We haven't seen a cop car, and south Savannah Central is usually crawling with them.
Everybody's quietly had their eyes and ears on swivels for awhile now, because it's too uncanny. Gonzalo's kept up a good facade of swagger, of indifference, but the cracks are visible enough it's not set his pack at ease. It's only served to keep them muted about their apprehension. We've already walked past the corner nearby the Targoat, answering the question I had for Andrew earlier. He's a little worried like the rest of them are, but he's a little more relieved. I think am, too, but only between my bouts of worrying about Eva. Yeah, the cops will sometimes not make their presence known until they come down in multiple squad cars with a swat van in tow, but the streets feel calmer than that. The tension isn't there.
And I think Andrew's playing more off my own passing moments of relief than his brethren's fears. But I can't hold on to my own. I can't stop thinking about my ferret girl. I can't get that image out of my head of her jumping off of a bar with a cop in pursuit. I can't let go of the fact she's probably been caught or killed. I can't stop for a moment to just admire the fact that she broke a beer bottle over a cop's face, or came back from being punched that hard, or that she's been on the run for as long as she was. I was too weak after Saturday's chase, and after Lucifer to tell her no on the club. Too swept up off my feet. I couldn't...
"You can't help her."
I nearly grab my phone as I turn my head to look up at Andrew, and things are calm enough I just about could. But I'm only now aware of the look on my face.
"What's her name?" He asks and I can barely keep the stutter at bay.
"Eva. She's a ferret and the best thing that ever-"
"What's she done besides hook up with your crazy ass?"
Before I can protest, he's already on it. "I ain't saying crazy's bad, bro. I'm just saying you're crazy."
It's gotten some chuckles from the rest of them, and it's lightened their moods. Mine, too. Enough to let him have it.
"Tried to get the cops to take her in for her warrant to get them off me."
His eyes roll to compliment his "She's that crazy for your D?"
I don't mind. It's helping me to take pride over fear.
"They punched her... Then she threw a bottle on one of their faces to stop me getting fried and made them split up."
Andrew's feet skip a beat along with all the other lupine paw on the ground. "...Bro? you know how to pick em."
"I didn't pick her, Andy. She picked me. Took me on a carpet ride, showed me a whole new world-"
"OC, are you high?"
"Imagine if I was, though!"
It's so good to hear his laugh. I didn't even think that out, it just came out. and they're all teetering. They can't believe how teenage starstruck and swept up I am.
"I tell you, that ferret girl's a magic weaver! She's got soul for days!"
"You're further out of your god dang mind-"
"I ain't finished, Andy! She's the best damned thing that happened to me and... I didn't listen. I didn't listen to myself, I didn't hear Lola out and..." I'm starting to lose it again.
"Owen, If she's half of what you're saying she is, she can take care of herself."
"But what if-"
"I'm telling you you can't help her, bro. And no amount of you going off the deep end is gonna change that."
I want to fight it, just on principle. But I can't. He's got me throwing my paws in a frustrated sorrow. We keep walking and round a corner. Gonzalo pulls out his phone, texting some short message. Everyone is getting more confident and in-character. Andrew, too. Like these wolves are getting close to where they live. The thing is though, is that we're not in a residential area. There's an old apartment complex mixed in with these warehouses and rundown factories, but the scaffolding, plywood covered windows and tarps and sign up front that says Woolsey Construction betray it to be construction site.
I have a feeling, though. As I look up to my friend "Andy, I shouldn't ask but... How much further?"
I catch the stern glance from Gonzo and Randall at Andrew as he starts off with "You know what it means? That I'm taking you in with me?" as Gonzo's phone goes off with a notification.
"...You trust me?"
"We all have to trust you. Everyone. We have to trust that you're in such urgent need now that you're never gonna tell anyone about where you're going or what you're going to see. That you're never gonna lead the cops here, never gonna talk about this place."
I have no idea why he wouldn't just answer my question, but I answer his with a "You know I wouldn't." that doesn't change the fact that "They don't, bro. You're going somewhere that I gotta ask the questions for everyone else."
That last comment has me cocking a brow for a moment. A few paces later, it hits me, as we're crossing the street and heading closer towards the construction site. "...You're that responsible for me..."
"Owen, if anything happens, I'm not just that responsible, it's that I'm the one that gets killed first."
The gangbanging, the drug deal, the hierarchy, this mafioso speel Andy's spouting off, it's enough scary scat that I have to ask very, very directly as we slip into an alley: "Andy, where the heck do you live?"
Gonzalo pulls out a key from his pocket and grabs at the lock and chain keeping the chainlink panel perimeter secure around the apartment building I thought noone was living in.
"That answer's your friend's questions, Andy?"
I could ask how they live in a construction site, but Andy prompts me, puts me on the spot to say something.
"Owen?"
"Yeah, yeah it answers them..."
Lowe, Randall and the six others duck in with Andrew waiting for me. I slip in, he follows, Gonzo pulls the fence panel back into place and reaches through the other side to re-lock it. On the inside of the apartment building, fresh paint, stacks of tile and drywall with unopened paint buckets here and there in the first floor hallway. Theres a few other Wolves, wearing hard hats and safety vests, but they're not contractors. I can tell that much immediately, watching them eyeing me as the odd one out of faces they're already familiar with. They're security.
"He's Andy's. He's cleared." Gonzo tells them. They dismiss my presence and go back to being less obvious guards. Randall sticks with them and the rest of us round a corner and take an elevator thats big enough for two elephants and whoever else can fit between them. The way so much of this city's infrastructure is scaled to accommodate large herbivores tends to make me feel smaller than I already am, but the size of things have never helped to make to make my orange fur to stick out any less. Lowe presses the button for the highest floor, and yeah, I want to keep asking questions that'll be answered soon enough.
I know better though, and just leave it up to small talk with Andy to ward off the curiousity. "How's the band?"
His hesitance answers it before his mouth does. "Lost another lead guitarist and drummer, but the bassist is gonna stick around if we can find new guys."
"What happened this time?"
"A couple of bad practices, the lead and drummer were ticked that we always practiced at their places instead of mine... What's going on with the bike?"
I take the cue to change topic.
"It got left in one of my caches. Can't get to it until this all blows over."
This smalltalk is a godsend.
"You holding up without it?"
"Without my therapist? Not really." I get some amusement from Andrew's homies and I can tell Andrew's rolling his eyes without looking up to confirm. I have to be a little wry about it with a scat eating grin. Because he can afford the taxation in an "I'm not embarrassing you in front of your friends, am I?"
"You, bro? Ah, nah, you're a regular shining example of sanity."
It gets a snicker out of me. I don't think I've ever argued that I wasn't crazy. But with the way the world around me is, I don't think I'd ever want to be well adjusted to it. I have to take pride in the fact that I'm not. Try to ward off my impatience as we near the top, let Andrew and everyone else feel relieved, even if a little skittish. Wolves get like that around authority figures they respect, which must be the Alpha that Andy mentioned earlier. I'm left for a brief moment to believe that what's going to greet us when the door opens, is a few lieutenants to escort us to some Capo di Capi shotcaller's office. It would be a scarier prospect under any other circumstance, but it's still unnerving. All the while Andrew is calm and even a little happy. Like neither me or him have anything to be worried about. It's comforting me. It's like he's coming home. Coming to sanctuary.
" Andrew?"
"Whats up, Owen?"
"You know how I said that us slipping through the fence answered my question?"
"Yeah."
"It didn't, and you're acting like you're home, but-"
The doors open, and the din of so many conversations and the smell of so many Wolves comes pouring into the elevator. I should have kept quiet. Andrew smirks as we exit out into a hallway filled with Mammals. They're all Wolves. They all know each other, conversing with the ease of a well-loved friend. It feels strange to a solitary animal like me, but I know what it is. This place feels like their home, because that's exactly what it is. I get it now why Gonzo & Company didn't want me here. Why they only allowed me to come because Andrew said I needed to meet their Alpha. He really is an one. In the literal sense. This is a den, by the actual definition. I am surrounded by a real pack of Wolves as they briefly take note of the foreign object in the body of their community.
"What is this place?" Andrew starts to explain in my exhausted afterglow stupor as I soak all of this in. Guiding me by my shoulder until I point in the right direction to follow Gonzo's crew.
"...You know how younger Wolves can't afford to rent apartments in this city? How I had to lie to you about living at that apartment next to the targoat?"
I'm too dumbfounded by all this kinship surrounding me to answer. I'm almost too mesmerized to notice how amused & dismissive Gonzo and his crew are of how dumbfounded I am.
"This is what a Den looks like, bro. This is how we get by."
All of these studio apartments are being used as Dorms. Theres scores of Wolves in each one, and there's not a single door closed, they're all open. A secret commune, living in a construction site.
"This breaking so many zoning & housing laws."
"City laws, Owen. Not our laws. "
The feeling I had of this place being a community is not unfounded. It's real. It's genuine. It's a study in how communal mammals live and I've never found myself envying the life of someone else as much as I do now. I'm trying to keep my bewilderment in check, I really am, as I quietly mutter to myself that I wanna be a Wolf. I don't think anyone heard it as I follow Andy and Gonzo, trying to keep my head from swiveling, my ears from picking up too many conversations. Everyone knows everyone, and where everyone stands, with all the intimacy a stranger like me will never know. Wolves are coming and going from one apartment to the other, Cots and secondhand mattresses, I was so wrong. This isn't some kingpin's secret lair. And it's not even a halfway house.
It's a home. One for Wolves with a militaristic, disciplined bustle of domestic upkeep made apparent as we pass a doorway and I see one chew another out for not tucking the sheets of his cot tight enough. It's a home that couldn't exist for anyone else but a Wolf. A household beholden to noone else's law but it's own. So drunk in it's celebration of kindred spirit that it's dismissing my presence as a visitor. Everyone's so at peace that there isn't a single nervous Non-Predatory Smile or practiced blank expression. They all briefly look, just to cautiously take note, before returning to their business. Anyone that's ever said all Wolves look the same needs to be slapped in the face, because not one of them do.
The fur patterns, the bone structures in their faces. They're half Northwestern and half Great Plains. Andrew's Mexican visage makes him the odd one out, but they're almost all the same right down the middle. This can't be the only place like this. The fact there's only two subspecies here must mean that there's other packs, with their own den that are their own kinds.
"How many of these places are there?"
I feel a little tension from my friend as he replies with "A lot. Only the higher ups know the number."
"Andy, is your boy gonna keep asking these questions?"
"Nah, Gonz, he ain't."
I'm overstepping my boundaries, but I don't keep it in mind as we pass another apartment, and see it full of female Wolves, listening to another recalling what sounds like her prey boyfriend's parents walking in on 'em. "I looked at Buck's specist ass father and said Sir, eat him? Your son was eating me!"
The moment my eyes brighten, and I'm about to bust out laughing with all the girl Wolves before Andrew wraps his paw around my muzzle to leave me making an awkward snort. Crosseyed with my tongue sticking out from my clenched teeth.
"Don't snoop on the girltalk, bro." He's dragging me forward by my muzzle and the dorm behind me breaks out in gut-busting laughter. I think it was at her punchline. I'd like to think it was at her punchline and that they didn't see me getting corrected. I should have known better though. I think I do, but that's a different topic than Lowe's "Andrew, homie, that 'yote did the same thing, what's with you and your Outside friends?"
In Andrew's best hushloud voice, "Lowe, your thirst is half the reason we gotta keep the rooms segregated so don't you even start and Owen I swear to god if you don't keep your eyes forward-"
"Awhll bu gud!"
"Am I gonna have to micromanage your scrawny orange ass?"
"Nhuh!"
A letting go comes with a shove pushing my face to the right before I swing it back forward as we turn a corner to enter a stairway. Two flights later, and Gonzo opens the door to reveal the massive open space of a multi story penthouse suite. The first floor lined with rows and columns of cots. There is a single young Wolf, he can't be more than eighteen or nineteen. An undertone of skiddishness and apprehension that paints him being straight out of his parent's home. He's facing a much older Wolf and looking up to him in every sense. French cuff shirt and tie with a suit jacket laid on the side of the cot they're standing by, warmly reassuring his charge with an echoing "Forget the system, pup. We look after our own kind. Nobody else gives a damn about us, but a Wolf always has a pack."
A gingerly raised paw, a folded bill and a timidly grasping hand.
"...I guess that makes my one a one twenty."
"A one twenty you'll pay back when you can. Not a moment sooner." The older Wolf's warmth doesn't fade, even as he looks to his left and sees us. Sees me. There's almost a tinge of relief I can read, but he's the most confident mammal in the room. It feels like he has to be, against how natural it comes anyway.
"Get out of here. Head back downstairs for now..." The young Wolf heads out without even looking at us, while we come to a slow stop. This Wolf with the tie is unmistakable as this den of wolves' Alpha. He's maintained this calming, scrutinizing gaze on me without breaking it once.
"So you're that Fox I've been hearing so much about..."
I'm trying to hold back the embarrassment, but I know he's caught it, because I'm catching his amusement.
"Good or bad, sir?" I haven't said Sir without insincerity for as long as I can remember.
"...Depends on who I hear it from. Gonzalo says he nearly got himself in trouble."
Gonz's temper flares immediately at that wordplay. The casualness bring him to a hasty "I said he interrupted a deal and nearly-"
"He interupted business I told you to get out of, Gonzo." The slightest gleam of ivory whites under tensing, pulled up chops. I feel a little bit nervous but I'm not afraid. Neither is Andy. Not by the Alpha. Nor by Gonzo's tucking back of ears to telegraph his resentment. But their superior isn't gonna have it.
"Have you forgotten some of our brothers in this den are wearing badges? Lupe is being transferred to narcotics and you're still slinging?"
"Yes I am because it makes paper when I'm not getting messed up by-"
"The cops following this Fox to your transaction and the way members of other packs conducts business is a null and void point! Null and void to the fact that you're threatening our den and making our members choose between their policing duties or ignoring you and your thugging!"
"What am I and my boys supposed to do for money?!"
"You ask me that after the scene you just made in front of Andrew's boy? I'm done with you for now. All of you, pack your stuff back out of that apartment! You're sleeping up here again!"
Gonzalo and his ilk are fuming. He feels distinctly aware of how much face he just lost, most of them are more ticked off at him than the Alpha. They turn around and leave me with Andy behind while the Alpha starts regaining his composure before coming back to me, pulling the curtains back down over his teeth. He was angry at them, not us, and theres something in his body language that kept me at ease the whole time, even with eight other Wolves next to me and Andy with their hairs raised. I need to admire that ability of his, as he sits back down on the cot.
"...I can't blame you if you thought Gonzalo represented everyone here."
I only have to think on my phrasing for a moment as I come closer. "Everything going on downstairs shows he doesn't. That's a community. Not a racket."
"But he still gave you that initial impression of the rest of us, before you came out of that elevator."
"...Maybe he did, but all I know now is that this is a den for Wolves." Saying that out loud makes me realize how primal the concept is. How natural it must feel for them.
"You still have questions, though."
I kind of hesitate for a moment. He's right and he knows he is. It's uncanny, that he's reading me this well. yet I know why. "You knew a Fox for a long time."
I hit it right on the head. Caught this pack Alpha by surprise, and I've gotten him to let off a chuckle.
"The best friend I ever had outside of a pack."
He pauses for a moment. Reminiscing. Laying down his defenses for a moment to allow himself, in his cynical, bitter age to be brittle and delicate to emotion.
"So are gonna let your curiosity eat away at you? Go ahead, Kit. Ask away."
"...Why did it matter that I knew Andrew? Gonzalo could've come back here with a jackpot."
"And he would have gone against everything we stand for."
I realize the implication immediately. "All Wolves. Not just you guys."
With how well organized and established this one group of Wolves is, how adjusted they are to it, this would've been impossible, if there wasn't a pre-existing structure to work off of. He nods his head ever so slightly to confirm my realization. That Wolves were never allowed to integrate into society. They were never given equal participation. And their answer to being ostracized was simple: Wolves had to conduct their own secret, carefully guarded society in order to survive in the prey dominated world around them.
"...You guys have lived like this for ages."
"Centuries." There's no immediate bitterness in admitting it, that the injustice around them forced their entire species to close themselves up and turn inward. It's just been a fact for them for generations. The sun rises, crops come and go, noone gets any younger, and Wolves are the scum of the earth. But if Wolves can only preserve themselves by a species-wide effort to survive at all costs...
"...Why did you let Andy bring me here? My presence is putting this whole pack at risk."
A tinge of shame comes off of Andy, as his Alpha takes a moment to leer at him before bringing his eyes back to me.
"Because we look after the mammals that help us. Which is a fact I had to remind Andrew when I told him to bring you here."
After every thing I've put Andy through, I could understand if he didn't want to bring me here. It's the fact that a total stranger, responsible for wellbeing of an entire community at stake that I'm hung up on. "He didn't do this on his own?"
"I made him. Because he owes it to you and you needed it." he tells me, as his phone pops off a text notification, and Andrew's phone follows suit as his elder checks his own. A stern look on his face. "Larry better have a good reason for this assembly."
The sound of commotion from the flight of stairs and closed door behind me. A great mass of bodies, padded footsteps echoing from the other side of the door before it opens and out comes flooding in what's probably going to be every last Wolf living here. I'm not done with the pack's Alpha, I don't even know his name, but I'm going to have to wait. We're enveloped by a tsunami of Wolves. Muffled conversations betray an uncertain nervousness. They make me ask Andy "How often does the pack do this?"
"Only when it's something big, bro. And unannounced like this... It's bad. It's gotta be."
"You ain't setting my mind at ease." I know it's not about me, even if it was. But it's not. It's about Larry, the cops and a mental hospital. My mind is churning from how it all adds up, but as a very scared, shaken up, exhausted and wild eyed Wolf in a pea coat and military khakis stumbles past me, I get the feeling that I don't have a clue. The Lupines are still pouring in, but has spotted and is shuffling through the crowd to get to. I'm starting to worry. Hard.
"... Was that peacoat guy Larry?"
"Yeah, bro. That's him."
"What's with that henchman look?"
"I don't know. He's a Cop, but he's been out of uniform and acting weird for the past month."
I don't know why, but the amount of dread I felt from all that is starting to settle in me with layers. But I'm reminded of Lucifer, of Espada Del Toro, of that dark room where I helped him unravel the coverup. The layers are splitting themselves open. Larry's a cop. But he's dressed up like a guard. He's been acting strange for a month. He's not at Cliffside with the rest of the cops, but just came back from there. Mayor Lionheart. His connections to the ZPD. Fourteen missing mammals. A remote location.
"Owen, what the hell are you freaking out about?" Andy just made me realize how much I'm showing my fear at the realization. "I don't know if you get it yet after all this, but Larry ain't gonna cuff you. No cop living here is gonna-"
"I know what Larry's been doing."
"What?" He has to pause for a moment to put it together. And then he gets more upset.
"How, Sherlock Hooves? What makes you think Larry has anything to do with those prey militia dudes from Banyan street?"
"He doesn't. That was Dawn Bellwether. This is Lionheart."
The more I catch him off guard, the more fed up Andrew gets.
"You know what, Owen? If Woolsey's telling me to bring you here blows up, it ain't gonna be in my face, it ain't gonna be on me." He can't afford to raise his voice in the presence of his kin. Not when everyone's already on edge and those passing by us are feeling the tension coming off of me and him.
"If Larry gets up there and nothin' he says relates to Lionheart and cliffside, I'm a paranoid ass idiot."
"You are a paranoid idiot. You're a wanted mammal that's on the run for three days."
"Randall!" The alpha's booming voice snaps me and Andrew out of it.
"Yeah, Woolsey?"
"How many are still coming in?"
"About a few dozen, sir!"
"Alright. We're starting once that door closes, everyone!"
I've caught but but I'm still gonna ask "Andrew, that's the pack leader's name, right? Woolsey?" just to make sure I get a "Yeah." out of him.
"Good, I don't want to keep calling him in my head."
"Oh my freakan-"
The door closes loudly enough behind us for me to hear it over everyone else's conversations. The entire room turns to face a table I saw earlier, everyone starts to squat or sit cross-legged on the floor or over Cots. I see Woolsey standing on top of it as a makeshift stage. As I sit down with Andrew, I'm painfully reminded of how sore my legs are and how worn out I really am.
"Our brother Larry has called for general assembly! He assured me this concerns everyone here, every pack in the city, every Wolf, and every last predator! He has not explained why, but he has promised me he's not wasting our time! Let him explain himself without interruption and I'll signal when it's time for questions!"
Woolsey comes down, using a chair as a step and on comes Larry, having taken off his peacoat, panting out of nervousness. He's looking over a crowd of mammals he knows intimately, coming off like he's finally fully realizing the magnitude of something huge. I'm feeling his remorse all the way from nearly the back of the room as he starts forcing himself to breakdown.
"...Mayor Lionheart has been arrested." Every ear it the room is alertly raised forward.
"Some of the other Wolves running his security was busted, too. They got my friend Gary from Tundratown." Every set of eyes in the room is wild eyed in shock. Every jaw but mine is gaping. Lionheart, the mayor, arrested. A bunch of busted Wolves. Everyone is quietly panicking. Some are murmuring, but cease out of self-awareness.
"Theodore pulled a bunch of us from all the precincts off the force to run a black op for him... I don't know how to put it, but we had fifteen predators in an abandoned hospital and Lionheart's been running containment on an outbreak. It started with two Wolves about a month ago. Then other preds started getting it. The doctor he had running the place didn't think it's contagious, but we don't know."
The tension in the air is reaching a fever pitch and some start to freak out. They mutter to themselves out of shock, out of turn, and Woolsey has to cut in with a howling "Larry isn't finished and has the floor until I say so, keep your mouths shut and let him finish!"
His voice echoes. Larry doesn't continue until it stops. "Noone's been able to explain it but for the past month... They've all gone nuts. Started walking around on all fours and attacking mammals. Mauling them. It's been everything we can do to keep it off the news, they've attacked prey but... It's been everyone. The two Wolves have been the least aggressive, but that's only been around security. Like they recognized us as other Wolves. But they don't talk, none of them do. There's nothing behind their eyes, they all act like... Primitive. Pre-societal. I mean we can't even approach them without sedating them for the medical exams, they'll try and kill us. And the doctor's run every test she could, she can't figure it out, can't even tell us or Lionheart that it's a pathogen or not, but it's been getting worse... Last night, me and Gary had to net a Jaguar after it nearly killed a meter maid and a civilian."
In order for me to be smug, I would have to wish I was right in the first place. I can't be, because everything I just heard was so, so much worse than my cynicism could account for. There is a storm over this city that's going to come down over every last predator in it. Noone in this room wants to believe it, but Wolves live on trust, and noone here has a reason to disbelieve their own.
"...And again, we did everything we could to catch these guys before they caught anyone's attention, we covered our tracks as best we could and then... Then tonight, there was a breach. Someone started a howl. By the time we stopped and sweeped the perimeter, we traced them to a drain. They were already in, They were pros. They found the crazies and before we could find them, they got out before we could catch them. It was all over, the chief of police called in a raid we heard on a scanner, Lionheart told us to evacuate and he stayed behind with the doctor to take the fall. We splitted up but they still got some of the security team... This is gonna be all over the news tomorrow and with us out of the picture, I don't know how bad it's gonna get but... This could be it. An outbreak, a riot, I don't know but... Us, Lionheart, we were trying to defuse a mine and somebody had to go and step on it."
This is that thing prey have always feared we were capable of. That specist belief that beneath some assumed facade, we were one excuse away from revealing how unevolved, how instinctual, how inherently violent we really were. This is that excuse for that savior-complex wetdream of saving a precious prey girl from murderous, predatory savages. It's real. It's happening. Lionheart started an overly publicized manhunt for me to draw Lucifer and anyone else away from it. Tomorrow, it's going to hit the news. Tonight, the first floor of this penthouse suite is reeling in terror. We're not alone, because if the Wolves Lionheart pulled off the force for this, if they live in dens like this one, then they're telling their packs the same thing Larry just told his.
I'm not smug. I'm angry. We're angry. All of us are angry and scared. It's like the second coming of rabies. It even sounds worse, somehow. Woolsey is just as wild eyed and scared as the rest of us. I can see it in him as he stands on the staircase to the second floor of this penthouse, but he's got to snap out of it. He's got to be the pillar of this small community. He's got to pick himself up, and he tries. Fighting to ward off shock and disbelief, walking forward to the table Larry's on top of. Looking up to for a moment, then back to us. He raises his hand to signal everyone to be quiet, and they obey.
"Larry is going to be confined to my area upstairs. This is while I make calls to the other packs in the city and confirm the situation with them. I don't know what I'm going to do with him, but you are all going to have to limit your travel in and out of the den. I'll give more orders when I can, but for now, go back to your dorms. If your cot is up here, get ready for lights out in 10 minutes. That is all."
As everyone starts getting up, I look to Andrew beside me. And somewhere, under all that shock and anger that he shares with the rest of the room, I can feel that frustration that I was right. About Lionheart, Cliffside, and all that scat I spouted off in a panic about fourteen missing preds, and a black bull in an all black suit when Gonzo and his crew were about to kill him and turn me in.
"...How much of this did you piece together before Larry got up there, Owen?"
"Not enough. I didn't want to piece together what I did." My ears have been folded back this whole time, along with his.
He brings his paws to his face and under his breath, I can hear it coming out of him: "I didn't want you to be right..."
A quiet moment. I look down briefly, then back up. Through the crowd, there's Woolsey, Larry by his side. It's brazen, but I stumble up to slip through the mass. Andrew follows. Maybe I'm stepping out of line, but I got to tell him what I know.
"Woolsey, sir!"
He looks to me with a cocked brow.
"I know this sounds crazy, but I need to get with a guy tomorrow." I know better than to say a cop after everything Larry just laid out. I know better than to let it slip I know Espada's name, too. "Lucifer looking guy. A Bull that wears all black."
Larry reels instinctively to creep back, Woolsey grabbing him by the shoulder to keep him firmly in place. "No, not about Larry, nothing to do with him. The Bull saved me from the cops. Had me in his apartment. He was investigating those fourteen preds... Point is I think assistant mayor Bellwether is doing something with a militia from the meadowlands and I got to let him know. I got the feeling he thought Bellwether was involved with some of this and there's some shady scat I don't think he knows about."
Woolsey dwells for a moment before replying. "There's only one Bull you can be talking about. I know him. He saved my tail and I owe him. I guess you do, too."
"I'd be in a cage or dead if it wasn't for him."
"...We'd both be, if it wasn't for him. And it's only because of that, that I'm going to allow this. You're meeting him tomorrow morning. I'll arrange it with him. Get there thirty minutes early. Depending on what he wants, you're taking Larry with you. And this may be the last time you're leaving the den for awhile."
"I get you, sir." It's just dawned on me, but I think tonight's been one of the first times in my life I've ever said Sir in the way it's meant to be said. With true respect and without obligation or dishonest patronizing. Like this pack's Alpha deserved it more than anyone else I've ever known. Woolsey recognizes it, and so does Andrew.
I have one last thing gnawing at the back of my mind before I let up. "About me..."
"Yes?"
"There was more to you having Andrew redlight me and having me brought here, wasn't there?"
Another pause. He's reminiscing again and following it with brooding. "You and Andy remind me of my own friend. That and how tight the two of us were... before he had to shut his tailor shop down."
He's not used to exposing himself bare. In the position of authority like his, he can't really afford to. Especially not now.
"The best tailor in town, and he had to go down south for oil field work because there wasn't a job in this town for him to raise a family with."
"...You never heard back from him."
"No. It's been twenty eight years now. He would not have disappeared like he did if he had a say in it though. I knew him better than that."
A moment of silence. A quiet acknowledgement by me of the unspoken truth: He either never made it, or never made it back.
"But I did what I could for his wife and kit, like I said I would."
I could keep asking, but I've got to stop. "Thanks for everything Woolsey."
"Don't thank me. You're waking up in three hours to get ready to meet him. Let's go, Larry."
And with that, the two go up the stairs, leaving me with Andrew. The insight Woolsey gave him about his own Vulpine friend is making Andrew reflect and feel guilty for having to be ordered to save my hide. "Hey Oh, look."
"He chewed you out after I made the news, right? And before Lowe called you up?"
"...Yeah."
"Andy, I don't know what I would've done if I was in your place and you were just as crazy as I was. I mean I can't really grasp Lupine codes of conduct but I can't blame you. That's what I'm trying to say. I know I'm a liability, here. I can't say I wouldn't do the same or that I hold it against you."
"...I appreciate it bro, but I still feel like scat."
"Hey, I don't know if Eva's alright, I've been running from the cops all night, nearly ran over, got chucked in a garbage can, punched in the face multiple times, almost got turned in, and lord knows what's gonna happen tomorrow when this Cliffside thing breaks out. I got three hours to sleep and I just need to know where I'm gonna do it."
"Yeah, about that... You're gonna have to sleep on a cot with me."
Hard blush and my eyes go wide as saucers. "What?"
"Like we used to do at the shelter. We don't have enough beds and cots for everyone here, anyway. Wally had to do it, too. It's either that or the floor, bro."
After all I've been through tonight, I'm too exhausted. I couldn't protest even if I wanted to. I'll just roll with it.
"You cool with it, Owen?"
"Yeah. Yeah I am... You're not gonna make it awkward, are you?"
The amusement on his face gives it away before he says it. "I mean we don't have to spoon or anything."
He's gonna make it awkward.
I'm too tired to do anything more but sigh.
