Friday came quicker than Madi thought it would. As soon as school was over, she ran home to pick up her costume. When she got home around four 'o'clock, she made sure to quietly tip-toe through the lair so that no one knew she was home. Once she had gotten to her room, she quickly changed out of her regular school clothes and into her costume. 

She was wearing a black tank top with the letters 'T', 'A', and 'F' on it, black skinny jeans with scraped knees, black high-healed boots, a long black cape with a high collar, and fake fangs. She had covered her face with white powder to make herself look pale and also put in a pair of red contacts to make her eyes appear crimson. Once she had pulled her long curled blonde hair back into a high pony-tail, she looked at herself in the mirror and smirked.

Madi knew that she was going to be an awesome TAF vampire.

"Madi?" she suddenly heard a knock on her bedroom door. Madi's eyes widened as she looked at the clock on the wall. It was only a few minutes after school had ended, no one should've been home yet and the guys were still busy training. 

"Who is it?" she called.

"It's..." there was a moment of silence, then a sigh. "It's Raph." 

"What is it? Is everything okay?" Madi said through her closed door.

"Look, can I just talk to you for a second?" he asked. She could tell from the quietness of his voice that he was either missing training to talk to her or didn't want anyone to know that he was trying to talk to her. Either way, she refused to let him into her bedroom. He couldn't see her in her costume, otherwise he would know for sure that she was leaving to go to the dance.

"Aren't we talking right now?" Madi asked him.

"Can you open the door?" he countered.

"I'd really rather not." she informed Raph, daring to glance at herself in the mirror again. Maybe she'd be able to rub off the make up and ditch the cape before he could burst into her room uninvited. Madi quickly reached over to her bed and grabbed one of her old towels she had tossed from one of her previous showers and attempted to scrub her face clean. 

"And why is that?" Raph growled from within the hallway. Madi quickly pulled off her cape and threw it onto her desk, checked the mirror one last time to see her face, figured that she was clean enough, and then walked over to her door. She opened it a few inches, just so that Raph could see her face but not the rest of her body.

"What do you want, Raph?" she asked him.

"What's with the hair? And what's wrong with your eyes?" 

Madi mentally swore in her mind. She totally forgot to pull her hair out of its pony-tail and to take out her contacts.

"Just trying a new style. Why?" Madi smirked, knowing that that was a perfect cover-story for this. In some ways, she knew she was too smart for her own good.

"Oh, just...um..." he scratched the back of his head and stared at the floor. "Well, it's a good look. For you, I mean. I mean, you didn't look bad before. I'm totally not saying that, but now you look-"

"Is this what you wanted to talk about?" Madi said, interupting his pointless mumbling. He cleared his throat and he crossed his arms.

"No, it's not."

"Then spit it out, tough-guy." Madi snapped.

"Fine." Raph growled back. "Since you're grounded from going to the dance tonight, I thought it would be a nice gesture if I invited you to one of the places my brothers and I like to hang out. It's a restauraunt ran by a great guy who knows that we're turtles, but cooks really awesome food too."

Madi gave him a small smile. It was nice of him that he was offering, but her band was counting on her tonight. No matter how much she wanted to hang out with the guys tonight, if she wanted to keep her spot in the band, then she couldn't miss this opportunity. The TAFs wouldn't be very happy if she ditched them out of the blue with no logical explaination.

"I wish I could, Raph. But I think I just want to stay home tonight. Not really in the mood to be out and about. But thank you for the offer." she told him politely. 

"Fine, whatever." he huffed and walked away. Madi closed the door behind her and began to reapply her make-up. Sure, she was sad that she wouldn't be able to join the guys tonight, but at least that meant they would be out of the lair, giving her enough time to sneak out without Splinter or her mother knowing. With that information in mind, she looked at the clock on her wall again.

The dance didn't start for another few hours, but she would still need to be there early so that she could help Kimberly and the others set up their equipment.

"Okay." she said to herself as she looked at her reflection in her mirror. "Just one night. After this, you can go back to being the goody-two-shoes that you usually are. But tonight is your night. Not Mom's. Not Splinter's. Not April's. And not the Turtles'. This is your night. And no one can take that away from you. No matter how hard they try. This may very well be your last night of freedom from the dark sewer prison, so make it count."

After her pep-talk, she grabbed her bag with her cellphone and wallet, then headed out into the streets of New York.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Madi, are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Mikey hollared from outside her bedroom door. There was no reply.

"Maybe she isn't feeling well." Donnie suggested.

"She's feeling fine, I talked to her less than twenty minutes ago." Raph chimed in. They all stood in the hall right outside her bedroom. Leo's eyes widened as he realized what was going on. Quickly stepping past his brothers, he lifted his foot and kicked her door down. "What the shell, Leo?!" Raph shouted at him as he ran into her room.

"She's gone!" Leo quickly said. 

"What!?" Mikey howled in anguish. "She went to the dance without me?! But what about my Turflytle costume? Buzz! Buzz!"

"We have to go after her." Raph stated.

"Then let's get going." Leo agreed. 

And the four of them left the lair.