I snap back to consciousness in an instant and acutely aware that my nostrils are on fire. The burning makes me lunge forward.

A black cloven fist pounds me back to the hardwood floor, it's strength and give as unmistakable as the creak my back solicits from it.

My wrists are cuffed over my tail and the halflit face of a black bovine fills my line of sight.

"That, is Ammonia. Smelling salt, to be exact." His shifting and the clink of glass against wood denotes the vial he just set down. This isn't an interrogation room, and it's not a jail cell, either.

I start to mouth out a scream, but in an instant, he's wrapped his hooves around my muzzle and is holding me down with the tremendous weight of his forearm. I panic, his leer pierces like a lance.

"If I did not want a two way conversation, I would have gagged you with your shirt and muzzled you." I can't even squirm against this much pressure. The cuffs dig into my back. "I could have much easier killed you, I could have thrown you in the backseat of my squad car. Instead, I went through the trouble of bringing you here. And this is how you would repay a host's generosity?"

I would nod my head no if I could. I simply cannot move. His face comes ever closer. His breathing is so great in volume, even in it's relaxed tempo, that each inhale is drawing at my shirt. The one he didn't gag me with. "I am Very particular about who I bring here. You will speak with your Indoor voice when you are Spoken to. And until I say you can, you will not Speak out of turn. Am I Clear?" I can't nod yes. I have no way to communicate my agreement. He smirks. I snort and shut my eyes and in an instant, the pressure over my muzzle and torso is released. I can feel him getting up by the air alone. Drawing up as he got on his hooves. I gasp again, breathing in as much air as I can as I roll onto my side and groan from the pain in my back. "I did not give you a chance to say yes or no, did I?"

"No, No you didn't."

"Exactly. You will get the point, I am sure." I'm confused for a split second before I get it. The realization sends a chill down my neck so strong it frizzes my brush, my tail, out. "I knew you would." I am now very, very concerned about just where I am, because he has perfectly forced the terms and conditions of our dialogue between us on me. He used a level of strategy I have never before observed. That scares me more than all the fibers of muscle made apparent in the shifting of his attire, which I am only now noticing is a black suit, with a black shirt, with a black tie, over his black hide. My eyes dart nervously over a dark and distinctly well appointed room of wood furnishings, fine china, and other valuables. It's nearly an antique shop. It's not the kind of environment people are tortured or beaten or killed in. I start to calm down in micrometers as that soaks in. "...Are you aware that the previous record for a pursuit being called off for public safety was 7 minutes and 43 seconds?"

He has had decades of practice on this, and it's becoming clear to me just exactly what it is. His leer is gone, but his gaze still piercing. Probing. He is calm for now, but distantly, the professor's regard in his pose gives it away as his choice of wording soaks in. He's testing me. Not interrogating me. He is not trying to lead me to his conclusion. He is inquiring in earnest. I answer in kind: "I wasn't trying to break any records."

The slightest Mona Lisa smirk betrays a satisfaction. "You caused so much havoc that ZPD is expecting a city hall inquiry on vehicular chases, starting tomorrow. And the new record, they figure, is going to be under 3 minutes... You may ask One Question." I have a million. I have so many flying around in my head I can't grasp them all, let alone pick out the most important one. He sees this in my shock. I see the furrow in his brow. Even in his idea of a reward, he is still testing. Still judging. I have to impress him. I close my eyes, and sample as many questions in my head before the timer I have set for myself runs out. And then they open. "...How did you get me past the ZPD with a bird over you?"

Another smug crook of his smile. "I believe you will find that a fox like you fits Well in a large heavy duffel." My eyes widen and body tenses. "And as for how I got you past them in a duffel was simple. Noone would search their fellow officer. Not when I Outrank them. Not as I Organized a search for You in an apartment complex until the Chopper returned to base on Low Fuel. What a shame, that we could not find Owen Conrad Fuchs and his 2008 Ponda."

A knowing smirk. I'm horrified.

"Oh, I Remember Now. You switch plates every time you get a ticket. It's actually a 1971 Vulpon 75 Ranger Fastback." Noone knows where I am but this cop. I'm too scared to even appreciate the fact he said my last name right. He senses my flight or fight response, taking one small step back in observance of it. "You see, the officers in Precinct 1 tend to tread lightly around a Spanish Fighting Bull that moved from Homicide to Internal Affairs when he made Captain. Do you know why they do so?" I couldn't read him well enough to tell that this wasn't a charade, and it got me too confused to answer. What he's saying doesn't jive with his interest in me. He's just old enough to plausibly have the rank of Captain, but Internal Affairs is just that. By definition, they are supposed to be the cops that hold the other cops responsible.

I'm not a cop. No fox has ever been on the other end of the ZPD. By every stretch of my rattled imagination, we have no business together. He doesn't waste his time, knowing full well that I'm too caught up in the situation to answer to his question. "...Because he made sure the Prosecutor did his Job the last time one of us tased a pred to death for blocking a Staircase." Lewis Wolfgang. We all thought the cop that lit him up was gonna get acquitted. We expected it. It had happened so many times before. but the charges didn't get dropped. Instead, he got 20 years. Protective custody, but 20 years. We couldn't believe it. And this is the guy that made sure of it. I began to mouth my shock. He stepped forward and raised a hoof to stop me.

"This is your only reminder to not speak out of turn."

I have to cower a little and curse myself. In my head. With no way of asking him or saying anything else, my mind began piecing together the fabric he had woven with his tongue. His knocking me out, hiding me from the rest of the force, and bringing me here was somehow in his benefit, but also an act of mercy. Though I still didn't get his endgame. Even without that knowledge, the terror was ratcheted down. Slowly, with his palm spread out reassuringly, he grabbed at something in his pocket. It jingled, as he drew it out, calmly revealing it as a pair of handcuff keys. "You know what to do with these." he reminded me, throwing them, and nearly right into my still handcuffed paws.

I shuffle backwards and feel around the floor behind me. The keyring hooks around the claw of my left paw and I clutch onto them, rolling onto my back and onto the left side of my body to give my dominant right hand better movement. I have practiced uncuffing myself enough times that doing it for real is second nature. A click. A rattling of a newly unlocked cuff. I undo it completely, sitting up to swing my arms around and pause in recognition of the fact that these keys, with the brown primer spraypaint on top, were mine. The ones I had delicately sown on the cuff of my right pantleg to pull off if I ever had to use them in the back of a squad car. This bull was a step ahead of me from the very beginning, and the gap has only increased ever since. I look up to find him amused again.

"I believe that was your Last trick... I have made my point about how much I am in Control here, Have I not?"

"Yeah... Yeah you have. You're the scariest damned mammal I've ever known."

"I suppose I am." For a moment, he gives a forced grin before dropping it. "But to be fair, Fear can only take a mammal so far. It is a stopgap Substitute at best. What I Covet, what I try to Harvest outside of my line of Work, is Respect. Because Respect is a much more Finite commodity. I trust that this significance is not lost on you, being that you are a mammal that is Feared and not Respected." I have no idea if this is Stockholm's syndrome that is kicking in right now, but that last thing he said feels like volumes of gospel. "...But ironically, this has been a total one way conversation... You may ask one more question."

I'm at a loss for all those other questions I was grasping at earlier. They'll come back to me, later, but I have only one obvious question, now. The one he's led me to: "...You want my help, but why?" He pauses, but not in thought, as he looks me over again. "I require an Outside opinion that has been on the street, because I need to figure out Just Who has been sidelining me at city hall. I have been behind a Desk for too long and I need someone with a little more... Cynicism towards the Establishment."

And with that, he passes by me with fluid, battleship-like momentum, strolling to the corner and towards a victorian styled balloon chair of elm cluster wood and tyrian purple button tufted satin. He does a slow, natural about face, seats himself with a crossed leg, and regards me one last time. "Yours will do. You may speak it freely." Thank god, I can talk now. The relief is like a metric ton being lifted off my head, and I don't care that he sees it in my face or the fact that he's led me to this point by my nose and herded me this whole time. I spring forward on to my feet and glance around the room to find a baroque footrest I can use, distantly thinking to myself that I've been behind too many furniture stores and antique shops.

"I'm gonna need a chair." "You will think better on your feet." For a moment, I'm phased. I try not to look at him so I can hide it, but in the corner of my eye, I catch a satisfied smirk. For a second, I thought it was out of scorn, but it wasn't. He's too calculated for that. No, it's because this whole time, he's been ratcheting me up to where I can't hide my emotions. "...You got me like an opened book." "I take every precaution that is afforded to me." I put my paw over my head and get to thinking again. "Ok, ok... Let me get this straight... You're saying you're Internal Affairs, but you're investigating me? That doesn't make sense, I'm not a cop." "So you can see exactly Why I am more enraged at City Hall than I am at you, after everything you did."

Everything I did that could've hurt scores of mammals, could've killed dozens of rodents. "We will get back to what you did Later." I have to quietly obey and snap back to now. "Alright, yeah, back to us." "Me." "You. Ok, you're convinced City Hall moved you around. What's been fishy with the cops, lately?"

"I will get to that, but I must explain everything else, first." He pauses, closing his eyes to choose the wording of his recollection and then continues with "Before I was ordered to head your investigation, I was to head a different one I was just starting. That, too, did not involve any officers, but rather missing mammal cases. As I told you, I was Homicide before I was Internal Affairs, and well known. City Hall must have factored that when they requested I head them." "What was special about the missing mammal cases?" "They totaled fourteen in number and none of them had witnesses, leads or evidence. All are within the past month."

I'm pretty horrified as the bull's words sink in. "Why are they separate? I mean Zootopia is big but... Fourteen? This is a serial kidnapper. I mean, you're the detective here, but I can't figure out how they're not related. And no witnesses? No evidence? Why isn't everyone talking about it, this should be on the freaking news, it's a headline story. Some prey family would be screaming about this, and people would be hearing about it."

"You proceed from a false assumption... It pains me to say it, fox, but you know as well as any other predator that Missing Predators do not make headlines." I find myself suddenly frozen in shock as I look to the seated bull. He is lethally serious.

"You're telling me that they're all predators?"

"From all over the city."

"...There's 14 of them, all of their casefiles are separate, it's all happened this month, and they're all predators... This is a cover up bigger than heck."

"You are not telling me anything I did not know, Owen. I will solve it, I will reveal it, but first, I must contend with who may be behind it because they have disrupted my duties. He or she has Taxed me, Vulpes Vulpes, and I shall have them. With or Without Your help." The latin caught my attention to drive the threat home and bring me back to city hall. I start to pace again, going over all the details in my head, until it hits me.

"Theres two different parties in City Hall messing with you."

I catch him cocking his brow in quiet intrigue out the corner of my eye. "...Ok, you think city hall sidelined you first with the missing mammals, then they sidelined you with me again, except you were on to something they didn't want you involved with when you took the missing mammals, which sounds like two interests in conflict, right?"

"Your Point?"

"Where I'm going with this is that one of those interests wanted you to find those mammals, and the other wanted to distract you from it with me. This means someone is using police connections, and that's the missing mammals cover-up creep, but the other... The other wasn't sidelining you at all. Using you? Yeah, but doesn't it sound counterproductive that the one with the police ties would get you involved with the cases in the first place? And was finding the missing mammals given as high a priority as finding me? I mean, the investigation on me got started just today, right?"

He's starting to look a little impressed. "As of this afternoon."

"That made the news, got kicked off with a mammalhunt for me, everything, but it's 14 missing mammals all over the city that're all predators that takes the backburner? That person, whoever they are, they have the connections that had you drop the missing mammals. So who are the players besides Lionheart? It might be him, but I want t-"

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

The slow, deliberate pleased clapping of a pair of cloven hooves.

"You want to make sure it is Not the most obvious suspect and cross the others off the list before continuing."

"...No stone unturned, right? I mean how many cases have you worked where the first pick wasn't the right one?"

"A great deal... The Mayor Pro Tempore, that is, the assistant mayor, is a female sheep named Dawn Bellwether. The district counselor for Tundratown is a Eurasian Boar named Dmitri Pasternak. Sahara Square's counselor is Al Safi Harrak, who is a Scimitar oryx. Outback Island has a Kangaroo, one Blair Mulholland... Frank Trunkaby is counselor for Savannah Central and Downtown, A sambar called Luiz Nguyen has the Rainforest District, and... Giulia Topo is counselor for Little Rodentia."

Of course they're all prey.

"Ok, lion, sheep, boar, antellope, roo, elephant, deer, mouse. Whose got the most clout of that bunch besides the lion and the sheep?" "She has None."

I do a double take. "What? The sheeps vice mayor." "And her office is city hall's Boiler Room."

I upgrade from double take to slacked jaw. "You've seen it?"

"Over the stacks of file boxes? Barely. Giulia's office is easier to find, and her door is a hole in the wall, Mind You." He shifts, setting one leg back down to cross it with the other as I start to pace. "But to answer your question, it is Frank, Dmitri, Al Safi, Luiz, Blair and Guilia." My mind immediately gravitates to the one whose surname betrays his species. "Makes sense, Frank's an elephant in charge of the most populated district... What's his connection to ZPD?"

"None, considering he had to go through the mayor to get his daughter on the force." If he couldn't get his daughter in without the mayor, then that says it all.

"What about Dmitri?"

"There are several cops in Tundratown's precinct on his employer's payroll." I pick up on the suggestion immediately. "Crooked."

"An insert by a mafioso that dresses up like the Goatfather."

I have to laugh. I can't not.

He waits for a moment before leaning forward with "...Would you still laugh if you watched a corpse being pulled out of an icehole? With pained horror frozen in his face?" A sobering image. I have to reel from it as he straights his back against the chair again.

"But it can't be Dmitri or Tundratown cops, because there's mammals missing all over the city. Outside of Dmitri's jurisdiction. And knowing they're in with the mob, you've been tracking the cops and where they go." This feels like a given.

"Which has not been outside of Tundratown." It was a given. "What about their control over the files? But no, they don't have control over the records of other precincts, just their own." Even if they shared donkey donuts with cops from other precincts, they couldn't call in enough favors.

"And they are all patrol officers. Away from the records department, which for Tundratown is locked up and monitored after I found their ties to the mob. So if they make a mistake, they will not be able to to alter their files, which are brought to me for further safekeeping... For now, they are unknowing pawns in federal investigations on the mob here, which I am their regional liaison. Otherwise? I would have had them in chains." I have to pace around for a moment as I continue, soaking in that this bull is being as frank as he is with the political landscape. It's putting me at ease. Even if he's a cop, everything points to him being the one honest one I've ever dealt with.

"Do any of the others travel around the city besides to City Hall?"

"Luiz goes to the palm tree to meet with Al Safi from time to time, but we have not found anything illegal. Blair stays on Outback Island. Guilia rarely travels outside of Little Rodentia."

"Are any of them not upstanding citizens? Would Lionheart cover for them? He's got the police ties."

"None of them seem capable of anything but traffic violations besides Dmitri and Blair, the latter has a history of drunken fistfights."

"But barfights are impulsive. Spur of the moment. Kidnapping's a huge jump from that." "And Guilia and Blair both only care for their domains."

That feels like it really does rule the rest out.

"And as for Leodore? Even if one of the counselors did approach him to cover their tracks, he would be the first to throw them under the proverbial Bus. He is a career politician. All he has eyes for is the next election."

My brows furrow in thought. "It doesn't make sense, though... Has he ever been suspected of anything?" "Big business bribes, but nothing that can be proven. The taskforce on municipal corruption is separate from internal affairs. I cannot light a fire under their tails."

Every move Lionheart makes is for the longhaul, towards ambitions that are larger than his current seat of power. "...Do you agree that Lionheart is too methodical to just start kidnapping people out of the blue?"

My question has him diving deep into his thoughts. So much so, that right now, I could make a break for his apartment door, but fumbling with his locks would take too long. "...The connection he has to the police precincts and to fourteen missing mammals that are the same food-type as he is are irrefutable. But yes, he is too methodical. And he is a narcissist and manipulator, but..." And then it hits me. "...But he wouldn't kidnap mammals just out of the blue unless they threatened his career." Another pause. Neither of us can ignore the fact that someone needs motivation to do something like this.

"He only acts to advance himself, but these mammals had no affiliation with each other or to him, and no real criminal record or political ties. So the question remains: Why?"

Lionheart is a dead-end, and next to nothing adds up with him, in spite of the fact that he has the power to make fourteen mammals disappear, and this conversation has led me to the fact that this bull won't come to a conclusion without putting all his ducks in a row. "The only card left to play is Bellwether's." He nearly scoffs, but stops himself with a realization. "They do not see Eye-to-Eye, and Lionheart's publicity schedules demands that she acts as his secretary, which fuels further tension."

So that means "Lionheart doesn't keep tabs on her." "No." "So even if she doesn't have political power, she'd have to have access to resources and the time to use them."

His gaze, as he looks at me, the words registering in his mind, have lit a field of fireworks ablaze in his mind. What is happening behind those eyes is a 540 cubic inch supercharged V8 engine roaring and screaming to its redline. The words "Resources like the traffic camera network." come out of him like a possession from a higher being. They bring me to a near backwards collapse as suddenly, I realize just who was watching me through the eye of that traffic cam in Sahara Square. I can clearly see in my mind's eye, with vivid clarity, the gaze of a caprinae masked by the reflection from her glasses of myself looking back at her through a computer screen.

I was being watched.

I was being judged.

For a brief moment, in our pause, me and the bull see through each other and at a larger picture still too foggy to make it out. Lionheart is responsible, but Bellwether was involved. Perhaps even pushed the missing mammal investigations on the bull, but Lionheart went over her and pushed the investigation on me. "...It was folly of me to not consider her activities and alliances in the Meadowlands..." "What are you talking ab-"

"Nothing That Concerns You Any Longer."

He can bellow without even raising his voice, and it takes me back. "...I guess we're back to me."

In a fluid, powerful, rolling movement, he billows from his chair like a plume of black smoke to look ever further down from his 8 foot height to stare at a four foot fox fraught with sudden, fantastic fear. Fire is now burning in his eyes, and it burns through my own.

"Impulses travel through the nervous system at over two Hundred and sixty miles per hour. The only thing that saved the mass of Rodents you nearly Killed was the fact that they could react Faster than you and have spent their entire lives dodging the careless feet and tires of those bigger than them."

The guilt manifests itself through me in waves of pain I can hardly withstand. A grimace takes hold on my face and I can barely look up anymore.

"You lanesplit Every day, you ride recklessly, without a motorcycle License, without Registration, without Insurance, with stolen Plates on a stolen frame with a stolen engine that you robbed from a junkyard, You have Fourty Eight unpaid parking violations, and in the process of resisting arrest and starting a police chase, you caused such Bedlam that the property damage and attempted mammalslaughter charges would put you away in a cage and orange prison garb for the rest of your life."

Shallow breathing. A pained gasp. I can't stand any longer and lurch forward on my knees as my judge and jury looms over me like a mountain. Ears folded back, eyes squinted shut. He's got me so hard and thoroughly, and for what I did in the alley, I deserve it all.

"And yet in light of your history and circumstance, I can neither excuse nor blame you." The words are heard, but I'm too overwhelmed by the weight of my sins to listen to them. I'm too swept up in my guilt to moan out anything else but "Just do what you're gonna do. You've got me."

A gust of air and a clinching of hooves around the scruff on the left side of my neck silences and immobilizes at the same time. His grip is searing, and leaves my breaths short and erratic. I don't look, but I can feel his disgust emanating from him.

"Are You So Nearsighted That You Are Blind To My Intent?"

With my teeth bare and exposed, I cry out Sorry under my breath.

"SORRY IS THE MOST USELESS WORD IN THE DICTIONARY."

My words. How did he know them? I would cower if I could. The tail tucking between my legs, a reflex more from being held by the scruff of my neck than out of fear.

"In Spite Of All You've Done, I Would Still Be Wasting My Time To Throw You In A Cage. Listen To Me Like You've Never Listened To Anyone Before: I Have Far Bigger Game To Hunt Than You."

And with that, an unceremonious release sends me falling to the floor and yelping. I'm fighting every impulse to crawl under his cabinet full of display china, because deep down, I know it'd only make it worse. "And Because of that, I am going to Spare you."

"w-What?"

"Are You Questioning My Judgment?"

"No!"

"And in Kind, you are going to keep the Lowest profile you can while I do both of us a Favor and convince my superiors to drop the Fox Hunt. AND UNTIL I CALL OFF THE HOUNDS, WILL YOU CRAWL THROUGH THIS CITY LIKE A ROACH AND HIDE."

I can neither believe nor doubt it, but I know I heard him right. I can only look up at him bewildered. "I don't know what to say."

"Then for Once, Say Nothing and Get Up."

I hobble over my sore lefthand side and obey. "Your Vulpon is in the cache that you parked it next to. Do not take it anywhere until I get the search called off. I have little else I can do to keep you out of my hair until this is over." I say nothing, but I'm amazed and grateful. He moves back to his balloon chair, leaning over a small (for him), immaculate wooden tea cart, procuring a bottle and rag and turning back around to face me, the rag now soaked with whatever that bottle contains. But I know what it is, before I ask "What is that?", before he answers with "Chloroform." and he shoves the rag into my face, holding me up as I lose my legs and my eyes.

With the last of my cognitive functions, I think to myself that I should have figured him too great a tactician to allow me to leave in such a way that I could know where he lives. But chloroform does not render mammals unconscious.

The stimuli is just far more distant now, and time becomes abstract.

He is stuffing me back into the duffel.

He is zipping it closed, but leaving it just open enough for fresh air.

The pressure on my back tells me he's thrown the strap over his shoulder.

The clicking and rattle of locks unlocking.

The thudding of his hooves over carpet.

Elevator music.

The opening of a door.

The sound of the streets.

The chirp of an unlocking car.

Trunk opening.

Thud.

Trunk closing.

Door opening.

Door closing.

Ignition.

Motor.

Movement.

The droning is the last thing.

Unconscious.

Conscious.

Unconscious.

ALARM.

I bolt into consciousness again, rattled and nearly jumping out of my fur. Wide terrified eyes. My tongue slurs my horror. The loudest alarm I've ever heard to my left. Hammer to my right. I grab hold of it and jump up and swing with all of my fury to drive the hammerhead through That God Damned Alarm. The alarm that was left resting on my police scanner. I am left to stutter in my confusion as I piece together the fact that he left an alarm to wake me up on top of my police scanner and left a hammer next to me in good faith that I would destroy that alarm and destroy the police scanner in the process. His tradecraft and artifice are omnipotent. And I am left with nothing else to do but scream out my loudest, most horrid obscenities.

"I'LL NEVER FIND ANOTHER SCANNER LIKE THAT AGAIN!" I howl, plunging the hammer's head into what's left of that illegal-to-own thing. And now, I can finally start to end my fit, take deep breaths and clutch at my head as I turn around to take in my surroundings and take in the sight of the stack of Amplifiers, and VCRs, and Betamax players to my right. He left me where he found me. I turn again to look behind, and find the Vulpon, leaning on it's side against the wall. He did not take it from me. He did not have it impounded and destroyed. Of all the things I am left with here, I have to take in the fact that he recognized the symbolism of this stupid, incredible thing. This Vulpon is my freedom, and for all the things he did, he did not take my freedom from me.

I run my left paw over the indentions of the logo under the gas tank's clearcoat. My touch trailing over the side of it and to the seat I upholstered with new leather, and see them: Fresh cloths. A threadbare pair of gray jeans and an olive drab hoodie. A note on top, printed on a piece of copy paper, reminding me that They will be looking for a fox wearing designer clothes like my moocci shirt and brown corduroys. "He thought of everything."

The Jeans are only staying on my hips because of the new notch I had to stab through my belt with an Icepick I kept in the cache several yards behind me. The hoodie is also far too loose on me, and I'm left a little irritated, because slimfit cloths afford me some comfort and security in their snugness and I'm used to trying to look the best I can. The tunnel's humidity leaves me dragging the zipper back down to expose my chest fur to get cool air over it. Dawn has broken, and I can tell from the angle of the sunlight, how much it's peered into the tunnel and reflected off the wet walls. I have to squint, as I draw my hoodie up over my head and cross the tunnel's threshold lest I be seen and recognized as I come out from my burrow.

The sun is warm, and I can feel it's glow even through this cloak. Fresh air, greedy lungs, a weight off my shoulders and a pressure on my forearms as I rest them against the railing between me and the river below. A water plane skipping like a stone on it's take-off from the surface. I haven't seen one in ages. An anachronism, like the wristwatch I left behind me in the cache just to be certain. I still have my phone to tell the time, and I go to reach for it in my pants pocket. 7:48 AM. I have to reflect now. On the Bull. On the missing mammals. On City Hall and how, like Snarl Sagen put it with the Pale Blue Dot photo, I am just a tiny pixel in the larger mosaic of this image with so many scenes playing out within it's dimensions.

"God, that's such a lousy metaphor!" shoots from my lips. It's rare I upset myself that much.

"Owen?!" That voice, from above me, is that "Eva?!"

And there she is, leaning over the railing above me. The ferret girl from Buffalo's party. Her smile beams with relief and she can't stop herself from crawling under it and sliding down the embankment on her rear and feet and paws in a spontaneous, needy fit. I don't even have time to warn or scald her, I just leap into action and stumble to the embankment with open arms to stop her descent. She lets slip a squeaking cry of excitement, I groan as she falls into me and sends me on my back with her momentum. "You crazy, wild messed up boy!"

"Crazy, Wild, messed up? What're you doing sliding down here?!"

"What're you doing jumping out of a window and getting into a police chase?!" I'm so flabbergasted and confused right now.

"Nuh uh, let's not make this about me! First things firs-" a tight hug squeezes the breath right out of me. I'm not even sure how she did it and this isn't romance and it's doing 80 miles over the posted speed limit.

"I was so worried after those creepy texts."

wait, "What? Hold up, what creepy texts?" After everything that's happened, I'm still somehow able to worry.

"From your phone! Here,"

"Hey!"

She's digging through my pants pocket before I can stop her and pries the thing out. There's a joke here, but I'm too overwhelmed.

"I can look through my own phone, you know."

She flipped the phone around, I grabbed at it and looked into the screen to find the bull's aristocratic vernacular. He texted her with my phone and told her to wait exactly where she waited from 7:45 to 8:15 AM. The alarm, he must have timed with when he texted her to wait for me. "Who the heck was that?" I have to pause for a moment, look into her eyes, and consider how much I want to tell her without outright playing the pronoun game. Empathy for The Demon comes to mind as I think of him, and the song decide my words.

"...I think I met the devil. And he wears all black."