Chapter 28: Returning To Fear
March 18th, 2017, the next day after the death of Clawhauser
It had been a long night four the four mammals still in the cells after most of them had had a surprise visit from their relatives. They weren't positively sure what the occasion was for, but some had a hunch that it didn't mean anything good.
"Tap, tap, tap, tap….."
The sounds of water dripping from the sewer walls were mostly the only sounds that would ever come out of the four mammal's cell. None of them ever had a plan to escape, nor did they ever have anything to say to each other, so they just stuck to their own personal bubble until further notice.
Stu was still and always the most concerned out of the four in the cell for what was to come in the mere future for them, but his thoughts were mainly about his daughter Judy's safety. If anything were to happen to her during all of this, he knew he wouldn't be able to see a pleasant end after all that has happened so far.
Ellie Clawhauser and Sherry Wolford did fear for worse outcomes to come too, but they knew there was no point in thinking about it when that time had never come for nearly four months now after the death of Finnick's mother Maria Masto.
As for Chip, ever since he heard about the death of his mother he has still refused to move from the same corner he has been sitting in. He has never responded to a single one of the questions the other three have tried to ask him for months now. They eventually gave up and tried to pretend now he never existed to them.
"CLANK, CLANK, CLANK!"
When they heard the sounds of clanking on the cell bars, the four all turned their heads to see what it was about.
"Rise and shine campers!" Noah, the main guard for the cell called out. "Jeez, you all look like hell in those clothes."
"If there's anything else you think we can use then be our guest." Sherry said.
"That's actually a funny coincidence you say that now that you mention it." Noah chuckled. "Because in my paws right now are some of the fresh and cleanest clothes you four have seen in months! I mean not to be picky, but the other mammals clothing choices in here as well aren't exactly what I would call stylish if you get my drift."
"Those look like the dark orange jumpsuits only inmates would use in prison." Ellie complained.
"Yea well, this is sort of a prison, and you all do sort of act like inmates to myself and Z especially."
"And for like the fiftieth time now, who is this Z mammal you keep referring to us?" Stu asked. "What is he, your boss or something? I mean we'd ask Chip, but he's not one to talk right now."
"And the answer to that Mr. Hopps is once again still in the land of none of your business." Noah replied. "But before we go any further with this, there's something I need to discuss privately with one of you."
"Privately, which one?" Stu asked.
"Her." Noah replied, pointing to Ellie.
Ellie looked around to see if there was anyone else near her to see if Noah was possibly pointing to someone else. "M-me?" She asked pointing to herself.
"Yep." Noah replied, as he was unlocking and opening the cell. "We need to have a private conversation with you for a moment before you can put these on."
"We?"
"Yea, me and maybe a few other guards, unless you really want them outside for safety issues."
"If you please."
Noah rolled his eyes. "Girls can be so picky sometimes." He mumbled. "Fine, I'll inform them to wait outside."
Ellie didn't see a reason on why they would want to talk with her privately, but she knew anywhere to be was better than the cell she had been stuck inside for so long, she eventually gave up on counting the days.
She sighed. "Alright, whatever but it better not be too long with whatever it is you want to talk to me about."
"Miss Clawhauser, I can assure you this won't take too long, and that it will definitely be fast enough for your needs." Noah assured her. "Now while I'm discussing private matters with Miss Clawhauser here, I suggest you put those on instead of keeping those reeky rags on you for the rest of your time here." He said, as he threw the clothing inside the cell.
Ellie then got up and walked over to the cell door where Noah was. Once she was out of the cell, Noah closed the cell door and locked it, mostly just to make sure no one would be getting any funny ideas while their conversation was going on.
"This way please." Noah said, as he began walking down the hallway to the nearby break room the guards would usually go to for a break. When he opened it, Ellie was surprised to see how similar it was to the cell she and the others were forced to stay in. The only difference was they had a room with the basic kitchen equipment such as microwaves, a fridge, a rusty looking oven, and some normal looking tables and chairs in the middle.
"So, what the scoop here?" Ellie asked.
"Have a seat over there please." Noah requested, pointing to the chair. "Would you like some water?"
"Uh, sure." Ellie replied. "I mean if it's better than the water we're typically given."
"It is." Noah replied, as he poured some water into the glass. He then put the glass on the table while climbing onto the chair sitting in front of Ellie. "Drink up."
"The drink looks foggy, you call this good water?"
"I said it was better than what you would usually have, not crystal clear."
Ellie sighed. "Whatever." She said, as she started drinking it until there was not a drip left in it. "It's got a weird taste to it."
"It happens sometimes with those drinks, some taste buds just aren't the same then really the same if you ask me." Noah admitted. "But enough about that, it's time to talk serious here."
"Oh yea, what is it you wanted to inform me about?"
"Well Miss Clawhauser, last night some horrible things happened down in the storage room where my boss would usually store his goods for buyers to come." Noah explained. "Your brother Benjamin Clawhauser and his four other friends were brought down there, but not willingly."
"Okay, but what happened?"
"So, the reason they were brought there was because my boss was certain it was one of those five that was the main cause of a series of attacks that had recently happened in the city."
Ellie didn't seem like where this was going. "What sort of attacks?"
"Ugh, I don't have time to explain it all, I've already explained it enough times to a bunch of my guys by now." Noah said. "The point is he knew it was one of those five who did it."
"Yes, and who was it?"
"Your brother."
Ellie gasped. "Woah, woah wait, what?"
"He did something that caused the deaths of two of our own crew members, as well as a police officer from the ZPD."
'WHAT?!" Ellie shouted. "No, no, no, there's got to be some kind of mistake then. Benjamin would never do anything involving death! It had to have been accidental or indirect right?"
"I'm afraid not, he knew exactly what he was doing and the outcome of it." Noah replied. "And that made my boss to go to such drastic measures because of him."
"W-what did your boss do to him?"
"What he does to anyone who crosses the boundary line in his perspective." Noah replied crossing his arms. "He put a bullet in his head."
Ellie then immediately stood up from her seat, as her body was enraged from what the koala had just said. "T-that's a joke right? IT'S GOT TO BE A JOKE!" She shouted, as Noah shook his head.
"As I've said already Miss Clawhauser, I'm afraid not."
"No, no…" Ellie mummured, as tears began to come out of her. "It's you mammals…. it's because of all of you that made him do it wasn't it…. WASN'T IT!"
She was about to punch Noah in the face over rage, but was stopped from her own body as she started to get a massive headache out of nowhere.
"Aw, what's wrong, feeling a little light headed?" Noah asked, as Ellie collapsed to her knees while still holding onto the table.
"What…. What's happening to me?" She asked, starting to have trouble with breathing.
"That would be the rat poison I just gave you." Noah replied. "I slipped a fair amount of it in your drink because I knew how you would react to this, and I wasn't interested in any sort of violence to be happening from your reaction to all of this." He explained, as Ellie then collapsed to the floor while coughing up blood.
"You dirty little rascal…." Ellie said, as she continued to cough.
Noah then got out of his chair and walked over to Ellies face. "There was one more thing I wanted to let you know about by the way. You see, the main reason we have kept you here is to be used as motivation for your brother and possibly the other mammals that have taken part in this little ordeal of theirs. However, your services are no longer required now that he's parted ways from the land of the living. That's I why I put enough poison in there to go into a state of comatose, and eventual death soon after. You see Miss Clawhauser, we can't just let you go and make you pretend like nothing ever happened, because that's not how it works in this business."
Ellie wanted to strangle the life out of Noah right now, but was unable to as she couldn't move or feel any part of her body. She then began to see nothing but blurs all around her, as Noah continued to speak.
"You can never know when to trust a mammal or not, and it exactly goes with what had just happened. You took the drink because you trusted there was nothing wrong with it, and that's exactly how lies and truths together are played out. You can say it's a glass of water, but you wouldn't say it has something in it. It's basically what I did. All I'm saying is that for your case, you say you won't tell anyone, but right when you get out you would just tell certain mammals who would eventually just go to the ZPD and screw us all over anyways."
Ellie continued to growl at him, but it grew less as she began to feel weaker, and continuing to have a bigger problem with breathing. "Screw you…." She mumbled.
"That right there Miss Clawhauser, is what I would refer to as the lie of a truth."
Ellie then used her last bit of strength to reach her paw for Noah to even to the slightest scratch to him over anger, before dropping it and closing her eyes with Noah standing over her watching it in the process.
March 19th, 2017, the next day
The sounds of typical radio songs were playing in the background on Nick's alarm clock for hours now, but he never bothered to turn it off, nor did he ever bother to even get up from his bed. After what happened only a couple nights ago, he felt like now he had lost hope in ever getting out of the rabbit hole with Z.
Just then, he heard some knocking on his bedroom door. "For the seventh time now Amber, I'll come out when I want to come out."
"Oh yes of course, like you expect me to know why you've been acting all silent lately." Amber said on the other side of the door. "Listen Nick, I may not know what happened that night, but the fact that you already missed work the other day only makes it more suspicious on yourself. So you need to get your act together soon before anything else starts to come up."
"You don't know what happened Amber, so you can't talk crap to me and think I'll just be filled with sunshine and rainbows once more."
"Fair point, but then again how about you just tell me what it is that happened."
Nick exhaled deeply in frustration. "Amber, why don't you just go make an omelette, watch tv, take a nap or something because I'm definitely not in the mood for this!"
"Because I've been becoming worried for you lately Nick!" Amber shouted back. "All this stuff about you doing trades for Z, and now a mammal showing up on your doorstep with a gun on you? That's not what I would consider natural Nick!"
"Just leave me alone already Amber!" Nick yelled. "I never asked you to be worried for me so that's your problem, not mine."
"Oh my god Nick, now you're just acting immature!" Amber continued to shout. "So your saying I'm just supposed to ignore this like you don't exist?"
"That would be very helpful actually."
"Yea well guess what Nick, you do exist!" Amber countered. "So I'm not dropping this until I hear some reasoning with whatever it is you're acting so stupid about!"
"Well then I guess you're going to be there all day then huh?"
"Well if that's what it takes for you to get out of there, I mean you haven't left that room to even go to the bathroom for two days now!"
"I just never felt like I needed to."
"Ugh, you know what forget it then." Amber said giving up. "You can act like a child all you want until you leave there, but you should know that it isn't going to get you anywhere as it is no matter what you're thinking about!"
Nick rolled his eyes. "Uh huh, I'll be sure to keep that in mind." He said sarcastically.
As he heard loud stomps from outside of his room, he knew she probably wasn't going to give up on asking her about the incident that happened. But even if he knew that fact, he chose to ignore as he felt like he didn't have the mental strength to do something about it.
"It's your fault. You just sat there and watched your own friend die, and you call yourself an officer of the law. Everything you have done so far has been for nothing but saving yourself. Numerous mammals who deserved to live more than you have now died, and you still think it's okay to continue breathing? No, you're nothing Judy. Nothing…. Nothing…. Nothing…. Nothing…"
"Hopps!" A voice called out.
Judy then snapped back into reality as she heard an officer call out her name in the ZPD. "Uh yea what is it Snarlov?"
"It's almost time and you're the last mammal left to come." Snarlov replied. "Bogo will be making announcements in the bullpen soon so you might want to head over there, you wouldn't want to miss any of the recent ones since Bogo wants to make sure everyone knows what they're doing. Well after all, I'm sure everyone wants to know about any new info about Clawhauser right now don't you think?"
"Yea, I'll bet…" Judy said. "I-I'll be there in a minute don't worry."
"Gotcha." Snarlov said. "But just make sure you aren't taking your time too much if you know what I mean."
Judy chuckled. "Sure thing."
Once Snarlov was out of Judy's sights, she exhaled deeply being thankful noticed he never noticed her gloomy attitude today. But after what had just happened and what she was forced to see in front of her own two eyes, she still couldn't help but feel that she was to blame for what happened. Now every time she sees the empty front desk where Clawhauser would normally be, it only makes her feel as if she's returning to fear all over again.
Judy took a deep breath and tried to keep calm, at least in front of others. "Judy stay calm, there's no room for negativity right now of all times." She mumbled to herself. "We can… we can work this all out somehow, but right now is the hard part is to keep it together. Keep it together, and then we think of a way around this."
Trying her best to act as confident as she could, she began walking over to the bullpen with a normal face on her in order to continue blending in with the other officers.
As usual, there were still multiple mammals buzzing about the strange and bizarre cases involving weapons around the city, as it was all still a giant blur to most of the officers of how all of this even started in the first place. When Judy sat down, the other officers couldn't help but feel she was being a little quieter than her old confident self.
"Hey Judy, you feeling okay there?" Officer Mchorn asked.
Judy then looked up at Mchorn hesitating on what to say. "Uh, yea. Yeayea just, couldn't really get much sleep last night. It's just all the piles of cases we've been getting so far this year, it's really put a toll on me."
"In what way?"
"Well, in a way that involves safety for the city for one." Judy replied. "And in a way which means I've got a lot of paperwork to be doing in the next few days or so after a patrol."
Mchorn smiled a little. "Yea I'm sure it's the same deal as everyone around here, including myself." Mchorn admitted. "I mean with the misses feeling worried twenty-four seven about me due to seeing what's been talked about a lot on the news, I've got a lot to juggle with for myself."
"I know what you mean." Judy said. "My mom has been calling and texting me all the time about any possible clues on where my father could be after he disappeared. It's definitely a nightmare telling her I don't know, and sometimes even to myself."
"Why don't you just tell her you would say something when you find anything about it?"
"Believe me, I have tried that numerous times now on her." Judy replied. "But every time I tell her that, she always calls about it the next day, or the day after. You can't blame mammals like my mother though. After their marriage, they haven't been away from each other for more than just a few days. But months…. That's a whole other ballpark right there."
Mchorn nodded to her, knowing that if he were ever in a situation such as that alive or dead, his wife would probably think and act the same as well. But for Judy, the thought had already been happening to her for months now with herself not forgetting to think about it for even a moment.
A few momments later, Bogo came out of his office holding folders like he usually would as he approached the wooden stand.
"Alright, alright, quiet down now!" Bogo shouted, as the officers were finishing up with their conversations. "Now before I begin with handing out your assignments today, I am completely aware of some of the rumors that have been going around about dispatch officer Clawhauser."
Judy hated herself every time she heard that name come up. "Hold it together Judy and if anything, don't do anything you'll regret doing again."
"So I have decided to put those rumors to rest, because they are in fact true." Bogo confessed, as murmurs began to go around the bullpen. "Officer Clawhauser was not picking up his phone for the past couple days in regards to his reasoning for not showing up to work. Furthermore when some of our officers went to check up on him at his home, there was no trace of him to signify he was still in his apartment room."
One of the officers in their room raised their paw to ask a question. "Do we know the reasoning behind why he disappeared?"
"I can understand some of you may be a little baffled as to why officer Clawhauser would be missing, but after a still unexplained attack in an alleyway that also took the life of one of our fellow officers, we believe Clawhauser may have gotten unlucky and ran into the same mammals we have been looking for quite some time now." Bogo explained. "Which once again brings us to the conclusion that all of you need to find one of these mammals, anyone that looks even remotely suspicious to you and bring them in to see what they may know."
As much as Judy wanted to do so, she knew Z had an army and it wouldn't change a thing no matter who they would possibly bring in from Z's crew.
"Alright, enough about that, time for assignments." Bogo said.
Once Bogo finished handing out all the assignments to the rest of the officers as they left the room, Judy was the last one left to be shown her assignment she would have to be doing alone once more today.
"Officer Hopps, I'm aware your partner officer Wilde has not been here for the past couple of days now." Bogo stated. "And since we already have enough officers on the streets because of recent events, I'll let you take it easy today and let you go upstairs to catch up on any paperwork you may have to finish up for me. But just for today though, and remind Wilde he shouldn't force himself to come with the flu, but that we need him back as soon as he gets better."
"Yes sir, thank you sir." Judy said, as she began walking towards the door.
"Oh and Hopps!" Bogo called out to Judy, as she was just about to leave the room but stopping. "Always watch your back on those streets."
Judy thought in her mind that meant something completely different, but she saw through it and knew Bogo was just saying it as an encouraging tactic for her.
She tried her best to give a good smile towards him just like her normal self would. "I'll try my best!" She shouted back, as she continued to walk out the door.
While she was upstairs trying to catch up on some of her patrol reports, the one thing she couldn't help but think about that was on her mind was Z. She knew she had already recently looked at Z and some of his mammal's profiles, but she wanted to gather more information on them to see if she could possibly connect all of them to the same thing somehow.
Making sure nobody noticed, she went through Z including some of his crew members she looked at when researching more about the highway accident he was involved, and got away with sixteen years ago. She then began printing a few of the profiles so she could keep them around as notes in case she ever needed to. But as she was printing them, officer Wolford was walking by noticing it.
"Oh hey Judy, what's up?" Wolford asked.
Judy didn't want to get caught while in the middle of this, so she tried to play along. "Uh I'm doing fine myself Wolford, why do you ask?"
"Oh nothing, it's just that I don't always see you on this floor during daytime." Wolford replied.
"Oh well yea, Nick still has the darn flu on him so Bogo let me continue with some of the reports and paperwork I still have to do."
"Well lucky you then." Wolford said laughing a little. "Sounds to me like you're being let off easy by the chief today."
Judy shrugged. "Yea, I guess that's one way of putting it."
The large amount of paper Wolford saw being printed by Judy did start to catch his attention however. "What's with the ton of papers your printing here Hopps?" He asked taking one of the slips of paper. "Who is this Billy Vansnow polar bear here?"
Judy knew this didn't mean good with Wolford taking a look at some of the profiles of Z's crew. She tried to think of a logical answer, but was delayed with the stress put on her right now.
"What about this zebra guy here-"
Judy then snatched the two profiles from Wolford's paws before he could look at anything else he was supposed to. "How about you mind reading others reports if you please?" She asked.
"Wolford chuckled. "Alright, alright, no need to claw at each other over a few silly reports on some mammals is all." He said with his paws up, as he was walking away.
Judy rolled her eyes knowing the distractions was over, as she took the rest of the profiles and went back over to her desk. She checked to make sure they were all there, as she put them in her back pocket to take home for safe keeping. Afterwards, she continued to finish up the rest of her reports for the remainder of the day.
Sunset eventually came around and there was still no sign of Nick anywhere around the ZPD. "What does he think he's doing?" Judy thought. "I better phone him to see what's up."
She then took her phone out and dialed Nick's number. Even though she understood Nick was probably feeling guilty about the incident with Clawhauser as well, she didn't think he would need to take days off of work to be dealing with his emotions. While she was waiting for him to pick up, she heard a voice on the other end.
"Nick, Nick is that you?" Judy asked.
The voice on the other end sighed. "What do you want now carrots?" Nick asked. "Don't you know this is like the fifth time you've called me in a couple of days?"
"Well the craziest thing happened to me today while I was at work." Judy said. "I was sitting alone in the bullpen today. It's weird because usually I would have a certain fox friend sitting next to me but he wasn't there today. Why is that? Oh yea that's right, you weren't there Nick."
"Stop talking to me like I'm the stupid one here Judy, you know exactly why you haven't seen me around." Nick retaliated. "And for the record, I'm actually quite surprised you, Danny, or hell even Finnick aren't doing the same."
"Wait, you talked to them?"
"Of course I have, in fact they called me in the first place." Nick replied. "Danny mainly wanted to know what our next move was from here, so I just hung up on him after that."
"Why would you have done that?"
"Judy, do I look like I'm the guy with all the plans here?"
Judy actually did think about it for a second, but then realized Nick was looking for a certain answer from her. "No, I guess not. But what about with Finnick, what did he want to know?"
"He didn't want to know anything actually." Nick replied. "It sounded like he was just trying to sweet talk with me about defending himself with the secret Z told us about him."
"Secret, what secret?"
"Judy for the last time, don't act like-" Nick said pausing, after realizing why she didn't know. "Oh yea that's right, one of Z's guys knocked you unconscious so you never heard about his secret."
"Yea, that must be it." Judy said. "So what was it?"
"It's not like it matters right now, but apparently a while back Finnick was responsible for numerous convenience store robberies." Nick answered. "Z said he even knocked an otter store clerk unconscious because he wasn't coughing over the money in the register."
"Oh god…" Judy mummured. "Was he ever convicted of it?"
"I asked him that as well and he says he was, but there wasn't enough evidence to put on him for an arrest."
"How in anyway can he try to defend something like that to you?"
"I don't know, I think he said something about how bad his money troubles were back in the day, I think he also added something about his mother being sick too."
"And do you believe him?"
"The money troubles part yes because he has already with me, but the part with helping his sick mother no." Nick replied. "No mammal would do something as bad as he did to that store clerk when you are already seeing enough mammals in pain as it is."
"You know, while we're on this topic Nick I'd like to ask you, what was your secret Z found out about you?"
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. "Why do you want know Judy?"
"Because it's better if we don't keep any secrets from each other, you know what could happen Nick." Judy whispered, still trying to make sure no one could hear. "Think about what happened to Clawhauser!"
"Alright then how about this, what's your secret Z found out about Judy?"
"Nick trust me when I say this, mine is one that is better off not knowing." Judy replied. "If I told you what it was, it would only put more funny ideas into some mammal's heads."
"Are you seriously kidding me right now Judy?" Nick asked frustrated. "Well then I guess it's better off not knowing about mine to then, huh?"
"Nick that's not what I-" Judy said pausing herself. "You know what I'm not going to argue with you about this. If you want to act like a kit right now then that's your decision."
"Act like a kit, you're the one who asked me about it in the first place!" Nick shouted, as he was still on the phone with Judy. "You ask me to tell my secret to you and are now saying to me you can't tell me yours? Where's the fairness in any of this?"
"Because it's for good reasoning!" Judy shouted back.
"Uh huh, good reasoning." Nick said sarcastically.
"Nick think about it on how you want to see it, but let me just tell you I am not planning on returning to fear anytime soon!" Judy argued. "You can moan, you can cry, and you can miss work all you want, but that just proves you have already given up on ever overcoming your fears!"
And just like that, Judy hung up the phone. In aggravation, Nick threw his phone as hard as he could onto the couch as he went over to sit on the kitchen seats with his head on the table.
A few moments later, he felt another paw on his. When he looked up, he saw Amber sitting opposite of him.
"You know it's funny." Nick said. "For so many years, I've tried to never let anyone see that they got to me. I was just a kit, who happened to be bullied only for what kind of a species he was. I obviously never knew enough, or even anything about adulthood because it looks like they really have gotten to me."
"Nick, this is nothing like mammals 'getting to you' in life." Amber said. "You have just seen too many things in these past months no mammal would ever dare to see in their entire lifetime. It never is, and never will be normal to see the mammals you love get taken away right in front of you."
"I'll say." Nick mumbled to himself.
"I'm always here for you if you need help Nick, I want to help you through all of this as well." Amber said pleaded. "I mean you've done so much for me already, I feel like I want to try and return the favour. We've both been through the same ordeals, the same problems. We can still help each other. So please, just talk to me about what happened."
Nick took a moment to think about what Amber had just told him. But without a sign of gratitude towards her, Nick stood up.
"I've never been the one to ask others for help Amber, and I'm not going to start today." Nick said, as he began walking back to his room. "I could tell you the story, but I don't need any assistance in this mess I, and no one else should have to clean up for me."
"Mammal's all need help sometimes Nick." Amber said stopping Nick. "You should know that even the toughest mammal in the world will need a helping paw along the way. Otherwise, who will they have to look up too?"
Nick knew Amber was just trying to persuade her more, but still continued to shrug it off as he continued walking back to his room and closing the door.
Next week: Chapter 29, Far from Freedom
