Chapter 4

While Shireen and the turtles were running through the city, Gieve was still on the phone with the girl he was flirting with earlier. As he was talking, he heard the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him. He turned around and saw two familiar faces: A seventeen-year-old boy with long dark hair and golden eyes, wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, and a fourteen-year-old boy with shoulder-length white hair and blue eyes, wearing a blue-and-white long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and sneakers.

 

“Oh, hey, Arslan, Daryun,” he said overenthusiastically. He was just about to return to his conversation, then realized exactly who he was talking to. “Oh! A-Arslan! Daryun!” He said into the phone, “I’ll call you back later,” then hung up and faced his friends.

 

“What do you think you were doing?” Daryun (the older teen) asked, glaring at his idiot friend.

 

“Uh…chatting,” Gieve replied and grinned nervously.

 

"Whatever," Arslan (the younger teen) said, then peeked into the living room and looked around. He went back to Gieve and said, "Uh, where's Shireen? She's usually out here watching TV or outside playing with her toys."

 

“She’s probably in her room,” Gieve replied with a nonchalant shrug. “That’s where she’s been all day.”

 

“Odd,” Daryun commented.

"Do you think she's sick?" Arslan asked as he, Daryun, and Gieve walked down the hallway to Shireen's room to verify Gieve's answer.  Once they arrived, they heard the TV playing inside and opened the door.

 

“See?” Gieve said proudly. But once all three of them stepped inside, he saw, to his dismay, that there was no kid in the room. “Huh?! But she was in here!”

 

Arslan glared at Gieve and thought, ‘Urge to kill rising!’ It took all his willpower to not harm Gieve.

Daryun saw this and tried placating the younger boy, saying, “Maybe she’s in the closet, or under the bed. You know how she sometimes likes to trick us like this.”

Arslan calmed down and said, “Maybe you’re right. I’ll check under the bed. You check the closet.” Then he turned to Gieve and said, “She better be in here.” Then he got down on his hands and knees and checked under his sister’s bed. “Shireen? Are you here?” He saw she wasn’t under her bed and asked, “Daryun, any luck?”

 

“No, she’s not here,” Daryun said from inside Shireen’s closet. After exiting and closing the door, he asked, “She’s not under the bed?”

 

“No,” said Arslan. He got out from under the bed and up off the carpeted floor. Then he looked at Daryun and Gieve. “She’s not.”

 

“Maybe she’s in one of the other rooms,” Gieve offered with a nervous air. “Like, say, your parents’ room, or a bathroom!”

 

“She never goes in Mom and Dad’s room!” Arslan exclaimed. “She knows she and I aren't freaking allowed!”

 

“And we would’ve heard the toilet flush or water running if she was in one of the bathrooms,” Daryun added.

 

Arslan got right in Gieve’s face, his eyes filled with rage and said, “I’ll ask you again: Where. The. Hell. Is. Shireen?”

 

“I don’t know!” Gieve replied frantically, backing away from his other friend. “I was on the phone all day!”

 

“You were supposed to be watching her!” Arslan shouted and lunged at Gieve. Luckily for the purple-haired musician, Daryun held Arslan back. "Daryun, damn it, let me go! He lost my sister!"

"I-I'm sure she's fine," Gieve stammered and backed into the baby blue wall. "Sh-she can take care of herself, right?"

"She's six freaking years old, stupid!" Arslan yelled, his hair getting in his face as he still struggled in Daryun's tight grip. "She could be in trouble, and I'm not there to protect her! Idiot! I trusted you!"

 

“Calm down, Arslan!” Daryun said. “I have an idea.”

 

Arslan took a few deep breaths, turned to Daryun, and asked, “What?”

 

Daryun, sure that Arslan wouldn't try to attack Gieve again, set the boy down. He then took his phone out and replied, “Every smartphone has GPS in them, right? So we can just see if we can pick up her location using her phone.”

 

“That’s a great idea,” Arslan said happily. He and Gieve followed Daryun into the living room and sat down on one of the couches.

 

“You know, Ars, when you were angry, you sounded a lot like Zira from The Lion King II,” Gieve said, trying to lighten the mood.

 

I am in no mood right now!" Arslan snapped, looking anywhere but at Gieve. "And, right now, you're not allowed to call me Ars, Nimrod!"

"Whatever," Gieve muttered under his breath.

 

“That’s odd,” Daryun spoke up. He was looking at his phone with a puzzled expression. “It says Shireen’s in her room.”

 

“Huh?” Arslan asked and looked at Daryun. “But she’s not. We were just in there.” He got up and ran back to his sister’s room, where he saw her phone lying on the floor. When he came back out, he was not too happy. He held Shireen's phone and showed it to Daryun and Gieve. “Her phone was still in her room. Great. Just freaking great.”

 

“That’s it,” Daryun said and started dialing 911. “We’ve got no choice. I’m calling the cops.”

 

Arslan plopped back down on the couch and turned to Gieve, glaring at him with now watering eyes. "If anything has happened to Shireen, it's on you!" He then grabbed a pillow from the couch and buried his face in it, worried that Shireen might be in some sort of danger.

 

“Duly noted,” Gieve said, scared out of his mind. 'Please, God, let Shireen be all right. Please,' he thought, his hands now folded in prayer.

 

While Daryun was phoning the police, Shireen and the turtles were still running through the streets, until they finally found an alley with some trash to hide behind.

 

“Good thing today’s not garbage day,” Shireen commented.

 

“You can say that again,” said Mikey.

 

“Ssh!” Leo said urgently. “You guys, I think I heard something.” They all heard Bradford’s voice: “I know they’re around here somewhere.”

 

“Will you just let it go already?” Xever asked in annoyance. “Take a cue from Elsa from Frozen.”

 

“Zip it, Xever!” Bradford commanded. “And if you start singing that annoying song, I’ll pound you into the pavement!”

 

“Ooh, I’m so scared,” Xever said sarcastically.

 

“I bet this’ll get ‘em to come out,” said Bradford. Then he called, “Hey, turtles! Let me have the purple one, and I’ll let the rest of you go!”

 

“And what, pray tell, would you do with him?” Shireen called back.

 

“Why, kick his butt, of course,” Bradford replied, like it should be obvious.

 

“There’s no way we’re letting you hurt our brother!” Mikey called out to Bradford. “It’s all for one and one for all!”

 

“Besides, don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Leo asked. “It was just an accident.”

 

“My fist breaking your brother’s teeth!” Bradford yelled back. “That’s the accident!”

 

“You know, he’s got a point,” Xever told Bradford about what Leo said.

 

“What?!” Bradford said, rounding on Xever.

 

“Look, don’t get me wrong,” said Xever. “I don’t like these turtles any more than you do. But it’s not like he intentionally aimed at you. I bet he just got sick and you just happened to be in his line of fire.”

 

“That’s exactly what happened, Xever!” Donnie called. “Thank you!”

 

“No problem!” Xever called back.

 

“Hey, quit being friendly with the enemy, Xever!” Bradford said.

 

“I can do whatever I want, Macho Man,” Xever retorted. “Why don’t you take a cue from Elsa and-“

 

“Don’t you dare!”

 

“Let it go,” Xever started to sing. “Let it-“ Xever was interrupted when Bradford punched him.

 

“I warned you, didn’t I?” said Bradford. “Now you’re gonna get it!”

 

“You want a fight?” said Xever. “You’ve got one!” Both Xever and Bradford started attacking each other.

 

While Bradford and Xever fought each other, Raph turned to the others and said, “They’re gonna be at that for a while. Let’s get out of here.”

 

“Right,” everyone else agreed and followed Raph out of the alley.

 

After leaving the alley, the turtles and Shireen went on the rooftops and decided to find Shireen’s house. Luckily, the girl remembered her address, so they could easily find it.

Author's Note

I forgot to add that Gieve is from The Heroic Legend of Arslan. So are Daryun and, well, Arslan, and that anime is what I made my OC for.