The fox was slumped over in the black office chair, the seat of which was covered in paper towels. His head rest on the right armrest, while his arms were twisted over parts of the chair, not really caring about their positions given the fox's deep sleep. He'd kept the room exactly how he left it—angry outburst and all, along with beer cans spilled all over the floor along with various pieces of trash and junk, like chip bags and at least two pairs of solid-color underwear. He snored exactly like a deeply asleep fox would—an off-putting snore with occasional spurts of high-pitched whining. And along with the snore was the hum of the old air conditioning unit placed in a closet near the office that sounded like a car's engine with expired oil. Occasionally it knocked and sputtered, but mostly it churned and hummed.

Suddenly his phone that he had thrown began buzzing in its nest of glass shards and vodka-soaked underpants. With that came a deafening ringtone of rock music. He moved around a second before his eyes shot open, then, with a sudden movement of his arms, he slipped from the chair and landed on the concrete floor. He cussed again, getting to his feet in his drowsy stupor and stumbling over to his phone, which had moved from sitting on its nest to the concrete floor. Almost stepping on a shard of glass in the process, he finally got to his phone and put it to his ear without looking at the ID. "Yeah."

"Gerald."

He recognized the voice immediately. "Bellwether! I'm so—"

"Enough with the formalities, fox. Did you get her?"

"Yeah. Yeah-we did." He joined the words together with his words slurred.

"Are you drunk?"

"Drunk? No. I-I'm just… tired."

"I'd believe you if I didn't know any better. Did you inject her?"

"With what?"

"Good. You didn't get the memo. I couldn't trust you with it anyway."

"I'm sorry. I'm not following."

"You don't have to. Luckily, you contacted me for help. So, here's the rundown. Once I'm there, I'm going to introduce myself. Or, rather, reintroduce myself. Then I'll inject her with the improved serum. Abracadabra, she's delusional and her personality changes. No more WildeHopps."

"If you're so inclined, Bellwether, with all due respect—why don't I do it now?"

"Because, fox, it's all in the point. I do it, she's intimidated. You do it, well, it's kind of pathetic. And ironic that a fox is ripping her apart." She was silent for a moment. "Great idea. Slight change of plans. I'll continue the injection as planned. Except you'll be the one doing it."

"I'd like some credit for that one."

"Let's not push it. Now, I'll be there soon. Did you put her away?"

"By that you mean…"

"Locked her up somewhere? If you killed her, I'm going to make you my test subject."

He shook his head, despite being on a phone call. "No, ma'am. She's locked up in one of the closets."

"Perfect. Once I arrive, we'll get on with this. Once we get rid of her, Wilde will be so disoriented that he'll probably end up killing himself. Or I get bored and do it for him. Two for the price of one."

Judy's eyes popped open, but it felt like she hadn't opened them. It was pitch black.

And then the pain set in—a dull ache near the bottom of her spin, around her hips. She groaned, pushing her paws through the bag she was stuck in and rubbed her sore waist. It felt like she had been kicked or punched, and she didn't know why. She tried to think back, but when she did, all she remembered was a blur of colors. She knew something had been done, but she didn't know what.

And then she heard a distinct voice. It sounded like it was on speaker. But again, she couldn't recognize it. She wanted so badly to remember it.

"Two for the price of one."

For whatever reason, she thought the voice was talking about her.