[A/N] One of my beta readers asked me what happened to Finnick's new partner in the pawpsicle business. Here is what I think might be going on with her ever since he started dating Judy's aunt. A lot of this short tale was based on a song that has been playing on the radio late. Instead of posting a link, I wonder if anyone can figure out which one.
Chapter 15 - The Plan
A young, grey fox stalked quickly through the hot, dry alley. Her large, orange prey sat directly ahead between a series of pale, stucco buildings. It was completely unaware of her presence as she slunk through the midday shadows cast by the surrounding buildings.
Sahara Square was always busy this time of year, but the alley where Carla crept was completely empty except for her unsuspecting target. Tall casinos and other entertainment focused buildings clustered around this area of the city drew in large crowds during the cooler months, yet no one happened to be strolling in her direction.
The back street was not empty and quiet because it was your typical dark and filthy alley, but the opposite was true instead. It was actually fairly clean, except for the occasional weed and drift of sand that always blew through the steamy desert streets. Her prey had deliberately chosen this very spot since it was out of the way and had almost no paw traffic.
Few shadows lined the edge of the alley wall as the sun reached its peak in the sky, but Carla was not worried about being spotted. She knew that the mammal she stalked would be busy selling pawpsicles to the hungry lunch crowd. He would be completely oblivious to her actions until it was far too late.
When she spotted the Orange Beast parked at the end of the silent alley, she pulled out a small white, foam carton. Inside the carton were half a dozen rotten eggs. Even sealed inside their shells, the vixen's long nose could detect a foul odor coming from the carton in her paws.
Discreetly approaching the rear of the large orange van, Carla pulled one egg from its foam container without making a single sound. The rage that washed over her body nearly crushed the white shell in her paw. Before the stinking mess splatter into her grey fur, she pulled back her arm and threw the egg.
"You cheating bastard!" She screamed at the van as a sickly green mess exploded across the rear window. A second egg soon followed the first and the combined slime slid down the orange panels and across the chrome door handle.
The fury that the small brown fox had brought her did not subside as the rotten eggs crashed into the side of his precious vehicle. They only fanned the flames of her rage and she was going to make him pay dearly.
Stepping around the side of the van, she took aim towards her next target. The mural from a native folk tale was not safe from her seething anger. Two more eggs smashed into their smug muzzles, coating the art in a stinking, green slime.
After another pair of eggs coated the front windshield, her outrage had not subsided even one notch. Discovering that the door was left unlocked, Carla reached under the seat where the owner kept his favorite bat.
With the bat held over her shoulder, she rushed back towards the front of the van. Another viscous scream escaped her lips as she swung the bat into one of the vans big, round headlights, "Like, how could you!"
Sharp glass tinkled to the pavement as the shards joined the wind blown sand that lined the corners of the dry alley. A few sparks flew as the bulb instantly shattered and shorted under the force of the polished hunk of wood.
"With a damn rabbit!" Carla growled, the fury overwhelming her. The bat nearly slipped from her fingers while her sharp claws raked at the air. After a moment of snarling, growling and clawing at nothing, she began to beat the bat repeatedly across the front of the van.
Both headlights were shattered in the vixen's sudden frenzy and the once shiny bumper received several more dents. The grill and hood took the full brunt of her anger. The first was shattered and bent into several pieces, while the second would probably never close properly again.
Leaving the now cracked and splintered bat on the ground, Carla walked up to the driver's side of the van. She tossed aside the pair of encyclopedias the owner used to see over the dash when he was driving.
Taking a sharp screwdriver she found lying in the back, the irate vixen carved the letters 'CARLA' into the bucket seats. She had considered scraping her keys across the paint on his door, but the driver's side door was already rusted and dented so that a few more scratches wouldn't make any difference.
Standing back she looked at her paw work. The Orange Beast was a total mess, but her torn and broken heart was not satisfied. She wanted more. That little brown fox was going to pay dearly for his treachery, and a few damages to his van were not enough. She was going to have to try something more elaborate.
Again Carla stalked down the alley, the van completely forgotten. Her new target was in her sights and his smug tail would never see what was coming.
Marching straight up to the lounging fennec, she left all her foxy subtly behind in the gutter. Now was not the time for skill and tact, boldness would surely take the tod by surprise.
Finnick was relaxing in his law chair, watching for the next group of hungry customers to stroll across the street. Today he was parked across from the new casino building that was going up. That spot had been her idea this summer.
Not only had he broken her heart, but he was also stealing her ideas. That thought only fueled her anger as she approached the smaller fox she used to care so much about. Without so much as a greeting, her hind paw slammed into his small lawn chair.
With the weight of the larger, and very angry fox, the metal and cloth chair easily tipped over. Finnick let out a loud yelp as he abruptly sprawled, muzzle first on the cement sidewalk. His bowling shirt tore, and he bloodied a paw pad as he attempted to arrest his fall on the rough stone surface.
"What the hell!" The small desert fox cried, but the larger vixen was too swift. She scooped him up in her arms and dumped his small body inside the large cooler. He grasped at the pawpsicles that were still sticking up from the crushed ice, but his actions were futile as a larger paw shoved his muzzle deeper into the cold chunks.
"You think you're so much better than me?" Again Carla's anger caused her to choke and sputter as she spoke to the struggling tod.
A snarl could be heard through the chunks of ice while Finnick struggled to free himself. His muffled cries were entirely ignored by the jilted vixen that loomed above him. Heedless of the tod's please, Carla promptly closed the lid on the portable cooler, sealing him inside.
Since the large blue cooler came equipped with wheels, she was easily able to grab the handle and cart it away. But where would she take this insufferable, cheating bastard? It had to be someplace close, and would cause him the maximum amount of pain. She needed him to suffer like she had suffered the day she came out of her apartment to find his van rocking and giggling and moaning.
From her window, she saw that filthy, skinny, under dressed rabbit who left the next morning. When she had gone out to confront the tod stealing doe, it had climbed into an ugly boat of a car and drove off. Finnick on the other paw had laughed at her and told her that she was too young to understand. She had immediately ended their partnership after that.
Now, she was out for revenge, but she needed to find the most painful way to extract his suffering. What could she do that would hurt him the most? She didn't want the filthy bastard back in her life, but she wanted him to understand how she felt.
As her mind was racing, she glanced across the street. Her gaze spotted the construction site and the tall yellow barrier that surrounded it. Several large mammals were walking through the opening in the fence and strolling towards her and the ice cooler.
She did not pay any attention to the approaching mammals. Her eyes were slowly sliding up the side of the building. As they rose towards the sky, the building gradually grew less and less complete. Near the top of the tall building, the walls and windows disappeared, leaving only an iron and steel skeleton.
At this distance, the large mammals that scurried across the beams looked extremely tiny and a smile crossed the angry vixen's muzzle. She walked across the street with the blue cooler in tow and didn't even look twice at the construction workers who had come to buy the small tod's cold treats.
Easily passing through the gates, Carla tugged the cooler behind her until she approached a large pallet that was being loaded with supplies. A long wire rope ran from the pallet up the side of the building, to one of the large cranes perched on the very top.
Casually walking up to the pallet, Carla attempted to load the cooler on the pallet when a brown bear in a white hard hat stopped her. "Hey pawpsicle lady. What do you think you're doing?"
Giving the bear her sexiest smile, she told him, "I was going to like, send some extra treats up to like the boys up top and stuff."
Without a second thought, the foremammal turned and nodded. "Sure ok. Just make sure that thing is secure before you leave."
Winking at the bear, she tied the cooler down on the pallet. "Like, of course, sir." Kissing the pad on her paw, she placed it on top of the cooler and back away before it slowly rose into the air.
Several minutes later, the lid to the blue cooler opened and an extremely angry fennec leapt out. In his paws were two very sharp popsicle sticks. "Whoever did this is going to pay. I am going to bite your face off!"
"Whoa. Easy there pal." A mountain goat called in a tone that was almost too calm for the situation. He held up both hooves towards the fierce fox that was widely swinging his sharp sticks.
"You might want to calm down buddy. It is a long way down." The long horned goat then pointed down with a slightly slurred chuckle.
Finnick then noticed that the cooler was precariously poised on the edge of a single steel beam with nothing but thin air below. It only took him a second to realize that his paws were at least thirty floors above the ground.
Both pawpsicle sticks fell to the crushed ice under Finnicks paws. They slowly slid across the slippery chunks until they reached the white lined edge of the blue cooler. Once they slid across the edge, the pair sailed out into the open air where they began to plummet to the ground below.
A gentle breeze came up and caused the cooler to rock slowly. The goat reached out a paw to steady the large box of treats, but Carla was there instead.
"This fate is like, too good for your filthy cheating tail." She slammed the lid shut on the cooler before swiftly kicking it off the edge and out into the open air.
The chest plummeted to the ground far below as the fennec's scream echoed across the city. This plan would surely make the diminutive fox think twice before he cheated again.
When Finnick opened the lid once again, he found that he was rocking gently on the waves as he and the cooler floated across the bay near Outback Island. The current that flowed down from the Polar Straight was quickly carrying him out to sea.
Looking around, he saw several large pleasure yachts and a few fishing trawlers nearby, but he feared that they would never see him. Even with the large cooler, he was still a tiny bit of junk floating on a very large ocean.
As he was pondering if he should try to swim to shore, or make an oar out of pawpsicle sticks, a hole suddenly appeared in the lid. Its appearance was quickly followed by a loud crack in the distance.
A moment later, another hole appeared and crushed ice exploded around him. This time he also heard shouting and jeers coming from one of the distant yachts. When he looked over the edge of the lid, he thought he spotted a long rifle in one of the passenger's paws.
Jumping up and down, he began to scream and wave his paws at the yacht, but they shot at him a third time. It took him a few moments after that to realize there was a rude message written on top of the cooler's lid. "Bet you can't hit the broad side of a barn."
Screaming and yelling only angered the yacht passengers more, and their last shot proved fatal for the small fox.
"No, no, no!" Carla cried. "I don't want him dead!" She dropped her pen on the hard floor.
"This is never going to work," she sighed loudly. With a sharp tug, she ripped the entire page from her diary. Crumpling her plans for revenge into a tight ball, she tossed them into the trash.
With a huff, she stuffed the pink and purple, lacey book between the floor and her mattress. After a couple of quick punches to her pillow, she stood and walked to her apartment door.
Walking down the stairs to the public laundromat, she thought out loud, "I am going to like, have to come up with a smarter plan to get revenge on him. Something without like, all that violence and stuff."
Carla shoved both paws into her jacket pockets and slipped through the back door into the alley where Finnick used to park when they were still working together. She had not seen any sign of him for more than a month. Even if she did have a good plan, she didn't know where to find the tod. He was probably off somewhere with that new bunny friend of his.
A slow drizzle had started this morning, but it easily rolled off her fur as she headed in a random direction. The wet did little to improve her mood, but it sparked a hint of a small idea. Finnick's old partner was working as a cop downtown. She had seen him in the park there several times. Maybe he could give her some clues about what the little tod was up too.
Smirking, she headed further into the rain while a new idea began to form.
