Chapter Text
Four years. Four long years. It's hard to describe how long that feels when you're locked inside.
Dad's money had, of course, transferred us to our own private block. Far away from any of the 'real criminals' as Dad called them. Our own private isolation chamber for our very own hell on earth.
The arguing was nonstop from the beginning. Things were cool sometimes, in the early mornings and occasional late nights, but never without the bristling. Like there was a natural gas leak. All it ever took was one spark. Forgetting proper table setting, cracking a smile while deep in a novel, and it would all ignite for hours.
I was weak. I didn't have the energy to keep up with any of it even on my best days.
"This is who I am." I would say this constantly to myself.
"I am a Lynxly." I would say over and over.
"This is who I am."
My only escape was the library. Common work, was of course, above a Lynxly, but Dad had already given up on me after my 'catastrophic blunder.' The librarian was the nicest lady you'd ever met Mrs. Shrew, and if I finished organizing the shelves early she would let me read in the back room.
Days bled into each other. Kitty kept a calendar on the wall, right next to the ever growing list of names they all swore to take revenge on. I made a point to never let myself look. This was the bed we had made for ourselves. The wheels were put in motion generations ago. We reaped all the benefits, it was only fair we finally got our share of the consequences.
Cattrick in particular was terrified of all the murderers we were stuck with. He would say it like he wasn't talking to one. We had it within us our whole lives. Dad called it our killer instinct. Our ability to just simply... Turn off the empathy.
They had all always assumed I never had it. I cried over everything. Where my siblings learned to toughen up and thrive, I would always collapse. Even when I learned to stomach it for a few hours, I would inevitably come crashing down, and break in my room.
But that afternoon in the weather wall... and even the late night in the mail room before that... I found it in me.
It was all supposed to be so easy. Gary was so stupid he mailed the family who killed his grandmother asking for evidence against them. Dad would have had him and his whole family disappeared within a week, so I was really doing him a favor by lying straight to his face.
Gary would steal the book, and the two of us would find her patent within the day. With a dose of antivenom in my pocket, there would be nothing he could really do if I just stole it right then. He would be angry. Betrayed. But he would see reason. He would take the handsome payday I gave him, and get him and his family somewhere safe. Far away.
It was just business. The strong survive. The weak get devoured. If we didn't do it someone else would and then use that strength against us. I'm not strong, but if there was one thing Dad had taught me to do very well, it was lie. When Dad saw the patent in my hand... When he knew what I had done to save the family... Everything would be different.
So I lied for weeks. Writing back and forth with Gary. He was so easy to get along with, I let myself just naturally become friends with him. I'd let myself forget what I knew would happen in the future, and just let myself enjoy his company. No one in my family had any clue that I was living two lives at the same time. It was intoxicating. Even back then the family was always on the brink of a fight, but for the first time I felt like I had a reason to hold my chin up high. Even if I couldn't act like it.
Judy had to make it all complicated. I was such a big fan of hers too... I felt like I saw a little of myself in her. Fighting for the little guy. I should have honestly given up the moment I saw her... But I didn't.
I just stuffed it down, right up until the very end and it worked. I looked Judy and Gary right in the eyes and pretended they were my friends. The whole time the poison barbs were in my pocket. It really was the most damning piece of evidence Dad's lawyers had to work around to prove this wasn't premeditated...
The hardest part was right before. Standing by the monitors while Judy turned her back to me. But I knew what I wanted. I knew what had to be done to get it. I took a deep breath, and everything just went cold.
I remember walking up behind her. I remember her leaning forward. It was so easy. I remember the resistance of the barbs puncturing her flesh...
After that, everything went hazy. I never told anybody this. Dad's lawyers had more than enough plausible deniability to go off of. Telling them I did most of what I did was in a fugue state would have been a dream come true.
The truth is I wanted this. This hell for myself and my family. I wanted one thing I did to actually matter. Sitting in those first few interrogation rooms, listening to the lawyer tell me how he could make all this go away... It made me sick.
What I did was evil. I thank God every day that I never actually managed to do any permanent harm. But it had still been my choice. Frankly, the first real decision I had ever made for myself in my life. I wouldn't let Dad just sweep it under the rug like all the rest.
He tried though. It was a legal miracle that he got off with a single attempted murder charge. Dad never bribed the judge directly... But he knew that Lynxly's always remembered their friends. Ten years with a chance at probation after four would have been a shock for anyone else. But not everyone was like Judy. It was like Dad always said. There was a natural order to things, and even in moments of chaos, eventually all would drift back towards the inevitable.
Not me though. Dad hadn't spoken directly to me in three months, but his lawyers and both my siblings made his message very clear. Say the right things, and we'd be out on supervised leave within the week.
They could say what they wanted to. When it was my turn to speak I would tell them the truth. I have no remorse for my actions that day. Given the chance, I would do it all again.
Knowing this gave me that same, cold pleasure I had back when I was jist lying to Gary. I could look Kitty and Cattrick dead in the eye and swear up and down that I would do whatever they say. They had no idea that I was just waiting to sell them out. I was still a Lynxly after all. Very soon they would see.
These thoughts stirred in my head as I sat around the table, picking at my food while my siblings tried to guess at how many days until they finally would get to go home. Dad was oddly silent, and I couldn't help but feel tense. Did he know somehow? Had he already read the expressions on my face days ago?
He still deliberately refused to look at me. He focused on his food while they bickered on his left. His brow was furrowed, as if deep in concentration, and every breath he took, while slow and measured, was deliberate.
Suddenly, there was a buzzer. A guard coming through the airlock. Kitty and Cattrick both shut up instantly. They wouldn't be getting us for the parole hearing until noon.
"Come in." Dad said, as if he was commanding the guard. The huge ox didn't react, just walked up to the bars.
"Your lawyer wants to see you." The guard said, and Dad's brow furrowed deeper.
"Send him in." He said, and the guard nodded.
"Dad... What the hell's going on?" Kitty started, but Dad's fingers drew up to his lips and he shushed her.
"Wait." He said. This wasn't something that he had planned beforehand. I realized I was tensing my shoulders and slowly tried to relax.
Hurrying through the door, the nervous weasel shuffled into the room. The guard didn't need to be asked to leave, he was already headed back into the airlock. The weasel was sweating through his suit, and the way he watched the guard close the door made it look like he was just as trapped as we were.
"Uh... Uhm... Sir it's... Well... Things got complicated and... It's really not... Well you see..." he stammered before Dad slammed his fist on the table, rattling the plates and silencing him immediately.
"Tell me what happened." He growled through clenched teeth.
The weasel's eyes widened so much I thought they would pop out of his skull. He was literally shaking, unable to do anything but stammer.
"Spit it out, trash meat!" Dad roared, and picked up a glass, hurling it forward and smashing against the bars between him and the lawyer, making him nearly jump out of his skin.
"Which of the board members flipped!" He screamed, and finally the weasel seemed to find his voice.
"N-None! They're all solid sir! Checked this morning just like you said sir!" He said, eagerly nodding like he was waiting for some kind of praise. It made me laugh.
"Dad just fucking fire this one already." Kitty growled, and the weasel let out an audible yelp.
"I-It's really no problem at all sir! It's just a tiny... Tiny little detail uhm... Judy Hopps is going to be there..."
I blinked. The whole world seemed to slow down for a moment. Kitty looked frozen, while Cattrick looked like a man watching the last helicopter leave without him. Dad's face was still as stone, but his fist clenched tighter and tighter. I instinctively began to lower my head... Hoping not to be noticed. I knew what was coming next.
"How did you let this happen?" Dad said, deadly quiet.
"T-There's nothing I could do sir! She made the choice at the last minute I-I had no idea!"
"You had no idea..." Dad repeated, and the lawyer just about pissed himself.
"I-I'm sorry sir! Victims and their families get a right to speak at these things, it's pretty clear cut in the law..."
"If I wanted to follow the law..." Dad started before biting his own tongue. He took a deep slow breath, and when he opened his eyes again he was staring straight at me.
I shrank in my seat. Even after all this time, I still felt like a kid when he glared down at me like this.
"Your failure has put us at risk yet again, Pawbert." He said, and as I cowered beneath him he seemed to relax. He turned back towards the lawyer.
"It doesn't matter. You say the board members are still solid?" He said, and the lawyer nodded vehemently.
"Solid as rocks sir! There should be no problems at all." He said, ecstatic that Dad seemed to be relaxing.
"You'd better be right. Maybe I'll fire you instead of eat you." He said, and the weasel gulped.
"Shouldn't you be studying? The meeting's in two hours." Kitty said, offering him an out that the weasel gladly took.
"Yes sir! I mean ma'am! I mean sir!" He said, looking nervously back and forth between her and Dad.
"I'll get started right away sir! I mean, continue my hard work sir!" He was already scrambling for the door, yanking on the unyielding handle as hard as he could like a fly running into a window over and over again.
Dad sighed, and waved his hand. The light turned green and the guard finally pushed open the door, letting the lawyer scurry off.
He was pathetic. Dad had cycled through three previous lawyers before finally finding one who would agree to push his interpretation of events at any cost. If Judy was there... Maybe cameras would be there too. Maybe if I could just get her an opening, she could crack the whole thing wide open.
Dad's fist slammed on the table, and I jumped up in my seat, my haunches raised high. When I glanced up Dad was glaring at me. I tensed, clenching my teeth as I waited for that closed fist to come up to my face.
"You didn't have anything to do with this, did you, Pawbert?" He asked, speaking slowly and deliberately.
"N-No! No, Dad I... I haven't talked to anyone but Mrs. Shrew. And never anything about what happened." I stammered. It was the truth, so it was easy to say.
"Shh... Hey. I know." He said, and visibly relaxed. He opened his hand, and slowly brought it up to the side of my face, cupping my cheek like he did when I was a small child.
"Come here son." He said softly, and wrapped his hand around the back of my head, and pulled me gently against his chest. My eyes were still wide, my whole body tense. I couldn't believe this was happening. But as his arms gently wrapped around my shoulders, it felt warm, and complete.
I closed my eyes, and fell head first into the feeling. I didn't realize my arms were reaching up to wrap tightly around him, holding him close as I buried my head in his chest.
He brought his hand up, and slowly pet the top of my head. It took everything in me not to cry.
"We're almost home free, son." He said, and slowly, he pushed on my shoulders, gently but firmly shoving me away from him.
He grabbed my face again, and when he looked me dead in the eyes, my brain lit up with a million different conflicting signals.
"Make the right choice, Pawbert." He said, and as quickly as he came, he pulled away from me.
"You two. Come here." He said to Kitty and Cattrick, and the three of them walked off to the other side of the cell to whisper in private.
I knew they were talking about me. But I also knew I was self absorbed and wrong almost all the time. I felt sick. Like my soul was going through a washing machine.
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe... Very soon this would all be over one way or another.