I am so exhausted. They are coming.
This industrial ghetto's sidewalks are empty, there is no crowd to hide behind, no unlocked storefront to duck into. There is no traffic to impede the cop SUV, and there is no set of wheels and engine to help me get away. It may as well be an open battlefield, but what it really is, is a hunting ground without cover. With nowhere to run, I can only run forward. My lungs are cauldrons of cherry red hot iron in my chest. My everything feels like the shards of glass are embedded into them and cutting away, but nothing is giving way to pain's sway. Two rhino cops. One is on foot, the other is behind the wheel and under the discos. I have speed. They have stamina and a vehicle. I have fear. They have will and gasoline. I am losing speed.
They are gaining resolve and inches on me. I can feel it in the quaking of the cement behind me, the footsteps of the rhino running behind me are like the wardrums of some shogun's army. I am panting so hard. I cannot keep this up, but I am. My body like an engine past redline and on the verge of detonating, but I am not in control of the throttle. It's some etheral ghost that has his foot on the pedal, with a certainty and conviction I could not possibly harbor in my frame. The rhino in the SUV could jump the curb at any moment, and pin me, and crush me, and kill me. They will tase me until the EMTs come, if they come, after all I've done to get away if they don't kill me with the patrol car. I am on the verge of falling apart and yet so far from letting them get me.
They are yelling at me, both of them, with one on the loudspeaker. Some distant radio chatter, I can barely hear being broadcasted by that loudspeaker, telling the driver to not use the squad vehicle to crush me. There is only one reason the dispatch would tell the driver not to: Because the driver told him he was going to do it. The sound of creaking suspension, the telltale thud of a tire climbing up a curb. I feel the glow of the headlights on me. I feel the reverberation of the engine's revving through the fan blades behind the radiator. The tire is nearly on my tail. I feel myself jumping as if someone else jumped for me with my own legs. I am no longer aware of where I am, my eyes don't register anything but the closeness of the walls around me and the crunch of metal bullbars against brick walls. Closing in like the wardrums were closing in.
The squeals on wheels is not to my side anymore, I must be in an alley now, and have the impression that the driver of the cop car just blocked the officer on foot from entering the alley to continue pursuit. Another wall. Against me. Blocking a straight path. I carve into a corner like a river's flow is dictated by the peaks of mountain range. I've smashed into something. I have fallen onto my side. I cannot scream. I cannot get up. My eyes register lupine shapes. Wolves. A pack of them. The classic prey fear is finding one's self in an alley and confronted by a group of young male wolves on a dark night and well past bedtime. It's something I've never felt, because up until now, with two cops now catching up to me, I have never done anything that would've antagonized a Wolf gang.
I hear the word Help so distantly that I cannot immediately realize it came from my mouth. That I'm asking for it from the Wolves I've just led the cops to. I am out of my mind. And then suddenly, everything is a blur. I am in the air, I'm being thrown and grabbed. A thud. A slamming of heavy grade plastic against plastic. Pitch blackness. Two sets of heavy feet pounding on the concrete, getting closer, rounding the corner of the alley and stopping dead in their tracks. I can't see anything, but the freezing of motion is unmistakable: They are scared. Even the largest prey get caught off guard by the sight of a large wolf pack. It doesn't matter that they're both rhinos: It matters that they're all Wolves.
It's so damned stupid, but the specism is working in my favor. I'm not stirring, it's everything I can do to not gasp for breath. I have to hold out. The conversation is muffled, but I can make it out. This is either going to be quick and violent or long but peaceful.
"WHERE IS THE FOX?"
"Fox?"
"DON'T PLAY DUMB, BOY, WHERE IS THE FOX?"
A short pause. I'm starting to panic.
"Hey, BOYS, have we seen a fox around here?"
"A fox?"
"Yeah, you know, one of those ginger colored runts that's always scamming everyone."
Oh. Oh thank god, the Wolves are doing that pack mentality thing where the alpha gives subtle suggestions and the rest of the pack follows along and feeds off what the others say.
"Psh, I wouldn't know, I ain't ever been scammed by a ginger runt."
I'm not even offended by how specist this whole ginger runt thing is.
"Bro shut the fudge up, one sold you catnip last week."
...Did he just, in front of two co- "Yeah man but he said it'd change my life."
"BRO, YOU AIN'T A CAT."
"So what?"
"SO YOU AIN'T A CAT!"
"But I know some guys that are cat-"
"HE SOLD YOU A BAG OF OREGANO!"
At this point, the laughter is defeaning. The rhinos have given the wolfpack complete control of the situation and they're reveling in it. Knees are being slapped, someone's on the verge of falling over and others are having to lean on others for support. I know this scene. I'm nearly dead, on the verge of being arrested and beaten, I've had just enough time to worry about Eva and I'm still on the verge of cracking up from the visual up until that moment I hear the sound of two tasers being unholstered and charged.
"YOU BOYS START TELLING US WHERE THE FOX IS OR SOMEONE STARTS FRYING!"
A long silence. You can feel the alpha's leer burning into the rhinos from a mile away. Even in my exhaustion, I can feel it like a fire. That's the other thing about Wolves. They can be funny, they can playful, they can be scared in private and downright goofy in their timidness. But when you threaten a group of Wolves, when you corner them, you have forced their hand. They will stand resolutely poised to wage the bloodiest of attrition with no quarter, and no care for odds of survival. Because it's not about winning, but principle. A point is what's at stake here, a line in the sand defined in the most seething growl as the alpha maintains his eye contact with the cops. You always keep eye contact with a cop.
They get nervous when you look at them, they get nervous when you don't, but looking away will always give them an excuse to shoot first, and looking at them will allow a stronger willed pred to intimidate them. The Wolves cannot let them get gutsy again.
"Hey, Boys, have any of us seen a Fox?"
"Nah, I ain't seen a fox. Anyone seen a Fox?"
"Now hold up, makes them think we hang with Foxes?"
"Yeah, yeah, the heck would we want with one?"
"I'M ABOUT TO START COUNTING TO THREE IF I DON'T GET THE FOX, BOY. IF YOU KEEP TRYING TO PLAY DUMB YOU'RE GONNA END UP PLAYING DEAD!"
Even as exhausted as I am, I cannot believe someone could make that little sense in a threat that unintimidating.
"...Officer Hornady? You need to count to Sixteen."
I should be hearing tasers firing, now. Wolves screaming. But I'm not.
"Excuse me?" I am distantly amazed that the cop can form sentences without saying Boy.
"Because I haven't seen any Fox here, Officer, but I see sixteen of us Wolves."
" ARE YOU MAKING A THREAT OF PHYSICAL INJURY ON A LAW OFFICER!?" The barometric pressure in the alley is greater than the ocean floor.
"Hornady, I am not threatening you, I am reminding you that your guidelines prohibit you from taking any further action against a party of sixteen individuals."
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"
"Your manual on police guidelines. You can't do jack, officer. Because according to your manual, groups of three and more require that you call in back up equal to it's size. That's six more patrol units before you can touch us, and you're only carrying four cuffs between you both, AND you need two times the usual amount of back up in high crime areas, AND you gotta call in a gang unit, AND you got to stay in your car for safety until that backup comes. So it's gonna take about thirty minutes tops before you can start detaining us."
If I wasn't getting weaker from running out of fresh air, I would be so much more invested in just how much this duo just got told the hell off.
"And I don't know who you're looking for, but he's not here. That means he's getting away... You think your super is gonna like that?"
I want to clap. I want to congratulate and cheer for the wolf that just put cops thrice his size so firmly in their place. He played their own rulebook so perfectly. The cops can harrass predators all they want, they can cycle them through the correctional system for all time, but they cannot keep us down without us picking up what little codes of conduct they have through osmosis. And noone, not even a fox, is more subjected to police state oppression than Wolves. Noone has to deal with cops more often than Wolves. Noone. And this pause, where noone is screaming, tasers aren't being fired, this pause with nothing to show for it can only mean that the alpha wolf has gotten through the Rhino's thick skull.
It takes jackhammer logic, and a century's patience, but the Rhino cop, Hornady and his partner, know enough about how much scat they're in to know there's no good way out of this for them.
A radio chirps, a voice booming voice so baritone it's almost half of Lucifer's own voice: "All units to cliffside hospital, repeat all units, Cliffside Hospital, S.W.A.T. team enroute, two helicopters dispatched, maintain radio silence, I WANT EVERY LAST SOUL AT CLIFFSIDE, NOW! DROP EVERYTHING, GET HERE, BOGO, OUT!"
I have this distinct impression, in this pitch blackness, that I've just been witness to history. I think we all are, in this alley. The two cops, you can nearly feel their metric ton black hearts drop to the floor. You can tell they haven't gotten this call before. Nothing ever this big. Whatever it is, it's a game changer. They only hesitate for a moment, and then they run, the ground quakes from their thunderous stampade back to their cop suv. To whatever crazy damned thing is about to happen at a place I only distantly remember from all the times I've taken my Vulpon out to blast through South Canyon. I would ride all the way up it, stop at the iron gates, and blast right back down it. I'm about out of oxygen in here, but I still have to start smiling at the memory.
And then the lid of the garbage can is flown open. I'm grabbed by the scruff of my neck and yanked out of the trash violently. I gasp for what breath of fresh air I can, with my windpipe pressed against the pelt over my neck, and stare into the most livid set of eyes I've ever deserved. They're all on me, Every set of eyes in the alley attached to a set of paws just waiting for that quiet nod, that greenlight, that'll have them pummeling me to death. This is that moment every fox fears, When they have no more guile and no more charm at their discretion.
"Who's the hell is this scrawny piece of scat?" Someone in the back, he must be just below the alpha in rank, who should be the one holding me up.
"I don't know, but this runt in my grip better have a good reason why he ain't dead yet."
I'm out of my mind. I say the first thing that comes to mind without thinking it through: "...I didn't know you guys were here."
A disgruntled scoff. "That makes you interrupting a deal that much better, right?"
A quick glance and damn it, I can see it. Seven Eurasians, one Iberian. Four Northwesterns, four Great Plains. One of them is making the I-just-swallowed-several-balloons gag reflex. I have to think quick and I can't. "No it doesn't!" Damn it, wrong answer.
"Damned right it doesn't. Now give me a good reason or we're gonna break bones."
They're starting to hunch over and preparing to come at me. I can't think of a way out of this and mutter "They've been chasing m-"
"Wrong answer!"
"SINCE SAHARA SQUARE, THEY'VE BEEN CHASING ME SINCE SAHARA SQUARE!"
Slacked jaws and bulging eyes all around. Everyone has straightened up. I've just presented an impossibility to them. That anyone could run from the cops for that long and still evade them. Cops that hopefully didn't just hear me scream.
"Look," I'm starting to stutter. "It's been off an on for hours, they found and lost me more times than I can count, I'm exhausted, I'm out of my mind and desperate..."
"How?"
"What?"
"How did you run from them for this long?" I got an angle for my saving grace I think, but I'm terrified. It shows in the insecure laugh I just made. I would absentmindedly throw my paws up in the air if I wasn't limp in someone's grip.
"Well, uh... Heh... Long story, you see-"
"Wait, HOLD UP... That's him!"
Oh, no.
"Who?"
Oh, please.
"HIM!"
Oh, dammit.
"Don't pronoun game us, Randall! Who's who?"
Oh, for god's sake, don't.
"That's the fox they had on the news! That road rager! The wanted dude from the police chase!"
Oh, this is not the way I wanted to become famous.
My neck isn't in as much pain as it was when Lucifer's hoof was clutched around it, but it's starting to get there. All the other Wolves are now coming in for a closer look, behind the Northwest alpha still holding me up in the air by the side of my neck. He's cocked an eyebrow, I can feel the realization soaking in.
"I can't believe it. It really is him."
Someone starts mouthing out the word Holy before trailing off. Whoever Randall is, he's just damned me, he's damned me so hard. I am watching my celebrity status fade away in the faces of all these Wolves as the reality sets in. I'm worth something to someone: I'm worth a large sum of money to the police. Paws are reaching for pant pockets. Cellphones are being pulled out. Screens are lighting up. I want to flail. I want to kick and scratch but I can't.
"WAIT!" Quick, think of something.
"Wait what, basic ass fox?" Laughs all around at my terrified expense.
Think of anything.
"...What makes you think you got the right fox?" I'm completely out of ideas.
"Ah, this fool..." They're not buying it, but it's the last thing I got to sell.
"No no, I'm serious, I mean, don't us ginger runts all look alike am I right?" Some of them are starting to crack up. I must have the sorriest pleabargaining look in my eyes.
"This guy did just...?"
There is nothing more pathetic than a fox out of wits and trying to squirm his way out of trouble.
"WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I'M OWEN FUCHS?" I look so freakan dumb right now.
One of the Wolves that ain't spoken up yet, he's gone quizzical with a cocked brow."Because they said on the news they were looking for a guy called fuchs-"
"THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SAY MY NAME!"
Oh, Oh my freakan god, if I wasn't about to get called in to the popo, I'd be laughing just as hard as all these Wolves are at just how beautiful that was. I've never messed up this bad before in revealing who I am. It's nearly playing in my favor, as the wolf holding me starts to loosen his grip. I can nearly move. I can move just enough to lean my muzzle into his wrist and bite it, and I'm starting to make the move to do it as he starts to recover from laughing his tail off enough to see what I'm trying to do. He regains that grip back around my neck and it's tighten than before, now. My yelping in pain from the clinching around the side and back of my neck is interupted: A haymaker. To my face. Hard as a brick.
I scream out in pain and watch as that fist cocks back to send another blow down on me when I see another wolf rush up and hold the Alpha's wrist back back.
"THE HECK YOU DOING, BRO? GET OFF ME!"
Please let them start fighting over who collects the reward money.
"LET HIM DOWN, GONZALO!"
"ARE YOU KIDDIN' ME, LOWE? THIS GUY JUST TRIED TO BITE ME!"
"FOX, WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"
I've given up. "FUCHS, IT'S FREAKAN FUCHS! FEE! YOOKS! FYEWKS!"
The wolf that just held back the alpha's barrage, his eyes light up like firecrackers as he yells out "THIS FOX IS ANDREW'S HOMIE!"
I'm just as wide-eyed in shock that Andy knows these guys as these guys are that Andy knows me. Gonzalo, holding me in excruciatingly painful grip, I can see disappointment starting to form. He's feeling cheated. "...Lowe, you gotta be clowning me, right now."
Lowe, letting go of his grip on Gonzalo's fist, comes up closer. "Owen, what's your full name?"
It's getting harder to talk. "Owen Conrad Fuchs. Friends call me OC!"
"You know Andy Howlerson?"
"Yeah, I do."
"How long?"
"Five, Six Years, I can't remember!"
"Do you got a job?"
"Heck no, I ain't got a job!"
"What do you do?"
"I dumpster dive!"
"How do you get around town?"
"I ride a motorcycle, man! A Vulpon, a Fox motorcycle."
"Gonzo this guy is Andrew's homie."
"Oh, DAMMIT, WHY'D IT HAVE TO BE THIS PIECE OF SCAT!"
"We gotta call it in, Gonz!"
"...I KNOW THAT, LOWE! AND THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE GONNA DO. You got his number? You call Andy. He's gonna get down here and scope this dude out. He says he don't know him, we beat this runt 'til he passes out and collect greenbucks. If Andrew says he knows him... The fox is his problem."
The neck. My pain. "LET ME GO FOR CHRIST'S SAKE THE PAIN LET ME GO!"
Gravity. Weightlessness. The asphalt of the alley touches my feet, but my legs give way, and I fall to my righthand side. I yelp. Both of my trembling paws are hovering over the sides of my neck and face. From my sideways point of view, I look up. I see the Wolves above me closing in around me. I back away, I crawl on my side to press my back against the wall. I'm too weak and hurt to start running again. They're watching and reacting to all my motions. Even among predators, and especially to a species with a devotion to loyalty like Wolves, a Fox can never be trusted. A Fox's potential for good can never be overestimated. His or her potential for bad can never be underestimated.
I'm too hurt to be hurt. If anything, I'm as immediately confused as I am distantly thankful for a respite I can't tell the reasoning behind. Whether or not I know Andy should be a moot point. I ought to be getting held down while one of the Wolves without a warrant calls it in to collect the reward money and then disperse it afterwards, but it's not happening. Why? Why is Lowe dialing a number in on his smartphone that's longer than 3 digits? Why is he walking away and putting his phone to his ear to call someone that ain't the one that would pay to have me in their possession?
"Hey, Andy, it's your boy, Lo. Get to Prairie four place. Letter A, See & traffic signal. Think we got a known of yours here."
I've got to remember that. It's easy enough to translate, but most phone monitoring is keywords and algorithms. That's too generic. Cops would dedicate manpower to manually listen in on a person of interest, but gangs would know better than to have anyone being watched pass out information this easy to decrypt over celluar traffic. What just transpired is speaking volumes of how regimented and organized these Wolves are. It's also making me ask what the hell did Andy never tell me, that would explain why he'd know code talk from this gang. It's making me forget that I should be pretending I'm not overhearing any of this. They've noticed. One of them swiftly puts their foot down over head to plug my ears for me.
I cringe out of pain, every part of me aching. The running, my neck, every part of me an ember in a fire. I cry out. One of the Wolves has a heart, I can see it in his eyes before he turns and pushes the one stepping on me aside. He's acted out of turn, the alpha turns on my supporter. There's violence looming over my head as the teeth gleam and claws fly. It's swift, the rest of Gonzalo's pack gives way while the other pack distances itself to stop a feud from starting between each other. It's over in an instant, anyway: The Alpha has got the one that helped me pinned down, and the one that stomped me limp on the ground and reeling.
"DID I WANT YOU TO STOP HIM, RANDALL?"
"I-"
"NOO!"
"THE FOX HAS HAD ENOU-"
"DID I SAY YOU COULD STOP HIM?!"
"NO!"
"EXACTLY, RANDALL! I DIDN'T SAY YOU COULD DO ANYTHING!"
I could feel the blow Gonzo throws down on Randall all the way from here. Any resentment I had for the guy just got knocked out of his face. Everyone is tense. Lowe is looking back at me and the chaos that's followed me, ending his pause by bringing his phone back to his face.
"You heard that, Andy? Scat's going downhill. You need to get here before it hits the fan. Yeah... Gonzo, he's gonna be here in about 15 to 30."
It's about now, that I notice the remorse in the alpha's eyes, turning his head around and looking up. He didn't want to beat the hell out of Randall, but he had to. A sense of maintaining pecking order. The trap of authority. Randall's limp with his tail between his legs. He's not resisting. The guy that was stomping me feels remorse, too, somewhere as he's getting up. Not for me, but for Randall and Gonzalo. I'm just a factor in them stepping out of line. It's a fact reminding me of the omnipresent truth of my entire existence: I am a problem. Predators are all the world's problem children. We are the prey mammal's unsolvable riddle. They don't know what to do with us, but they have to do something. Foxes are the physical form of Pi. We can't be trusted, we can't be accepted, we can't be afforded anything.
It's why we yearn for friendship with such ferver. It's why the pursuit of it tends to only make our lives and the lives of those around us even harder. Because I am a Fox. My entire life has been one big problem. For myself, for everyone around me. For these Wolves, and for one mix between Lobo Mexicano & Canis Lupus Nubilus I lost the friendship of, I have become his problem again. It's not whether or not I can escape (I probably can't) and it's not whether or not Andrew is gonna pull my tail out of the fire (He has no reason to), it's that I have no right to make this any harder on him than it already is. Wolves can read others about as well as Foxes can. They have to. It's a matter of survival, same as it is for me. And right now, they can tell most of what's going on in my head.
They can sense my sense of duty. That I am thinking less of myself and more about him. They can see it, Lowe coming to me and kneeling down to ask if I'm gonna try anything is just a formality for the alpha and everyone else. He's asking on their behalf. I can barely nod yes. My remorse is draining me of whatever strength I got left. They understand me. But I don't understand them.
"...Lowe, right?"
"Yeah, that's me."
"You know Andy?"
"We all do."
I could ask how, but I got a more important question: "Why does it matter if I know him? You guys are holding back from turning me in just because he was a friend of mine?"
He's left for a moment in silence, looking to each other as Gonzalo and the wolf that stomped me helps Randall up. Lowe's answer is simple, if a little muted: "We have rules. We follow them before anyone else's."
These past few minutes have been one endless chain of revelations. I thought I knew it all when it came to Wolves and I've been proven wrong. This is all new and none of it is making sense.
"Andy told you about me."
"He's said a lot about you, yeah."
Curiosity is getting the best of me. "Like what?"
"None of your business. That's between him and us."
Quietly stern. I lean my back into the wall and sigh. How much do I not know about Andy? I can't press any further, and I already know everything they would tell me anyway. The seven Lupus Lupus depart with their Italicus, Lowe & Randall follow them out of the alley, probably to apologize & reschedule their business. Gonzalo and the rest stick by me to make sure I don't pull anything. They eventually stop eyeing me down, or trying to read anything out of my body language. I settle in and try not to think, but I can't help but think. Every messed up thing that's come my way or that I invited. How stupid I've been. I should have put my foot down with Eva, but I was weak. Why did I have to be so weak?
The more I dwell, the less I start to care for myself, less even for Andrew, and the more I start to beg myself the question of just what happened to Eva after I ran off. If she escaped. If she's in a cell.
I somehow still have my phone after all this, but I can't use it, now. I so much as put my paw in my pocket, it'll ratchet up the tension. I pull out my phone, look like I'm snitching, they'll have me unconscious before the cops even get to me. Regardless of Andrew. Regardless of how much I wanna know she's alright. Did the cops get her? Is she alive? Can I just use my god damn phone now that I finally have a chance that won't let me take it? Why didn't I listen to myself? Why didn't I listen to Lola? I was smarter than to go to the club, but too cowardly not to. The Wolves will jump me if I go for my phone. Why couldn't the night before with Eva had been enough?
By the time Andrew gets here, I'm consumed. I'm ate up with with how absurdly easily so much could have been avoided. Never moving to Zootopia. Never building my Vulpon. Never lashing out at a well meaning prey. Never careening through traffic and into a crowded rodent market. Never going to a club to dance with a ferret girl that stole my heart. Never asking Wolves to save me. Never trying to live above the means the world gave me to live by. There is an image in my head: I am stopped at a 3 way intersection in the country and two cops in a highway patrol car are barreling towards me with a murderous gleam in their eyes and I'm just sitting there on my bike, waiting for them to ram and kill me. It's so vivid, and I want it to be real. It can't come quick enough, I think to myself.
Something catches the attention of the wolf pack. I'm too ate up with remorse for my stupidities to look up. The distance between my mind, my body and all stimuli surrounding me could not be greater as my eyes and ears distantly register Andrew looking down at me.
"You know this fox?" Gonzalo asks.
"Yes." says Andrew.
"He's your friend, bro?"
"He was."
"Cops were looking for him. Broke up our deal with Downtown. Cops got a bounty on him."
"I know. I saw the news."
Here it comes, and it couldn't come quick enough.
"You know the code. We can't touch him unless you give the greenlight, Andy."
Please give me the greenlight. I'm hoping for it. Turn me in & get it over with.
"No. I can't greenlight him."
I'm bewildered and a little upset, looking up at him looking down at me while everyone else gives him the wild eyed look of surprise.
"You sure, Andy?" Gonzo says.
"I said he was my friend and he still is. I couldn't even if he wasn't." There's a resentment in Andrew's eyes, but it can't mask the pity and the remorse. I can even see some relief.
"So what happens now, Andrew? The cops are still gonna bust him."
"What happens is I take him in, Gonzo."
I don't know what's happening, but his lupine brethren aren't taking it well. They're murmuring to themselves and looking at Andrew like he's a freakin' idiot overstepping his bounds.
"Andrew," Gonzo's about to lay into him. "You're gonna take in some ginger runt with heat coming down on him?"
I could ask the same thing if I wasn't so confused.
"Don't call my friend a ginger runt Gonzo and yeah, I'm taking him in. Because the Alpha wants to see him, anyway."
I don't get it. Andy always acted like he lived alone.
"You already took in the Coyote."
"Yeah Gonzo, I took Wally in, and Wally's gone. He didn't cause any trouble. You wanna argue with what the old guy wants, you take it up with him. I've got orders."
Gonzo wants to push it, but Andy isn't breaking his gaze at me.
"...Lowe, Randall, everybody, we're going back... Andy, whatever scat this fox star-"
"Whatever my friend Owen does Gonzo, it's on me. I know. Don't spit tradition at me like I don't know better than you, bro. There's a reason I ain't slingin' with your crew."
Squarely put in place. A protest with Gonzo's paws tossed up in the air. And Andrew's still leering at me. Reading me like a book, like I'm reading him. I'm Four foot Two, He's Five foot Five, towering over me, with me sitting on the asphalt with my back to the wall. He just about wants to deck me. His right shoulder is tensing up to do it, but the pity is still there. I've been through hell. He sees it. He sees that nothing he could make me pay anymore than I already have. I am such an idiot, I am such a terrible friend, "I've been such a bastard." And Eva, "God this girl, I've gotten her in so much scat, I don't even know if she's-"
"Can you get up?"
I have to stop myself. I gotta stop, now. It won't do Andrew any favors for me to stay here in my sorrows.
"Yeah."
"Get up."
I climb up onto my feet with a groan.
"Can you walk?"
"I can walk."
"Then let's go."
"Where are we going?"
"We're going where I live."
He turns and follows the rest of the Wolves. I follow, the weight of every messed up thing I've done on my shoulders as I trail behind and get to thinking. It doesn't make sense, and I've got to ask.
"You don't live by that Targoat we grabbed TVs from, do you?"
"Owen."
"Yeah?"
A quick spin, and I'm looking straight into Andrew's clenched fist. It hits hard enough that it'd send any other fox down on his back, but after a moment of stumbling, I'm still on both feet, with a little blood coming from my nose and enough pain to get me holding my paws over my muzzle.
"I deserved that."
"...You good?"
"I'm good."
"Then keep up."
I'm looking up, and I can see it in him. He's a little angry with himself that he lashed out, but that smirk is full of pride. Not for himself, his eyes are too gentle for that. He's proud of me. I'm not about to argue against it, it's too relieving, and I need the relief.
I smile right back with my bloody nose and remind him, "You know I will brother."
We join up with the rest of his people, and I think that little moment they just saw has gotten me a little admiration and understanding. I can't be bothered to care for it right now, but I think I see it in them. What anger that Andrew finally got out of his system can let him be amused at something.
"Buffy's moved into his new place."
Oh god. Buffalo exists. How could I forget?
"No scat?"
"Yeah, told everybody you ain't ever invited to another one of his parties."
That dance me & Eva started. I'm laughing at the memory of his landlady chewing him out. I'm tearing up at the joy I felt when I danced with Eva. I needed to be reminded of it after how bad I've had it, tonight. I'm holding at my sides because my body's already struggling.
"Oh god, he told you everything?"
"Some girl put a song on and the next thing he knew you and her were bouncing off walls with everybody losing it around you."
Eva. Love of my life. The wholesome memory that's been wounded by the fact she's not here.
But I can't dwell. I can't pick up my phone, either. I have to push it back with an "And I got into the song so hard I flew right out of a window!" as he's cracking up too hard for the lie he's trying to prepare himself to tell. "I'm not impressed, Bro!"
It's working. I don't know how. "Psh, don't gimme that horsehockey!"
For a moment, I have to think on how manic I can be at times. And I get the feeling that I'm such a traumatized mammal, with so much I've gone through, that I'm desperate to be happy. I'm desperate to find any ecstasy and jubilation I can latch onto, when I'm not on my Vulpon, trying everything I can to not die. I think he's seeing what I'm thinking. Something's on his mind, but he's pushing it back, for now. We all keep walking down the sidewalk. The Wolves we're following stay alert while pretending not to eavesdrop on me and Andy. They're curious. Wolves don't usually mingle with Foxes. It's kind of a rare sight.
"Hey Oh, you remember that shelter?"
"The one I met you at?"
"Yeah, it's gotten even worse since we left it."
I get the feeling that this is exposition for the audience around us.
"Get out. They were already giving me grief just for the Ponda bike I used to have."
"The one that got clipped and ran into?"
"Yeah."
"They'll refuse anyone with anything but a bicycle and they want you turning in at least three job applications."
"How the heck do they expect you to get a job if y- Wait, they want you to make copies and turn those in?"
"Yeah, bro."
"They're crazy."
"They're running out of room. heck, even when Wally met all the requirements, he still couldn't get a cot to sleep on."
They can say the stock market is doing great, that it's reaching new highs, but it's no correlation to, no proof of, how well the rest of us are doing. It's getting even harder for preds. Even without some big damned news cycle about us being scary.
"What's Wally doing, now?"
"He joined up with some group set up in old subway stations. Says they've only been kicked out of Banyon street."
"Freakan cops."
"That's the creepy thing, though, they got chased out by some prey militia dudes in matching uniforms."
"Prey supremacists?"
"Beat up a few of his peeps bad enough they had to check in at an ER."
"The heck do meadowlanders want with Banyon Street?"
"I don't know, bro. But he said the guys weren't cops. acted like it, though."
"Freakin specist azz meadowlanders..."
And then it dawns on me in a quickly swelling motion. Lucifer's living room. Bellwether. Lucifer trailing off about her and the meadowlands. The implication he made of her being involved in something over there, where most of the prey militia groups are. The absurdity of one operating in a predator dominated area of town. It's barely tangible in how it makes sense, but it does. It's a stretch, but too plausible to ignore. The connection between a detective being sidelined, a bunch of preds missing, and a mysteriously protected subway station.
"I've got to tell Lucifer."
Everyone's taken back.
"...What?"
"About Banyon, Andrew."
"What do you mean, tell Lucifer?"
"...You heard how I escaped that police chase?" He's trying to put two and two together, and he just can't. I don't blame him.
"You're saying Satan helped-"
"That's just what I called him. Scariest damned cop I ever crossed, never got his name, he said something about City Hall keeping him from checking into some missing preds and-"
"Owen, what the hell are you-"
What I'm doing is a million times worse than just grabbing my phone. What it is is seemingly, incalculably more important.
"I'm saying this cop pulled my tail out of the fire and I think I gotta tell him about the old Banyon station. Look, I don't know what I could tell you, but there's something really big happening. I don't know how big, I don't even know if Lucifer knows how big it is, but it's huge! Gonzalo?"
I've caught the Northwestern Wolf's attention. He's as concerned and scared as the rest of them.
"You heard the radio chatter from those two Rhinos. All Units, cliffside hospital, those two could've busted all of us, but they freakin RAN, THEY RAN HARD. Tell me that doesn't sound like it could be connected!"
How could they? Why am I even doing this?
"Owen, I love you like a brother, but if I wasn't told to bring you, you would be UNCONSCIOUS. The knife in the dumpster was one thing, first you're running from the cops, now you want to undo all of us going out on a limb to save you from them?"
"IT"S NOT LIKE THAT! PLEASE!"
I shouldn't have raised my voice. The atmosphere around us is getting so claustrophobic. The Wolves that nearly turned on me before Andy's name got dropped, they're on the verge now of turning on both of us. Gonzalo is looking at me and him with unmistakably murderous intent.
"Andrew, if this fox is threatening the den, nobody will think twice after me and my crew tell him we did what we had to do."
"Gonzo, bro, this fox is just crazy! He doesn't mean scat!"
"He is talking about SNITCHING INFORMATION OFF TO A COP THAT'S NOT FREAKIN WITH US!"
Teeth are starting to flash. They're starting to flash in that way that prey mammals use to justify the existence of muzzles.
"Owen is not that crazy! He is a total idiot but I know he wouldn't-"
"What's stopping us from dumping your omega-azz body in a river and collecting our reward money on him?"
They're about to act. Andy can't act. I am so ashamed but I cannot stop my mouth. I yell out, frantically, all the details I remember. Lucifer is Internal Affairs, he's a black bull, a spanish fighting bull, he wears all black suits, he sent the cops that killed Lewis Wolfgang to jail, he was investigating 14 missing predators, city hall sidelined him by having him lead the mammalhunt for me, he saved my hide when he shouldn't have and the missing predators are all connected and he needs my help and I've got to help him because he's not the average pred killing cop, he's busting them and he needs my help because there's a conspiracy happening right now and it affects every last predator.
I'm surprised I had that much breath left in me after running all night. They're surprised enough by everything I just screamed out that it's stopped them dead in their tracks. Andy's surprised that he's not in pieces and that I got to say all that without being interrupted with a scuffle. Randall's looking at his phone, having taken in everything I said and taking in everything he's reading on his screen.
"...Gonz? Larry's texting. He's hysterical. He's messaged everyone and called a general meeting."
"...What is he calling it for?"
Randall's looking at his screen in disbelief.
"Cliffside."
If I wasn't on the verge of emptying my bladder onto the sidewalk, I would be thanking god for his sense of timing.
"...Andrew? Your ginger runt friend gets to talk to Espada Del Toro after the Den Alpha approves it."
Who the heck is Espada? Gonzo is reading my mind, and answers: "That Bull you were calling Lucifer? That's Espada Del Toro. And if you let him know that you found out his name, I will cut your tail off. Are we clear?"
"We are."
"Are you sure?"
"I only know him by Lucifer."
"Good."
A moment of silence. All the Wolves except Andy are looking at Gonzo, who nods his head in a silent gesture that he's OK'ing our privledge to keep breathing. We all start walking again, but Andy can't take his eyes off of me. I am such a terrible friend. He can't stop feeling hurt, he can't stop thinking to himself that I'm a hopeless cause, and I can feel it, and it's killing me so hard that when he finally says something, it's a relief.
"Why are you such a god damn idiot?"
I don't think, again. I just start saying "...Sorry's the most useless word but-"
"No Owen, why? Why are you always pulling stupid scat like this? You're a good person, Owen, but why, bro? Why do you have to be like this? Why did I have to pull your ass out of this fire? You started it, I nearly died, and just... Just tell me Why I'm doing this, Owen..."
Somehow, I'm still his friend after all these things I've done. How, I don't know. I don't know what he sees in me. I don't know what Eva, or anyone sees in me. But distantly, in the back of my head, there is a thought: That maybe all of these things, that I've lived through, that I've overcome, and the things I've done, the fact I always come back like a rock after the tide has come and gone... Maybe all of these things made me who I am. Maybe that's why I'm his friend. Why I have the friends I do.
"...Because I've lived through so much that I can never be the mammal I wanted to be. I don't even know anymore what I wanted to be. But I have become what I am, and I can never come back from it."
And yet distantly, somehow, the fact I'm still alive, dwelling on all the things that could've killed me and I could've killed myself over, somehow, it feels like a miracle I willed. And maybe that's why I have Andy. Why I have Toby, and Jaeger, and Wally, and maybe even Eva, still. Maybe that's why I have them. Because They've witnessed an unconquerable will and endurance. Because I'm still alive, and that as much as the world robs from me, I have stolen it back every time it let it's guard down.
