Perseverance

I’m not making any money from this, nor do I own the Ninja Turtles - I’m just borrowing them for a while.
~~~~~~~~~~

Leonardo, Casey, Raphael, Donatello, and Splinter renewed their search for Michelangelo in the area where they’d found the broken Comm. Don went back up to the rooftops with Raph, Leo combed through the sewers, while Splinter and Casey roamed the dark alleys.

It was dark out, but not late. People had their lights on in their apartments and Raph and Don could see them, eating, watching, tv, and in a couple of cases, having sex. If they hadn’t been looking for Mikey, they would have stopped to watch - they weren’t perverts, they were just always very curious about girls. Raphael and Michelangelo had actually kissed a couple of them a few months back, but it had been Hallowe’en and the girls thought that they were wearing costumes.

They all hugged April before - she was a girl, but she was like family to them. She didn’t interest them in the right way. “Not like her”, thought Don, looking at a brightly lit apartment across the street. The girl had stacks of books all over her living room and kitchen in the apartment across the street. She had long, shining blond hair, pulled back into a pony tail, and she was slim and curvy. She sat cross legged on her chair, engrossed in a thick textbook. “Pretty, and a nerd”, Don smiled to himself.

Raph came and stood next to him. “What the shell?! Do you see that?!”

“Yeah she’s pretty, isn’t she?”

Raph shoved him hard. “Gimmie a break! Check out the chick’s kitchen table!” Don squinted and pulled a small pair of field binoculars out of his belt. He focussed them and gasped at what he saw. There were nunchucks on her kitchen table. Nunchucks with orange fabric wrapped around the handles. He looked around some more. There were bloody rags on her coffee table, and what was she reading? He zoomed in on her. “Caring for your Pet Turtle”.

“Ho-ly shell.”

Raph was already calling Leo on his Turtle Comm.

When Leo found them a few minutes later, Don and Raph were still spying on the girl through the binoculars. Don figured that Mikey was lying on the floor, out of their line of sight.

“There’s a fire escape on the left of her building. That’s probably the best way in”, Don said, passing the binoculars over to Leo.

Ralph frowned. “Think that’s the best way? What if she’s not alone in there? What if Mike’s not there at all?”
“We’ll have to take that chance,” said Leonardo. “Besides, she has to know something about him. This can’t possibly be a coincidence!”

Raphael sighed. He hated it when they had to expose themselves to humans, but it didn’t look like they had a choice.
The ninjas slid down the drainpipe and dashed across the street to the fire escape in perfect silence. They climbed quickly up to the fifth floor and peered cautiously in the window which led to a bathroom. The door was shut, keeping them from seeing the rest of the apartment. Don glanced at the stuff on the kitchen counter. “She lives alone”, he said. “Only one toothbrush, and lots of girly stuff”. Raph and Leo looked at the perfume and fancy shampoo bottles, nodding in agreement.

“Do we knock?” Raph whispered.

“Let’s just go in”, Leo whispered back.

“Won’t that scare her?”

“Probably, but if she hears knocking at her window, she might call the cops”.

“Good point”, replied Raph as Don jimmied the window open as quietly as he could.

“She needs a lock on this” he muttered.