Leonardo, You Gave Me Wisdom (Book 4)

Broken Leader

(Leo POV)

"He's been in there for days..."

"You sure he'll be okay?"

"Has he eaten? I'll make pizza! Ow!"

"Raph, stop it."

"We're all worried. It doesn't help to hurt others when we have Leo the way he is."

All I could do was sigh. I knew I was depressed, but I didn't want the others to see. That's why I stayed in my room. I was sitting on my bed trying to meditate, but my concentration couldn't come. My thoughts were jumbled and a headache was starting to form because I was trying too hard. Along with everyone whispering outside my door.

"Naomi, when will we start looking for Sophie?"

A pause. "Tomorrow."

"Positive?"

"Yes."

"We're dragging Leo with us, right?"

"We're not going to make him! He'll come if he wants. Now come on and stop crowding his door. He's already stressed enough and I imagine he can hear us."

Slowly, footsteps faded, but one stayed behind, Mikito I believe, "I know you miss Soph, Leo... We all do." Then the last of pair of feet left my room and I relaxed my body, finally giving up on meditating.

Tears threatened to come, and I tried to refuse them, but they were persistent and so I gave up, letting them fall. I cried. I didn't want to, but I couldn't stop it. I was alone. Raph, Donnie and even Mikey had Naomi, Julie, and Mikito. I was the last one. The leader. You think I would've been first so I wouldn't have lost my mind like this. To support whoever was last. But no. I'm the last one.

My shoulders shuddered as I tried to keep in a soft sob, but I lost control of my body as much as I had lost my mind. When I finally realized my entire being was breaking down into little pieces, it was too late. Mikey had found Mikito and mutated her, speeding up the process. My mind was getting foggy and I didn't want to leave with the others as much, unless Naomi had begged me to get and get Mikey back. I never left unless it was to save my brother. If I did leave when it wasn't that, I don't remember.

Everything was blurring together. Christmas passed by and I didn't really even smile. If I did, it wasn't genuine. Nothing I did, not even training, did I put my heart into it as I had used to. Losing Sophie was hard. But watching everyone else get their lives back, Naomi even growing hers and Raph's and Julie with her and Donnie soon, it made me jealous. I didn't want to be. I never thought I could be. But I was. It was hurtful and I wanted to hurt everyone, but I hid to make sure I didn't.

I finally calmed down and I started into my shadowed room with a puffy vision. I barely recognized anything anymore. Donnie had tried to give me antidepressants, but I never took them. He noticed one day and scolded me. So now I took two, like the packaging said, out of the bottle and flushed them down the sewage drains, letting them disolve and for me to never see them again. "I don't want help", I had said to myself as I watched the water take the last of the pills before Donnie had given me a new container. "I want Sophie."

But I got up off the bed and went to my closet, looking inside the dark shadows. I reached in and pulled out my mask and belt along with my Katanas. Forgetting about my wrist and ankle wrappings, I just put on my mask and belt while walking out. I made sure the mask would hide my tear-stricken face as I walked to the kitchen.

As I did, I caught a whiff of something other than pizza. When I came closer, I heard voices.

"I wanted to cook!" Mikey wailed. "Ow! Raph, stop!"

"Naomi's cooking. And it's better than what you usually make," Raph growled. "Kids don't like cockroaches and dead aquatic fishes on their food!"

"Yeah!" Melanie and Adrian echoed.

"But the dragons do," Mikey said with confidence.

A huff sounded by a cry of pain came from the room. I peeked in and Mikey was running around the island with his back end on fire. Mikito was chasing him around, trying to get the fire out with a fire extinguisher. Shol and Raph were watching amused. Adrian and Melanie were laughing and giggling. Naomi sighed and grabbed a glass pan with something inside and stuck it in the oven before Mikito could get any extinguisher foam in the food.

"Enough!" I growled. Everyone paused, except Mikey who ran into Shol's arm. The dragon patted the fire out with a wing. "I understand it's fun and games, but we still have things to do."

"We're doing whatever you're talking about tomorrow," Naomi said, turning back around and facing me. "If you should know, Sophie will be at the park tomorrow and that will be a perfect time to get her."

I frowned, unsure what to say. Naomi's tail flicked and I averted my eyes away from her. She sighed then went back to cooking. When I looked up, Raph was looking at me hurt, while trying to keep the kids in their seats. Mikito was helping Mikey up and away from Shol who now had his head down like he hadn't burnt Mikey's behind or anything. Donnie and Julie came in just then. I glanced at Donnie as he passed and he smiled a sympathetic smile. I turned away and he patting my shell.

"What's cooking, Naomi?" Julie asked as she passed me, her tail swishing into my view. I closed my eyes. "Smells good."

"Lasagna," Naomi replied. The way she said lasagna wasn't what I was used to. Instead of making the "g" silent, she spoke the "g" and always smiled when she did. She even pronounced the "k" in knife and "g" in gnat.

From the island, Melanie said, "You say that weird, Mommy."

"I call it the Naomi dictonary."

"There is no such thing," Donnie piped up.

Naomi growled and glared at him when I looked at her, "If the English language wanted the letters to be silent, then they wouldn't have added them."

I rolled my eyes, already tired of the conversation. So I put in, "Set my food outside my door. I'm going to rest."

"You've been resting all day, Leo," Julie said, now giving notice that I was in the room. "You should train or go out."

"No. I'm tired," I said with a little more force than I meant to. Everyone looked at me as I turned and left to my room once again. My hands were shaking and I took my belt and Katanas away and plopped on my bed, plastron first. I sighed.

I hoped Sophie was happier than me right now...