Zootopia belongs to Disney; Spider-Man belongs to Sony.

When I Look At You written by Hillary Lindsey and John shanks, performed by Miley Cyrus, released in 2010 by Hollywood Records.

How Does a Moment Last Forever by Tim Rice and Alan Menken, performed by Celine Dion, released in 2017, shown in Disney's Beauty and the Beast.


After the fiasco she'd witnessed involving a panther kitten, she couldn't do anything else except wait for her client to come. Luckily, her meeting place was just outside the door of that Walrus-Mart where it was warm. She kept herself busy, wondering what he would look like, whether it would be a fun night or not. But it kept getting colder and colder until thirty minutes had passed. At the end of that thirty minutes of checking her phone and watching her breath get thicker, she'd had enough. The only reason she'd be allowed to leave a place of meeting would be if Elton called her and told her so. But she was not going to stand here and freeze to death wearing this slutty outfit!

She was leaving. This was ridiculous. There was no reason to text or call her supervisor and tell him that she was going home, because forget how cold it was; she was required to stay. But she'd take his tantrums over a slow death by hypothermia any day of the week. Her legs and arms were numb, and she was beginning to shiver hard.

Stepping just inside the entrance to stay warm, she made an angry call for a Zuber to pick her up and wrapped herself up as best she could. Oh, please hurry, she thought as the first flakes of snow began to fall. There were two possible destinations tonight: home or hospital. And she really hoped for the latter, because she wouldn't last more than a half hour out in this particularly cold night.

A few minutes later, her phone chimed to let her know that the Zuber was here. Finally. Stepping outside, she exclaimed at the air that was even more frigid. But the driver was nowhere to be found. Please be here, she thought. Suddenly, there was a shout coming from inside.

She heard a faint crash. A moment later, the doors started sliding open, but something blew into it, shattering the glass and bending the doors outward. And shards of glass as well as various packages of candy - and even frozen food - went flying everywhere.

She covered her face and jumped back in fright. She slowly uncovered her face to take a closer look at the figure who had blown through the doors. Her eyes widened in incredulity. It was that kid!

The kitten had fallen on his face. Lifting it, he looked around and saw the woman. She waved thoughtlessly, that look of disbelief on her muzzle. He suddenly bolted to the side and up the wall to jump onto the platform that overlooked the entrance to hide. All the food still lay on the sidewalk, along with thousands of pieces of broken glass. Oof, that was going to make for a fun night, like, Cleanup at entrance!

A pair of rent-a-cops came a-runnin' - right over the broken glass. "Ooh! Oh! Ow! Ouch!" they groaned while doing their best to miss the largest shards. They managed to hop past the glass outside and scanned the area where they stood before settling on the woman.

"He went that way." She pointed down the sidewalk and they took off running, shaking their feet to get glass out from between their foot pads.

She looked up at the little boy, whose big blue eyes barely peeked over the edge of the platform.

She gave him a wink. Normally, she wouldn't go out of her way to help a thief. But this one was so small and so cute, she couldn't help but see nothing in him that suggested he knew that it was wrong.

At that moment, a car pulled up behind her. She turned and saw to her relief the Zuber logo on the passenger door. She strutted up to the passenger door. Sitting down and closing the door, she moaned in pleasure at the feeling of warmth coming from the air conditioning. Then she reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet to pay the driver, a large pig. The taxi seemed to have half a mind to ask her to get out of the car. Not out of prejudice, but out of fear. She raised her eyebrows at the thought but he seemed willing nonetheless.

"Wh-where you heading?"

"Old Masterson's apartment complex."

"Down next to Tundratown border?"

"Yyyyep."

"O-ok..."

She smirked at the swine but didn't press him for the reason behind his obvious anxiety. She just didn't have any desire to talk right now. It had been a long, "busy" day. She wanted to get home and crawl right into bed. Tonight, she'd be doing that. Alone for once.

He pulled out of the parking lot, actually going easy about it surprisingly carefully.

"You got any music?" He silently turned on the radio and let her choose the station she liked.

Soon, she noticed the small traces of snow that wafted over from Tundratown in the fall season. While she was no winter mammal, she could tolerate the cold to a relatively impressive degree. She'd had to wait in cold weather before, but she knew her limit. Not her boss though, who demanded that she be able to withstand rain, shine, cold, heat, alien invasion, etc. etc. And when she didn't go as far as his expectations, he would devolve into the spiteful child he was. But he at least kept her fed and gave her plenty of job security. And he didn't demand anything except letting a few guys do their thing. And keeping her trap shut. Better than trying for an actual job that was doomed to fail because she was a predator.

This apartment complex was close enough to the district to experience the cooler temperatures of the adjacent district, but far away enough for her to be comfortable in a winter coat and blue jeans. BeaverDam was its name (poorly named at that given its proximity to the frozen landscape). While it wasn't so much a district as it was a subdivision within the Savannah, it was considered a district by the city proper. Its colloquial name was Happytown, the city's leper colony. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

She looked at him and he returned the look with a brief smile. The pig seemed to instinctively pick up a bottle but then quickly put it back down. She raised her eyebrows but didn't feel the need to press. She just wanted to get home.

It was a pleasant enough ride. Made the thought of Elton's coming wrath bearable, at least. After giving the driver, whose name turned out to be Dalton, a generous tip, she ran toward her complex. The whole trip, her resolve steeled in preparation for whatever curses Elton would give her. She was shivering by the time she made it to the door where she struggled to insert the key. Finally, she got it in. But then the door opened before she had a chance to release the tumblers in the lock.

Standing there was a very moody leopard. Moody was an understatement, actually. His eyebrows were in a straight line across his forehead, which upon first glance gave him a bored yet mildly annoyed look. But she knew him well enough to know, that was the look of a pimp who had gotten unsavory news. The air was also charged with the smell of... ugh! He was smoking that right now? She looked more closely into his eyes and could tell immediately that... yep. He was smoking exactly that.

She stood in the cold, waiting for him to say something. Anything. But he just stood still. The fact that she was freezing, that silent brooding look was much louder than anything he could say. But then he said, "I just got a call, Desiree."

"Yes, I figured," she answered spitefully. Here it comes.

"You skipped out on a client. He arrived at the checkpoint and you weren't there."

"I'm pretty sure I know that; can I come in now?"

"Not until you explain to me-"

"Because I was this close to going to the hospital to get my lets amputated, that's why!" She strutted up to his face. "Why don't you try waiting for AN HOUR! in this skimpy excuse for winter wear! If he wanted me to give it to him, he should have been on time, cause I'm not freezing to death waiting for some guy who wants to get in my-"

"You were at a Walrus-Mart, Desiree," he said quietly, but no less moody. "All you had to do was buy a cheap winter coat and a pair of sweat pants. Trust me, this guy had seen your profile pic; it wouldn't have turned him off."

"Well..." she started, unable to argue. Whether she was too tired or defeated by his point, she didn't care. What she did know was that she was nearing amputation threshold again. She was shivering hard. All she could do was acquiesce. "I'm sorry. Ok? I'm sorry. Can I please come in?"

"Yes, you may," he answered with a nauseating amount of kindness in his voice. He opened the door and waved her inside. She breathed deeply at the warmth of the air and the carpet beneath her feet. Despite the smell, she was glad to be home. And, in retrospect, Elton was always far more docile when he was high. Her life might actually be a little easier tonight.

"I'm going to bed." There was a bored "Hnng," followed by a hacking series of coughs.

She ascended the stairs of the large apartment and came to the second floor where her room was.

Elton had bought this apartment complex just this summer after selling his previous apartment to a rich wad who wanted to renovate it. Elton had been in this business since the Nighthowler Crisis, when he'd lost everything. He had been a rival of Mr. Big himself in his growing drug empire. But the Crisis had driven all illicit predatorial activities into the toilet, so he turned to this. Peddling women for money.

It wasn't anywhere near as lucrative as the drug trade had been. It kept him on the map in the criminal underworld, at least. His business was in every district, with plenty of women trading their bodies for money. But the loss of his budding drug empire had left the leopard a bitter old man, ready to claw for whatever money he could find anywhere. He was harmless enough otherwise, as long as his chattel coughed up as much money as possible with minimal drawbacks.

She passed the doors to the rooms of her coworkers, Diamond and Sherry. These two were veterans who had been with Elton even before the Crisis. Their stories were a mystery to her, as they never told anything of their pasts. But she could discern enough to understand that to a great extent, they were proud of the life they'd found themselves in.

Not her.

She had been an up-and-coming student at graduate university for criminal law with a decent scholarship. Not full, but enough to get by with a comfortable margin. Junior year, everything was looking good: high grades, a possible job already laid out within the Zootopian Criminal Justice system, and high hopes for the future. She was experiencing the realization of her lifelong dream. And then the Crisis brought everything crashing down, especially after a certain bunny essentially condemned predators as savages on live television. Said that nothing had changed about the "savages'" aggressive behavior. Implied that they were prone to devolving into such a state. She did retract that statement a few months later, but the damage had long since been done and there was no going back. She, along with scores of other predators, lost everything within days. Her scholarship, her education, her future... it was all gone. And she was on the streets not long after, left to fend for herself in a prey-swollen city that hated her very existence.

Oh she tried. She tried to get back in school, continue where she left off. The Crisis was over; she should have been able to. But in the midst of her efforts, the desperate ocelot found herself here. Right here. In a dingy, run-down apartment building that hired women as sex dolls, just to make ends meet, owned by a junkie, once-proud, on-the-rise crime lord who exploited anyone and everyone he could to the maximum. She learned very soon that her decision had a permanent consequence - one she would give anything to change. She'd marred her image even further in the eyes of the legal community by turning to this life. And now, this was all there was. This was her life. And she had to learn to be fine with that.

She realized she was standing at her closed door. Shaking her head slightly, she turned the knob and pressed her shoulder into it with a grunt. It scraped open to reveal her relatively small, dull colored room.

She opened the curtains of her window to allow her a view of the snow outside. It was one of the very few things she actually liked about this place, watching the snow fall. It also reminded her of her family, when they were actually proud of her. But that was why she wanted to see it. It reminded her of the trips she took with her brother and aunt to Tundratown for ice skating or snowball fights or to see the glaciers in the river. The snow kept her from hardening her heart and forgetting where she came from. Helped her remember what she'd lost and to believe that maybe, maybe she could somehow leave this life behind and find something better. Even though... yeah, those chances were slim.

She set down her purse and sorted through the money she'd made today to subtract Elton's cut from it. Three hundred dollars was her net pay, enough for a visit to Koala's, get some new clothes. About time, too. Some of her current ones were starting to fray and shrink from overuse.

After a quick shower downstairs, she put on some comfy purple pajamas and got into bed. The mattress squeaked a bit, but it was so comfortable. And warm. As she lay there, the comfort of the bed, the quiet of the room, the snow falling outside her window for her to watch for a while... it made this life a little easier. She closed her eyes and began to drift off.


Arya woke up on her own to a dimly lit room. Stretching with a wide yawn, she lifted her head groggily.

Where am I? she thought. The place she was in was too blurry to see. It had a strange smell to it. Fresh, but different. Reaching behind her to try to find her glasses, she remembered - oh!

She found her glasses and put them on to observe the room she was in. The walls were painted white. Light brown curtains partially covered the single window that led outside to a balcony. It was still dark outside. Hold on... balcony? They weren't on the first floor? Had they come up by stairs or elevator? She barely remembered the trip between the lobby and the room. Her mind had been so heavy with the question of when she was going to leave.

Oh yeah, that.

There was still the matter of deciding when to go away. She had to make sure that Judy and Angel didn't notice. When would be the best time? Nighttime, obviously, but... what if she woke one of them up? Then there was no leaving. She had to find the perfect moment.

There was a light sound, coming from her right. She saw Judy's frame resting under the covers of the bed next to hers. Her back was to her. She could hear her breathing, the sound of peaceful sleeping. It made her smile. At least someone was resting well. Angel... she must have been... where was she anyway? There wasn't any sign of her in the hotel room.

Deciding to get up and walk around a bit to think, she picked up the card key on the nightstand next to her and - she finally noticed the bags in the corner next to Judy's bed. Including her own rolling suitcase. How did all that get here? Did she actually go and pick it all up overnight? But why would she do that in the middle of the night rather than in the morning? Was it because she didn't want to put them through anything else? Or because she couldn't sleep? Regardless of the reason, Arya couldn't help but stand amazed at the bunny. Because she truly, genuinely cared.

And that was why she had to go.

The little lamb slowly tiptoed out of the hotel room and down the hall to make her way to the lobby. The hotel was quiet. It creeped her out a bit. It reminded her of every horror movie she'd ever seen involving hotels. But she needed to be alone right now. She needed to. She saw on her phone that the time was only 5:30 am. She stepped in the elevator to go down to the lobby where there was a sitting area or something like that. She remembered seeing chairs, at least.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, there was the sound of soft music. Music from a piano. Stepping out, she trailed the music through an arch leading to a breakfast bar. Looking around, she saw Angel sitting at a classic string piano next to the bar. She was in yellow pajamas with black stripes, almost like a bee. Judy must have brought those when she went to get their stuff last night; she wasn't wearing them when they arrived.

She walked toward the panther silently until she noticed her.

"Hey," said Angel quietly with a smile. Her eyes looked heavy and red.

"Hey," she said back.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Mm. Kinda. Did you?"

Angel shook her head. "I slept for an hour. But I couldn't fall back to sleep. Judy woke up a little while later, so she and I went home to get our stuff." She continued playing the piano. It was a song that Arya recognized. But the name escaped her.

"What song is that?"

"It's a song my Mom played for my Dad a lot when things got hard." Angel smiled, but her smile was full of grief. "My mom played it for me and Nathan when Dad died. And... it's always been my go-to whenever I'm down." She placed her fingers on a set of keys and pressed them, creating the first note of the song with sonorous harmony.

"When I look at you, I see forgiveness.

I see the truth: you love me just as I am

like the stars hold the moon.

Right there where they belong... and I know I'm not alone!

And when my world is falling apart, when there's no light to break up the dark,

that's when I, I look at you.

When the waves are flooding the shore and I can't find my way home anymore,

that's when I, I look at you."

Arya listened for several minutes, entranced by the girl's lovely voice. She then climbed up onto the bench where Angel sat and rested her head on the panther's leg as she played. She'd come down here wanting to be alone, but she found her heart lightened by Angel's beautiful music and her soothing voice.

"You play so beautifully," said Arya.

"Thanks. I... I've done it my whole life."

"I wish I could do that. But I only have three fingers on each hand. And I can't spread them very far so I couldn't play like you do."

"You could probably find something to play if you wanted. There are sheep who play in orchestras and stuff."

"Just listening to it is enough for me."

"Oh, but there's something about being able to play it. It... it's like... letting something pour out of you, whether it's happiness or sadness or hate or jealousy or love or anything, really. Actually, when Dad died, I started writing a song of my own. But I've only figured out the chorus. I still haven't gotten anything beyond that."

"How does it go?"

Angel put her fingers to the keys and took a moment. Her eyes closed and she breathed deeply. Her head tilted back ever so slightly as if emotion were overwhelming her. She started out with a simple theme with minimal harmony, that grew into a beautiful series of chords as she began to sing:

"How does a moment last forever?

How does a story never die?

It is love we must hold on to.

Never easy, but we try...

Sometimes our happiness is captured.

Somehow, our time and place stand still.

Love lives on inside our hearts, and always will..."

She drew out the last word, letting it fade into silence.

"That... was so beautiful," said Arya with a sniffle. "Angel, you have to finish that."

"Ok. I'll try," she said nodding.

They fell quiet and Angel continued playing soft music, whatever her fingers wanted to play. The lamb lay there and listened for who knew how long. But soon she found herself falling into a peaceful sleep.


John walked through the darkness of the night. His mission was complete, and he was to deliver the goods like he was supposed to. Sleep had fled from him after the infusion of the serum into his body. Whether he would ever sleep again, he couldn't help but wonder. Did Danny ever sleep at all?

Questions bombarded his consciousness with endless tenacity as he weaved his way through the Savannah's blocks for his destination on the southwest end. Whether he should be terrified or proud, he didn't know. But what he did feel was incalculable exhilaration. He still had not reached any discernible limit to his strength, which continued to increase with each passing hour. And so did his capacity for healing, as well; his gunshot wound was already closing up and didn't even hurt anymore. After testing himself with several rocks of various sizes, then a mid-size car, then a larger car, then a long eye-beam (though with extreme difficulty), he could not help but feel... amazing. He'd dreamed so long of having power like this. To be able to do the things he could do. The envy he'd felt of his former ward had diminished.

Yet there was also something in the background of his mind, something that made him feel as if his subconscious were buzzing like a fly in his head. No matter what he did, he wouldn't be able to reach it. Something was coming to the surface, nagging at him to the point of annoyance. But he ignored it the best he could. He figured it was the sense of urgency he had to find Danny to make sure he was safe. When he'd left the compound, he had intended to do so but remembered that this delivery was more important.

A thought occurred to him, causing him to stop. He was forty-five years old, well past his younger days when he could run for miles on end without beating a sweat... he wondered how fast he could get there. He didn't bother to warm up; he took off running full speed, and nearly tripped in astonishment as he accelerated from zero to maybe forty miles an hour in the span of two seconds. He gasped in wonder. The serum had worked better than he or probably anyone had ever dreamed!

"IT WORKED!" he shouted as he ran. This was everything he had ever wanted... true power.

Less than ten minutes later, he was in front of the house. He had traveled seven miles by foot, and he felt no different than he did the moment he started. No fatigue, no muscle ache, no shortness of breath... in fact he felt like he could run another seven miles, even faster! The difference was staggering.

The neighborhood he'd come to was small. He had lived here for a time after coming to America to start his assignment, the longest undercover job he'd ever accepted, by far. The houses were small, as well, something that was appealing to him. The large warehouse, though having small enough rooms to be cozy, was still a large place. Small, manageable - that was his preference. He figured that once he retired, he might move back to this neighborhood. Though his improved physiology left him musing that he might not need to retire for a long, long time.

The street he was on was Yellow Flower. The house number he was looking for... "4414... 4410... 4496! There you are." He hadn't been here in years, or even seen his partners in the same amount of time. This should be interesting. The lights were off. They had to be here; they would meet back here once a week for debriefing while he was undercover. And tonight had happened to be one of those nights. But he began to wonder if something was wrong.

That strange simmering static just barely strafing the edges of his conscious mind was still present, and seeing this house brought it just barely into greater focus. But he still couldn't discern what it was - an idea? A regret? A memory? A hidden emotion? It almost seemed to grow more intense as he came closer to the house.

He strutted toward the house to knock on the door. The wood sounded hollow. The excitement he felt in finishing his assignment was overwhelming. And he was eager to get back to the task of finding Danny and helping Sarah get back on her feet. Literally.

A few minutes passed with nothing happening. But then, he felt a sharp sting on his rear that caused him to wince. He reached back and felt something sticking out of his lower back just below the waist line. But he didn't even have time to register what exactly it was. For several seconds, he felt as if he were floating in a void. He felt like he was a disembodied entity, a mind drifting in blackness. But suddenly, he found himself back in his body, unable to move. Like, at all. Not even a muscle flex. Not even a finger twitch. But other than that, he felt fine.

Oh, and he was lying down.

Opening his eyes, he looked up to see that he was in a lit room that had the feel of being owned by an old married couple - wood-colored walls, old white carpet, furniture with a few stains on them. But he knew this place like the back of his hand. It was the headquarters of AI6, Zootopian branch. Surrounding him were three other lions, all eyeing him with various levels of distrust.

All three of them were Spanish by nationality, but they took on new identities, new names corresponding to the country they were most involved with.

His superior by rank, Quzan was from a nearby town that John had grown up in. His primary domain had been mainland China and Taiwan. Jules was the youngest, but one of the most skillful of the four, second only to John himself. The majority of his missions had been in France. Karkarof was the one John knew best, having known each other since primary school. They hadn't been best friends, especially in primary school where they were enemies. But they found brotherhood in their mutual love for their country and in their ambitions to join the French Foreign Legion. And then they went their separate ways when Karkarof stayed in the Legion and John was chosen as an agent for AI6 within the Spanish government, along with Jules. John and Karkarof wouldn't see each other for fifteen years. But he felt for all that time that he could still trust him with his life.

And that hadn't changed even now.

"Que esta pasando aqui? Por que no puedo mudarme?" he asked in his own native language. (What's going on here? Why can't I move?)

"Ni gaosu women," answered the lion on his left in Mandarin, named Quzan. (You tell us.)

"Saben para que estoy aqui, como acordamos. Entonces, por que estoy... cubierto de... que es esto, cemento?!" Indeed, John looked down at his body and realized why he couldn't move: he was stuck in a block of cement. (You know what I'm here for, like we agreed. So why am I... covered in... what is this, cement?!)

Jules answered: "C'est pour vous assurer que vous ne faites rien de stupide. Parce que nous sommes assez intelligents pour savoir que vous etes le meilleur combattant de nous tous." (That's to make sure that you don't do anything stupid. Because we're smart enough to know that you're the best fighter out of all of us.)

Karkarof added, "Tebya ne bylo sem' let, o tebe ne bylo vestey. My khotim znat', chem vy zanimalis' vse eto vremya." (You've been gone seven years, haven't heard from you. We want to know what you've been doing all that time.)

"I tak ty menya v tsement posadil?" John asked sarcastically in the same language. "Heh, Skol'ko vremeni eto zanyalo?" (And so you put me in cement? How long did that take?)

"Okolo pyati minut," he answered without missing a beat. (About five minutes.)

"Ni qu na'erle?" asked Quzan with calm but mounting impatience. (Where have you been?)

"Donde crees que he estado?!" he shouted as loudly as he could with the cement preventing his chest from expanding very far. "He estado trabahando duro para ayudar a crear este suero, eso es todo!" (Where do you think I've been?! I've been working hard to help create this serum, that's what!)

The lions suddenly looked shocked. Karkarof took a step back. "Ignaci," he said to John in English. "Are you telling me... that you helped him complete the serum?!"

John was taken aback. He looked from lion to lion in confusion. "That's what I was told to do. I did it."

"No..."

"Nous avons recu des instructions absolument claires et specifiquement pour arreter la production. Nous avions des annees a nous preparer. Nous avons informe le plan des dizaines de fois avant de commencer! Comment pourrais-tu juste oublier ca?!" (We received absolutely clear and specific instructions to stop production. We had years to prepare. We briefed the plan dozens of times before we started! How could you just forget about that?!) Jules' voice went all the way from bewildered to enraged as he spoke. John knew why. He'd experienced the disappointment of a wasted mission before, whether by compromise or strategic failure. Or by the loss of a partner. So had the rest of them. They had stopped several potentially catastrophic skirmishes on three different continents. And they were very efficient. This assignment should have been no different.

At that thought, the realization hit him like a sledgehammer to the muzzle. Like a meteorite the size of the district. That was it. That's what had been bothering him. How he hadn't realized it, there was no telling. What was scarier was the question as to how he had begun realizing it only now. How this had gone on for the past seven years... the thought terrified him.

He had forgotten all about his mission. He had lived a life that was totally severed from his old one. It was as if something had been done to him to forget. And now, looking around the room, something else opened in his mind like a floodgate. The memories that had simmered moments before came screaming back into his skull, which was now splitting in two. At least it felt like it. He groaned loudly from the short-lived pain, causing the lions to stumble backwards and pull their pistols on him.

John remembered everything. The commission he had been given, right here, in this very room, by the prime minister of Spain himself, communicating through a highly detailed coded manifesto that had been left in an envelope for them to discuss. He remembered setting out to apply for a low-level job in Angle, ready to work to rise through the ranks and gain the trust of the business' owner. And yet, somehow, as the weeks passed, his goal had changed from quelling a potentially disastrous scientific undertaking to ensuring its success. Under the surface of his mind, somehow his motives had performed a one-eighty degree turn. He gulped. He couldn't even discern from his memories where the change had occurred. No matter how vivid they were.

Something was very, very wrong. Somehow, he had been... manipulated, or brainwashed into becoming indispensable to the enemy.

"Ignaci..." said Quzan, bringing John out of his thoughts. "Xieqing ne?" (What of the serum?)

John looked him in the eye silently. He pressed his arms against the cement. Maybe they wouldn't believe him if he told them; he'd show them instead. The serum had strengthened him, yes, but he hadn't as of yet truly put it to the test. He pressed harder and harder, for a moment fearing that the cement wouldn't break. His partners stared at him, confused. Especially as John's head turned this way and that as he strained.

Suddenly, the cement exploded into fragments and he pushed them off of himself. The lions' faces grew aflame, their breathing quickened, as he stood up.

Dusting himself off, he opened his mouth. "Listen... I know how this looks-"

"She ta," said Quzan.

John immediately knew what that meant and wasted no time. He ducked to avoid the first bouts of gunfire. Then he rolled toward the lions and kicked two of them. Karkarof and Jules fell down with grunts but were getting back up. Karkarof pointed his gun at John but he knocked his hand out of the way, causing him to lose the firearm. Quzan punched him in the muzzle and grasped his hand in pain with a grunt. John took the opportunity to rotate behind him and lock him in a chokehold that cut off the blood flow to his brain.

"Ignaci!" Jules shouted. The other lions dropped their guns for Quzan's sake but Jules' face remained set with determination to put him down. Karkarof looked determined, albeit reluctant, to continue fighting the fellow lion. "Whatever you and that wolf are planning, we will stop you! We'll put an end to it!"

"I know," answered John. He winced from the pain of finding out he was was wrong about Karkarof. Or maybe... Jules was right about him. But he had to stay focused. There was a mystery to solve here. He steeled his nerves. "And once we, all of us, have put an end to this, then you'll see that a lot more is going on here than we could ever have imagined." He looked intently at Karkarof. "You'll see, Juan-Andres." With that, he picked up the now-unconscious Quzan from the floor and threw him over the head onto the two fellow lions, knocking them over violently. John kicked the door off the hinges and ran out into the night, intent on finding out exactly why he had undergone an astonishing paradigm shift and never realized it until now.


A cold chill ran across Desiree's nose, waking her up and causing her to sneeze a couple times.

"Unh..." She wiped her nose. The groggy fog in her mind faded slowly, causing her to realize that the room felt much colder. And her curtains were blowing slightly. What is going on? Did someone break in?!

There was a sound next to her...

Is that... purring?!


I want you all to know my thoughts about Desiree (pronounced Deh-zer-ray). Prostitution is a horrible thing. It's the exploitation of women for money; it leaves both customer and "clerk," if you will, with diseases and rampant guilt; it destroys lives and corrupts society. But someone like me, a person who grew up as the religious hypocrite, is no better, because I knew what the Bible says, but didn't live it out. But here is one of the most wonderful passages of Scripture that puts God's own endless love on display:

As Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and His disciples. And when the Pharisees (i.e. me) saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when He heard it, He said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" Matthew 9:10-13, and Luke 5:32 adds, "to repentance."

In light of this passage, Desiree in particular will have a glorious and happy ending. It won't be perfect, but I'll do my best. And I cannot wait to see it so I can feel that joy burning within me. And one other thing, Desiree isn't her name. She has a real name and we'll find out what it is in time.