Chapter Seventy-Three
A Ray of Hope

A black car tore through the dark, city streets, its sirens wailing, its lights flashing, its powerful engine roaring, screaming as the engine was pushed to its very limits. The ZPD cruiser zipped alone down the road, dashing over pedestrian crossings and through red lights — civilian cars screeching to a halt and blaring their horns as the cruiser bolted past them.

A road bend approached, and the car overshot due to its tremendous speed. The back wheels span out, the rear of the car swinging onto the pavement and destroying a bench, thus, leaving long skid marks upon the road with smoke and the stink of burning rubber filling the air, while the engine thunked into gear and shot back to its course.

The driver of the cruiser was upon the edge of his seat, his eyes wild, his jaw tense, his paws locked on tight to the steering wheel and his claws dragging gashes on the material. He glanced down to the police stereo at the voice that was bellowing at him, "Pull over that car right now, you're breaking every rule of police procedure! You're risking your and everyone else's lives, and if you don't stop right now... So god help me, I will—"

Growling as the screaming continued, the driver grabbed at the radio transmitter, dragged the chord into his mouth and bit the wire in two — tossing the dead receiver randomly as he thrust the accelerator level to the floor.

Some distance behind him, a procession of police cars drove with all possible speed to catch up with the lunatic driver, all within the safety rules... while the crazy driver careened and hurtled through the city, without care for his safety or the safety of any other.

He cared only for the safety of one. One individual, to whom he was desperately headed to reach. The driver tore another corner onto one of the main roads to the edge of the city, the back of the cruiser kicking out a second time and colliding with two bins. There were red lights up ahead and a sort line of traffic. It was some distance away, but at the great speed he was travailing at, he reached them in seconds and had no time to stop.

In a display of fantastic reactional speed, the driver pulled the wheel sharply and mounted the pavement, pelting past the motionless cars and pulling back onto the road — swerving between cars crossing before him. A long growl escaping him, his foot crushed the accelerator and the car engine roared and rattled as the rev meter dove into the red. The buildings became smaller and smaller, more of the sky became visible, and suddenly the edge of the city was there.

The car screeched horribly as the driver heaved on the handbrake, throwing the car into a wild turn, a barely controlled spin. There was a heavy thunk and a piece of the car flew away as the handbrake broke, but it had done its job and had stopped the vehicle shooting off the rocky cliff and into the water — instead turning and making on towards the city harbor.

The main gates appeared dead ahead. The driver shut off the lights and the sirens, pressing himself back against the seat, his eyes tightening as his foot switched from the accelerator to the break, wincing back as the car lurched violently as it burst through the metal gate.

The vehicle screeched, the tires burst and the front of the car ploughed into a large, metal container. The breaking had slowed the car enough not to kill the driver, but not enough to prevent the front of the car to not crumple beyond repair, and for thick smoke to begin rising from its tortured, burnt-out engine.

The driver clawed at the airbag, fighting to escape from the car, slicing holes in the inflated bag which hissed and shriveled away in a second, despite its pure purpose and achieved result of life. The door flew open and the fox tried to stand, stumbling down onto his paws, due to the massive rush of adrenaline coursing through his cells. He steadied himself, breathing deeply, panting as he forced himself back onto his feet with Scarlett's gun groped desperately in his paw.

There was no moment of respite for him as he clicked the mechanism and jogged deeper into the port, following the distant scent of his lover that tickled in faintness through the air. He was probably going to lose his job for how he'd driven, but Nick didn't care, didn't spare it a second's thought. He'd crossed half the city probably quicker than he had ever done before, and knew it'd still be a few minutes before the ZPD convoy, he was supposed to follow, caught up.

His fantastic haste loaned him no comfort, and even as the distant wails of other police sirens carried towards him in the wind, he cursed and berated himself and everyone else for the situation Judy, his Judy, was in.

The red figure sprang from the containers to the large opening at the heart of the harbor, flinching about in quick focus about the port and at the silhouette of a ship on the edge of the misty horizon. If she was on that ship, Nick swore to God and Bogo that he'd tare apart the ZPD and gouge out Bogo's—

His ear twitching, Nick's eyes averted to the dark shape of the boatbuilder's yard. His expression slackened. "Jack?" he said urgently, stepping towards the shape of the stripped rabbit in the darkness. "Jack! Wh—" Nick stepped in something wet. He looked down at the pool of blood and then his gaze returned to the motionless, lifeless figure of the male rabbit that lay crumpled in the darkness, abandoned like trash, forsaken to the fate of luck.

His body shaking — his heart pounding and his lungs ready to burst — Nick stepped unsteadily away from the stripped rabbit and followed the strongest trace of Judy's scent he could find.

He held on to all his last hopes as he came level with the closed, wooden door of the abandoned boatbuilder's yard. The sirens were closer now; far louder. Nick sucked in a long, final breath — his gaze fixed on the door, his paw shaking as it reached towards its rough, textured surface.

Motion. Force. The door burst open and a blur of white shot out. Nick landed heavily, thrown upon his back with the power and bulk of a bloodied wolf who threw himself atop of him — his crimson-stained paw raising into the air; his claws glinting in the moonlight.

He paused. Death faltered.

Nick dared to open his eyes again. He stared at the pale voids of the white wolf — saw his broken jaw, his missing fingers, his slashed eye...

Wulf was sneering down at the fox intently, his master's orders surging hotly through his mind. With a snarl, he lurched against the fox. Nick flinched away, but by the time he had looked back, he was alone in the clearing — the only sign of the wolf, having been there, being the scent of blood and fear.

The fox knew the danger to himself had passed. He also knew that this didn't make things any better, and he pulled himself to unsteady feet — his paws shaking heavily, his heart pounding, his head aching from where his skull had hit the ground. He turned back towards the darkness and through the open door of the yard.

The fox stepped on through the silent gloom. Raising a paw to his mouth, he called out in a voice which was rasped and quivering, "Judy?"

There was nothing to guide him — not the call of her voice in reply or even a whimper to follow — only the scent of dread in the air, and the splatters of blood which stained the floor and wall, shining coldly in the sadness of the moon. She was in there: Nick could smell her in the air; could feel her close by. However, but for the pale light of the moon, the boatbuilder's yard was shrouded in shadow and darkness, with sharp edges and jagged silhouettes.

The fox stepped further in, pausing in a clearing in the center of all, with a pool of dark crimson which was larger than the rest — and with the reflection of the moon clearly glimmering off its surface. Cupping his paws about his mouth again, he called out with all the strength his essence carried, "Judy!"

Behind him, a moan. Nick span around instantly, his heart leaping into his mouth and his body shaking with the angst and the tension. He sprinted towards where the sound had come from and threw himself upon his knees before a small space of deep darkness close to the clearing.

The fox glanced across the patterns of blood dripped upon the ground, and saw where someone had dragged themselves from the clearing to this space here. He looked back to the darkness — a small square of space between boxes and beneath the hull of an old boat.

There was no escape from the place she had hid in, it was all boxed in the form of entrapment, so Nick realized that it would have been 'instinct' more than anything which had driven her to find this spot to crawl into. He leaned closer to the hole, desperately aware not only of how vital speed was for her, but how terrified she would also be. This needed a careful balance of speed and patience. "Judy," he said again, his voice soft but clear as he entered the darkness. "Judy?"

No reply… nothing to ease the fox's ear. He reached out into the unknown, his palm open as he tried to find the edge of the rabbit's body. The pads of his paw touched upon fur, and the rabbit cried out quietly, trying to pull herself deeper into the safety of the darkness, but without any true strength to do so.

Nick drew his paw back quickly and gazed at the stains of blood upon his pads. He didn't know what to do, didn't know how to act, but he knew that something had to be done... and that it had to be done now. Gritting his teeth, the fox reached back into the abyss with both paws. He felt his heart burning in his chest and the sting of tears cutting into his eyes, as he heard the rabbit's anguished whimpers rise in the tremoring cries of misery, but he fought on through her struggling and found the curled shape of her battered body.

"It's me, Judy. It's me," he whispered gently as he put his arms around the rabbit's frame. He wrapped an arm behind her back and slipped the other beneath her legs, hushing and soothing her constantly as he slowly tightened his grip and made to pull her out. He noticed, as he was doing so, that all he felt of her body was fur, and he realized; before, he had pulled her into the light that she was mostly naked.

Pause gave him stop as the thought hit, like a bullet to his brain. His face tightened, but he knew he didn't have the time to think about that — that Judy needed medical help this instant — and so he fought back his instincts to run and hide into the darkness himself. The shape of her body felt wrong. Body parts and bones were in places they shouldn't have been. Nick didn't want to think about it so he drew her closer to himself.

Nick whimpered, looking down into her closed eyes and her vacant expression, at the cuts down her cheek and the bruises all across her body. Her scalp was lined with five deep gashes, which bled slowly but continuously down her ruined face. Her body was stained all over with blood and with—

His whimper building to a low whine, the fox forced his eyes to close, to shut out the image of his beautiful lover now lying, a shade from death, in his arms.

He willed his eyes to open again, endured the mists of wrongness and fixated his sadness on the light and noise of the officers outside...

...

Outside, the officers hurried about busily. The EMT vehicles having maneuvered their way into the clearing, a number of paramedics were hurrying Savage on the back of a stretcher and into one of the vans.

Behind them, the door to the boatbuilder's yard opened, to which the surrounding officers turned... and froze. From the darkness stepped a figure which resembled Nick Wilde. He stood still in the doorway — everyone staring at him in motionlessness, as though all time had stopped.

The fox's eyes moved slowly to look upon the face of every officer around him. Taking a breath with a fixation straight ahead, he gave steps to his feet.

They all saw the leer in his expression. They all saw the bitterness and hate in his eyes, and the tears which ran freely down his cheeks. They all saw how he carried the limp, damaged body of the naked rabbit in his arms. They all saw the fox's fury... and they all saw how carefully and how precociously he held her. His expression didn't flinch. His pace didn't stop. He didn't pause and didn't spare a moment's thought to the people stood around him.

Nick Wilde — Judy in his arms — paced slowly, calmly, deliberately to the open back of the nearest ambulance... and set her down upon the white bed. The paramedics began hurriedly cleaning wounds and applying salves — none of them daring to so much as acknowledge the fox, let alone ask him to move out of the way.

Whatever force, whatever instinct had cut clean through the trauma and emotion, the fox was feeling, began to subside. The silent calm he had felt — the single, all-consuming instruction to carry the rabbit to the clean sheets of the ambulance — was complete. And so the cacophony of emotions, of horror and of hate, of fear and of shame, quickly started to show.

It started simply — his face tightening, his paws clenching. His lips pulled back and his teeth appeared in the moonlight, his face contorting with a high whine grinding in the back of his neck. Blood started dripping from his paws where his claws had penetrated his pads, and Bogo stepped into the van beside him. "Come on, Nick," Bogo said quickly, leading him out of the van with an arm around his back, "you've done all you can for now."

Nick didn't even hear him speak — didn't notice as his arm drew him away — all he knew was the image of the rabbit in his head, the pain, the fear… the loss.

Bogo nodded to the driver of the ambulance, who shut the back doors and hurried to get the vehicle up and rolling.

Nick pulled himself away from Bogo as he heard the van give way to the hospital, and shifted to stare at it miserably, as the lights kicked into life and the siren began wailing.

Breathing in deeply — though his breath was interrupted by a number of choking, sputtering sobs — the fox slowly filled his lungs. When the ambulance was lost from sight, he raised his head up into the air, opened his muzzle and released a long, mournful howl into the darkness of the night.

The moon's disc shed its tears of weak light, while the fox's cry echoed off the buildings, carried for many miles across the open water. It was heard by the criminals on the fleeing boat, and it was heard by the white wolf, as he limped through the streets: bloodstained, alone, comfortless and filled with failure.

Author's notes:

Hesitance jumps around your mind,

Grooms decision thus chosen blind.

Your thoughts most succulent of snack,

All delivered by luscious feedback.

So don't hide like a tiny shrew,

Thus share that belovable review!

- One of our montly gifts for our supporters! Monthly updates.

Social Links:

* To use a link just replace {dot} with a full stop/peirod.

- Youtube: youtube{dot}com/c/inlet

- Twitter: twitter{dot}com/inletreal