebs and detached herself from Donnie, composing herself.

"Thank you so much, Donnie—really. You just seriously saved my ass and then some."

"It's the least I could do, considering everything. Plus, what happened this morning…"

"I'll…talk with Leo. But I've got some work to do."

Donnie pushed the computer chair back and waved Shay into it. "I'll leave you to it."

She was already clattering away at her keyboard, eyes glued to the screen with fevered excitement. Several windows popped up across the bright screen, drowning out the image of a glowering Godzilla from view once more.

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