"WE GOT A TEN DOUBLE ZERO, OFFICER DOWN, OFFICER DOWN!"
"Please stay with me..." Cries of sopping despair prevented the officer from speaking coherently. Paroxysms of emotion erupted from her clenched gut and threatened at the cusp of her throat, frothing like a vat of acid. Hot tears welled up at the precipice of her ducts, its weight staggering her long lashes before her widened purple haze; almost hues of midnight purple in the low light.
The officer's too-small hands covered a bloody stomach as well and tightly as she could through trembling hands. She fought the geyser of hot, sticky blood as that bubbled between her miniscule digits, her own heart jumping like a tick as the flow didn't seem to be slowing anytime soon. She was growing frustrated at herself as she felt like with all that she built towards in her career didn't mean squat if she couldn't help Nick; if she couldn't help her partner! She let out a frightening cry of worry, then as though triggering an avalanche, tears seemed to cascade from her reddening eyes down her dampening nose and onto the reddish fur of her downed partner like a water hose.
She removed her red left paw from his gushing stomach wound and shakily grasped her walkie to repeat her call.
"T-TEN DOUBLE ZERO, TEN DOUBLE ZERO, TEN… STAY WITH ME NI-CK!"
"OFFICER HOPPS, WHAT IS YOUR LOCATION?" Clawhauser could be heard over the radio, his usual professional demeanor cracking with anxiety. Within the radio's tinny receiver, officers could be heard converging and getting ready to roll out as soon as they retrieve Officer Hopps' coordinates. "All cars standby, all cars standby we have a possible code double zero." His voice deepened slightly by the grave gravity of the situation.
Judy tried to wiped her blurry vision away with her arm and then peered down the dark, long alleyway for any sort of a road sign, but to no avail. She could probably find one if she ran out of the alleyway, but the thought of leaving Nick's side punched her in the gut. "I- I'm in an alleyway-" She mused absentmindedly to keep the line hot as she tried to collect herself professionally.
"Nick and I left our original patrol route to follow some suspicious-" She paused as she checked Nick again. "Suspicious activity down by the warehouse district." Nick's eyes fluttered briefly before then his throat convulsed and he began sputtering up blood suddenly, interrupting Judy's already derailing train of thought. Judy almost dropped him in horror. His eyelashes began to flutter erratically as his body was beginning to be thrown into shock. "NICK!" Judy scrambled to
lift his head up higher so his own precious blood wouldn't drown him.
Clawhauser was silent for a moment as papers were flipped on his end. Then finally he came back on hot, "Judy, we need you to try and tell me where you are. Landmarks, numbers, signs, a constellation, something, what do you see?" Clawhauser tried to respond professionally. Through the radio, Judy could then hear the cheetah call for medics and for someone to call Chief Bogo on his personal phone.
Staring at Nick's wound gave Judy a new sensation of numbness to her senses. She knew she has to act fast to minimize the possibility of losing her partner. With her glassy eyes on Nick, and her right paw firmly pressed on the bleeding hole in his gut, she gripped him firmly with her soggy paws under his arms. Her right arm stretched awkwardly to give some sort of attention to his wound, left cheek to his muzzle, she then slowly began to drag his body through the dirty alleyway to the street.
"Stay with me, Nick. Stay with me, we're almost there, please-" She tried her best to keep the growing knot in her throat down to a minimum as she spoke sweetly to her partner. Her heart felt like it was trying to climb out of her throat as she gasped for breath, but never did she falter her pace nor dropped Nick's head an inch as she pulled him towards the open street.
A fourth of the way, his eyelashes ceased its fluttering. Halfway, his pulse was but a frail bird. Judy bucked teeth gripped her lip like a life preserver as she fought with the torrential seas of feeling within her mind. Seeing him barely register her touch or sounds by the tiniest twitched of muscle and his ears sent a pulled her stomach from below. Her mind was a like a casino game at this point, the contents and sensations all being alien and new at the time, randomizing priority until finally she began cooing to her partner in a sappy-sweet tone.
Then it was scratching behind his ears with her chin, trying to tickle him with her left paw, then half-hearted singing. She didn't know how else to spur a reaction, she feared him losing consciousness.
Interrupting her song, her eyes dilated as she looked back at the distance they've covered. Blood. So much blood. Deep, dark red blood painted Nick's furrow; gritty with dirt and dust. The dim moonlight above illuminated the glimmering trail of the red liquid against the dark shadows and gloom surrounding them.
No! She snapped her gaze up indescrimimantly at whatever. Don't look, look ahead, don't break down now. She could feel a stomach churning combination of nausea and massive body racking sobs threaten to fuse and eliminate her stumbling spirit. Just think of what he'll say if you dared stop now.
"You big, dumb bunny…" Judy muttered to no one in particular, reminding herself of Nick's sly remarks, fueling her determination, at least whatever's it worth. Judy turned her head sharply from the sour vestige of Nick's declining health and valiantly trudged forward.
"Almost there Nick, almost there." His heart began to slightly rise in rhythm at a third of a way to the street. By now Judy could see more of the road. She pressed the worn red button on her radio,
"I- I see a-" Her eyes scrolled from the exposed street and warehouse faces to Nick's hyperventilating chest, prompting her to check her partner one more time, she noted that his heart rate was now racing like a speed demon.
"Oh, cheese and crackers! Nick stay with me, I got you, I won't let you go!" She pulled her walkie up to her mouth once more, but in doing so she lost balance and stepped awry, and so Judy's right foot accidentally tripped over a misplaced brick in the middle of the alleyway, sending her backwards, dropping Nick's head against her hand and with the weight of it all slamming against her knuckles onto the concrete conglomerate floor below.
Pain pierced her hand and hind leg like a stake. In the dust, her radio slid across the ground.
"Dammit." She muttered under her breath. Her heart dropped into her stomach as she realized that she had just dropped Nick. She tried to get up and her teeth clasped together as the searing, vibrating pain gnawed at her achilles. She spotted her walkie a couple feet from her, its tawdry speaker crackling from the disrupted signal it was receiving. Judy bit her lip as she flipped onto her stomach, being careful about her partner, and then reached for the walkie.
Come on, just a bit further...Her knuckles throbbed as she clutched the radio firmly and readiedherself to read out the street sign which was finally visible by her perspective towards the end of the alley. She aimed her eyes like bronoculars at the street sign and readied to press the button to relay. What she heard next made her feel as though she had unconsciously swallowed the radio instead.
"11mt- ware-hous- lemn stree-"
Judy gasped and stared into the dust covered grilled speaker as though she was trying to see who it was that spoke through the same channel. She knew who it was, unfortunately...
His voice sounded like fields during heavy drought seasons.
That voice, that feeble, small voice; it sounded so close to doom.
Nick…
Judy's skin beneath her fur grew cold. Her eyes widened and played a tennis match of focusing and blurring as mental shock dominated her. Her stomach felt as though it was being used for batting practice.
There was a tangible beat of silence and in the background barely picked up by the microphone on Clawhauser's terminal, officers could be discerned to be asking if that was Wilde. Then Clawhauser broke from his trance and his business model was back on. "ELEVENTH WAREHOUSE ON LEMON STREET! ALL CARS CONVERGE AROUND THE ELEVENTH WAREHOUSE ON LEMON STREET!" Clawhauser barked into his radio. "Attention all medical personnel-"
Judy wasn't listening anymore. She didn't think that she could hear anything anymore after she just heard her partner… her friend… Nick sounded as though Father Time was packing up his last clock for the fox.
"Nick…"
Her ears flicked tentatively as the first droplets of rain kissed her fur, chilling her body, but she was already shivering. The downpour continued subsequently, but not from the darkening clouds above that were being painted across the starry sky. The sounds of the shy droplets tapping away at the dusty concrete and metal roofs of the crowded warehouses. Powerful feelings of horror and the gnawing urge to pounce back on Nick clashed against each other. She didn't want to entertain the thought that the silent vigil of stillness that Nick exhibited was due to his expiration. She rebuked those thoughts. Though they pestered, she bashed those heart-stomping thoughts back down to her own oblivion and then lept from the her spot on the coarse ground and towards the pile of russet-furred stillness before her.
With the sound of blood rushing through her ears blocking out the incoming screaming thoughts in her head, the echoing sirens in the distance, and her fellow officers shouting their locations and repeating orders on the shared channel, she could only focus on Nick. There was no other thing of importance in the whole world but Nick.
She scrambled in the dust and picked his head up off the ground gingerly and pulled his slightly damp body onto her lap. She relished in happiness for a breath of a second as she held her cheek close to his, grey and red fur intertwining. " Thank goodness, thank you, thank you!" Her cries ping-ponged off the surrounding metal walls and into the heavens.
She then reverted her attention to his stomach wound and with more energy than before tightly held his stomach to prevent any more lifeblood from escaping his body. She felt hot tears boil in the rims of her eyes as she felt the sticky, warm blood seep through her paws again. She took a sad glance at his face but immediately took a double take as she realized that he was looking at her through the tiniest slits and between tiny, sweat-clumped eyelashes.
Judy's small heart swelled and the feeling that she harbored for him overflowed in the form of happy tears, unintelligible chitters, and a pressing herself into the fur on his face and holding him as though she could protect him from any ethereal beings that may try and consume him. "Nick, I'm so happy that you're still here with me. Nick, Nick, I-" Her voice struggled to form into the words she desperately wanted to say. Instead she dug her muzzle into his neck and purred away, her tiny claws gripping him closer. After a beat, she withdrew and smiled dearly at him, a couple of his red, damp strands of fur clinging to her face. "Stay with me, Nick. We're gonna get through this together. I promise I won't let anything happen to you again, I promise that I'll be forever by your side, Nick! I won't let you go, you mean so much to me, what am I going to do without you!? Help is on the way, don't you hear it?"
She relished that both of his ears were facing attentively towards her as though they gobbled up every word she said, but his eyes never opened up any further than it had before. Speaks of green hiding behind the tiniest line of lashes. For several seconds they shared a look. The pattering of the rain growing heavier and the over-excited gasps of Judy and the background cacophony of multiple police sirens was the music to this noir.
Finally, she found the exact words that she wanted to say, her heart at full mast. Her becoming smile graceful, and her lips poised with a simple sentence forged from over a year of tasteful memories, experiences, and sensations that filled the small bunny with vivifying vitality.
"Nicholas, I-"
Her voice seized in her throat as she felt Nick slowly turn his muzzle towards the base of her ear. The sensation tickled, but she was forced to swallow her laughter as her ears was met with a strained wheeze that barely had the inflections that denoted speech.
"..."
Judy looked down at him in trepidation, and his eyes, through the slimmest slits of his eyelids, glistened back at her, and then slowly they closed.
And then there were no sound from him.
And then suddenly the rain felt like pin pricks made of chilliest bite of the polar districts wind.
And then the sounds of the night blundered into a stale hush.
And then… and then…
"Nick?"
"-"
"Nick…?" Judy's tiny paws gently jostled his body, her digits desperately searching for his heartbeat. Horror in the shape of a serpent slithered about in her belly as she couldn't find it. She couldn't find it! He wasn't moving, he wasn't responding, she couldn't fathom it, it just wasn't true! She jostled harder, she forced his eyes open, her red paws gripping the lapels of his soaked uniform, her eyes desperately searching his face!
"-"
"NICK!"
(-)
Car 009 were the first on site. The huge vehicle barreled through the outside checkpoint and roared down the steady decline to the warehouses. Wipers slapped furiously across the windshield as Officers Francine and McHorn turned down Lemon Street. "Approaching Lemon Street, I do not have a visual on Hopps and Wilde yet." Officer Francine announced on her car's radio. "In search now." On cue, Officer McHorn's massive digit pressed the spotlight button on the center console.
"Copy that Car 9." Clawhauser relayed. "Paramedics ETA 3 minutes. Cars 12, 16, 22, and 23 ETA 6 minutes." There was a pause. "Chief Bogo ETA 8 minutes."
McHorn and his partner shared a glance, but their lips were sealed by the grim circumstances. Francine slowed down to allow Officer McHorn to properly search each alleyway they passed with the onboard spotlight. Under the light's brilliance the downpour looked like crystals hitting the ground then shattering into a million shards of itself. The rhino's face held together like stone as he thought about his fellow comrades and what he and Francine may find when they find Hopps and Wilde. His stony facade only hardened further when he thought of Chief Bogo's presence and how he'll take it.
"McHorn." Francine turned down the scanner radio to hush the incoming calls that their fellow officers were en-route to the warehouse district. The rhino grunted in acknowledgment as he aimed the spotlight down another alleyway, his thoughts unraveling like frayed rope. She pointed down the lane at a ZPD police car that was crudely wedged between a narrow corridor between warehouse eleven and an auxiliary building beside it.
"Go on the other side!" McHorn directed with his large fingers.
Officer Francine nodded and hit the gas as they barreled down the alleyway. They pulled a hard left turn and looked down the corridor between warehouse eleven and the auxiliary building that Officers Hopps and Wilde's police interceptor was wedged between.
The patrol car lurched to a stop and Francine muted the wail of the sirens instinctively. The only sound now permeating the night was the rhythmic swabbing of the windshield wipers and the drumming of the rain. Her gasp at what her car's headlamps was aimed at disrupted the scene and her hesitation added urgency to McHorn's response who sighed a resigned sigh as he launched himself out of the car.
At the mouth of the alley, just a car length from the street sat Judy. Silent and still, in Judy's lap lied a matted Nicholas Wilde. Judy's head face hung over her partner in a silent vigil as she protected his body. She was like a mother who was consoling her kit, or more affectionately a lover holding her betrothed. It was a terrifyingly beautiful sight. The bright lights of the patrol car splashed them with a crystalline shower. The rain that pelted them were like a steady stream of pearls in a cloud of evaporation that swirled around their bodies like a phantom. Like a solemn work of art, Judy's body held Nick's own into her embrace with companionship, and together they both remained still, even at the presence of Francine's patrol car.
Officer McHorn finally reached the two. "McHorn to Dispatch, we found Officer Hopps and Officer Wilde." As he crouched to tend to his fellow officers he noticed Judy's blank, sullen expression upon her shadowed face, her long ears rejected any light from Francine's car from reaching her empty face. He gulped at the sight of brokenness and then reached to check for Wilde's pulse.
His heart froze, his pupils dilated and then after a couple seconds, he snapped back to his senses. It was not the first time Officer McHorn have seen death, and tonight will not be the last; thus be the sublime evil of the job.
McHorn looked to Judy and after a second of taking in the haunting stare she held that seemed to peer through Nick's sodden body he asked her, "Did you administer CPR?" His tone was as hard as a tree's trunk, but yet soft as the fruit one may bear.
Judy merely stared at the wound she was currently staring through and a deep wave of shame stuffed itself into her chest that was already full with anguish. Did she? She didn't remember doing so. All she remembered was the turmoil of realizing that his heart had ceased beating, then she remembered the out of body sensation of being lost in space, her mind broken just much as the mess her heart was in.
Of course.
Of course, she didn't.
The absolute shock of his heart stopping did something to Judy. For once in her life she forgot everything.
In the absence of her answer, and before McHorn could do anything further, a couple more police officers arrived at the scene including the ZEP (Zootopia Emergency Paramedics). Officers Howle and Officer Fangmeyer, Officer Rhinowitz and Officer Johnson, and the paramedics, a team of beavers, ran straight for the trio at the vestibule of the alleyway.
McHorn responded a couple more times on his radio, finally being joined by Francine who had took time to take a quick search around their surroundings, and then peered down at Judy once more, noticing that even to the arrival of more officers and the paramedics that she flinched as much as a mountain. Francine murmured something in his ear quickly before joining Howle and Fangmeyer, but he wasn't listening as he watched Hopps.
One of the beavers cloaked Judy in a thick shock blanket and began gripping her gently and coaxing the distressed officer off of Nick as the other two beavers, brawnier than the first and carrying a stretcher, carefully laid the fox-sized stretcher beside the still vulpine and then proceeded to gently lift Nick onto the stretcher.
However, as soon as Judy felt the beavers push her back and remove Nick from her possession, Judy fell into a frantic frenzy. Her eyes glued to his sopping body, she thrashed in the nurse's hands and lurched back on his body before the two assistants could lift Nick from the ground. She had let him out of her sight earlier tonight… and that's when he got shot… She was not about to let him out of her sight now!
Her eyes widened. "No! Wait, let go of me!" Judy screeched once the nurse desperately tried to retrieve her. The lady nurse achieved a single foot before the distraught bunny twisted her lithe body out of the larger mammal's reach. Beside her though, and shaking himself from his initial shock, McHorn blocked Judy's frantic, rebellious frenzy to get back to Nick's side. The lady nurse that cloaked Judy before nodded her gratitude to the senior officer and briskly placed another shock blanket onto Judy's shoulders. The brawnier beavers took their chance to hoist Nick into the air between themselves and quickly hopped back into the back of the ambulance.
"Please stay calm Miss Hopps, I understand that you may be feeling distraught, but please let us-" the nurse started, her voice warbling slightly. She held a sympathetic face as she witnessed the 'Hero Cop of Zootopia' bawl hysterically. Her caring eyes quickly jumped to apprehension as Judy's face transformed into anger on the verge of malice. McHorn even looked slightly bewildered, if not intimidated.
"You don't know!" She spat next, her accusing tone like dagger, her reddening eyes piercing the professional veil of the nurse. "That's my partner, my friend, my- Nick!" Tiny droplets of spittle flung from her trembling lips. "He was here for me whenever I needed a hand, but under my watch he was- he was-" Words of deep emotion, deeper than what everyone else perceived, got caught in the little bunny's throat like a sharp taco shell.
"Nick! Let me get to him!" Anger that couldn't be reigned in shown viciously with the color red. The nurse apologized profusely, but she quickly left for she had a job to do, leaving Officer McHorn in an odd position of abeyance.
The toughened rhino had his fisted hand down before the rattied bunny 4 feet below his chin. She held fast her position for the moment, but her big puffy eyes never left the figure of Nick inside of the ambulance. He wanted to console her as she was a fellow officer, but on the other hand, she is a cop now, such accidents and tribulations are part for the course, but then on someone else's hand, as everyone only have two, this is her first murder; first death even, that she have witnessed first hand, and to add to that with much injury, he was her partner and best friend. He sighed internally and found it more comfortable with holding still in the face of an intimidating predator. That predator's name was death.
She nibbled on her blunt claws, she rapped her foot upon the warm, damp asphalt, she murmured almost silently to herself and she even craned her neck about trying to get a glimpse of Nick as the nurse stepped in the back of the vehicle and began to close the doors, leaving it open only for a gasp of a second only to relay a message to someone on the other side of the door, then finally she snapped the door shut.
Judy then went from 0-100 in a millisecond, her eyes popping out her head and her tiny body pouncing into the air as though she was gonna hunt down the ambulance and everyone within to get back to her fox.
The unicorned officer beside her was lost of patience however, "Officer Hopps, let the animals do their job!" Officer McHorn said with a tone like taxes and a heap of paperwork. He looked down at Judy, deep within his eyes he was as hurt as she was. She knew that much. She bit her lip and fought for control over herself. "Hopps…" He said again as she began to pace and pound her foot against the sodden ground in anxiety. Judy looked up to him once more, this time she fought tears and a bellow of sadness from erupting from her gullet.
Judy held herself as closely as she could. She felt alone here. She felt naked. She held herself close. There were no one else now that can console her. So she held herself close. The discord around her was as organized as it has ever been. This is a murder scene after all. Blood, a single bullet casing, a fleeing perpetrator, and a dead body. Classic. This was just another crime scene…
Delgato and Francine was taping the perimeter. Wolford and his team was sniffing around trying to pinpoint a scent of any kind. Officer Johnson and his team were combing the vastness of the warehouse district for anything and everything. Soon forensics will be here for the late shift to collect anything that could be swabbed and stuffed into a sterile bag. Then Bogo will come and give the scene a heavy frown and leave without much word else. Normal.
As the cops around her did their duties, most ignoring the distraught bunny or giving her space, they crisscrossed and zigzagged around her. She felt cooler to the skin the further the wailing ambulance skirted away. She stood there silently staring down the misty road as she watched the ever shrinking image of her partner through the tiny windows of the vehicle leave her. Some fellow officers rallied up behind her for support, but what's going to support her ever weakening mind? Who's going to make her laugh as she patrolled the city? Who's going to make her feel appreciated as Nick do?
A twinge of desperation, loss, and emotional vexation clamored in her head. She fought off the tantalizing thought of chasing down the ambulance on foot. She desperately wanted to go to
Nick, to ensure that he wouldn't become a loss. She wanted to be by his side no matter what because without him… there is no other partner for her.
She held her head low, her ears heavy like seaweed. Then from the bowels of her mindspace, a voice nibbled on the back of her mind. A voice that set the whole house on fire.
You don't deserve him as a partner…
Judy's eyes begin to widen as she heard evils whisper in her mind. Tongues of ambiguity vexed her. Uncertainty, anguish, dread, guilt jumped her. Tightening, constricting, suffocating; her breath was caught in her throat. Her heart began to race.
You let him die…
Judy's foot started to pound the ground absentmindedly as she tried to push those terrible thoughts out of her mind, in reality her eyes seemed to stare through the third-dimension. She didn't even realize the huge figure walking directly towards her. "I didn't kill him…. I didn't kill him…" she muttered quietly. BAH! Those evil thoughts, those painful thoughts laughed at her incredulous attempts to free herself from her guilt. Those inner thoughts wouldn't be silenced so easily.
He died on your watch…
He wouldn't have died if you hadn't put him in this position. He would have been happier as a con-artist. And now, he's dead trying live out your dream.
He's going to die trying to live out your dream.
Judy fell into a mental lock; locking eyes with her conscious. What if I was the reason why he died? Would he truly had been happier if I hadn't persuaded him to pursue this career with me? Would he truly had been happier if he stayed a lowly con-mammal? Amidst of the questions thattorpedoed her mind-vessel, she took a zombie glance at the burly buffalo before her and then felt a darkening cloud consume her senses. The warm concrete fell away from her numb feet. The sky floated away. Her colleagues diminished from her senses. Her heart slowed to an adagissimo. Her eyes closed. Her mind drifted. Her soul sullen. And then slowly, she fell to the earth.
Nick...