Author's Note: Honestly, I should probably wait further between updates, so more people have a time to get into the story. I just get so excited! Anyway, thanks for the reviews, favs and follows! Happy readers are the best.
P.S. – The song Nick recalls Judy singing at the burrow is a duet called "Something That I Want," by Bethany Joy Galeotti and Grace Potter. I meant to include it in the last chapter, but I forgot, so I'm shamelessly sticking it in this one. Check out the video, the song is so adorable.
Edit: I doubt many of you read this chapter in the 30 minutes it was uploaded before, but I changed some stuff! And if you didn't read it before, well good. You won't notice anything amiss.
Some time at the burrow had been exactly what she'd needed, Judy concluded during her usual 5 AM morning run.
Her mind was clear, her body was rested, and best of all, she and Nick had ended their argument and gone back to being the best of friends. Thinking back on their time out in the field, Judy's face, already flushed from jogging, burned further.
Cheese and crackers, she thought. What if Nick had thought that whole thing was totally weird? It hadn't felt weird. But maybe…
Preoccupied, Judy turned on her heel and jogged back to her apartment. As she passed her new neighbors, yet another conversation filtered its way through the thin walls.
"Just think of all the perfectly roasted faces we get to munch on now!"
"But whyyyy?"
"Because we're friends. And friendship is two pals munching on a well-cooked face together."
Judy paused outside of the door and then continued on her to her apartment. "Yep," she muttered to herself with a nod. "Definitely need to arrest those guys."
"Got you this on my run this morning."
Nick Wilde blinked at the offered breakfast bar, before accepting it gratefully and eating half of it in one bite. "You run before work?" he asked incredulously. "We get here at seven AM!"
Purple eyes looked up from their shared desk. "Well, I run before that!" she told him, snickering. "Duh." Nick raised a brow and continued to munch on his cereal bar between gulps of coffee.
"You are an unnatural creature," he informed her stoically. "I woke up at 6:50 today. Barely remembered my pants. I even brought my toothbrush to work with me."
"Yeah, don't share that information with anyone," Judy snickered, before her smile slipped away and she looked back at the Morehouse case file. After a few minutes of studying, Judy leaned back in her chair and looked up at Nick, who sat on their shared desk.
"You know," she said thoughtfully, "at first I thought these murders might have something to do with the Night Howlers. I mean, that's the only time we've seen something this vicious, right? But now I don't think that's what this is at all."
Judy opened the files and looked to the gruesome photos. "I mean, savage animals may attack small prey, but they don't skin them."
"Right," Nick agreed darkly as finished his cereal bar. "Only sickos do that."
"Not only that," Judy turned the pages, pulling out more documents from the back. "Bagheera was the officer on this case last time, and he noted that he thinks these are crimes of passion, but I'm not buying it. I mean, look here." The fox leaned in closer to Judy's notes. "Out of the seven victims, five of them were attacked while out walking at night. Not only that, they were all heading to places they visited regularly."
She pulled out some more papers. "Marsha, the latest victim, was on her way to work. Two others were university students heading to their dorms, one was also attacked while leaving her job, and the last was jogging, which her friends say she did almost every night."
Jogging. Nick blanched inwardly. Just like Judy does every morning, when it's so early the damn birds aren't even singing yet. He kept that thought to himself.
"Look," Judy pulled out three different local maps. "I did some research and found the paths the most recent three victims were on when they were attacked. The X right here," she pointed, "is where their bodies were found."
"But the attacks didn't happen where their bodies were found," Nick pointed out. "Only one victim was found near the sight of a struggle, that's where we got the fur sample."
"Right," Judy traced the lines she'd drawn, the last walks of the victims. "Which just makes me feel even more strongly that these attacks weren't random. I don't think this guy saw his victim type by accident and then felt the overwhelming desire to kill them. I also don't think he knew them or interacted with them at all."
Nick watched as she traced her grey finger along a penciled line on the map of the city.
"This was the route taken by Lisa Adders, one of the victims. It's the one where we found the sample," Judy tapped a spot along the written line. "And that's the sight of the struggle, the only one we managed to find in all the victims. Here, between two university buildings. But look, there's no exit in the back – it's blocked by a cement wall, because the other side was a construction zone at the time. Which means if that's where she was grabbed…"
"He was waiting for her," Nick shook his head, scowling softly. "No other reason for him to be hanging around there if he wasn't." Reaching up a hand, he rubbed at the back of his neck, where the hairs stood uncomfortably alert.
His eyes flickered to Judy's face. "So we're talking about someone who stalks the victims, learns their routines and then jumps them when they're in an isolated spot." God, just saying it out loud made him squirm.
Judy nodded. "And when he does, he doesn't just kill them. He skins them out of sight and then leaves their bodies to be found. Sometimes they're even posed." She closed the files, her brows furrowed. "It's like he thinks he's putting on a show or something. He's enjoying this, Nick."
"What I don't get is how the hell he's grabbing these girls up and skinning them in public without getting seen?" Nick asked, waving a hand. "I mean, even if it is late at night, he was on a university campus. And Lisa Adders was a rabbit, she wasn't as small as Marsha Lumens. He had to have taken her somewhere close by."
The two officers fell silent to think, but they were soon interrupted by the shrill ring of their desk phone. Nick snatched it up and tucked it into his shoulder. "Wildehopps," he answered. After a few moments of listening to the other end, he motioned to Judy. "We'll be right there."
Judy hopped to her feet. "What is it?"
"Got the all-clear for the security cameras at the laundromat where Lumens worked, come on." The pair snatched up their things and hurried to the car.
Ten minutes later, Judy pushed through the front door of the laundromat, and Nick let it close behind them with a soft jingle. A face peered out of the backroom, nose twitching.
"Officers," greeted Tuck Evans, the armadillo owner of the business. He didn't seem too excited about their presence, a fact further proved by his low, grumbled greeting. "Let's get this over with," he continued with a waddle as they passed through the store front. "Cops showin' up at my door, scaring off all my customers."
Nick peered around thoughtfully. "Right, because I'm sure the dead body didn't take care of that for ya."
Evans led them the officers to the backroom of the establishment, before nodding in the direction of a small black and white monitor. "Haven't reviewed the tapes myself yet," he told him. "Police told me not to. But there're three camera views here, you can flip back and forth between them with this button."
He clicked, and the image – grainy and filmed in shades of grey and white – jumped from the inside the laundromat to the back door and then to the front again, this time angled at the register.
"Thank you," Judy nodded to him before pulling up an old plastic chair and turning the monitor to the inside camera, which focused on the counter and the back door. "So you said Marsha never clocked in for that evening, correct?"
"Right," the armadillo folded his arms. "Didn't even realize anything was wrong until I checked my programs in the morning, didn't see any activity from the register. Came right over, and that's – " he shifted uncomfortably, looking remorseful for the first time since their arrival. "That's when I found her, propped up against the front door."
Nick made a face before looking back to the monitor. "Geez, where'd you get these cameras? 1999?"
"Hey," Evans pointed. "I run a small business. I can't afford a bunch of fancy cameras. Lucky I even got these."
Judy remained focused on the monitor, ignoring the other two as she watched the grainy footage intently. "Never came in," she murmured to herself. "What time was her shift?"
"Started at 9 PM," responded the owner. Judy reached forward and tapped a few buttons, rewinding the film to 8:40 and then watching carefully. The other two males waited. 9 PM came and went on the inside monitor, but Marsha didn't appear.
"See," Tuck rolled his eyes. "You're wasting your time. I told you, she never showed up."
"Wait a minute," Judy leaned forward, her purple eyes suddenly narrowed. She rewound the footage again and then pointed, far to the back, where the backdoor was. Nick leaned over her shoulder, but it took him three tries to spot it.
"The deadbolt," he looked sharply to Tuck. "It moves at 8:54 PM. Someone unlocked it." He straightened. "Could that have been anyone except Marsha?" Tuck stared in disbelief.
"No, no. It had to be her, she's the only one besides me that has a key."
"Which means she got to the store," Judy quickly scanned between the three cameras again. "There's a camera on the backdoor, Nick. Look." She fast-forwarded the camera to 8:45 again and watched. The image showed the backdoor clearly, with a spotlight hanging just over it. If Marsha appeared, they would be able to see her.
Then, as the trio watched, the security camera began to move. Nick leaned closer, his hand tight on the back of Judy's chair. Not a soul stood visible in front of the camera, but the view turned very slowly and deliberately, moving away from the backdoor and up, over the back concrete lot behind the building, angling up and at the sky.
Judy stiffened in her chair.
"He moved the camera," she whispered.
Just then, footsteps sounded out of the camera's view. The jingle of keys followed, and then the distinctive click of the deadbolt. Nick and Judy leaned close, straining to hear.
Suddenly, the sound of squealing and screams blasted from the audio.
Judy jerked back, falling out of the chair and stumbling over her own feet until Nick caught her and helped her stand again. "What in the hell?" he yelped, but the squealing stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Silence filled the room again, and Judy's pounding heart became the loudest thing in her ears.
Tuck, standing nearby, stood and stared at the camera, horrified. "Oh, Marsha…"
"He caught her at the door," Judy looked to Nick, her eyes wide. Unfortunately, the video did not end there. Instead, it remained still and motionless for a few minutes before slowly shifting back, again operated by someone out of view. The backdoor reappeared, with no indication of what had just happened there.
For several long moments, nothing happened. Then, without warning, Marsha Lumens' face appeared in front of the camera again.
"Oh my god," Judy put a hand over her mouth.
Everything inside of her wanted to look away from the sight of Marsha's skin, stripped from its body and without its eyeballs, dancing on the gloved hand of someone out of sight from the camera. It bounced around in a little jig and the hand opened and closed, mimicking speech like a puppet.
Nick's jaws clenched tightly.
The newly skinned Martha continued its macabre show for a moment before it disappeared out of camera view again, the sound of quick footsteps fading away. The camera rolled on uneventfully for several minutes.
Judy reached forward and shut it off.
"How did he do it?" Nick asked at last. "He didn't kill her in view of the camera, he didn't do it in the store. There was no evidence of a struggle at the door." His eyes flickered to one of the outside windows, before he gestured to Judy. She snapped out of her horrified stupor and instantly shifted into cop mode again.
"Let's look outside. Pheasant Winslowe said she saw someone hanging around this alley," she said. The two left the laundromat and stepped outside, winding their way around the building. They looked all around, including the step to the backdoor, but there was nothing.
Nick huffed, green eyes moving quickly over the bleak landscape. There had to be something out here.
Suddenly, he spotted something up above – a short ladder, part of a fire escape once, but now broken. It led up to the roof. Teeth gritted, Nick moved around Judy and hopped onto a dumpster before leaping and catching the broken ladder, praying it would hold him.
"Nick, where are you going?" called Judy, but she wasted no time in following him. Nick clambered up the ladder with Judy on his tail.
"Just wanted to see something," he said, looking up at the sky as he climbed. He reached the roof and pulled himself over the edge, and when he did, his body froze. Behind him, Judy came to stand. He heard her stop in her tracks, then numbly climb down from the ledge to stand next to him.
"Nick," she murmured, aghast.
HELLO.
The word was written tall and wide, smeared over the old flat roof in blood faded by the sun, partially covered by the dirt and leaves that gathered. All around the morbid greeting was more blood, scratched into the tile, drawn deliberately over every available surface, smeared on anything and everything. It looked like the morbid retelling of a toddler left alone with finger paints.
A struggle there had been, but it was so much more than that.
Nick pulled out his walkie-talkie, his expression grim. "Clawhauser," he called in. When the cheetah answered, he spared a quick glance at Judy, who stood stunned.
"Call in the forensics team," he told him, before sighing heavily. "We're gonna need some help down here."
Nick peered at Judy's withdrawn features over his cup of coffee.
"DNA tests proved the blood was Martha's," Judy dropped her arm to the table, ignoring her smoothie. "He killed her on the roof and then left us a message. Why?"
The fox swirled his coffee, green eyes dropping as he recalled the eerie rooftop. "He knows we're looking for him," he noted quietly. "He's following the investigation somehow, and it's not even in the papers. And you know what else that means?"
He shifted his elbows on the table. "It means any piece of evidence we find has to be taken with a grain of salt. If he knows who we are, he can plant clues and hints, anything to lead us away. And I don't know about you, but I have no desire to play hide and seek with a psycho. Whatever we do, we have to be on the lookout for a trap."
When Judy remained silent, her eyes downcast, Nick glanced around the station for onlookers and then leaned forward, catching her smaller hand in his. "Don't let this shake you, Judy. It's exactly what he wants. He's trying to screw with us."
Sighing, Judy shook her head at the table before lifting her eyes to his. "I just – After what we saw today, on that video… How can I possibly rest, knowing someone in the city is doing things like that? Someone I'm supposed to catch?"
"We'll get him," Nick dropped his head to lower his voice, the hand over hers squeezing gently. "Don't beat yourself up, Carrots." He tried to make her smile, but the cloud hanging over her head was too heavy. Time to call in the big guns, he decided.
"Hey, you still want to go see my mom? You wanted to thank her for the painting, right?" he asked, raising both brows. "You know she wants to see you. Plus, I'm pretty sure she has – I don't know, some really stupid, embarrassing childhood story about me to tell. That'd be pretty great, right?"
Judy's lips quirked just a little. "Yeah… I do want to see her. We should go," she cleared her throat and made an effort to smile, but the heaviness was still there. "Anyway, I should… I should go file this paperwork." Pulling away from him, Judy stood and left the desk, notes tucked under her arms.
Nick dropped his head to the desk with a loud thump.
God, what he wouldn't do to pull her out of this. Why, why, why hadn't she grown up wanting to be a cupcake maker?
"Nick?" Someone poked him. "You alive?"
He lifted his head and squinted at Clawhauser, who observed him with his usual lofty amusement. "Is more brain damage really what you need?" he asked with mock curiosity. At Nick's glare, he pulled out a pink envelope. "Hey, I wanted to ask you – I got Judy's birthday card for next week, but I wanted to ask how old she's going to be so I could write it in here."
Nick stared, his eyes steadily growing wider in a slow-motion moment of horror. "It's Judy's birthday next week?" he gulped. At this, Clawhauser folded his arms and rolled his eyes.
"Are you serious, Nick? Yes, it's Judy's birthday! How can you not know that?"
"I – Well, - I'm not a damn mind reader! I don't have her birth certificate memorized!"
Clawhauser plopped down into a chair next to the desk. "That's terrible. You are a terrible partner," he informed Nick. "Do you even know how old she is?"
Nick squinted. "Uhh… Wait – Yes. I – Okay, she's twenty-… three?" he frowned. "No, that's too young." Clawhauser slapped a hand over his face, tsking heavily. "Hey," Nick pointed. "Your judgment is not appreciated, nor is it helpful."
"Maybe you should call her parents and ask," suggested Clawhauser.
Nick rolled his eyes. "Her parents have no idea how old she is. They have seven million kids."
"And yet you only have one partner and still don't know. Naughty, naughty." Clawhauser wiggled a finger at him. "Hey, guess what I got her? A blender for her fruits and veggies! It's bunny-sized. I'm pretty excited about it, to be honest."
"Wait!" Nick jumped up. "You can check the computers! Her age has to be in there, right?"
"Hm," Clawhauser tapped his chin. "I don't know, Nick. That seems like cheating. I don't think I should let you do that." The fox narrowed his eyes in a glare before suddenly dashing off for Clawhauser's desk, sprinting past other officers who stared, annoyed, particularly when Clawhauser rushed after Nick and tackled him to the ground. "No! That's cheating!"
Gasping against Clawhauser's weight, the two wrestled in full view of the department, most of which continued on without even acknowledging them. "If you don't let me look, I'm going to have to steal her wallet! Do you want that on your conscience, huh?"
"Oh, alright, alright!" The two finally pulled apart and Clawhauser ambled to his computer, which he clicked a few times on the keyboard before at last looking at Nick and sighing dramatically. "She's twenty-four."
"Ha! I was close." Nick leaned against the desk and straightened the mussed fur at his collar. "Now, what to get her… " he looked up thoughtfully at Clawhauser. "Hey, you like shopping. Let me steal your blender and you can have lots of fun getting Judy something else."
"Oh, you are the worst," Clawhauser turned away from the computer again. "Don't get her a blender, Nick! Get her something romantic!"
"Like what?" asked Nick, huffing as he folded his arms. "Judy doesn't even like – Hey, wait. What makes you think I even want to get her something romantic?"
"Uh," the cheetah pointed. "Your face. Every time you look at her, like this." He batted his eyelashes and curled his hands near his face, to which Nick responded with an eyeroll.
"Whatever, I do not look like that."
"Every time," insisted Clawhauser, giggling. "All day, every day."
Nick sighed, tapping his fingers on the desk before his features lit up. "Oh! We're going to visit my mom tomorrow. I can employ her to find out what Judy wants."
"Fabulous," intoned Clawhauser with a smirk. "You are a genius, Nick Wilde."
The fox slapped a hand on the wood. "And don't you forget it, pal." Turning away from the desk, he went to go find Judy again. Thinking she might've gone to the station's gym to blow off some steam, he headed in that direction.
However, when he arrived at the work-out room, he found a different bunny instead.
Michael Jumps stood poised, ready for the attack of his sparring partner, a large timber wolf. The wolf obviously dwarfed Michael, but the rabbit didn't seem hesitant or afraid. Nick stepped back further from the door to avoid being seen, but he kept a careful eye on the smaller of the two.
As soon as the wolf lunged, Michael rolled deftly out of the way. He turned swiftly, darting behind the wolf, and as soon the larger adversary dipped forward in a run, Michael jumped high and kicked him hard on the back, sending him crashing to the floor.
It was a very quick, efficient takedown.
"Great job," the wolf commended, laughing as he stood with Michael's help. "You're tougher than you look."
Michael chuckled. "Well, when you're the youngest of a hundred siblings, you gotta defend yourself somehow!" The pair laughed more before moving to the other end of the gym, but Nick remained where he was, his brows furrowed.
Thoughts shifting uncomfortably in his mind, he turned away from the gym and left.
That night, as Nick reclined against his bed in the dark shadows of his room, he thought back on his suspicions, as well as the seemingly never-ending sense of exhaustion he felt.
He handled things differently than Judy – that was no secret. It wasn't a better or worse way, just different. They had, after all, lived very different lives.
So even though he rarely showed it, he knew (as he was sure Judy knew as well) that the case bothered him. Seeing that sick freak dangle Marsha Lumens' skinned face in front of the camera like it was a joke. What the hell kind of mammal did that?
It was a difficult image to shake.
Rolling over on to his side, Nick grimaced against his pillow. How did other cops live with this kind of thing? Something as simple as enjoying a bright sunny day sounded difficult right now, what with the cloud of the murders hanging over them. Knowing, in his heart, that someone's family suffered from such violence – it was hard to justify his own happiness.
And that was something Judy felt strongly, he knew. So was it done? How could he and Judy live happily, dealing with things so hateful and violent every day?
Turning on to his back once more, Nick closed his eyes and let himself remember their last night at BunnyBurrow, when one of Judy's littermates – a sister named Jessa who looked very much like her – had convinced her to sing and play the guitar for the little ones.
"Oh, the musical stylings of Judy Hopps," Nick had teased. "I have to see this."
Judy had flushed, of course, but in the end, she had complied and taken up a stool and an acoustic guitar. After some whispering, the two sisters began to play, and Nick, now in his bed, felt his heart lighten at the memory of it.
The sound of her sweet, simple singing voice stuck with him, even more firmly than the horrors of the murder.
"I'm a girl with the best intentions," Judy sang with a smile, strumming on the guitar. "Something I should probably mention." Her sister joined in. "I like to get just what I pay for. So I pay and I get and I pay and I want some more, more, more."
Nick's heart raced as he remembered Judy's purple eyes lifting to his, her smile growing as he watched. "And I want something that I want, something I tell myself I need, something that I want," the pair sang in unison. The kids swayed and bounced excitedly, but Judy kept her eyes on Nick the entire song.
"Something that I want, something I tell myself I need, and I need everything I see," they finished with a last strum, laughing together happily.
In his bed, Nick rolled over again and clutched his pillow to his chest as he let the memory linger.
Ah, he thought to himself. Like that.
If night was the time of promises, morning was the time in which they were broken.
Nick's alarm beeped on and on, but it didn't stop until a certain bunny clicked the button on top and sidled Nick with her most disapproving stare. "Nick!" Judy poked him in the side, and Nick jerked away from his pillow, squinting at the grey-furred bunny.
At first, some secret, sleepy part of him hoped she's spent the night again and he'd just forgotten – but nope, she was fully-dressed next to his bed, wearing her little lilac long-sleeve shirt, and he was still in bed in his boxers, fur sticking up in every direction.
"Mmphh?" he greeted, squinting at his clock.
"We're going to visit your mom today," she reminded him, smiling a little. "Come on, Nick. I've been awake for three hours already!"
"You're not normal," he grumbled, falling back into his pillow.
"Oh, come on!" Judy's hands found his arms under the covers and pulled with all of her might, inching Nick slowly towards the edge of his bed. Grunting with effort, she planted her feet on the edge of his bed and finally pulled him off so they both fell to the floor in a flurry of blankets, fur and a lot of curses (from Nick, of course).
"Argh – " The two tangled in the sheets for a moment. "You know," muttered Nick, peering down at Judy beneath him. "This whole incident could have been a lot more fun if I'd been awake for the start of it."
Judy flushed, before darting out a hand and pinching his arm. "Get up, already!"
"I'm up!" Nick pushed off the covers and stood, stretching with a long yawn as Judy fought her way out of the pile of blankets. As soon as she was clear, he picked one up and tossed it over her head again, just to hear her grunt in anger and furiously scramble to free herself again.
By the time she could see, Nick was already in the shower, though he didn't bother to close the door.
Rolling her eyes, Judy shook her head and tossed his blankets back on his bed, even going so far as to make it up properly, though she doubted he had planned on doing so. "Nick," she called out, her tone wry as she flicked a finger over his clothing rack. "Do you ever untie your tie? Or do you just leave it loosened on your coat rack every day?"
Nick lathered himself up in the shower. "I feel like that's a loaded question," he answered over the sound of water. Judy rolled her eyes before leaving the bedroom so he could dress, not that she would put it past him to show up in just a towel.
Ten minutes later, Nick appeared in the living room, freshly scrubbed and fully dressed. "Come on little bun," he said, peering at Judy over the back of the couch, where she lay stretched out, looking pensively at the window.
"Old Lady Wilde awaits."
The visit was exactly what Nick had hoped for.
As soon as she saw Ella Wilde, Judy's face lit up. She chattered on about the painting, and Ella received her with equal delight. Smirking – because, ah, he certainly was a genius – Nick decided to feign interest in something else to give them some alone time.
"Hey there, Mr. Wilde," greeted the coyote nurse, whose name tag read Ellis. Nick tipped his head to the nurse and left, wandering around to find that old lion so he could challenge him to another chess match. After a half hour, he returned to his mother's apartment and paused at the door.
"… it gets so tough," Judy told Ella, frowning as she twisted her hands in her lap. "I just want to help other mammals. But sometimes, it's so much harder than that." She shrugged, and as Nick peeked around the corner of the door, he saw Ella reach forward and take Judy's hands in hers with a sympathetic squeeze.
The elderly vixen kissed Judy's little hands. "Oh, Judy. I had many dark times when I was younger. It's hard to feel happy when you have so much weighing on you," she said, before continuing on in warm tones Nick knew so well, "But one day, many years ago when Nick was just a little kit, I read a book written by an eagle." With a gentle hand, she tipped Judy's chin up and the two women smiled. "And that book said, 'The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places, but still there is much that is fair. And though in all the lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps the greater.'"
"That's beautiful," murmured Judy, her eyes shining.
Nick leaned against the doorframe and watched appreciatively as Ella gathered Judy in her arms for a hug. "I know things are hard for you right now, Judy. But keep your chin up… because you have a lot of love to look forward to."
Judy sniffled a little and let Ella pull her up into her lap. "Thank you," she said, as Ella patted her head.
"No need to thank me, sweetheart," Ella smiled affectionately. "Sometimes you just need a mom, that's all."
Slipping his hands in his pocket, Nick pulled away from the door and gave them a few minutes more. As he did so, his eyes turned to the window and some of the large greenery outside caught his attention.
In that instant, an idea struck him.
Author's Note: The 'eagle' mentioned as the author of the quote is JRR Tolkien. Because I am a dork.