Run

She had stopped shaking long ago. Well, maybe it was long ago, but she really couldn't tell. It sure felt like ages had passed, but in reality, it was probably no more than a couple of minutes that she had been shrouded in darkness. The shock of adrenaline was wearing off, but not totally gone. She was scared, though, no doubt about that. She couldn't move at all, her whole body felt numb.

The burlap sack made her itch as it rubbed against her neck and face. It was a shame that her paws were still locked behind her back. Being able to relieve herself of that slight discomfort felt like a desire of many years.

As if her captors could sense her silent plea, the bag was removed, as well as the cloth from her mouth. Her tongue felt dry, and she moved it around in her mouth to hopefully get it moist again. As she did so, she caught a few strands of cloth tasting of lemony spring detergent. Had she not just been kidnapped, she would have been flustered by them.

Judy blinked a few times, her eyes adjusted to the dark back of the cargo van, and she saw two familiar shapes staring back.

"Sorry about that, Miss Hopps. Let me be the first to say that this was not my idea, per se."

Eyes went wide throughout the back of the van. Judy's mouth hung open, disbelief coursing through her veins as Arturo and Isabella watched her with a strange interest, made stranger once Judy reconciled seeing her captors in this rusty old van rather than the brightly-lit debate stage.

"Oh, Arturo, how gracious you are," Isabella teased before turning to a truly confounded Judy. "It was as much his idea as it was mine."

"I only suggested it! I didn't think you would even consider the notion of kidnapping our oppone—"

"Enough!" Judy screamed, finally digging out some words buried somewhere in her shock. "Could someone please tell me what is going on?!"

Judy's eyes flicked to some movement in the cabin. Two other wolves sat in the front seats. The driver momentarily made eye contact with Judy before a soundproof partition slowly moved its way up and trapped their conversation to the three in the back.

Arturo examined the partition to ensure it was properly and fully sealed, though he kept his voice to a whisper as he addressed Judy. "Leodore figured it was time to bring you in. He called and told me to come and get you."

Judy cocked her head, hoping it would help her confused mind process this new info. All along, she'd thought of Lionheart as another crooked politician, lying and cheating to get what he wanted. Perhaps she was wrong about him. "You knew...about this…the whole time?" Judy said.

Arturo gained Judy's attention with a smile and a miniscule nod of his head. "We've both been very involved in keeping the Citizen's Council appeased, Miss Hopps. My darling wife has played a much larger role than you think."

"Of course. This campaign has taken so much of his time away. He couldn't have possibly done everything on his own, so I stepped in and did some of the work for him," Izabella added, her voice as buttery smooth as it had been during that ill-fated dinner. Judy hated how much she envied the wolf's calmness when to her it felt like things were going a million miles a second. For that matter, both wolves seemed so cool about the situation, almost like they were prepared for it.

"But wait... why exactly are you doing this? What part could I possibly play in this weird game?" Judy asked.

"As I said, Leodore felt that you were ready to know about the Council. But obviously, such information couldn't be given in the space of five minutes. We are his advocates, if you will. I would have much preferred a more formal and friendly greeting, but this one thought there wasn't enough time," Arturo said, pointing with his thumb over to his wife, who scoffed at him but decided not to press the issue any further. They had more important matters to discuss.

"So, Miss Hopps…ask away. What do you want to know?"

Her mind had been going at maximum speed the moment she was captured, so everything was still sinking in. And oh, did Judy have so many questions. It was impossible to know where to start.

She spent a few moments of the drive simply waiting for those two to explain themselves. Perhaps they'd figure out what the silence meant, or a wave of conscience would overtake them and they'd spill the beans. When that didn't happen, she paused and pondered.

Out of the whole mess, there was still one thing that she was as clueless on as ever. For the majority of her campaign, she had wondered what the Council actually did, and that was part of what she wanted to figure out.

"Why keep this a secret?" she asked. It was fair enough since she had been kept in the dark about the Council since she first thought about running for mayor. To her pleasant surprise, just like Lionheart, Arturo gave her a straight answer.

"We felt is was for the best. With where you are, it didn't seem fitting that you knew exactly how the city was run. We are still political opponents, Miss Hopps. I didn't feel that you would be ready to know this before you potentially took office."

Her earlier reticence slipped away, and long-held questions poured out of her. "But why not confront the Council directly? As the leader of the city, I'd think you'd be able to limit what they can and can't control."

Arturo smiled as she shook his head. "If only it were that simple. The Council runs the city, not me, and when Lionheart was in power, he didn't either. But we are two wolves, Miss Hopps. We can be easily removed, driven away. With where we are now, we can keep the Council just happy enough to prevent something terrible from happening."

"But what kind of bad stuff could the Council possibly cause? It seems to me that they need someone just as bad to work through."

"Use your imagination. Who do you think gave Bellwether access to the Nighthowlers? It was the Council that made that whole ordeal possible, and with something like that on their resumé, I don't think it would be smart for either of us to let our guard down in regards to what they can and can't do."

A shockwave pulsed through Judy's mind. She was unsure if she could really believe that it was the Citizen's Council that allowed the Nighthowler incident to happen. The thought of a group of mammals actually thinking that would be a good idea was… repulsive, but more than that, it was impossible. All this time, she thought it came from Bellwether's sick and perverted mind. This was much more disturbing knowing that several mammals wanted to see prey take over and subjugate predators like that.

"Why? Why would they do something like that? What could they possibly hope to gain?"

"It is the nature of the beast. They enjoy watching the world burn, though in the end, it boils down to power," Arturo said with discontent. "Discord is their specialty. By pitting predator against prey, they would have been able to take control without much trouble, and Bellwether was more than happy to go with it. The issue comes when you stopped her and exposed her plan. They didn't necessarily like you pulling back the curtain."

"So they decide to threaten me now? Why at this time?"

"Well, for starters, they thought they had another puppet when I gained control. They figured you were out of the question, and I'd be a walk in the park to control. No one ever guessed that you'd be interested in politics, so just like when you became a police officer, you shocked the entire city. By running for mayor, you threatened the Council again. They knew that you were a real threat to their way of life, so it was time for them to get rid of you, which, in their minds, would make it easier to take control of City Hall once I'd taken office. I would resist, of course, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't try."

"But what about Mansoa? Where does he come into all of this? Surely I'm missing something."

"We knew he was a mole for the Council. It was fairly obvious, after a little bit of observation, of course, that he was telling the Council about everything we did. The only issue was that we could never prove it, at least not until he went missing." Arturo emphasized the word "missing" with air quotes, telling Judy that his disappearance was not exactly as it seemed.

"We set him up with a fake report on spending money to improve a small community center in town. We caught him reporting in on it and confronted him, but he got the better of us and disappeared without a trace."

There was one thing that didn't make sense to Judy. "Why not tell the police that?"

"We wanted to try and handle it on our own. Already having a disadvantage with him being missing, we felt that police involvement might spook him further. It wasn't a risk we were willing to take."

Judy, being the one who investigated the Mansoa case, knew that there was a lot of media coverage of the investigation. While most of the attention was due to her position as a mayoral candidate and not about the actual case, it still made the whole incident known throughout the city. Had any other officer taken the case, it wouldn't have received nearly as much publicity, she figured.

There was a single memory about the Mansoa investigation that nearly slipped away into the depths of her mind, but she reeled it out, confused as to how the simple item played into all of this, if it did at all.

"But what about the shirt?" Judy asked, remembering the article of clothing being sized for a mammal no larger than Mansoa. Judy heard Izabella chuckle from the other side of the car.

"My husband tried to do laundry once. He set the dry cycle too high and his favorite campaign shirt shriveled. When it came out, it was barely big enough to fit a normal sized-hyena."

"And that was the last time she let me do laundry, too. It wasn't the only bit of clothing that became atrociously small that night," Arturo added with a chuckle.

"But why even put it out there? Were you trying to throw us off?"

"Not at all, Miss Hopps," Lobos said. "We hoped it would get him out of hiding, or at least get someone to look harder. It didn't work in our favor, however. They just wanted more of you."

Judy was starting to feel things click. This new information proved to be incredibly useful, but she couldn't quite put all of the pieces together. Her mind kept going back to her interview on Peter Moosebridge's show.

"Forgive me for asking this, but I am rather curious, Mrs. Lobos. Was it you that exposed my feelings for Nick?"

The she-wolf smiled, brushing off any ill feelings born from Judy's accusation. "Not at all. Those are your feelings, Miss Hopps. I would never share something like that so callously."

"Then who did?"

"I suppose anyone could have guessed it. You two do work tremendously close together. I imagine it was only a matter of time before someone started up that rumor."

Thinking about it that way made her realize just how obvious she must have been without her even realizing it. Judy had always been someone to really show her feelings, though would tread lightly around things as personal and private as that. However, this was the least of her concern at the time. Judy, Arturo, and Izabella knew that there were much more important things to be discussed.

"What do we do about them?" Judy asked. "Is the city ready to know about the Council?"

Arturo nodded. "Now is the time to expose them, Ms. Hopps. I can only imagine it would cause even more unease with our fellow Zootopians if we waited until after the election. The Council is not going to go away on its own, nor is it going to be as simple as flicking away a crumb from your shirt. It may take some time to be rid of them entirely, but the sooner we start, the better."

"Wouldn't it have been a bit easier to tell me this nearer the beginning of the campaign? Seems to me like you've wasted a lot of valuable time."

"Well… yes and no. Yes, it would have been great to have several days added to exposing the Council, but remember, you aren't exactly a political veteran, Miss Hopps. To throw you into another government conspiracy would be like tossing a two-year-old in a lake and expecting them to swim. You needed to figure things out for yourself, first, then we could bring you into it."

Judy realized that he was right. As much as they needed time on their side, her jumping right into this would have been potentially disastrous. But as she continued to think, she started to wonder how much of this she actually figured out on her own. Since the first day of her candidacy, Nick was by her side almost constantly, and when he wasn't, he was destroying his phone battery trying to make sure that she was ready for everything. Her interview with Peter Moosebridge marked the first time she'd truly been alone since the beginning. It made her realize how much she needed him.

"I have no idea what to do, Arturo. I know what I want, but… I keep asking myself, did I make a mistake by getting into this? Would it all be worth it in the end if we had to go through this whole charade just to try and help people?"

"I think the journey is ninety percent of the fun. If helping people was easy, wouldn't everyone do it? You have a knack for it, Miss Hopps. Though things may seem a bit unclear, now, I know you'll figure it out." Arturo seemed to end at that, though soon his eyes lit up quizzically. "Might I ask, where is Nick? Izabella and I have greatly enjoyed speaking with him."

Judy's eyes flicked toward everything but the two wolves waiting for her response. Her paws laid stationary in her lap as she built up the courage to speak the truth that she was afraid to realize herself.

"I...I don't know. I haven't seen him in a long time. I...I think he's gone…"

"What do you mean, gone?" Arturo asked. "You don't mean to say that he's left you, do you?"

The rabbit blinked her eyes rapidly to fight away the tears that threatened to spill out in rivers. Her paws gripped at the fabric of her clothes, fraying their threads as she tried to release her mixture of frustration and need for Nick. "He hasn't answered his phone. I've called him probably thirty times, but each time it goes to voicemail."

Arturo looked with sympathy on the rabbit. "I'm sorry to hear that. If you don't mind me asking, did it have to do with… the relationship between you two that caused him to leave?"

"I don't know… I haven't really known what to think ever since he stormed off."

"You ended up here, didn't you? Seems to me that you don't absolutely need him, per se. I think you're perfectly capable of handling things on your own, but, Miss Hopps," Arturo pointed a finger directly at Judy. "Do you think you're better with him, or better yet, does he make you want to be a better mammal? Because if everything he did for you was only to benefit himself, then I'd say you're better off without him."

"I don't know what to think," she sighed. Judy dropped her head into her paws and rubbed her brow tenderly. "I just want to find him."

The group sat silently for a while, pondering their next move in the privacy of their heads. Judy's mind was mostly filled with thoughts of Nick: where he was, what he was doing, what he was thinking. She only hoped that he was alright. A part of her worried that there was a reason he wasn't answering his phone, and it wasn't because he was ignoring her. Anytime she couldn't get ahold of someone, these thoughts ran their course in her mind, but at a time like this, she genuinely worried that Nick was not okay.

Those thoughts didn't last more than a couple of minutes. A large jolt hit the rear of the van and nearly knocked Judy to the floor. From outside, she could hear the roar of another engine, and her eyes widened as she realized that things were about to get a bit crazy.

"Baby! What the hell is going on?" Arturo shouted as he hit the partition a few times with his fist. It slowly rolled down and the wolf driver looked back enough to get his voice to them, but still kept his eyes on the road.

"We've got company. Tighten your seatbelts."

"We don't have seatbelts back here!" Judy shouted as Baby floored the accelerator and pushed everyone toward the back of the van. The rabbit braced herself as Arturo and Izabella struggled to stay in their seats nearer the front. Her opponent, her...friend, looked up at her with a piercing gaze of fear and worry.

"What's happening, Arturo?" Judy shouted amidst the noises of engines and steel against steel every time the pursuers tried to take out their van.

"I don't know, but someone doesn't want us to be in this van together!"

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

Before Arturo could issue his response, the van took a massive hit and spun the vehicle to the left. What Judy couldn't see was the rear tires lifting off of the ground ever so slightly. In the next half of a second, the tires touched the ground and the van's high center of gravity took control away from Baby as it began its downward descent to the ground.

Judy instantly felt weightless as the van rolled over at a speed she was unsure of, but knew to be well over the legal limit. A split second of silence passed as Judy locked eyes with Izabella. The she-wolf froze as she realized instantly what was about to happen.

With a piercing screech of steel against asphalt and a boom as loud as a shotgun, the side of the van slammed into the road below. It teetered, thought about rolling over again, and finally settled with a dull thud. Judy was thrown forward and felt her world darken as her head hammered the roof. She slumped down and blinked several times before reaching out to the wolf pair who was now laying in a pile, not moving and bouncing as the van slid to a halt.

Judy tried to move, but the pain in her head was incapacitating and painful. She called out to Arturo and Izabella in a weak voice, but they could not hear her. They didn't move or respond in any way. Judy knew they were unconscious.

The sound of the rear doors being forced open was like a gunshot. She covered her sensitive ears as the doors were rent apart, so loud she feared her ears would bleed. Bright headlights of their pursuer's van shone directly into her eyes, and Judy lost all strength to keep her arms up. Two larger mammals tended to the wolves and a smaller one approached Judy, though due to the lights, their faces remained a mystery.

Strange voices filled her head, none of them familiar, but gruff and deep — definitely male. Suddenly she felt herself being lifted into the air by the strange figure. Her body was too weak to try and fight back, and with every passing second, she felt herself trying to maintain consciousness, A battle she would soon lose. Before she surrendered, gave in to the quiet and darkness, one voice rose and chilled her whole body.

"Hello, there, Officer Hopps. You finally found me."

A/N: Hey guys! It's been almost nine months since this story was last updated… and I'm really sorry about that. I got stuck not far into it and that escalated into a huge absence from any work on the story. But, I will not stop until this story is complete, don't you worry! The end is so close I can taste it! Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for sticking with it! -Ande883