It was around a day, she guessed. She had no idea if she was right.
Judy felt on the verge of panic several times, close to passing out. She didn't know if any of the hours she spent in darkness were spent in slumber. The nightmares that seemed to come might have just been hallucinations. Her breaths and gasps echoed through empty, unseen halls.
She didn't know where she was, or why. The bunny couldn't move her paws; they were bound behind her, too tight to move. Her wrists and ankles must be bleeding by now.
All she was aware of besides her breaths was the pain, discomfort, and panic. Her head throbbed, her nose was filled with a faint chemical scent; she couldn't make heads or tails of anything else besides the roiling discomfort in her chest and gut.
Click.
Finally, a burst of light shone on her, right at her eyes. Pain flooded them as she grunted and looked away.
"Augh!" Judy yelped, shifting and thrusting her head away from the source. She gasped and tried to steady herself.
"Mm..." It was a dispassionate voice that greeted her. Even. Male. "I was hoping you'd be dead by now. Heart attack or something."
"Who- what...?" Judy sneered, forcing herself to look into the beam of light shining on her. Flashlight, but she couldn't quite tell if it was a phone or a handheld. From the light that poured from it, she could make out the form of a rabbit. No, larger. Hare. Hint of glasses near the face, but nothing else remarkable about him.
"Oh well, another day or two," the light dropped a bit as if preparing to go out.
"Wait!" Judy yelped. She tried to compose herself, summon the steel of her will. "Wait. Who are you?"
The shadow paused as if considering whether to answer. "Well... I suppose I can tell you. Won't do you much good. My name's John."
"John?" Judy tested the perfectly normal name as if it was alien. "John who?"
"Eh, that's all you'll get," he replied.
Judy felt deeply unsettled, and part of it was in the tone of this hare's voice. It didn't have a stony or even a fiery anger to it. It wasn't thick with sarcasm or even a superior air. It wasn't even monotone. It was just... dull, the dull of disinterest. Her nose must have been going a mile a minute, matching her accelerating heart.
"Release me," Judy demanded, her voice having a hint of a waver.
"No," she barely saw John's head shake. "You're going to die."
Judy let out a panicked breath. "Why? You're going to kill me?"
"Well, not directly, hopefully," John explained. He reached into his coat and pulled out a stun gun, letting his flashlight flutter over it. "I've modified this so it could kill an elephant. I'd rather not see what it could do to you. However, I suppose if you wanted me to kill you now, I could..."
"I'd rather not die at all, thank you," Judy replied stonily, shivering as a wave of terror assaulted her spine.
"Well, you're going to, and I've read starvation is a painful way to go, so, I don't know, up to you," John shrugged.
"Why would you want me dead?" Judy almost whispered. The echoing tone of her voice worsened the intense pain in her head.
"Oh, I could explain that," John took a single step forward, making Judy lurch. "Yeah, you see, you're basically the emblem of the big lie of Zootopia."
Judy sneered. "What are you talking about?"
"You know," John sighed, as if it annoyed him to explain, "the 'anyone can be anything' lie. The lie that seduces animals from all over to come here and try their luck at their 'dreams'."
The discomfort in Judy's stomach became nearly unbearable. She tried to steady her breathing to keep everything inside her.
"You're part of that system, and you're way out in front, telling everyone the lie just by your existence," John continued. "First bunny cop. 'Saved' Zootopia. Bunnies aren't cops. Not anymore than sand cats or jerboas. There's too much you can't do. Just by your size. Imagine you were even twice your size. I probably couldn't have captured you. Now, I'm very smart, but even I know my limits."
"You're wrong- anyone... a mammal should... they should try to follow their dreams!" Judy found herself emitting forcefully. Despair started to wet her eyes. She took a few struggles against her bonds, but to no avail.
"So are you really that deluded, or has the system completely consumed you?" John's voice was still so ambiguous, but Judy thought she could detect notes of hatred seeping into it. "There's no real physical advantage to having a rabbit at the most prominent place of a civil servant. You're there just to make mammals feel good about trying things they really shouldn't. Making them waste money on a higher education for a job they're not suited to. What's next? We're gonna see a clumsy rhino trying to be a surgeon? An elephant that wants to be an astronaut?"
"And you think killing me will also kill all the dreams of mammals?" Judy hissed through her teeth, trying to keep her tears in her eyes. "That they'll just go away with me? Someone else will take up my-"
"I don't think so," John interjected, wagging his head. "There hasn't been anyone like you yet. You're a fluke. Mammals haven't changed drastically in all these years. It was the perfect storm, the sheep, the case, the lion. All of it. All of it led to your 'rise'. The odds of that are like winning the lottery on a specific day. Won't happen again."
"This won't go like you think," Judy scowled adamantly, forcefully blinking away some tears. "I can't be unique in this world. Someone will fight for their dream as fiercely as I did. Fiercer."
"Well, if that somehow happened in my lifetime, I guess I'll just have to deal with them, then," John shrugged, bored. "Just like I'm dealing with you."
"You really think you'll get away with this, then?" Judy hissed. "Killing someone as 'important' as me?"
"Oh, yes, I'm very smart," John nodded. "I was very careful while capturing you not to leave any clues. I'm a chemist, you see. Or, was... no I guess I still technically am. You give the education system the better part of a decade and more money than you could possibly have, just to give a big chemistry company another decade and a half, and they just drop you like a rock because they found someone with 'defter fingers'. I'll bet it was a raccoon."
"The ZPD will find me," Judy swallowed.
"They won't," John countered. "Never. Not in time, and after that, never again." He flashed his light over a tall drum and banged on it. "I'll just dissolve you in a solution after you're dead. Won't be a trace left."
This elicited a choked cry from Judy, and she squinted her eyes shut, shuddering and letting out a sob.
"What, you're crying?" John sounded genuinely confused. "I guess you aren't the brave bunny that the system would like everyone to believe you are. I mean, it wasn't that surprising to me. I knew it was another lie."
"How about trying your luck, then?" Judy summoned a frustrated grunt, struggling against her bonds through her tear-impaired vision. "Release me and I'll take you down, one-on-one."
"No, no, I'm smarter than that," John shook his head. "Why would I do that? That would risk everything. You think I have some sort of pride to maintain? I guess you think this is like some movie or comic where the 'good guy' always wins at the last minute, after the tension is all built up. But no, the tension will pass. I'll leave you alone to die, then I'll dispose of your remains, then Zootopia will eventually forget about you, and maybe the system will stop trying to sell its lies. If not, it'll be someone else sitting where you are."
Judy swallowed hard, starting to feel her last glimmer of hope die out. She hoped that her sacrifice would be enough for this monster. She dared not even think of the name of her partner, lest the hare somehow pick up on thoughts of him, and that he'd want to go after him next. She let out another sob or two as her thoughts kept racing to her partner, her fox.
"Well, bye," John said, reaching to turn off his light. "This could have been avoided, if you weren't slave to that system."
"Wait!" Judy gritted her teeth, trying to rein in her desperation. "You're really going to leave me, huh? You don't want to kill me yourself?"
"Not really," John shrugged. "I planned this all out. I told you, I'm very smart. The end result will be the same anyway, and I don't have to see whatever electrocution does to you."
Judy took three breaths, feeling like she was about to pass out, have a heart attack, or both. There had to have been something she-
"ZPD! PAWS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!"
The bunny gulped in a burst of air.
The hare reached back into his coat pocket and drew his weapon. Quickly, he aimed it at Judy, not the source of the threat.
Judy squeezed her weak eyes shut.
PAHT! PAHT!
The soft sound of a collapse followed the two bursts of sound. The phone producing the flashlight spun around onto its back, spitting a cone of light into the abandoned chemical facility Judy was trapped in, and John's body was illuminated next to it.
Judy's breaths started heaving, and she started crying again in a kind of panicked relief. Her brain had finally told her who's voice it was that had saved her.
A tall tigress stepped out into the beam of light, holding her firearm at the ready.
"Thanks for giving me the reason, scum," Kristen Fangmeyer said. The tall tigress checked the hare's neck for a pulse and found none.
"Fangmeyer...!" Judy's desperate voice whimpered.
"Hopps!" Fangmeyer went toward her and raised her radio to demand medical assistance.
Judy's relief started to take its toll on her consciousness. Her ears heard buzzing, and her head felt light. She knew her senses were giving up.
"Fangmeyer, area's clear," the voice of Stanley Wolfard, followed by loud sniffs. "No other guys. Suspect down?"
"Affirmative," Fangmeyer nodded. "We've got to get Hopps loose. You have the clippers?"
"Got it," Wolfard replied.
Judy felt her head gain weight and bob to the side.
"Stay with us, Hopps, c'mon..." Fangmeyer said, her voice serious but somehow kind. "You can do this, Judy, you're strong. Fight for us."
But after that, blackness swallowed her.
Loud sirens and flashes of blue and red pulled her back.
"She's very weak, we need to get her on an IV immediately," a deer nurse. Vaguely, she heard the scuttling of a gurney she realized she must be on.
"Hang in there, Hopps!" The commanding voice of Chief Bogo.
"Judy!" Finally, the sound of Nick Wilde. "JUDY! Is she-!? Oh, she's breathing, thank God, thank GOD!"
"Nick..." she breathed out almost inaudibly, and the comfort of his voice made her surrender back to the void.
"Judy...!?"
"Officer Hopps?"
Judy's eyes opened, blurry at first, then quickly focusing on a small mammal near her bed. She instantly flinched and panicked at realizing she was in an unfamiliar area. She tried to scoot back in her bed, and heard a rattling. She looked up to see an IV machine near the bed.
"Whoa, easy, Ms. Hopps!" The female ferret nurse held up her paws defensively, backing away from the bed. "You're okay."
Judy settled, realizing she was in a hospital bed. The kind-faced ferret nurse approached once she'd calmed down.
"How are you feeling...?" The nurse asked.
Judy closed her eyes, holding them shut for a moment. "Not great." Her voice was heavy and sullen.
"I understand," the nurse nodded, holding a small tablet. "On a scale of one to ten, how much pain would you say you're in?"
Judy opened her eyes. She'd never quantified how much pain she'd been in before. Her wrists and ankles still hurt, and her head still throbbed.
"...About a six?"
"Understood, we'll get you something for the pain," the nurse went on. "My name's Carla Pedshark, by the way, just buzz me if you need anything else."
"Pedshark...?" Judy blinked. "That sounds fam- wait a second..."
The ferret gave a soft little laugh. "You might say I have some ties to the ZPD."
Judy let out a heavy sigh. "I'm glad I'm with you tonight and not your husband." An image flashed in the bunny's head of her being on the ZPD's medical examiner's table. She shivered.
"As am I, Officer Hopps..." the ferret's smile waned, but she nodded genuinely. Before the nurse left Judy's room, she turned. "Oh, one more thing. When you are up to it, Chief Bogo would like to speak to you."
Judy paused, feeling a strange twinge of power and relief at the control being afforded her, even though it was such a simple thing. "Sure. Send him in."
"As you wish," Carla nodded.
A minute or so later, a cross-looking Chief Bogo ducked his head and turned sideways to enter the room. Judy frowned at his expression, but a rust-colored blur scrambled in behind him, explaining his scowl.
"Wilde!" Bogo growled out, then seeing Judy, tried to lower his voice. "I told you to wait outside."
"With all due respect, sir, I think I have a right to see my partner," Nick countered as bravely as he could.
"I have matters to discuss with her, can't you wait until then?" Bogo's even voice carried a sense of threat in it.
"Sir, I should have been the one sent in to-"
"No, Wilde," Bogo said through his teeth. "We have been over this. You are too emotionally close to your partner to have been the best choice to send in. Now, I detest you questioning my methods, especially since the results are laying right over there." He gestured at Judy. "Are we done?"
"It's okay, Nick," Judy offered a small smile to appease the upset-looking fox.
Nick pointed in her direction briefly. "I'll be back when the Chief's done." The fox reluctantly left.
Bogo shut the door quietly, and stepped over to Judy, settling down on his haunches.
"How are you doing?"
"Could be better," Judy admitted. "How did you guys find me?"
"It would take awhile to explain," Bogo answered. "But rest assured I will make the time to have it explained to you soon. I wanted to let you know that you will be taking time off of your duties. Mandatory."
"Yes sir," Judy nodded gently.
The lack of resistance actually pushed Bogo's brow up and made him look concerned. "...Ah, and, to add to that, we will help you find a counselor if you feel it necessary. These types of experiences can be very taxing on any mammal."
"Thank you," the bunny replied quietly.
"The ZPD takes care of its own, Judy Hopps, and you are ours," Bogo looked at her seriously. "If we can do anything else to assist you, ask."
"Thank you so much, Chief," Judy let out a heavy sigh. "I really thought I might be done for there..."
Chief Bogo nodded sadly. "I've got officers investigating our 'John Buck', and I will have a security detail for you until we see if he had any accomplices."
Judy felt like she should protest, but she felt so vulnerable at the moment that she wouldn't mind even McHorn and Trunkaby following her around. All she did was nod.
"Rest well, Hopps."
Chief Bogo took his leave. Outside the door was Nick, who exchanged a steely look with his superior before silently being admitted to the room. Nick came in and closed the door.
"Thank God you're all right..." Nick huffed out.
"I wouldn't go that far yet," Judy mumbled, looking at him, then past him. "But I'm as safe as I can be."
Nick looked at her, and the bunny could tell his heart was breaking. He looked as helpless as she felt.
He tried to gather himself, appearing friendly, though not at ease. "Well, listen, Judy. You need anything, you just let me know, okay? I'll get it for you. Up to and including smuggling you in some real food instead of hospital dreck. You know, heh. I'm your guy. Slippery sneaky fox."
"Anything, huh?" Judy gave a tiny grin. "I can hold you to that?"
Nick paused, and got an almost pitiable look on his face. "Yeah. ...Even if you just want me to leave."
"No, no no no..." Judy shook her head. "Not that. Anything but that. Could you just... be here with me?"
Nick nodded readily and sat by her bed. "Until they fling me out."
Judy gave a relaxed smile and nodded. "Okay." She offered the paw of the arm that was not laden with an IV. Nick's paw trembled a little as he tried to restrain himself from grabbing her paw too firmly.
The fox found himself at an honest loss for words. He gazed in Judy's face, and, through her pain, he could see something like relief in the shape of her eyes. The lids shut over them, and she scooted back into her bed.
The bunny was very tired. She didn't know how long she'd been able to be "out" while she was experiencing that hell she was subjected to, but it wasn't long enough. She was confident that her fox partner would be there to watch over her if she needed a little shut-eye.
And she very much did.