Despite the fact that I'm kind of trapped with a slightly crazy vixen, we're starting to get along better and better… Mason- or Skye, whichever I want to call her, she says, it doesn't matter, both work- is just about as nuts as you would have expected from a former, well, secret agent sounds so dam cliche, but yeah, that's about the best way you could have described her… and the things that I thought I knew about her, that she was a vicious killer, well, that I don't so much see in her as much as I feel like she's tired and insanely pissed off at the world for treating her like it has, and now, well, she wants some payback… that's the fox I see…
I also see a hell of a task in front of both of us- plan some protests, sure, that's great, but I mean, Gazelle's been dead for years- one of her tiger dancers lost it on stage at the end of a tour, fur all blue and everything, it was all over the news- and she was pretty much the driving force behind any real action in this city, apart from all of the politicians…
So I guess, case in point is that I'm just a young tod here, and as much as I've learned to stir things up and cause a bit of a mess at times, I'm not really nearly anywhere as good at fomenting a plan- I think that's the right word.
All I really know right about now, the only real things that I know for certain, are that that the world's out to get us; that we're gonna need to hide in here and try to stay out of anyone and everyone's line of sight for good if we want to live, and that-
Something's not right, Skye's looking at the door, nose twitching, eyes wide with fear and tail starting to thrash behind her…. And we both wait, and wait, and wait, but nothing happens…
Thank the celestials above…
"I gue- I guess we're just- just hearing things-," she manages to pant out, white spit foaming on her lips… I know she's not crazy, but well, if I didn't know any better, I'd maybe think that she was, well- what's the word, rabbit? No, Nick, think- rabid, right- or as most of my mother's brothers and sisters would want to say, she'd invited the madness.
Me, I don't think she's invited the madness, I think the madness just decided that it's about to invite itself…
There's another creaking outside that sets both of us on edge, and then a sound outside that sounds like a thump, a heavy one… almost like, well, I don't know…. a body dropping to the floor outside...
Suddenly, there's a knock at the door, and well, I don't really know how to describe it- soft and yet hard and commanding at the same time- in other words, terrifying…
"A- a- are you gonna answer that, S- Sk- Skye? I- I- I-," I manage to stammer out, and she shakes her head.
"No flocking way, Nick… only thing that could maybe be is…"
"The Squad?" I ask, and she nods, shivering at the mention of Mayor Bellwether's police lackeys, the cops who track down mammals like Skye is and like the mammal that I'm starting to become.
"We need to hide now then, right?" I ask, and without even waiting for an answer, I bolt for the closet, trying to make myself and my not-very-tall frame fit into the back corner behind the slatted sliding panel door, and Mason nods, ducking right in behind me, and she's trembling even harder than I am… gods, hope she doesn't fall or trip over her own paws or something… For goodness' sake, she'd probably break a hip…
Okay, she's not that old, but I guess it's just the paranoia of hiding in the back of a musty closet at the same time that you're about to have an allergy fit, and yeah, we're probably done for right about now…
I can see Mason sitting next to me, head tucked between her knees, tail flicked over the back of her neck, one last 'gods I don't want to die please don't let me die' gesture... there's something kinda, well, powerful about being powerless, I think I read that somewhere… and yeah, that's just about exactly what I'm feeling right about now… this can't get any worse, can it? Hiding in a fetid basement from what we're both sure are soldiers come to get us, well, that's just plain wonderful fun, and I can feel my heart racing, I can feel the thumping that it's making in my chest, I can hear Mason's heart pound too…
And then the knocking starts again, a rap, tap-tap tap-tap rap-tap-tap- that, for some reason, makes the vixen cramped up next to me gulp.
"Do you- is that-"
"It's Jack…," she whispers. "It has to be, nobody else- no one else knew that knock code…"
"I thought he was dead, you told me he was dead, Skye…."
"And I saw him die in front of me too… what the hell I'm scared Nick…"
There's a scraping along the door, and then, clear as day, a whisper reaches through the still room and through the slits in the door where no light is coming through because Skye turned it off when we hid (and my ribs and head are still killing me, by the way, thankfully not literally). "Please let me in, Skye, please oh my god please I'm dying Skye…"
Those few words mean that my snout gets smashed on the floor (no chipped or missing or even loose teeth, thank all above), leaving me with the worst flocking bloody nose that I've ever (and I mean ever) had, and Skye's thrown the door open, and she's hauled the pale rabbit in and slammed the entrance shut behind him…
Needless to say (but apparently I needed to say it because that's what I'm doing in my head right now... ), the rabbit- or maybe he's a hare, I'm not honestly sure- looks like absolute scat, missing fur, scabs and scars and burns all over…
If I were any other kind of mammal- if I didn't have the sharp eyes that I do, I wouldn't be able to see the fur's-breadth up and down movements of his chest… but this guy's gonna need a lot of help, and well, my ears ringing from his screaming isn't going to help us much. In fact, it's probably just gonna get us caught, fun…
Get us through this, Karma, I pray, don't let us get caught…
He passes out eventually (from, if I'm gonna guess, a lack of oxygen)... and then when he finally wakes up again (coherently, this time), he looks at me and smiles. "My sister's kid, I see…"
Yeah, that's me, Jack... now don't die on us, for everyone's sake, pretty pretty please.
From how he looks right now, though, we're gonna need a lot of luck to make sure that that happens...
A whole lotta luck...
Hey everyone... sorry for the way-too-long wait again, I've been working full-time over the summer... it kinda doesn't leave me with much free time. Hope you enjoyed this chapter (and that it didn't get too dark on everyone...).
Peace!
-WP