Chapter 8: Bad Reputation

Avicii

Nick's POV

"Ok, it's just like we rehearsed. I'll give them the card and we get through. If they start to ask questions about you, we tell them you are a hitchhiker and I picked you up off the road. If they ask why I have a slightly different color of fur than my dad, I say I got it dyed last week. Are we clear?" I say as a ginormous wall comes into view a few hundred feet down the road in front of us.

"Yea, and if they somehow figure out how we are, we put the pedal to the metal and crash through the gate." She says smiling at me from the passenger seat.

"Right you are carrots." I replied, slightly laughing at the way she said that." As much as I hate it, we may have to scratch this beautiful car of ours."

She looks over at me with a grin growing on her face,"Ours?"

"I..ummm...look...I meant mine, I just said it was "ours" because we are using it at the moment. I didn't mean anything by. So stop thinking whatever it is you're thinking." I replied quickly trying to fix what I said, but can't help but blush slightly.

"Well, I wish it was "ours", but It's not even yours, it's your parents. It's sad to think we're gonna have to give up the car eventually, one way or another." She says looking out the window into the rainforest. The grin she wore a minute ago, now slowly fades away as she thinks about losing the car.

It's been almost half an hour since we left what remains of my parents' home. I took this time to catch up some more on what's been going on around the city. Turns out they've improved a lot of security lately, mostly adding more security cameras around the city. They've also been more strict on who is able to join the ZPD and other law enforcement agencies, now anyone with ANY type of criminal background from their past are no longer allowed to join.

Well I don't know about before, but I definitely won't be able to get my job back now. And to be honest I don't know if I even want my job back anymore, sounds like it's turned into a living hell from what I've heard of so far.

We pull up behind a car that's getting permission to cross. It only takes a few more seconds and the gate folds up and lets the car through.

I take my foot off the brake slowly and pull up to the gate, hoping this goes smoothly.

"Good evening, may I see your ID please." The panther dressed in a standard guard uniform says to me while holding out his paw from the booth window.

I nod at him and hand him the card. He glances at it and then runs it through a scanner. The scanner makes a few noises as he watches the screen. Looking away from the screen and back at me he says something that I wasn't quite prepared for.

"You don't happen to be related to Nick Wilde do you?"

I quickly think of something to give him to keep him from discovering I wasn't just related to him, I was him.

"Sadly yes I am, I'm his father. Honestly sometimes I wish I wasn't." I replied, trying my best to look mad at the thought of myself.

"Oh ok, well everything looks to be in order. When the gate opens you can head through." He says grabbing the ID card and handing it back to me.

"Thank you."

The gate opens a few seconds later and I quickly drive though it and continue down the road.

"I can't believe he didn't realize who we were, I mean a rabbit and a fox in a car trying to cross the border only a few hours after a rabbit and a fox break out of prison."

"We got lucky," she replied quickly," this all could have been over right there if he didn't buy into you being your dad."

"Guess all those years of hustling people really did pay off." I say smirking at her just to see her roll her eyes back at me while trying not to smile herself.

"Call it what you want, we still got lucky."

1 hour later…

We pull into the Parking lot by the amusement park only to see just how bad of a shape it was actually in. The park was built near a base of a bridge on a dock going across almost half of the river.

Since the park was left to rot, some of the rides that used to go over the water have fallen into the river and been washed away. Moss has taken claim to anything that is touching the water and still remains.

I pull the car into one of the faded parking spots and shut it off. I can hear the car tick and clang as I get out and look around at the deserted park.

Suddenly the front door to the parks office opened up and a medium sized, young fox steps out onto the sidewalk.

I start walking toward him and call his name,"Jackson!"

He looks at me with a face that I had seen many times before. It was one that you couldn't quite tell what he was thinking or how he felt. He just stared at me as I got closer.

"Look, I don't know what's going on. I don't know where Mom and Dad are. Can you just please work with me here?" I say walking closer to him, " you know I can't read your mind right?"

"You really fucked up this time little brother." He says, still staring at me.

"You don't have to remind me." I replied with a hint of irritation in my voice, stopping in front of him," I don't know if I can but I want to fix whatever this is that I started, but I need your help."

He looks at me some more then looks towards the rabbit still standing by the car, doing something with her phone.

"Who's that?"

I look over my shoulder toward the car," her names Judy, she's the one that I helped with that missing mammals case a few years ago."

"Hm, well it doesn't look like I have much of a choice anymore if I want to help you out of this mess. You might want to park the car in the back…and where the hell did you get that car anyway? I bet you stole it, didn't you?" He says pointing at me." You're already on the run, so why not steal a Ferrari. Is that how you got it?"

I look at him slightly irritated that he would assume something like that," no I didn't steal it, it's actually Mom and dads. I found it in the garage where the old car used to be."

He looks at me first a second then gives up, either he decides not to question it or maybe not to believe it.

"Just hide it quick, I'll be inside."

"So let me get this straight…They burned the house down!? I already can't take the pressure of this!" Jackson says while pacing around the small office room," first you get yourself in prison, then you break out?! I'm going to go to prison for this I just know i-"

"Look, there's nothing else to say! It's all happened and done, we can't change the past!" I yell, cutting him off before he could talk more about how bad this was.

He sits down and puts his head in his hands. The room was silent for a few moments, then he raises his head up.

"How long do we have to turn you in to get our parents back?"

"You wouldn-"

"Never said I would! I Just want to know how long we have." He answered quickly while looking over at me.

"I think it said 72 hours," I replied, trying to remember the wretched note that was left in the house," which would mean we only have about 64 left."

"Hey guys, I really think we should get some sleep," says a voice from the rabbit in the chair across the room," we can talk about this in the morning. I can barely keep my eyes open right now."

Jackson sits up from the chair and lets out a big yawn.

"She's right, we really need to get to sleep. We've all had a really long day and we will think better when we're not tired. Goodnight." He says tiredly as he walks out of the room and into the makeshift bedroom that he had made.

I stand up and stretch. I hadn't realized until now just how tired I had become, it's a little over 11 o'clock.

"See you in the morning." Judy says as she turns off the light while tiredly makes her way to her room.

"Goodnight," I reply, turning on a flashlight and making my bed on the couch that I had been sitting on. I lay down on the couch and wrap up in the blankets. A few minutes later I'm starting to drift off.

I hope tomorrow goes a lot better than today.