Sunderance Chapter 22: Dark Passage Part 2 (Patreon)

“Well, let’s get started then,” she said, standing with her paws resting on her hips and a thoughtful expression on her muzzle. “What’s your name?”

“Nick.”

She paused for a moment at the simple, single-worded answer with her paw resting on the corner of her muzzle. He could see her mind working, even when her eyes left him for a moment until she located her hat lying on the ground at his feet. She swayed her hips even as she closed that tiny distance between them, her eyes boring into the lenses of his sunglasses before she bent at the hip. It seemed that her body took the long way down, given how long it took relative to what she was doing, offering him another view of her rump and hips being hugged tight by the blue dress. Maybe it was her way of trying to let him see what he was missing out on again, or simply an attempt to distract him as she thought up another question. Whatever the case, when she rose up and placed the hat back on her head with a grin and a flourish, she seemed to have finished her considering.

“Since you’re sly enough to force two questions out of one, what’s your last name?”

“Unimportant,” he replied simply, easily reminding himself that there was a far superior ass waiting for him at Wild Times.

“Well then Nick Unimportant,” she quipped, the quick retort making it obvious that she had expected something like that and it was enough to draw a quick smirk to his muzzle, “I will count that as a non-question then, since you didn’t give an answer. Six left. Did the Council or Administrator send you to protect the bunny?”

“No.”

“Do you work for someone in The Commonwealth?”

“No.”

“Who do you work for?”

“Miss Hopps.”

“I get the feeling that you’ve prepared for these questions,” she murmured under her breath, setting her paws on her hips as she narrowed her eyes at him. Then, a smile slowly grew as those narrowed eyes brightened to the point of sparkling. “Which means they’ve been asked before. Here I am, chasing you down as if you’re my own personal mystery, but…”

“But?”

The way she allowed it to trail off as she looked at him as if she could see through him caused the fur on the back of his neck tingle with the desire to rise, and for slightly less than a second, he felt an odd desire to back away from her when she stepped closer to him. Eyes that still shone with understanding bored into his.

“She doesn’t know any more than I do,” she said with a definitive tone that told him that it was not a question, causing his ears to drop when she reached up to drill one clawed finger into his chest in a light but insistent prod. Like a kit poking a frog to make it croak for their delight. “These questions have been asked before, and with how easily you answered, that means you’ve given the same answers. So even though you claim to work for her and have been seen multiple times fighting – quite well, I might add – to defend her at the risk of your own life, she has no idea who you are.”

A tightness stuck in his chest so deeply that it took a great deal of effort to keep his expression blank as he continued to look down at her. The truth behind her words struck him even as he ignored the obvious delight in her eyes. It wasn’t even the fact that he had intentionally kept so much from Judy. It was the fact that this reporter, a vixen he had only just met, knew almost as much about who he really was as Judy did.

With only four questions answered.

“There’s some real emotion,” the reporter murmured, making him realize that she had moved so close to him that her muzzle was almost brushing over his. Actually, did brush his very briefly before he was able to yank his head back, his paws clenched at his side when she pulled away of her own accord. “She means something to you, then. Something more than a weak, helpless bunny in need of a big, strong fox to watch over her.”

“She’s not weak,” he snapped, repressing a growl when she released a pleased little coo followed by a shiver of delight rather than seeming intimidated. Closing his eyes and cooling his temper, a temper that had risen more at himself than the reporter in front of him, he drew himself up with both paws adjusting his tie. “You have three more questions.”

“True,” she said, her sigh signaling her realization that her advantage had been lost. She reached up to run her paw over the rim of her hat, then glanced at him again. “You are the only one who agreed to protect Hopps. I know now there is something… more now. That much is obvious, otherwise, we would still be stuck hip to hip right now. But she’s just an unknown Commonwealth lawyer, and aside from the Gideon Grey case, not someone of note in Zootopia. Why did you agree to protect her at first?”

“Unimportant. Next question,” he said simply. The desire to leave now was like an itch under his fur that he couldn’t take the time to scratch, at least until he was back in Wild Times.

“Oh my. Could it be?” she questioned, her eyes focused on his face with an uncomfortably intense level of scrutiny for a moment before she turned to pace away from him with a little smile on her muzzle. When she turned back with a flourish of her tail, he was relieved when she moved to the next question. “Do you think Miss Hopps is going to win her appeal?”

“I’m not a lawyer,” he replied simply, but knowing that if he passed her next question could return to the tougher questions, he expanded his answer, “but if the court system in Zootopia is fair, then she should.”

“As necessary as it was, that was such a boring question,” she muttered, more to herself than to him as she sighed and looked him over from top to bottom. “I have more than enough for now. I think I’ll hold onto what’s left of my questions, to be cashed in when I need more.”

“Hold onto them? I won’t be meeting with you again.”

“Oh, no face to face required,” she chirped cheerfully, hold her paws out as if showing him that she had no tricks. “No more alleyway meetings or attempts at seduction. I find that I don’t like being turned down, nor does my sore tail, so I won’t give you another chance in that area.”

“I’ll try to restrain my overwhelming sorrow.”

“Sarcastic humor,” she chuckled throatily, rubbing her paws together. “So very fox of you. But I don’t like to waste good questions, especially when they are so limited. I have Hopps’ direct line and you have your receipt. Consider it a stay of execution if you like.”

“Fine,” he said, his voice as stony as the expression on his face as he walked towards the mouth of the alley.

“Should I..?” she began, then cut herself off when he paused at the street, drawing a laugh from her as she slapped a paw to her muzzle. “Almost wasted a question there. I’ll text you, Nick Unimportant!”

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Her heart was still beating much faster than it had ever been, so much so that she could feel the rapid throb of it under the paw she had pressed to her chest. She had done reports on gang wars, predator attacks, and had interviewed the Trample Murderer all in her third year as a reporter. Somehow, none of them had affected her like this. It wasn’t fear that caused the feeling, though there had been a certain sense of dealing with a carefully caged beast. It was anticipation, excitement, and a pure high that came from a once in a lifetime journalistic opportunity. Even as it started to slow, she took some deep breaths to calm herself and imagined all the things that would come.

Victoria Harridan had just interviewed the one fox that everyone in Zootopia wanted to know about, and it was going to send her ratings and her carrier through the…

Thoughts of grandeur in the halls of journalism were interrupted when her phone rang, snapping her back to the reality of the car around her and the pawful of notes that she had hastily tapped into her laptop. Frowning at the interruption, she lifted the phone and stared at the signal for a video call that flashed repeatedly with a merry jingle and a golden crest that she had never seen before. Curiously, she swiped her finger-pad over the symbol and spoke cautiously.

“This is Victoria.”

“Hello, Miss Harridan,” said the crisp image of the sharp-muzzled Red Fox vixen, who sat with her paws folded neatly on the desk in front of her and sharp golden eyes focused on the screen. “This is the Administrator.”