A/N: Hey guys, this is my first Predator fic. It took me a long time to come up with an angle for a story and then have the courage to start posting, but here it is. I've been lost in the wonderful world of TMNT, and I still am but I also love the Predator and wanted to write something in this fandom also. Hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think.

It was hot. Oppressively hot and it was almost 2 a.m. New York was truly the city that never slept, as even at this hour there were plenty of people on the street. Jasmine took a side glance as much as she could at the street that was almost beyond her field of vision. From her very unfortunate vantage point, she could only make out the voices and shadows of passersby. The rest of her vision was occupied by the belt buckle and partially nude thigh of the man standing in front of her. This was unsavory, all of it. Where she was, what she was doing, where she was doing it, why she was doing it, and who she was doing it to. Unsavory to say the least.

The filthy gang way, filled with vermin of every size description, trash, empty crack bags, and dirty needles was no place for a twenty four year old pretty girl with potential. Yet here she was in this God forsaken place allowing a man to use her mouth as he saw fit. Grunting and calling her every kind of stupid bitch he could think of. All the while she was trying not to hurl up the meager lunch she'd eaten at the mission earlier.

Jasmine closed her eyes against the sight before her, as if she could will it away by such a simple act. She tried to think of other things, to dissociate herself from the self-inflicted abuse she was enduring. There was no escape. Even her mind betrayed her as it refused to think of anything even remotely happy or pleasant. All her thoughts circled back to this very moment. How she had gotten here, and why she was existing as she was, was all born of one boneheaded decision after another.

So instead of trying to focus her mind on something, anything else than her reality, Jazzy just went blank. Or rather she tried to. The rough jerk of the man's hips and the subsequent and very unwelcome liquid that followed dragged her back to the here and now.

"Shit! Swallow it bitch," he grunted between what she assumed were clenched teeth by the sound. Disgusted, she pulled back forcefully and gagged, desperate not to ingest a single drop of the foul fluid. Just to make sure, she induced a little vomit, and then glared at the man who chuckled at her reaction. He pulled up his pants, wiped soiled hands on them, then proceeded to throw her a few crumpled bills before stepping back out onto the streets as if he hadn't just been with a whore in the alleyway.

The familiar feeling of self-loathing that always accompanied her settled itself into the pit of her stomach with a vengeance. She quickly gathered up the money, not bothering to count it and shoved it into the pockets of her well-fitting but worn and dirty jeans. When she could convince herself that she retained some form of self-worth, Jazzy made her own way into the night about ten minutes after the John. The self-loathing tightened its grip as her mind started calculating just what this money would be for. Before she could wile it away, she knew she had one important stop to make. With enough money now to catch the train, Jasmine made her way to Harlem.

She had left home two years ago. Her drug addicted mother and her little brother still lived in Harlem. She visited her little brother as often as she could, which was becoming less and less frequent. Her and her mother stopped getting along after her mom became addicted to heroin, and the constant physical and verbal abuse drove Jasmine away.

It didn't take long to get to the place she used to call home. She knew that her mother would most likely not be home at this hour, so she was comfortable going there. She got off the train and walked the three blocks to the tenement her brother and mother now lived in. She stepped past the junkies and fellow whores to enter the building. The halls smelled vaguely of piss and burnt food as she climbed the five flights up. She only had to knock twice before her brother Marcus opened the door.

"Jazzy!" He exclaimed dragging her inside. She smiled and hugged him, looking around the small apartment for her estranged mother.

"She ain't here," Marcus answered before she could ask, and he could see her relax visibly.

"What you doin up at this hour? Ain't you s'posed to be sleep?" She asked, talking in the ebonics that she would have gotten a beating for as a kid. Her mother prided herself on teaching her children how to speak proper English.

"I'm just playing Call of Duty, trying to get through these zombies. What's up with you Jazzy?" He asked settling back down on the floor in front of the television, Jazzy taking a seat right next to him.

"I just came to give you this," she said reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small wad of bills and handing them to him. He took them cautiously. She could see he didn't want to, but she knew how desperate he must be for essential stuff like food and money for school. Marcus had just started high school, and Jasmine was determined to help him finish it.

"You steal this money?" He asked in such a non-accusatory way that it broke her heart.

"I sold some stuff for it, now put it up and don't let mom find it or know you have it alright?" She answered ambiguously. She would rather have him think her a thief than a whore, because no one wanted a whore for a sister.

"Alright," he said, a small smile and look of relief played on his young face before he went to put it away and came back to resume his game.

"Momma got some money earlier so she shouldn't be back no time soon. If you wanna take a shower and eat something you should," Marcus said while never breaking his attention from the game. She mumbled an okay and made a beeline to the closet where her mother still kept some of Jasmine's old clothes. She gathered up a fresh pair of underwear, and a pair of jeans that still fit.

The shower was steamy despite the hot weather, and she welcomed it. Jasmine tried as best she could to wash away the dirt and grime of the streets from her body and hair. She wanted to never leave from underneath the running water, but this was not the place to relax. As soon as she was clean she stepped out of the shower, not even bothering to dry herself off. She put the clean clothes on, looked at her reflection in the steamed mirror and tried a small smile. It didn't work. It looked foreign and forlorn and ghostly and it made her shy away from herself.

Jasmine was pretty. Before being a homeless streetwalker burgeoning on crack addict, she had been beautiful. Caramel skin, wild curly long hair, dimples, hazel eyes, and a body to die for, Jasmine was, or used to be what other girls wished they could be and what men wished they could get. Now her once thick curvaceous body was aging too rapidly, her skin was getting bad, and it was hard for her to keep good hygiene.

A barely audible sigh escaped her as she exited the bathroom. She was about to grab a bite to eat before she left until she got to the living room. Marcus was standing up looking scared and peeking into the hallway where Jasmine had just emerged. He was rigid in his stance and when Jazzy looked towards the front door she saw exactly why. Her mother, Ms. Angela Bledsoe was standing there at first glaring at Marcus, then turned that devilish look in Jazzy's direction. Without warning, Angela strode the short distance to Marcus and gave him a resounding slap that echoed across the small hot room, and sent him to the floor.

"What is this bitch doing in my house, huh Marcus?" Angela thundered, not giving him time to react before she was on him again raining blows on his side and arms as he curled into a fetal position to defend himself.

"Get the fuck off of him!" Jasmine screamed racing over to pull her mother off of a now sobbing Marcus. Angela turned on Jasmine like a feral cat, biting and scratching until Jasmine punched her in the face, stunning her into a furious silence. Angela's eyes burned with what Jasmine could only identify as hatred. Jasmine darted her eyes over to Marcus, wishing that she could take him with her and knowing damn well she couldn't.

"Get the fuck out of here before I kill you," Angela said. The threat was leveled so casually, that Jasmine could only assume she meant that.

Reluctantly Jasmine backed out not wanting to leave her brother with this abusive maniac but not having any other choice. As she speed walked down the hall and down the stairs she could hear Angela yell all manner of obscenities at her back. By the time she made back out into the stifling heat, tears were streaming down her cheeks. She made her way to a corner, bought a bag of weed and a bag of crack to smoke with it. She went to an open liquor store and bought some Swisher Sweets to make a blunt with and then found a nice spot in the bathroom of a subway platform to smoke it in. Jasmine wanted a drink too but didn't have enough money. She could have gave the guy behind the counter a hand job for it, but when she thought about her alley John from earlier, she quickly dismissed that from her mind.

Sitting in a stall with a missing door and lighting up her blunt gave Jasmine time to think. Something she both needed to do and dreaded at the same time. She missed her mother, the woman who existed before the drugs and the three week benders, and the various men coming in and out of the house like a revolving door. That woman had gotten Jasmine into dance school at a very young age, had introduced her to ballet and the arts, had encouraged a small stint as a gymnast, and had even encouraged Jasmine's love for archery. Her mother had spent so much of her hard earned single mother money for Jasmine to pursue her dreams, and until two years ago Jazzy had never disappointed.

Jasmine had made up her mind that she was going to be a professional dancer if she couldn't make it in the music business. She was talented and not just because her mother said so. Jasmine could sing, and had been singing in the church choir since she was six years old. Her mother supported her trying to get her dance career off the ground until she realized Jasmine wasn't going to do classical or contemporary dance, she was going to do urban dance. Angela had called it 'being one of those video bitches', and had vehemently disapproved. When Jasmine would not concede to her mother's wishes, she put her out, although that was simply the excuse to be rid of her. Jasmine had roomed with a mutual friend of a friend and that had went sour fast, ending with Jasmine out on the streets with a minimum wage job, a pocket full of dreams, and nowhere to lay her head.

She floated around here and there for months after her roommate situation went south. She'd crash wherever anyone would let her. At first she was paying a few dollars to stay a night with people she had barely spoken to, and when she lost her job it had turned into doing sexual favors for a night's stay. Jasmine followed the party scene, always looking for the next place to crash. One thing always led to another though, and soon she found herself going from drinking and drug-free, to smoking weed, to adding a little hit of crack rock to it. Her days and nights blurred together in a haze of uncertainty, instability, and bad decisions. She kept telling herself that she was going to start dancing again, singing again, that she was going to get her mom to come to rehab and therapy with her, and that she was going to watch Marcus grow up to be a fine young man that wasn't merely a product of his environment but a conqueror of it.

Then she took another hit and leaned her head back against the dirty wall, littered with tags and gang signs, lewd drawings, and caked in spots with a dried substance Jazzy hoped to god wasn't what she thought it was. She must have dozed off because she awoke startled by the sound of another vagrant entering the near abandoned restroom. Slowly she moved trying not to make a sound until she peeked one eye out to see who it was. It was an old woman limping in through the door. The woman's hair was a rat's nest and she smelled so bad Jazzy's stomach did a lazy flop and a lurch. Old homeless ladies were usually crazy as hell, and Jazzy just couldn't tonight. She hoped up, scaring a few curses out of the old woman, and stormed out of the bathroom.

Jasmine got back topside and just walked. Her athletic shoes were giving out on her, but for now they were comfortable enough for her to walk a bit without hurting her feet. She aimlessly hiked down busy streets not caring which direction she was headed. She passed a food stand and felt around for that last few bucks she had in her pocket, thinking with distaste that she'd have to turn another trick soon just to eat. She bought a large slice of pizza and a soda and sat down to eat it. Right next to the food stand a store window had a television playing. Jasmine looked up to watch the soundless news play. Judging by the pictures flashing on the screen, they were talking about those damn aliens again, the Yaujta. She watched the screen a little while longer before turning away in disinterest. The discovery of aliens visiting Earth was exciting for people who had time to be excited about stuff like that, but in the hood it didn't change shit. It certainly hadn't affected her life one way or another. She looked back at the screen briefly to find that they must have been talking about the recent spate of missing homeless people, as if anyone gave a damn. The homeless were always missing, but nobody gave two shits about them. That's why they were homeless.

Jazzy swallowed the last of her meal and sat for a while, trying to decide which way to go. Then an idea struck her. She might go to the shelter and catch what passed for a decent night's rest. It was hot and it probably wouldn't be too crowded. There was only one shelter that took in people any time of day or night, and that was the Love Outreach Shelter over on 48th. They had a rehab program there and welcomed anyone with an addiction. Many times she'd thought to go, and many times she reneged thinking she had her issues under control like all addicts do. Then she thought about Marcus, and how she had to leave him at home with that demon of a mother they had and her mind was made up. She'd get clean, she'd get herself together, and she would get her brother and raise him right.

With a firm decision in place she got up to throw away her trash, then reached down in the waist pack she wore strapped to her thigh and got out her one and only prized possession. Her iPod Touch. It held all her music and all the comfort that this world she lived in had to offer her. She had a wide range of genres ranging from rap, to R&B, to Motown, to 80s rock, to alternative, to club bangers and twerk music. She placed her earbuds in her ear and began to walk to the rehab. It took her thirty minutes on foot to get there. When she did, she stopped at the door. She read the sign above it as if making sure this was the place. The sign read in bold black lettering:

Love Outreach Shelter and Mission

Then in smaller letters below it, the sign read:

Sponsored by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation

"Building A Better Future"

Whoever the hell they were.

She let out a shuddering sigh as a somber mood stole over her. For some reason thoughts of Marcus were strong. She looked east to the dawn that was cracking over the horizon.

"This is for you baby brother," she whispered to herself as a tear slid down her face. For some reason although she intended on seeing him again soon, she felt as if she were saying goodbye. She could not have known that she would never see him again.