Searching for April O'Neal

Chapter 7: "Thinking"

"Thinking"

April had been trying to somehow contact the turtles using her mind powers for who knows how long now. And to her knowledge, it was not working, which frustrated her beyond measure.

She was just about ready to give up, or start trying to blow this place up or something, when Tang Shen entered the room.

"What have you been trying to do for the past two and half hours?" she inquired, pulling the chair in front of the desk across from April, who was sitting on the cot in her cell.

"Thinking," April lied.

Tang Shen pursed her lips. "I'll tell you what, April. If you tell me the truth, I'll tell you the truth."

"About..what?" April asked cautiously.

"I'm sure you're curious about how I'm alive, aren't you?" Tang Shen asked. She was right, but April didn't answer. Tang Shen smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "It looked like you were concentrating hard on something."

April licked her lips. "Does it matter?"

"Yes." Tang Shen's smile vanished. "You weren't trying to use that blasted Kraang whatever you have in your DNA, were you?"

"..no.."

Tang Shen was quiet, which, to be honest, scared April. She didn't show it, though, and stared boldly back at Tang Shen.

Finally, Tang Shen said, "That won't work, you know."

April knew she was talking about her Kraang DNA. "And why not?" she demanded.

"Look around you." April didn't need to; she had already memorized every corner of her cell.

"I don't get it," April confessed.

"Of course you don't." Tang Shen's smile returned, and April wondered how the beautiful woman on Splinter's picture he cherished so dearly had turned into this. "If you looked really closely at the metal your cell is made of, you'll notice tiny pink particles in it. And those pink particles are from Dimension X. The only things from Dimension X that are smart enough to get here are the Kraang. To my knowledge, Shredder had some Kraang that he was torturing or whatever for information about the Turtles. Probably some powerful Kraang. He would need to put limits on the Kraang's power, wouldn't he not?"

April's mind realized what she was saying. Shredder had specifically made this room to keep Kraang from using any of their technology or powers. She was defenseless.

"Smart of him," April remarked.

Tang Shen ignored April. "I just told you some information. Now it's your turn." April gulped. "What do you know about Splinter?" This wasn't going to end well.

"He was mutated when the turtles were into a rat," April offered.

"Everyone knows that."

"He wears a bathrobe."

"Kimono." Tang Shen rolled her eyes, looking completely annoyed and bored. April hoped that she might go away, but, of course, she didn't.

"Right. He, uh, teaches the turtles and I ninjutsu."

"Maybe you could tell me something useful."

"I'm not telling you where he is, if that's what you're asking."

This time, Tang Shen started to laugh. "Oh, April. I already know where he is."

There was a long silence. "Then...why don't you just go in and kill him?" April asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"I want him to find where you are first. I want him to come to me."

"What's the point in that?" April scoffed. Yeah, okay, this woman was a psycho murderer and what not, but really? She just quoted every single villain in the world. Talk about cliches.

"Because when you have to wait for something, April, you start to worry, and be afraid. And those emotions can drive people insane."

April bit her lip. "What will..what will you do when he gets here?"

Tang Shen smiled for, like, the millionth time, and April wanted to smack that grin right off her face, but she restrained. "I guess you'll just have to find out."

...

Shot through the heart, and you're to blame, darlin', you give love, a bad name!

Bon Jovi blared through Jamie's ear buds as she helped her mom unpack the house. The moving guys had been good for nothing--they'd just dropped all of Jamie's family's junk into whatever room Jamie's mom had told them to put it, and then left. That forced Jamie, her father, and her mother to have to do most of the work of moving the furniture where it was supposed to go.

Jamie suddenly realized that her mom was frantically trying to get her attention, so Jamie took out an earbud. The guitar solo faded a bit.

"Turn that music down, Jamie. I can hear it from across the room," her mom said, helping her father move a sofa across the room.

Jamie sighed, and turned it down a few notches. She placed her earbud back in her ear and continued to take things out of the cardboard box and place them on the shelf in front of her.

Most of the stuff was her mom's...pictures of Jamie as a baby, her dad playing golf (his favorite sport), family photos, etc. The rest was rewards that Jamie earned for things like sports and music. Mostly music, though. Jamie didn't really like sports, and the only reason she joined them was because her dad got a kick out of watching.

As the chorus of Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name played, Jamie started to think about Mikey for what felt like the millionth time that day. A mutant turtle. Who lived who knows where. In New York City. Where Jamie had just moved. Did the government know about this? Did anyone besides whoever that 'April' and 'Tang Shen' was?

She bit her lip as she set yet another picture of her dad triumphantly holding a golfing bat-hitty-thing. Jamie didn't know what it was called, and she'd always called it that to annoy her dad.

She wanted to tell someone about Mikey, but who would even believe her? Her mom would think that she had dreamed it up, and since her dad was so unpredictable, Jamie didn't know what he would think. Her friends back in Minnesota wouldn't even take her seriously...and she knew no one here in New York City.

Jamie sighed, picking up a baby picture of herself. She should just..forget about the whole thing. It wasn't like she was ever going to see the turtle again, anyway.

Right??