*****


     -VICTOR-

Outside Ward F again.

Had it really been just last night he'd stood in this same corridor? There was the closet he, Brad and Benjamin had hidden in when Beatrix came down in the elevator. Victor had a sudden vision of those elevator doors popping open now. She would be there, and she'd kill them all.

Victor had lived his entire life with fear riding his back like a heartless, grinning jockey from hell. Fear's name was "THEM". Victor lived every day knowing THEY could strike at any moment, whenever they wanted, and he couldn't do a single thing about it. He could scream until he thought he was going to give himself a heart attack, and they'd just laugh it off and hurt him some more.

But they were gone now. Every few minutes, that fact would hit him as if he was realizing it for the first time. They were _gone_. Tyler had _killed_ them. It hadn't even been two full days since it happened, and sometimes they *did* go whole days without bothering him; just to make it hurt worse once he let his guard down. But still, he knew he didn't have to fear them anymore. He didn't feel them hovering around him, plotting their greasy little plots and dreaming up new ways to make him wish he were dead.

He was free now.

For the first time since before his mother had died, Victor did not have to spend every second of his life cringing, anticipating what horrid thing would happen to him next. Certainly, he was aware of the dangers he still faced in King's Orchard. But at least he knew he could face them now without having to divert half his attention to THEM all the time.

As the group of rebels split themselves off from the rest of the Ward F kids, they stood to the side and watched their fellow patients disappear down the stairwell. For the last time. And not for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Camilla was still carrying Ginny in her arms. The petite roo was all smiles, belting out some song she only knew half the words to.

Holly made a natural leader. She rallied her troops with a jerk of her head. "Let's get going. Beatrix might've already left by now. I don't wanna have to look all over for her."

Victor only caught half of that. He was still looking at the elevator door.

In a brief burst of unthinking bravery, he strode over and purposefully pushed the 'up' button.

The doors slid open. Victor flinched as he thought he saw a flash of white fur.

No. Just a shine off the metal. The elevator was empty. "Come on, guys."

The small skunk ducked in and pushed the 8 button. His friends clustered in around him. Fitting six kids in an elevator, with two of them being Holly and Ruby, is not an easy task. Holly growled in annoyance as her tummy and butt were accidentally bumped.

The doors didn't close. Victor looked quizzically at the button and pushed it again.

Benjamin reached over his shoulder to push it a third time. "Here, let me."

"I can push a button," Victor said defensively.

Ben shrugged. "Machines like me."

Whether that was true or not, the elevator still wouldn't go. "Dammit. It's probably like the doors all locking. Beatrix made the elevators screw up too," Holly said.

"The stairs then?" Benjamin pointed out.

Holly nodded. Everyone filed back out. Holly bit back outrageous language as her flab was jostled again.

Victor was first to the stairwell. He could hear the other kids below, their voices getting lower as they descended. He was *ascending* though. Towards _her_. Victor had only seen Dr. Beatrix once. Like almost everyone else who met her, he was fooled at first. She seemed like a perfectly nice lady. Until he'd said something she didn't like and she'd given him a look like she thought he was the filthiest bacteria on planet Earth. It was subtle but unmistakable. Though she kept right on smiling afterwards, Victor knew she hated him. It had gnawed at him, not knowing why, until he met Benjamin and heard some of his stories about the woman.

Just one short flight of steps. That's all it took to get to the perpetually empty 8th floor. Empty except for Dr. Beatrix Beverley of course. Although Beatrix was certainly empty enough on her inside...

The fire alarm was not sounding up here. The eighth floor was quiet as a church. Victor poked his pink skunk nose around the corner, expecting to see all manner of hell in the hallway. Guards with riot gear or big, burly orderlies with hypodermic needles or even Dr. Beatrix herself and that smile of hers.

Nothing there.

"Coast's clear," he said, mostly to confirm it for his own self.

The sextet moved cautiously out of the dim stairwell into the harsh artificial brightness. The hall was like a gleaming white esophagus. Oh so eager to swallow young prey. Their toenails clicked on the cold floor, the sound echoing enough to make them all wince. They felt watched.

"What do we do once we get in there?" Keith whispered to Holly.

"Unleash chaos," she replied. "All we have is surprise, so we use it. If she's in there, we go in all at once; screaming, throwing our powers around, whatever we've got. She's just one lone skinny-ass bitch. We can take her," she snarled with certainty.

Every step took forever. The doorway to Beatrix's office looked miles away. It stood out among the other unmarked doors in the hallway as the only one with a brass knob. All the others were silver. It was possible that all the other doors were fake. Why not? It was crazy enough to make sense in a place like this.

"I'll open the door," Sherri volunteered. "She won't see me."

"Good idea," Holly replied. "Actually Sherri, you might wanna 'stay out of sight' the whole time. If she doesn't know you're with us, you could probably surprise her. Trip her or hit her with something."

Sherri saluted.

Close now. The brass knob reflected the kids' stretched, inverted images. Either Beatrix was in there or she'd already left. They'd either pounce on her with all they had or pounce on an empty office, feel like a bunch of dumbasses, and then have to go hunt for her.

Victor took another step forward.

So did someone else.

"Everyone just stop right there."

Clifford Markman had been waiting behind a corner at the end of the hallway. He stepped out in front of the six children and pointed his gun at them. He planted his feet like the instructor had told him. He thought of his last name and all the jokes they'd made about it at the gun range. Mostly about how apt it was.

Victor felt his heart grow brittle and crack as he stared down that long, black barrel.

Clifford did not move. No one did. He barked orders at them in his nasal voice. "That's right. Just like statues, all of you. When I say go, you are going to put your hands behind your head and turn around nice and slow. You ever seen any of those cop shows on TV? Do it just like that."

The six rebels were motionless, but all of their minds were whirring. They would not allow themselves to be stopped by this nose-with-a-rat-attached. Clifford was a nobody. A minor nuisance. They weren't about to shame themselves by letting him stop them when they were this close.

"Now! Do it! Turn around!" As if they needed any more instruction, he flicked the end of the barrel at them.

Five children turned around and put their hands behind their heads. One of them did not.

Clifford's already tense jaw twitched. He felt sweat inside his ears and the edges of his eyes. "Whatsamatter, kid? Scared of guns? Can't move?"

Victor could not in a million years have explained what was going on in his head at that moment. He only knew he would not do what this man said. It wasn't even courage. It was like he was acting under orders from somebody else.

The skunkboy stared back at the rat with the gun. He did not say a word.

"Dammit kid, I don't like this either. Get your hands up so you can all go back downstairs and get in bed. Once the alarms are off you can all go to sleep, okay?" Clifford felt sweat on his furless paws, making his grip on the gun moist and slippery. He was not a particularly good man, but he was also not a monster like Thurston Caercase. He did not relish the idea of holding a loaded gun pointed at a child. He was only doing his job. He'd been present at one escape attempt, at the other hospital ten years ago. He was not about to stand by and witness another.

Victor could see how much Clifford was trembling. He did not feel sorry for the rat though. He was scared. A trembling finger could set off that trigger all by itself. Still, that did not stop him from what he knew suddenly that he _must_ do. He had to fulfill his species' destiny in the face of danger.

As his friends watched and wondered where their timid friend had gotten such immense cojones, Victor slowly turned around, slowly bent over, slowly raised his tail and slowly pulled down his shorts and underwear.

"You're mooning me. That's real cute, kid," Clifford said. "You wanna stand back up before I shoot the end of your frickin' tail off?" Maybe a little fear'd set this kid straight.

"I'm not mooning you," Victor said.

The obvious hit Clifford like a punch in the nose. "Oh. Oh, right. You're a skunk. Right." With a nose as big as his, the mere word 'skunk' brought a nervous shiver. But wait, what was this he was holding in his hands? A lollipop? "You'd better not be thinking what I think you're thinking, kid. *I've* got the more powerful weapon here! You spray me, I stink for a week or so. I shoot first, you _die_. Neither one of us wants that. You just cut this shit out right now."

Victor had felt a moment ago like he was free. Now he felt the opposite. He knew full well how crazy this was, but he couldn't stop himself. His ankles were shaking. He grabbed onto his knees for stability. He felt tears in his eyes. He didn't want to die.

Clifford took two steps forward and planted himself again. "I'm gonna count to three, kid."

Victor held his stance. He looked up at his friends. All of them looked just as paralyzed as him, wanting to help him and not knowing how.

"One..."

Victor tensed up suddenly, preparing himself.

Clifford's finger fluttered against the trigger. He was only aiming for the leg. He couldn't bring himself to shoot for the head like he'd been taught. He had no idea if he could fire before the kid did.

Suddenly, it came out.

*toot*

Clifford snorted. The kid had just farted at him! "Ha ha, kid, very f-"

Something deep inside Victor's body came rumbling up like a diesel locomotive, making sure Clifford Markman wouldn't ever get the chance to complete that sentence.

***BBBBBRRROONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNTT***!!!!!

The sound alone was loud enough to topple buildings, but the tornado-force wind that came suddenly venting out of Victor's thin frame was powerful enough to peel skin off bone.

A massive wall of wind came barrelling down the hallway at Clifford, so thick he could actually see it. In that last brief instant before he became unconscious for quite a very long time, all the rat could think was, 'Why in the hell did I ever take this job?'

He was lifted off his feet as easily as a plastic trash bag caught in the breeze. Victor's ass-hurricane hurled him down the rest of the hallway like the fist of God. Behind him, windows exploded out into the night, sending thousands of glinting shards down to the parking lot. It was only pure luck that Clifford did not go flying out with them. Had he been standing a foot or two to either the right or the left, his life would have ended on concrete eight stories below. Instead, the force of the air blast knocked him out instantly. He hit the wall loose and floppy. He broke more than a handful of bones and was certainly in no shape to compete in the Olympics anymore, but he'd survive.

Victor stood up and looked at the devastation he had wrought. The force of his anal explosion was so great, the wall at the end of the hallway had actually buckled. Some of the doorknobs along the hall had also been knocked off and were rolling around freely like miniature severed heads. Clifford was slumped on the floor, motionless, looking like a burlap sack full of loose bones.

"How the crap did I do that...?" the dazed skunk asked rhetorically.

"Dude!!" Benjamin exploded. "That was the Guinness World Records fart of all time!!!"

Victor turned around and shrugged: 'I'm every bit as surprised as you are'.

"Is he dead?" Ruby asked, pointing worriedly at Clifford. She hadn't liked him much the brief time they'd known each other, but she still didn't harbor any grudge against him.

Holly smiled wryly. "I know I don't give a shit."

"Same here," Keith concurred.

"Just goes to show what happens to a guy that'd point a gun at a bunch of helpless kids," Holly tsk-tsked.

"Yeah, he gets *farted* to smithereens!" Benjamin clapped a paw on Victor's shoulder. "My _man_! You never told me you could do that! I thought you could only play tunes with that thing," he said, pointing to his friend's tuchus.

Victor was a bit shaky, still not quite believing that what had happened *had* actually happened. "I never knew myself until just now."

"You mean you did it purely on instinct?"

Victor nodded.

"Sweet! That was, like, mind-blowingly brave!" He paused, then chuckled. "Uh, you also might wanna pull your pants up."

Blushing furiously, the young skunk did.

"I see Victor's unnnn-dies!" Rubiella pointed out.


*****


     -BRAD-

They were making good time down the steps. It was a lot easier than the night before, both in terms of the descent and the pain. Brad's hand was still throbbing, but it was back to normal size already. He hoped that more practice would make it easier someday. He supposed it was all a matter of degree. He could spin his head around easily enough, and It hadn't hurt when his arm got pinched the first time. Maybe there was a certain limit he could stretch or squash himself before it got painful. Maybe easing into that zone next time would be better, instead of band-aiding it like he usually did.

His and Karen's footfalls echoed on endlessly in the empty stairwell. The fire alarms were still on and droning. Brad wished he had a shotgun so he could just blast the damn things off the wall every time he came to one.

He called back over his shoulder to Karen. "Just a couple more flights. The door to Ward Zero is right there at the bottom. Monsoon and I found it in no time." He had no idea how he was going to get *into* Ward Zero once he got down there, but he was sure he'd think of something. Probably.

Karen didn't respond.

Brad turned around. "Karen?"

The young raccoon was standing still about a half a flight behind. Her hand was on the rail. She didn't look out of breath, but she was completely motionless nonetheless.

"You okay?" Brad started to slowly move towards her, not knowing what was going on. Was she seeing dead furs again?

Closer now, he saw that her eyes were bulging with abject terror. Brad was one step away, trying to figure out what she was reacting to, when she suddenly noticed him. Her eyes locked on his for just a second.

"I almost got *raped*," she said, quite clearly.

Then she crumpled like a paper napkin.

Karen collapsed on the cold concrete steps and buried her head in her arms, beginning to weep and shake uncontrollably. Her cries were loud and panicky, like she wasn't aware of anything else in the world but the memory of what that evil man had nearly done to her.

Brad watched, powerlessly. He understood what was happening but had no idea what to do about it.

Karen was letting out all the fear and tears she had simply not had time for back when she was locked in the quiet room with Thurston. She had already tapped into her rage. It was not exhausted, not hardly, but she'd expressed enough of it for now. At this moment, far enough and safe enough away from him, all the horror and helplessness, all the sick, greasy revulsion of his hands touching her, all the sorrow and emptiness his violation had caused... It was all coming out.

Out of respect, Tyler kept silent. He could feel what was Karen was going through to a certain degree and knew that he was receiving only the tiniest fraction of it.

Brad stood there mutely, biting his lip. He wanted to say something to make Karen feel better. He wanted to help her more than anything else in the world. But he couldn't stop himself from thinking about all the times he'd messed up and said the worst thing possible in dozens of different scenarios. Karen deserved better than his clumsy words.

Maybe doing nothing was best, he thought. Let Karen cry. 'If I'd been in there, I'd be crying too. No shame in admitting it. If Thurston had tried to do that to me, I'd have nightmares the rest of my life.'

But no, he had to do *something*. Standing there like a dumbass was almost certainly the last thing Karen needed. He realized he'd only thought otherwise because doing nothing was the easiest option for _him_. That was inexcusably selfish. Brad opened his mouth, hoping something smart and good would come out.

Nothing did. Karen still wept. She looked up for a second and Brad thought he'd never seen fear like that in anyone's eyes before.

Brad realized then that he didn't need words. He came up beside Karen, sat down, and hugged her. Right away, she turned to him and hugged back. He felt his shirtsleeve get wet from her tears.

He patted her on the back. "It's okay to cry like this. I understand," he said.

Karen was shaking too much for her to speak clearly. "H-he... He would hav-ve..."

Brad kissed her. Nothing romantic about it. Just the way a caring brother would comfort his sister. A tiny kiss between her ears.

She whimpered. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Tyler thought of something then. His voice came softly from her lips. "Think about it this way, Karen. Think about all the people you saved tonight."

"Huh?" she said. Brad could hear the switch in their voices clear as a bell.

Tyler explained. "Thurston was a monster. You and Ruby got rid of him. Don't think about all the kids he hurt before you. Think about all the other kids he *would* have hurt if you hadn't been so damn brave back there and stopped him. He probably rapes kids all the time. That was true what I said; he really did have a chubby when he threw the switch on me. He's a sick, evil fuck. Now he's a *dead* sick, evil fuck. He will never hurt anyone else _ever_ again. Because of you, Karen."

"Yeah," Brad agreed. He had to admit, that was a lot better than anything he'd come up with. He reminded himself to thank Tyler later.

Karen's eyes were closed. She nodded. She shivered and then gave Brad another squeeze. 

She tried to stand up. She felt weak, drained, but she got to her feet anyway.

"Alright now?" Brad asked.

"No," Karen said curtly. "But we have to keep going. We don't have enough time for me to just sit here. It's not fair to Tyler."

The mouseboy immediately protested. "Hey, don't think about me! You've totally earned a pit stop. It's okay."

Karen shook her head. "I can cry and walk at the same time," she insisted, once again showing how strong her will was. She brushed her tears off on her forearm. She looked at Brad and thanked him for his hug with a smile. "...I mean, I can if you'll hold my paw so I don't fall down the stairs."

He smiled. "Of course."

Karen took hold of the steel rail in one hand, Brad's extended paw in the other. She started walking again, knowing that even if her eyes filled with tears again and she couldn't see, Brad would guide her.

Tears did come. Brad kept silent and set the pace, Karen's body following mechanically along while she allowed herself to break down. She cried hard and loud, loud enough to make the fire alarms seem pathetic in comparison. Her vision was wet and salty. Brad's grip was firm on her paw.

They descended four flights like that. Karen let herself cry until she doubted her eyes could ever make another tear again. She forced herself to cry. She forced herself to remember her near-rape in all its raw detail. She accepted the fear. She let it run its course. Soon she'd need to be strong again, and this was the only time she had to let herself be weak.

Through it all, Tyler kept respectfully silent and Brad held her paw. As useless and defenseless as Thurston had tried to make her feel, Karen knew in the back of her mind that she was safe now with her two friends. They understood that she'd never asked to be a leader. Never asked to see ghosts. She wasn't a brilliant military strategist; just a skinny little girl from the suburbs. The things she was being called upon to do were impossible. But of course, she knew that was no reason not to go ahead and do them.

Brad opened the door at the very end of the stairwell and there was the lobby again. His second chance to just drop everything and run. Of course, he'd have to break down the revolving doors first if he really wanted to. In fact, several kids and grownups were already trying to do just that. The lobby was far from packed at the moment, but Brad knew that wouldn't last for long.

A gaggle of furs were all talking at once, pounding on the big glass windows and asking each other what the heck was going on. The fire alarms continued to gleefully add to the confusion. Kids were crying, asking questions, staring outside, going crazy. Frazzled hospital staff were talking back and forth, repeatedly trying their keys in the door and not comprehending why they wouldn't work. It was also beginning to dawn on them that, even though most of the lobby's front wall was glass, it was super-duper thick glass. The stuff they made zoo aquariums out of. It wasn't just a matter of throwing a chair and shattering it. It would take heavy construction equipment to get through.

"Is there anything we can do to help them?" was the first thing Karen asked.

"No. We've got to get to Ward Zero," Brad said. He hated to be so cold, but he knew they simply didn't have time to help anyone but themselves. "They'll come up with a way to get out eventually. What more could we really do?"

Not feeling very good about it, Karen nodded and turned away from the frantic mob at the door. More kids and grownups were coming down the stairs every second, adding to the confusion and noise. "Where's this door you mentioned?" she asked.

"Right here. Hidden in plain sight." Brad pointed to a perfectly ordinary door just a few feet out of sight from the rest of the lobby. It was partially obscured by a large potted plastic plant and looked just like a janitor's nook. No one would ever give it a second thought if they saw it. That was why Monsoon's key had worked the night before. A door that said 'Stay away! Keep out!' invited curiosity. Temptation. Much better to make it so that no one ever thought of it at all.

There was no knob, not even a handle. Just a keyhole. "How are we gonna get that open?" Tyler asked, not sounding very hopeful.

Brad had already figured out what he'd have to do. It wasn't very pleasant, but it was their only plausible hope. He bit down on the inside of his cheek. He held his paw out behind him. "If I scream, don't let me stop."

"Okay," Karen agreed. She didn't know what he had in mind, but she was sure it would be just as wrenching to watch as his hand trick that had gotten them through the first locked door.

Brad extended his pointer finger. He looked at it. He looked at the keyhole. A finger ought to flatten a lot easier than a whole hand, right?

Brad pressed his fingertip to the tiny, cruelly-angled hole. He tried to take it slow and ease it in this time, but it didn't matter. He let out a positively stomach-churning moan of pain.

This was the worst. Oh sweet lord fuckalmighty, this was the worst pain he'd ever experienced in his life.

Karen saw the tears running down his cheeks and a drop of blood on his gums. "Brad, stop! Don't hurt yourself! There's gotta be another way in!"

"You're not helping!" he rasped out through his clenched teeth. His finger had already sunk in an inch. He could feel the tiny machinery inside the lock twisting and pinching his flesh in impossible configurations.

Tyler decided it was his job to step in and be Brad's coach. "C'mon, you pussy-cat! It's only pain! Shrug it off! Like it or lump it!" He winced. "Okay, I dunno what kinda stuff jocks say to each other in situations like this," he admitted.

"You're doin' fine..." Brad hissed. The tumblers were moving around. The pain was like billions of microscopic piranhas all chomping him at once. He fiddled back and forth, jamming his finger up and down, to and fro, wanting the door to just pop open already for God's sake so he could-

The door popped open.

Brad breathed a gigantic sigh of relief. He pulled his finger out hard, and in doing so, got the door open far enough for him and Karen to slip through.

They stood for a moment on the small, dim stairway that led to the second door while Brad sucked on his finger and listed every single swear word he'd ever heard in his life. He even made up a few.

"RatcuntDemonfuckShitpoolGoddamnedCockslurpingFarglesnotShitfuckingMotherhumping DOG BALLS!!!" he hissed under his breath at lightning speed.

The door creaked closed behind them and locked again with an audible click. "How are we gonna get back out?" Karen worried.

"No problem. You can just push it open from this side," Brad said out of the corner of his mouth. He could feel his finger throbbing in time with his heartbeat. "SonofaBITCHBOX that hurts!"

"I'm guessing this isn't something you'll be doing all the time to show off at parties, huh?" Tyler lamely joked.

Brad glowered at him, his feline pupils drawing in to slits. "Fuck you, Tyler. Fuck you very much."

"Hey, just tryin' to lighten the mood..."

Brad growled a little, but understood. You could take the Tyler out of the mouse, but you couldn't take the Tyler out of Tyler. "This way," he mumbled, finger still in his mouth, as he opened the Ward Zero door.


     ~~~


Brad was prepared, but Karen shuddered all the way to her soul when she saw what was inside. It was like a morgue. No, worse than that. It was like they had put all these poor dead kids out on display so they could keep them just alive enough to flaunt them. To say: 'Look what we can do with our science! Our glorious, glorious science! Who gives a flying fuck about morality or decency? Who cares if putting children into irreversible comas just to shut them up is an abomination against everything this hospital pretends to stand for? We can, so we do!'

Karen saw the thing in the bed that Brad had seen the other day. The ageless, genderless thing that had once been a child years ago. Now it looked more like an exhumed skeleton forced to keep on breathing for no fathomable reason. "Oh god, why don't they just let them *die* already!?" Karen shouted in horror and sympathy.

The words echoed and echoed and echoed.

Brad angrily shushed her. "Who knows who else might be down here!? Just because it was empty last night doesn't mean it'll be empty now!"

Karen nodded. She put her hand over her muzzle to block the smell and hopefully keep herself from vomiting. Her heart felt sick from seeing all this mindless, mad cruelty.

Brad pointed the way. "Tyler's over here."

The three children in two bodies made their way through the rows and rows of hospital beds, trying as hard as possible not to look too long at what lay in the ones that were full. Finally, they found the one they came for.

Luck was with them. The doctors hadn't gotten around to doing anything really nasty to Tyler's body yet. The young mouse's physical self was lying on its back in the bed, a folded sheet covering him from chest to ankles. His feet were bare. His shirt, shoes and socks were tossed without care onto a small shelf built into the bed near the bottom. Tyler's eyes were open, the pupils pinpricks. An IV was in his arm. Wires ran from his chest to a heart monitor. Despite resembling a typical hospital setup, there was no sense of care here. The machines were only there to give off a beep if the patient unexpectedly croaked.

Tyler had looked down on his own inert body countless times before, but this time it felt skin-crawlingly eerie. "Long time no see," he said to himself.

Brad bit down his anger. He would make Dr. Beatrix pay for this soon enough. He only wished he'd known about Thurston's part in it sooner so he could have given the bastard's carcass a few extra kicks. He stifled a giggle. He thought how they could call him Thurston Carcass now.

The tomcat turned to Karen. "Well... Do something."

"I'm not sure what," she said. She stared down at the inert thing in front of her, not knowing how to make it turn back into Tyler again.

"Isn't it obvious?" Tyler spoke up.

"What?" Brad and Karen said at the same time.

Tyler sighed. "Make like Sleeping Beauty again."

"Oh! Um, right." Karen felt uneasy. "I know it's not your fault, Tyler, but that makes me feel really gross. It'll be like kissing a corpse."

"Well, close your eyes and think about someone else then!" said Tyler. "I wanna get back in there. Why not think of Brad?"

Brad did a double-take. "Wait, WHAT!?"

"Ew!" Karen said. "I like Brad but I don't wanna kiss him." She smiled sheepishly at him. "No offense."

"S'okay," Brad said.

Tyler was confused. "But I thought... You two were hugging, and he kissed you and...?"

"He was just trying to make me feel better!" Karen huffed. "It's totally different."

Tyler was getting impatient. "Fine then. Think of Holly."

Karen grimaced. "Now you're just being a jerk!"

"Fine, fine! I'm a jerk! Just go ahead and kiss me so I can get out of your brain!"

"Fine!" Karen positioned herself beside Tyler's head and leaned over, hoping she wouldn't overbalance and fall on top of him. "This better work."


*****


     -HOLLY-

At Victor's insistence, they had checked the body of Clifford Markman to see if there was any life left in it. To the skunk's relief, there was still a heartbeat. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life thinking of himself as a murderer. Clifford might actually recover some day if competent medical assistance got to him soon enough. Amazingly, he'd actually managed to hold onto his gun. Probably because his finger was wrapped around the trigger in three different places that fingers are not supposed to bend.

Holly's rusty hair fell over into her eyes a little. She was doing a damn fine job of not letting anyone else know just how nervous she was. Sure, she'd said they could take down Beatrix, but that woman was pure evil. There was no predicting her, no reasoning with her. She didn't even deserve to be called a woman. She was a ten-megaton bitchqueen and hell was probably afraid of her.

Now it was time for the six of them to punish her for her insanity, or die trying.

Sherri was positioned at the door, waiting for the signal.

Victor had his tail raised.

Rubiella had her fists up.

Keith's hands were faintly glowing.

Benjamin felt the scratchy manilla envelope still hidden inside his shirt and hoped that whatever happened, he'd be able to protect it.

Holly thought about her family. Thought about all the mean, rotten, despicable, heartless, stupid, cold, dirty, evil shit they'd put her through all these years. She built herself up a good steamy head of hate. She waited until it had percolated just enough to be useful. There. Right there where her blood started to feel like lava. Now she was ready.

She gave Sherri the signal.

The door swung wide and the rebels burst in, screaming like madmen.

They stopped in their tracks.

Someone was here, but it was not Beatrix Beverley.

Two orange-furred cat children stood in the middle of the room. All the furniture had been pushed to the walls, out of the way. The kittens were standing side by side in a loose but ready fighting stance. They were dressed in black clothing, barefoot, with white gymnast's tape wrapped around their paws. The female of the pair carried a short, curved hunting knife. The male carried a sturdy wooden rod about two feet long. The smiles on their muzzles showed clearly that they had been expecting visitors.

"Where's that bitch Beatrix!?" Holly snapped.


*****


     -BEATRIX-

Beatrix was hidden.

Her long ears were up and alert. She could hear the children clearly. She risked a glance around the corner and saw them standing there.

By Tyler's bed. Not surprising.

She raised the pistol and tried to decide which of them to kill first. Both were tempting targets. She wanted to make dear Bradley suffer, but a good leader knows when to put the mission ahead of personal pleasure. The raccoon girl would be easier to deal with afterwards. Especially with her friend's brains plastered all over her face.

There are not words incendiary enough to describe how furious Beatrix was. When she'd switched the security monitor in Ward F's quiet room over to a tape loop, she had put the live feed on her own computer to watch. She was interested, from a psychological standpoint, to see how Thurston did his work. Then things went wrong. Watching her sycophant die produced a surprised sort of frustration. But it was what happened afterwards that really made her blood boil. She could see the filthy little children banding together, getting more bold. Then the fire alarm went off and really sent everything spiralling into shitsville. A fire was unfortunate, but not all that bad; there were measures in place to take care of that. But an alarm without a fire, especially now, was the last thing she needed. Still, Beatrix kept her head. It was easy to guess what her enemies would do now. She could, after all, tap into any camera in the building. When she saw where Bradley and Karen were headed, she sent for the twins and rode the elevator down to intercept.

Beatrix lined up her shot; smack in the middle of the grey tomcat's head. Right through the frontal lobe. She wished there were cameras down here so she could copy the tape and watch it again and again.

She pulled the trigger.


*****


     -KURI & WILL-

The last syllable of Holly's sentence was not out of her mouth longer than a half-second before Will's staff smashed into the side of her jaw. She felt her teeth scrape. She felt her lip split and her head snap to the right hard enough to make the bones in her neck click.

Another second was all Will needed to return to his previous position.

As Holly held her face in her paws, hallucinating briefly that the whole lower half of it had shattered to bits and was now splintered all over the office like puzzle pieces, the other five rebels took a collective step back.

The kittens smiled. Their voices were silver monotone confidence. They spoke as one.

"We're her bodyguards," Kuri said.

"Auntie Beatrix isn't here," Will said.

"She went to stop your two friends," Kuri said.

"We're here to stop _you_," Will said.

Benjamin felt his glasses steam up. "That's creepy..."

Rubiella's brow drew down into an ugly scowl. "You hit her. No fighting," she scolded.

There was a flash of metal.

Ruby cried out softly, in shock more than surprise, as a fresh cut appeared on her cheek. She touched her face and felt the skin open. She looked down and there was blood on her paw pads. The anger in her face became fear.

Kuri, standing in the same place she had been when they came in, wiped her knife off on her pants leg. She gave Rubiella a warning look: 'You don't have the right to tell me what to do.'

"You've got one chance," Will said.

"You can give up now," Kuri said.

"And let us take you back downstairs," Will said.

"Or we can kill you," Kuri said.

The sneer on Keith's muzzle showed how jagged his teeth were from years and years of grinding them in anger. He looked to each one of his teammates, making sure they were all on the same page as him before he spoke for the group. They were all scared. No one had expected this. But Brad's instructions were clear: 'If anyone gets in your way, hurt them.'

"Choice two sounds a lot better to me," Keith said.

Kuri and Will glanced at each other and exchanged a brief, happy smile.

Finally, someone they could use their full talents on.

Moving like mirror images of each other, they took careful steps towards their opponents, grinning darkly, eyes full of easy victory, letting the fear win half their fight for them.

The rebels held their ground. Benjamin held his arms tighter around the envelope. Ruby looked as angry as a brahma bull now. Holly was bleeding from half her face and was seriously fucking pissed about it. Victor was hoping beyond hope his hurricane attack hadn't been a one-time-use-only situation. Keith felt the heat inside him and prepared himself to use it again. Sherri watched and waited for her chance.

Kuri took a half-step out of sync. Just enough to draw their attention.

Will seized it. He lunged, staff raised high.

Defying gravity, he sailed like a bird towards Keith, ready to smash the defiance out of the dark fox's eyes.

Keith put his arms up to block and flame erupted from them. A fireball three feet across ripped loose from his fur, incinerating his sleeves, catching Will full in the face.

The catboy recoiled backwards. "Fuck!!" He slapped awkwardly at his face and rubbed his whiskers to put out the fire.

This single moment of weakness was exactly what his opponents needed to see. It showed them that they were only fighting other kids like them. Fast kids. Brutal kids. But really not much different. Certainly not anything mystical. And besides, six-to-two odds. Pretty good, right?

Screaming, Holly ran as fast as a fat girl could. Straight at Kuri, ready to take her head off.

Kuri was quicker. Another flash of metal and her blade was buried to the hilt in Holly's side. A non-fatal hit. The twins were not without compassion.

Holly gasped. Felt more blood escape her. The pain just made her angrier. Her face screwed up into a rictus of hate. "Not good enough, bitch."

Kuri held tight to the handle and was able to twist herself around to catch the clumsy but powerful punch Holly threw next. Her expression oozed confidence as she gave her knife a sharp jab forward. "Don't. Just don't."

Kuri saw a chance to inflict enough pain to end this quickly. Letting go of Holly's fist, she snatched at the gold ring in her opponent's nose.

To her total shock, the ring slipped off with zero effort. Her hard pull and puzzlement overbalanced her.

The gold clip-on sailed through the air like a teensy little halo.

Holly's red teeth flashed in a grin. Speed meant nothing if you were too distracted to use it. This time she dispensed with the pithy dialogue. She leaned into the blade and put a powerhouse blow into the other girl's neck.

Staggering back, gasping for breath, Kuri let go of her knife. It was impossible, but she was watching it happen. Someone had made her Drop Her Weapon.

Holly grabbed the hilt, ripped it out, and threw it across the office. "Go get it."

Kuri's mouth hung open. This squirrel should have been on the ground crying by now. Kuri had no idea how a fat lump like this was standing up to her. This was a scenario no one had trained her for.

The kitten's smile returned. Oh, this fight was gonna be _fun_...

Dr. Beatrix's office swiftly became a slaughterhouse.


*****


     -BRAD-

A cat's ears are sensitive and have a very rubbery texture.

This was a good thing. Across the great, hollow width of Ward Zero, Brad heard the beginning of Beatrix's gunshot and his head instinctively swiveled towards the noise.

Beatrix Beverley wasn't that good of a shot in the first place. Her bullet cleaved the air, grazed Brad's left ear, and went on to embed itself in the far wall.

Brad let out a high-pitched yelp and grabbed Karen's arm without thinking, yanking her down with him as he dropped to the floor.

Brad's paw shot up to his ear. There was a chunk missing. Not all that big a chunk, but a chunk nonetheless. He couldn't help thinking about the archetypical mangy alley cat with the bite mark in one ear. Brad was going to look like that for the rest of his life now.

He looked up and saw a white-furred arm disappearing into the shadows across the room.

"I'LL _KILL_ YOU!!!" he shrieked.

He turned quickly to Karen, locking their gazes. "You stay here. Get Tyler back in his body. I'm gonna go keep her away from you."

Karen's heart was still thudding frantically. She hadn't even had time to fully grasp what had happened. "What? Brad, no! She shot you! Ohmigod, you're bleeding!"

"So?" he said. He stood up but kept himself in a half-crouch. "Just do it. Stay safe. Get Tyler back, okay?"

Karen knew Brad was about to go charging in like some movie hero and probably get shot through the heart and die. But she also knew how personal his hatred of Dr. Beatrix was. She couldn't stop him no matter what she said. "Okay," she complied.

Brad nodded sharply. Without looking back, he ran off towards his nemesis.

"The sooner you put me back together, the sooner we can go help him," Tyler told Karen, trying to sound reassuring.

"Sure..." Karen said. Her eyes were still on Brad as he darted across the immense room, trying to keep his head down, shoving empty beds out of his way here and there. She waited until he was out of sight to stand up.

"Don't die, Brad."


     ~~~


Dr. Beatrix had ducked into an area that looked like a museum of ominous machinery. Ominous and _dirty_. The ceiling was full of black pipes. Big metal boxes thrummed with energy, looking like they'd burn your hands if you brushed up against them. More pipes grew out of the floor. Thick metal, with valves on them. The air was humid as a jungle.

It was a perfect maze. A billion zillion places to hide. Brad felt like an idiot. This was a scene right out of a horror movie: The villain tricks one of the moron teenagers into the school's boiler room, waits behind a corner, then jumps out and buries a hatchet in their forehead.

Brad was too angry to care about that. His white-hot hate was back. The kind that came with an almost frightening calm. His senses were sharp. He listened for anything that sounded non-mechanical. Hoping his hate was enough, he stepped into the maze.

He moved slowly. Just because he was walking into a trap where a crazy woman with a gun wanted to kill him didn't mean he had to act even *more* stupid by yelling a lot and making his presence known.

He passed by a great round cylinder, aluminum grey, making a 'chugga-chugga-chugg' sound like a fat jogger about to pass out.

Before it was named King's Orchard, this building had been a different hospital. Many renovations had been made by The Project when it took over, but the infrastructure was still largely unchanged. The floor in here was concrete, damp and sticky from years of uncleaned spills. Brad was really, really glad he wasn't barefoot.

His ears twitched back and forth like twin radar dishes.

Oh screw this.

"HEY, CUNT!!!" Brad bellowed. The sound bounced off the walls and became a roar.

Almost immediately, another bullet sailed past him. Thankfully not as close as the first. It 'ka-pweenged' off a steel pipe three feet away. Brad thought he heard a muffled, angry expletive.

He grinned. 'Thanks for giving up your location, dummy.' He ducked behind a row of long, boxy machines and headed towards the sound.

He was breathing hard through his nose. It smelled like dead, rotting diesel trucks in here. His face was dripping with sweat. The blood from his ear had hardened into a crackly mess running down the side of his face.

He looked around on the ground for anything he could use as a weapon. Not that great a selection. There wasn't much more than tiny machine parts, old gum wads workmen had left behind, mouse droppings and little lumps of black grease. Plus, the light was so dim he could barely see his feet. There were just a few bare, yellowed lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling here and there, making some areas bright enough to hurt your eyes, others dark enough to make you blind.

Brad slunk along the wall, careful not to rub up against anything that could make a noise.

He spotted her.

A sliver view between a pipe and some other big metal box with a bunch of dials on it. Brad could see her arm and part of her back. Good enough.

He squatted down, checking again for anything to hit her with or throw at her. The wall was rotting a few feet ahead.

There was a nice plum-sized chunk of concrete laying on the ground.

Excellent.

Brad backed up, keeping his eyes cemented on Beatrix, waddling backwards until he stepped on the chunk. He winced as the pointy part nearly made him fall over sideways. He kept his balance though. He reached behind him and picked up the concrete. It felt absolutely filthy. 'I'm gonna take a really, really long shower tonight after I kill her,' he thought.

He stood up again and inched closer. He maneuvered around a thick pipe with a lot of grease dribbling down its side. He had a better view of her now. Right there was the shimmering blond hair of his enemy. Perfect.

Brad wound up and chucked the concrete at the back of her head as hard as he could.

He didn't even wait to see if he'd scored a hit; he took off running immediately. When he heard a cry of pain followed by a sharp sob and several screeched curses, he smiled. And to think he'd never been all that good at baseball!

Two more gunshots rang out behind him. Way off mark. Brad zigged and zagged through the confusing tangle of building guts. Over there was a wall, right in his way. That was bad. No, wait. On his right was an opening to another section of the basement. That was good. Brad made a beeline for it.

This section looked better maintained. Lots of skinny brass pipes connecting floor to ceiling. The floor was tile now. Slippery. Brad could hear Beatrix behind him, howling out indecipherable swear words and shooting blindly every few seconds.

Brad saw the entrance to another section up ahead. He passed by a wooden door that led to a janitor's closet.

He was caught completely off-guard when it suddenly opened right in front of him and smacked him in the face.


*****


     -ZEEK-

Twenty minutes ago when he was just leaving Ward F, the poor boy'd had no idea what was going on when the oracle in his head had shown him a vision of himself breaking off from the main group, sneaking up a side stairway and following in Dr. Beatrix's tracks as she took her own secret route to Ward Zero.

Zeek let his sense of self melt away. He became a being of pure, unquestioning trust, letting the power that worked through him direct his every move. He knew whatever was requested of him would be for the greater good. He did not know if the oracle would require him to die tonight. He hoped not. But he knew that even if it *was* maddeningly vague at times, the oracle cared for its instrument. Zeek knew it would keep him safe if fate allowed.

He had seen himself hiding in this closet. He'd seen himself waiting. He'd seen himself opening the door at just the right time.


     ~~~


Brad's nose smashed into the hard wood. His paws skidded on the tile. He started falling backwards, feeling like he was in slow-motion.

All he could think was, 'Whoever's behind that door is gonna die when I get back up.'

Just as he hit the floor, kinking his tail up underneath him, a bullet whizzed through the air. Directly where his head had been a second ago. It pierced through the wood like cotton candy.

Brad's eyes went wide. 'Whoever's behind that door just saved my life.'

He flipped himself over and scuttled behind the door. A paw reached out to help him up.

Brad was utterly flabbergasted to see Zeek looking back at him.

The enigmatic fennec put a finger to his lips: Silence. He nodded to Brad. Then he pulled the door closed, secreting himself in the janitor's nook once more.

Brad wasted a second marvelling, then took off again.

The idea of 'coincidence' didn't even occur to him. His confusion popped like a bubble and he understood everything. This was why Zeek had been so distant in the TV room when they'd first met. This was why he'd refused to join their meetings. Whatever force it was that gave him his instructions had shown him this moment, perhaps only hinted at it, and had told Zeek firmly that the only way to save the tomcat's life was to keep under Dr. Beatrix's radar. Brad did not want to think about how easily he could have died back there. A bullet in the brain; he wouldn't even have noticed it. Just 'boom' - dead. The pain in his nose was now proof that he was still alive. Brad vowed to find Zeek again after all this was over and thank him about a billion times.


     ~~~


He had been surprised to find Brad down here, but not too surprised. He thought he'd hid it quite well.

Back in the janitor's closet, Zeek was huddled in a tiny ball. He'd nearly had his nose blown off by the bullet that had sailed though the door right after he opened it. He had never been so scared in his life.

The oracle let him rest. It spoke soothing emotions to him. It told him his work was over for now. The best thing for him to do was curl up, be still, and wait it out. When it was safe, it would tell him when to run.

His purpose was clear to him now. His weeks of hiding were all in preparation for this one instant. Zeek knew he had done well. The oracle was proud of him.

Huddled in a cranny of this pitch black, foul-smelling room, Zeek smiled.


*****


     -KAREN-

As soon as her lips touched his, Karen felt a shock and Tyler sat bolt upright like a movie monster. He looked like his brain wasn't screwed on quite right yet. His eye twitched.

"H-how are you feeling, Tyler?" Karen asked tentatively.

"...Hexi-dazmic," he gurgled.


*****


     -BRAD-

Brad skidded to a stop.

The room he was in now looked a whole hell of a lot like a dead end.

"That sucks," he said.

He looked all around. Beatrix was coming up fast behind him. Right now he needed to capitalize on any advantage possible.

So, okay. Where was here? It looked like a control room, or a supply room. Concrete floor again. There were a lot of machines to his left that had buttons and tiny LED lights on them. They probably controlled all the water or air conditioning or something. To his right was a shit-ton of boxes. Some opened. All of them had maintenance supplies in them. Faucets. Rubber washers. Toilet paper. Lightbulbs.

Lightbulbs.

Not the normal kind. These were the great big long fluorescent ones, the three-foot tubes that kinda looked like light sabers.

Brad got himself one bonzer of a great idea.

He snatched up one of the long bulbs in one paw and grabbed a metal folding chair with the other. He tossed the chair over by the doorway. He got up on top of it and held the bulb by one end like a baseball bat.

He stood stone still, listening to his heart thunder in his chest.

His ears stood straight up. He listened for her.

"Bradley...?"

Oh crap, she was close.

"Oh Bradley! I can hear you in there!"

She sounded positively giddy.

"I've been down here more than a few times, Bradley. I know my way around. I know that the room you're in only has one doorway. You're trapped." She paused, then said sweetly, "I've got a few more bullets left in my gun and I'm going to put them in your face, Bradley."

Brad did not move. Sweat ran in his eyes. He shut them tight, concentrating only on sound.

Dr. Beatrix knew where he was and was taking her time playing with him. This was actually kind of fun. Once he'd hit her with that rock or whatever it was, he'd pretty much signed his own death certificate. The back of her head still stung. He'd *hurt* her. Didn't he have any idea how much she was going to punish him for that?

"Now Bradley, we can end this like civilized people," she cooed. "If you walk out of that room slowly with your hands empty, I'll let you live." This was a lie. She knew he was too proud to do what she said, but if he did, hoping for mercy, she'd shoot his knee out and then make him taste the barrel before she put another bullet down his throat. She'd look him in the eye and make sure that the last image he'd take from this world would be her smile that said, 'I won.'

"Bradley? If you make me come in there, you're going to suffer," she warned. Her tone was casual, almost concerned, and hideously fake. "I'll cripple you. I'll make you watch as I drag Karen down here and stick this gun in her ear. When her head goes, it'll be just like sticking a firecracker in a watermelon. Do you really want that to happen?"

She waited a few more seconds.

"Last chance. I'm coming in there, Bradley."

No response.

She smiled. She'd hoped he'd make this choice. It was always more satisfying to watch pride drain out of a furson's eyes and be replaced with horror than for them to simply give up. She remembered the escape attempt ten years ago. That boy in the leather jacket. She was so mad at him running away at the last second, forcing her to shoot him in the back of the head. She'd so wanted to see his expression when he died. Rolling him over afterwards wasn't nearly as rewarding.

Beatrix stepped lightly through the doorway, gun cocked and at the ready.

Brad swung the fluorescent lightbulb and caught her clean across the eyes.


*****


     -HOLLY-

To call it a massacre was more than apt.

The five rebels ended up back-to-back in a small circle. Keith, Ruby and Holly protected Benjamin and Victor. Those two were simply not fighters and would be dead by now if they'd even tried to help. As it was, the trio that remained standing wasn't faring much better.

All three were covered in dozens of cuts from Kuri's swift blade. Ruby's face looked like a chopping block. Keith's arm was broken. Holly healed quickly - the wound in her side was already gone without a trace - but she was covered in blood. She was starting to get light-headed.

"Give up," Kuri said smugly.

"You can't win," Will agreed.

The Rennaults each had a handful of bruises but nothing worse. Keith had been lobbing fireballs at the duo continuously, but the twins were simply too fast to aim at. The most he'd been able to accomplish had been to singe their fur a few times. A well-placed kick from Will had shattered his shoulder when the fox's attention wavered for an instant.

Ruby's punches had all the strength of a head-on car collision, but they were slow. Slow even for a regular fight. Just once, Kuri had been distracted and Ruby managed to glance a blow off her shoulder blade. Kuri had bitten back a scream of pain. She retaliated swiftly by slicing the tigress' nose nearly in half. Ruby had blood in her mouth now, and the taste was just awful.

Holly hadn't done much more than get in that first good punch of hers, but she kept swinging nonetheless. She knew she couldn't die, but she could sure as shit feel pain. Kuri had been stabbing her like crazy, mystified when the squirrel's tendons regrew and her blood clotted almost instantaneously. Holly's lone weapon now was her bottomless well of wrath. The more they hurt her, the more she wanted to hurt them back. If only the springy little fuckers would stand STILL!

"How ya doin' sis?" Will asked, no more concern in his tone than if they'd been playing a carefree game of tennis.

"Just swell," she said, flashing a grin in Holly's face. "I could do this all-"

Keith shot a spear of flame at her. She looked mildly annoyed and simply backflipped over it. "Jerk," she said. She punished him with an invisibly-quick punch in the eye.

Keith shuddered, but kept standing. He wanted to cry. His anger was still going strong, but it was starting to lose against the pain. His shoulder was *demolished*. He couldn't even feel his hand anymore. His elbow was nearly numb too. The one good thing he held onto was that his fire was showing no signs of diminishing. If it had just been him versus them, he'd have flooded this office with flame five minutes ago and just burned the unholy duo up like charred marshmallows. Unfortunately, he had his friends to consider. He wanted them to survive, not end up cooked. Reining in his power was frustrating. He had to keep throwing shots at the twins, but he couldn't go too far or he'd set the office on fire. The last thing anyone needed was for the hospital's fire alarms to have something real to cry about. Also, there was Beatrix's computer to consider. He wanted it to survive so the cops would have something to hang the crazy bitch with after this was all over.

Victor was just as paralyzed in regards to his power. He felt worse than useless watching his friends get cut to ribbons defending him. If there was only some way to get them out of danger, one blast from his tailhole would send the two cat-monsters straight through Beatrix's giant window. But he didn't even know if his power would work a second time.

Benjamin had never felt more like a coward. He stood like a statue, protected by Keith, Holly and Ruby. He knew he was a weakling. Knew he'd never even come close to winning a fight in his whole life. But he also knew that his brain contained enough evidence to incriminate not just Dr. Beatrix, but *dozens* of her co-conspirators. Even though he felt like the king of pussies for not standing up and fighting like a man, he forced himself to keep in mind that his most important role in all this was to survive.

"We don't want to kill you," Will said, sounding calm and reasonable.

"You can stop this. Just lie down on the floor and give up," Kuri advised.

Holly's eyes were nearly as red as her hair. "Gimme that knife, kitty. I wanna carve off my asshole and shove it down your cute little throat." She managed a grin. She wished Tyler had been here to hear that.

Kuri sneered. "You're rude!"

"It's all I've got," Holly spat back. Literally. A tooth came sailing out of her mouth and landed on Beatrix's desk.

"Hey, fine. We offered," Will said with a shrug.

Without warning, he kicked Rubiella brutally in the stomach. She bent double and wailed, clutching at herself. She tasted her dinner trying to come back up.

Will twitched. He felt a little bad about hurting a retarded kid. 'No,' he told himself, remembering what The Project had taught him. 'These kids are no better than terrorists. If we let them get away with this shit, it'll be just like letting an infectious disease loose on society. Millions of people are counting on us.'

There are few things more sad than a decent soul corrupted by an evil belief.

"Give up," Kuri urged again. She wasn't getting tired physically, but the sight of all this blood was starting to really disturb her. They had been trained to take their enemies out cleanly and silently. They'd used up all their fancy tricks already. These kids wouldn't drop. Even if they were horribly misguided, trying to hurt their Auntie Beatrix and all, Kuri almost had to admire their loyalty to each other. She kept trying to get to the skunk and fox in the middle, and hadn't been able to do more than nick their shoulders a few times.

"Why don't *you* give up?" Holly asked. "I'm serious. What the fuck did they do to your heads to make you think you're the good guys?"

Kuri's small face tightened with anger. "Screw you! You crazy piece of shit! You're the one in the mental hospital!"

Holly giggled. "Um, honey, we're both in a mental hospital right now. Might wanna open your eyes more often."

"Don't talk to my sister like that," Will said. He gave Holly's mouth another smash with his staff as punishment.

Holly spat out three more teeth. "You're gonna pay my dentist's bills, you psycho-dick."

"Don't you get it? It's over. We won," Will said. He looked at Holly with disgust. Fat, covered in blood, ugly as hell and no matter what they did to her she Wouldn't Shut Up!

"You haven't won anything," Holly corrected. "We're still alive. After you kill off all of us, then you can say it. After there's five corpses laying in this office, _then_ you two can say you won. Have fun trying to get to sleep tonight. You think the janitors will be able to get all the stains out of the carpet tomorrow morning?"

"Shut UP!" Kuri screeched.

"I know my parents have money for my funeral. What about you, Keith?" Holly asked conversationally.

"Probably," he mumbled. "But we've been saving up for a year to go on a big vacation. I guess I'll be missing that, thanks to these two fuckfaces."

"Shut UP!!" Will screamed.

"My dad'll probably throw a party when he hears the news. What an asshole," Benjamin said, trying to sound cool and brave like they did.

"Shut UP!!!" Kuri screamed. She rushed at Holly and jammed her knife in the squirrel's mouth just far enough to touch her tonsils. "Shut the fuck up. I mean it. You all shut up. Shut your damn mouths. Shut up."

"Go to Hell," Holly was able to enunciate surprisingly well around the knife.

Screeching in frustration, Kuri ripped the knife away and opened Holly's cheek from lip to ear.

Holly made no sound. It hurt so *much* though. She desperately wanted to scream. In fact, a great big part of her wanted to drop to her knees right now and beg these two assassins for mercy. But she knew she'd rather die than do that. In fact, she probably would regardless.

Seeing Holly's face torn open like an orange peel, Victor had had enough. He broke free suddenly, pushing past Keith and Rubiella and racing out of the room like lighting.

Will watched with minor concern. "Should I go chase him?"

"Naw. Why bother?" Kuri replied. The kid was obviously a coward. What could it hurt to let him go?

Seeing that her attention was elsewhere, Keith tried one last time to set Kuri's face on fire. Once again she ducked effortlessly. "Cut that out," she said, as if all he'd done was flick a spitwad at her. She debated whether to even punish him for it, then decided it couldn't hurt to. She ducked down in the space of half a heartbeat and stabbed him in the foot.

A tear rolled out of Keith's eye. He bit his lip so hard he nearly split it.

"Why?" Kuri asked. Hands on her hips, a look of contempt on her face, she speared Keith with her gaze. "Why are you doing this?"

Keith composed himself. He chose his words carefully. "Because I have a right to be who I am."

She snorted. "No you don't! That's like someone with AIDS saying they've got a right to go around infecting everyone! You're just a bunch of sickos. What's there to be so damn proud of?"

He nearly laughed. "Then you guys are sickos too. You've gotta be."

"Yeah, but at least we know what that means," Will said from behind him. "At least we're trying to *do* something about it."

"What? Killing off everyone else like you in the whole damn world?" Holly said, unable to believe how full of it these two were.

"Of course not!!" Kuri snapped. "I already told you, we don't wanna kill _anyone_! We only have to when freaks like you try to resist! If you'd just listen to Dr. Beatrix and do what she says and take your pills and shut the hell up, you'd be going home eventually and get to live a normal life! What's so horrible about that!?"

Holly thought she had a chance. It seemed like maybe these two weren't evil to the core like Beatrix and Thurston. It was possible they were just regular kids who'd gotten their brains washed. "Would _you_ like having someone you've never met deciding how you're allowed to live your life?"

Kuri shook her head. "That doesn't apply. If I was doing something that endangered everyone around me, I'd want someone to make me stop."

"'Endangering everyone'!? Are you *hearing* this shit?" Benjamin scoffed.

"Most of us are barely aware we've got any weird powers," Holly said. "How's it helping anything to drag us all here and make us think we're crazy?"

"What if someone woke up one day and realized they could kill people just by thinking about it, huh?" Will countered. "You ever read any comic books? You think it'd be like that!? There wouldn't be any superheroes! Most people are assholes! You think if we just let everyone do whatever they want, they *wouldn't* start robbing and killing each other all over the place?"

Keith snarled disgustedly. "Then why not lock up everyone in the world because someday someone might decide to commit a crime?"

"It's not that simple!!" Will barked, getting angry again. "That's like saying we should let everyone carry around nuclear weapons because it'd be wrong to infringe their precious fuckin' rights!!"

"Oh, that's complete bullshit!" Holly yelled.

"No fighting..." Ruby said. No one heard her.

"You want me to slit your other cheek!?" Kuri screamed in Holly's face. "Give you a great big clown grin, you fat pig?"

"What Did You Just Say?" Holly growled murderously.

*BLAM*!!!

Every head turned at the noise.

A shell casing dropped to the floor.

Victor was standing in the doorway with Clifford's gun in his hands. He was shaking all over, his eyes shining bright with the madness of someone who is a single thread away from snapping.

"STOP IT!!!" he screamed.


*****


     -BEATRIX-

Glass flew everywhere. An explosion of glass. A fireworks display of glass.

Shards went up Dr. Beatrix's nose. Shards lodged in her eyes and kept her lids from closing. She screamed and shards went in her mouth and down her throat.

Brad hopped down off the chair and backed away. Dr. Beatrix started swinging the gun around wildly, nearly catching him in the face. She fired once, but the bullet just hit concrete.

Brad backed up as far out of her reach as possible. As long as that gun still had bullets, he wasn't safe. Now that he thought about it, blinding a woman who was holding a loaded gun might not have been the best idea he'd ever had.

"BRADLEY, YOU LITTLE *SHIT*!!!" Beatrix roared.

Wow. Even with a faceful of glass tubing, she still kept adding that extra syllable to his name. He almost had to admire that.

Ducked back into a corner, a desk on one side and a water temperature regulator on the other, Brad tried to make himself as small as possible. Maybe she'd just keep trying to shoot him and he could wait out her bullets. Maybe she'd start stumbling around and he could run past her. Actually, he realized, how the hell was she managing to stay standing after a hit like that?

Dr. Beatrix stopped herself. She knew she only had a few bullets left and wasting them was just what dear Bradley wanted. "Oh, I am so ANGRY at you!" she shouted.

Brad laughed nervously. Um, wasn't she supposed to be falling down on the ground right about now, screaming in pain and clawing at her eyeballs?

Instead, Dr. Beatrix did quite the opposite. She straightened up and took a few deep breaths (which hurt like hell because she had glass in her esophagus and both nostrils). She stood calmly and silently in the dim storage room, gun still held firmly in her hand.

Brad had absolutely no idea what was happening. This went against quite a few rules of basic psychological behavior, as well as a couple laws of nature.

*plink*

As Brad stared and his mouth opened steadily wider, he realized something was happening to the glass in Dr. Beatrix's face.

*plink plink plink*

It was removing itself.

He watched in unthinking horror as the tiny slivers began to slide backwards out of her flesh as if pulled by a magnet. Not one by one, but all of them at the same time. Fragments fell to the concrete floor producing a very musical sound.

Brad watched slivers of glass extracting themselves from the rabbit's eyeballs.

Dr. Beatrix gave a gentle shake of her head.

*plinkplinkplinkplinkplinkplinkplink*

Like a gentle rain shower, almost all of the rest fell off at once. A few more stragglers stayed stuck in her fur, trapped by blood. Dr. Beatrix brushed a paw feather-lightly across her face.

Then she gathered her hair up in her palm, bent over, and vomited a great gush of red blood onto the concrete. It sparkled in the light. It took all the rest of the glass that was inside of her with it.

Dr. Beatrix stood up primly and smiled.

"There. That's better."

Brad's mind was like a broken television set. Nothing but static. The world had officially gone crazy now.

"Don't you see, you stupid little boy?" Beatrix said in a sing-song voice. She sounded like a perky children's show host. "You can't hurt me. You can never defeat me. I am always right."

No. Wait. It *did* make sense now. Understanding it, Brad began to laugh.

"Stop that," Beatrix said instantly.

Brad couldn't. He let out a big ol' belly laugh.

Beatrix pointed the gun at him. "I'll paint these walls Brad's Brain Pink if you don't stop laughing," she threatened.

That only made him laugh harder. "Ha ha! You called me Brad!"

'Goddamnit,' she realized. She had.

"But that's not why I'm laughing," Brad said, unable to keep the grin from his lips. "You total hypocrite! You're a freak just like the rest of us! Aren't you?"

"I am _not_!" She protested, sounding huffy and ruffled; a little girl caught cheating at a game.

Brad heard the change in her voice and loved it. He was right. He'd pegged her good. It explained so much too! Hadn't he read in a book somewhere that people will always fight hardest against the things they hate most about themselves? "You are too! You've got some weird healing power like Holly! You're just like her! You fucking hate us, and it's because you're Just Like Us! You FREAK! Freak, freak, freak!!" Brad laughed.

Beatrix shot him in the chest.

Brad made a small choking noise. He doubled up in a tight ball and coughed up a few ounces of blood.

Dr. Beatrix's face was an ugly, dark scowl. "Laugh now," she said.

It was weird, Brad thought. The pain was so intense, it was like he wasn't even feeling it at all. It was like his body had just decided, 'Well, show's over. Fuck it.'

Beatrix came closer and knelt down right in front of him, as close to eye level as she could get. She swung the gun lightly in her hand. "Still alive? Good. I want it to hurt a little while. You know, to punish you for that dirty, dirty lie you just told about me."

Brad wanted very much to spit back that it was true, he knew it was true. Unfortunately, he was having a little trouble controlling his mouth just then. Or the rest of his body for that matter.

Dr. Beatrix knelt on the concrete, getting her knee dirty, something she would not otherwise have done if this moment were not so important. Few things in life filled her with such a sense of satisfaction than proving to some annoying little pissant like Bradley that she was, in fact, always right.

She brushed the hair from Brad's forehead. She leaned in almost close enough to touch noses.

Brad felt her push the butt of the gun hard into his stomach.

"Bye bye, Bradley. This is what happens to naughty boys who don't cooperate."

She flinched as she pulled the trigger. Brad jerked hard and nearly fell over. She caught him. She liked seeing him all curled up in a ball like this, fearing for his life.

Brad thought about his mother.

Dr. Beatrix pulled the trigger again. She smiled tenderly.

A line of blood ran down Brad's lips.

"Oh, what the hell." She pulled the trigger a few more times until it clicked empty. She tossed the gun aside.

The snow-white rabbit placed a tiny kiss on Brad's forehead. "Rot in hell," she whispered.


*****


     -VICTOR-

He was crying. He thought maybe this was karma. Just like Clifford had said a few minutes ago in the hallway that he didn't want to hurt anyone, Victor had the gun in his hands now and was saying pretty much the same thing. "I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want this to stop. Please, please stop."

Nobody moved.

Kuri and Will both tightened their grips on their weapons. They were fast, but some things are faster. A bullet was one of them.

Holly, Keith and Rubiella took the opportunity to relax a bit. Of course, this just made all their many injuries speak up and remind them they were there.

Benjamin thought that his shy little buddy Victor holding a gun was one of those impossible things that he'd never see in his lifetime. Like a flying pig, or an honest elected official.

Dr. Beatrix's office was almost completely silent. A breeze from the smashed window in the hall crept inside to rustle some papers.

"Just stop," Victor pleaded. His hands were shaking badly. "This is wrong. I just wanna go home. I wanna see my dad. There shouldn't be any funerals. I just want everyone to go home."

"That's a really good idea, Vic," Holly said gently. "Maybe you should put the gun down, then. You're shaking like a leaf. You might shoot someone by accident.

The little skunk sniffed back a sob. "I know," he said apologetically. "But if I put the gun down, you'll all start fighting again. I don't want anyone else getting hurt."

'This is ridiculous,' Kuri thought. 'He's crying so hard he can barely see.' Even though the gun was pointed right at her, she was confident the skunk kid couldn't possibly aim well enough to hit her. Slowly, she lifted her foot to take a single step forward.

"NO!!!" Victor roared, brandishing the gun in front of him, the barrel swinging wildly. "Not until everyone agrees to just walk out of here and not hurt anyone else!"

"I would," Ruby said meekly.

"We all know you would, Ruby," Holly told her softly. "I'm sorry I made you fight."

Forgiveness was easy for Ruby. "S'okay," she said.

Forgiveness was not easy for Kuri though. She watched Victor's every move closely. The skunk was weak, tired and just about ready to fall apart from stress. Yeah, this would be easy. All she had to do was get off one good high jump over the area she'd just been, and then if he fired it'd sail right under her. Simple. Then she'd get the gun away from him and-

Then what? For just a second there, she had seen herself taking the gun and just blasting everyone's heads off. She was a good shot. Just because she preferred knives didn't mean she hadn't also gotten high scores in marksmanship. Just 'pop pop pop pop pop' and then she and Will could go find Auntie Beatrix and this would all be over with.

'I'm thinking calmly about murdering five kids my own age,' she realized to her absolute horror. 

And then, an almost impossible thing happened: For one brief instant, Kuri Rennault thought for herself. 'I don't care what The Project says! What the hell have they done to me and my brother that I could even *think* something so horrible!?'

She took a step forward, meaning to call out to Victor that he was right, this fight wasn't important anymore. She was willing to back down if he would and then they could all go home.

Unfortunately, Victor saw movement, and his finger did the rest.

*BLAM*

Will saw the skunk's trigger finger move.

He saw his sister's expression; she wasn't trying to attack, she was trying to calm him down. He saw the skunk's expression; tears in his eyes, firing completely by accident.

Will saw the bullet exit the barrel of the gun.

In that instant, there was only one fact in the universe that mattered: If he was not fast enough, his sister would die.

Will surged forward, putting every ounce of power his miracle body possessed into his legs.

The bullet came closer. Victor was just now beginning to react to the loud noise and realize he'd fired the gun.

Will pushed himself harder.

Kuri's expression was changing slowly to one of horrified realization. She was trying to overcome her forward momentum but couldn't. She was stuck.

Will leapt.

The bullet was a foot away.

He reached out and caught it.

Of course, this caused his wrist to shatter like balsa wood.

Will hit the floor screaming in pain. He jumped to his feet, tried to cradle his wrist, screamed again at the pain and held his arm out in front of him as if he could fling the agony off him.

Kuri's first instinct was to run to her brother and help him. But her second instinct was revenge, and it won out. While the others were too stunned to do anything, she barrelled past the fat squirrel and the tiger girl to grab the fox with glasses and put her knife to his throat.

Benjamin went rigid as marble. He was so scared he couldn't think. But when Kuri's blade touched his flesh, he suddenly knew she'd used it to cut up Will's birthday cake a few months ago as a goof.

Kuri screamed at the rest of her enemies, her voice as sharp and deadly as her blade, "I don't know why you were protecting this little fag, but if you don't want to see me cut his head off, you'll fucking do what I tell you!!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Victor said, crying his eyes out, as he dropped the gun on the floor.

Saying the word 'fag' around Keith was similar to pulling the pin on a hand grenade and not throwing it. Keith's mind went blank with anger. His hair caught fire. In about five seconds, he was going to leap at Kuri and burn all her skin off.

Sherri had been watching _everything_.

Just like Holly had told her, the little bunny had stayed invisible the whole time, watching the bloodbath unfold and waiting for the perfect time to step in. There had been plenty of opportunities, but she'd wasted them. She knew it, and she was ashamed of herself. She was even crying. To her own astonishment, she *cared* about these people. It wasn't just that the sight of all these bodily fluids and violent acts made her wanna puke. She actually wanted to risk herself to save these other kids. It was a horrible feeling. But the pain from it came only from her own shame at realizing that this was what *normal* people felt all the time. She wasn't alone in the universe and never would be. Other people were just as real and just as important as she was. She didn't have to be social _all_ the time, but she also knew she needed to stop trying to force the world to change to suit her whims. She'd been given this power for more than just securing some quiet time while she read a book or drew a picture.

Sherri had watched the epic battle and tried again and again to do something to help her friends. She just couldn't though. Not that her heart wasn't in the right place; her instinct for self preservation simply kept making her hesitate until the perfect moment was past. She could have stopped this a long time ago. She could have grabbed those cat kids' weapons away, or tripped them, or knocked them unconscious with the stapler on Dr. Beatrix's desk. But then they might've caught her and hurt her. She didn't like pain. She knew exactly how selfish that was, given how Holly, Ruby and Keith all looked like they were about to drop down dead. Sherri had failed a dozen times to do something with her newfound capacity for empathy.

The one time it absolutely mattered the most though, she did just fine.

When Will, still stumbling around and screaming, was in the perfect position, she ran up and gave him a good hard bulldozer shove right in Keith's direction. She even did her best not to put pressure on the cat boy's wrist. Keith looked rather dumbfounded that anyone could move sideways like that, so Sherri had to physically grab his arms and wrap them around the cat boy.

She made herself visible. "Okay, WAIT!! Everyone just hold it!" she shouted wildly.

"Where the shit did SHE come from!?" Kuri yapped.

"Way to help us out, Sherri," Holly grumbled.

Sherri cringed, "I know, I'm sorry. I kinda suck, don't I?" She held up her hands and waved them all around, trying to get everybody's attention. "Okay, just everybody listen! Cat girl, you've got Benjamin, and Keith's got your brother. You love him, right? Well then, don't hurt Benjamin or Keith will cook his head."

"Right," Keith agreed, suddenly tightening his grip. "I'll barbecue his nuts off."

Will mewed in pain.

Kuri was pissed as hell and full of adrenaline and didn't know what to do anymore. Her introspective thought was lost for a second there when she heard her brother's scream of pain, but now it was back. She looked around the room and saw the situation for what it really was; a bunch of scared kids who she and her brother had basically tortured, nearly to death. And now her brother's wrist was bubblegum. She could tell from the way his hand was hanging off like there'd never even *been* bones there.

'I did this,' Kuri realized.

She shivered.

'I think I deserve to hate myself now.'

"Hey! Whatever your name is!" Holly barked.

"Kuri."

"Okay, Kuri, let's switch. You're angry at me, remember? Ben's just an innocent bystander. Let him go and take me instead."

"Yes, please," Benjamin readily agreed. Unlike Holly, he was pretty sure he couldn't get decapitated and still live.

Kuri shifted position slightly, tightening her grip on the knife. "I... can't."

"Keith?" Holly called out without looking.

The fox grunted.

"Kill him."

"NO!" Kuri screamed. Fuck The Project, fuck Dr. Beatrix, fuck King's Orchard. Nothing else in Kuri's life mattered more than her brother. She pushed Benjamin away so fast he tripped and landed elbow-first on the carpet.

"Oww," he said.

In her zeal to prevent her brother's death, Kuri realized she had completely forgotten to grab Holly after she let Benjamin go. "Dammit."

Holly grinned.

Kuri stood there in the bloodstained office, feeling the carpet stiff and sticky under her feet, trembling with fury, clutching her knife so hard she drove the imprint of the handle into her palm. She was helpless now. No matter how fast she was, there was a good chance the flaming fox kid could still incinerate her brother before she could stop him. She wanted to drive her blade right between that smug, fat squirrel's eyes. Finally, she settled on property damage.

With a screech of frustrated rage, Kuri drew back and stabbed Dr. Beatrix's plate glass window.

Oh, it was a spectacular sight.

Cracks raced along the glass, making the black night seem suddenly to come alive with blue lightning. The window held together for about a half second before exploding into shards. It looked like the whole thing had just magically turned into sparkling pixie dust. Glass rode on the wind and came down to Earth like deadly rain. It was a very good thing that Dr. Beatrix's office was on the side of the building farthest away from the parking lot, or what was happening directly below them might have had an extremely unhappy ending.

The cold night breeze swallowed the room, sending a shiver through everyone's skin.

Kuri sheathed her weapon. "Let my brother go," she said.

"Toss that knife out the window first," Holly commanded.

Kuri looked personally insulted. "Why don't you just ask me to cut off my *hand* and throw it out the window!?"

Holly didn't quite understand that, but guessed certain people had a strong affinity for their weapons. "Fine. Just get the hell out of here and then I'll tell Keith to let your brother go."

"No," Kuri said forcefully. "Give him to me now. I won't try anything; you've won. You have my word of honor."

Holly sneered and wiped blood from her mouth. "Honor doesn't mean a god damn thing to me."

"Well it does to ME!!" Kuri screeched, her words as powerful as a blow.

Holly thought for a moment. "Sherri?"

"Still here," the lapin assured.

"Go get that gun from Victor."

Sherri nodded and darted off. She plucked the weapon up off the floor. Victor seemed _very_ glad to get it out of his sight. Sherri brought it over to Holly obediently.

Holly pointed it right between Kuri's eyes. The wind whipped her red hair all around. "Okay Keith, now you can let him go."

Keith looked into the other boy's eyes, wondering just for a moment what things might have been like if they'd all been able to work side-by-side. He grunted and pushed Will in Kuri's direction.

The kittens hugged immediately. Kuri rubbed her brother's arm, feeling where it was already starting to swell up to gargantuan proportions. Will whined in pain. She kissed his hurt paw.

Victor stepped forward, looking like an emotional train wreck. He spoke to Will with eyes crimson from tears. "I'm so sorry... It was an accident. I didn't mean to. I just wanted everyone to stop fighting..."

Will looked back at him. He didn't see anything but sincerity in the skunk boy's eyes. He thought about saying 'I know' or 'I forgive you', but he couldn't. His sister had nearly died because of this kid's carelessness. He was glad his wrist was broken. It was a million times better than the alternative.

"Go," Holly told the Rennault twins.

Kuri nodded to her. "If we ever see you again, we'll kill you," she stated as a simple fact.

"You just go ahead and try that," Holly said with a condescending smirk.

Kuri checked her brother over one more time. They exchanged glances, coming to a decision without words. Kuri held onto him tightly. Will did the best he could with his one arm. She cast one more look at her enemies, fixing their faces in her memory.

Then she stepped backwards out the window.

Holly and the others gasped. "Jesus!" Holly shouted.

Benjamin couldn't comprehend it. "They... killed themselves!?"

"No way," Holly said. She stepped as close to the window as she dared and looked over the edge. "Oh. Okay."

The others gathered round to look. Will was holding on to Kuri's back while she made her way down the side of the building. She would hook onto a window ledge with hands and feet, let go, hook on again to the next one down, then let go again. Kuri was not the type of furson to end her life while she still had a vendetta to finish.

"Watch out for all the broken glass!" Victor called out to them.

Holly gave him a weird look.

"Well, I don't want them getting hurt any worse," the skunk explained.

"They were mean," Ruby assessed.

Holly stepped back from the abyss and looked the office over. With all the blood, it was amazing none of them had actually died. The side of her face was healing nicely by now. She walked over to Beatrix's desk and pushed it farther away from the gaping hole in the office. "I don't want the computer to fall out the window," she explained. "I want it right here when the cops are crawlin' all over the place."

"Thank you for not letting her kill me," Benjamin said suddenly to her.

Holly shrugged. "You're welcome."

"What now?" Sherri asked.

Holly started heading for the door. "Now we gotta find out whether there's anything left of Dr. Beatrix after Brad killed her ass."

"We gotta walk down all those steps..." Keith sighed.

"I gotta piss so bad..." said Benjamin.


*****


     -BRAD-

Beatrix took a second longer to admire her handiwork. Brad looked quite cute dead. Maybe she'd have him stuffed and mounted in her bedroom, she thought.

Brad grabbed her by the shoulders and bit as deeply into her neck as he could.

Her first thought was, naturally, 'This is not happening'. After you shoot someone five times, they're supposed to stay dead. Beatrix's eyes were wide open, unseeing. She could feel Brad's sharp feline teeth digging into her skin like a beartrap.

Brad pushed her back and used her as a brace to get to his feet.

When he did, Beatrix saw five bullets roll off his lap and bounce merrily on the floor. Brad's shirt was ripped to shreds, and his whole torso would soon be one gigantic bruise, but his skin was intact.

The bullets had literally bounced off him.

That wasn't to say they hadn't done some damage first. Brad knew his insides were pretty tore up right now. He thought he must be bleeding internally. He felt a little woozy, and the coppery taste of rabbit blood in his mouth wasn't helping. Brad thought he might be dying.

If that were the case, no force on Earth could stop him from taking Beatrix down with him.

With a savage scream, Brad spat out Beatrix's flesh and punched her in the face as hard as he could. He knocked her off her feet and heard a good, satisfying crack when her head bounced off the concrete.

He jumped on her. Clutching her collar in one hand, he punched her again with the other. He punched her again and again. WHUD! WHUD! WHUD! Bones cracked and flesh slid over them like old leftovers. WHUD! WHUD! WHUD!

Beatrix got her second wind and wrapped a hand around Brad's throat, squeezing it hard as iron, enjoying the feel of her small sharp claws digging in. She rolled them both over and smashed the back of Brad's skull into the floor.

Brad lifted his foot and planted his shoe right between Beatrix's tits, knocking her off him. Beatrix growled like a madwoman and jumped at him again, punching him in the cheekbone. He punched her, she punched him, he kicked, she kicked. Suffice to say, it went on like that for quite a while.

It was the most brutal, primitive, uncivilized boxing match any sane mind could ever hope to witness. Brad was elastic and Beatrix couldn't take damage. They hated each other equally. Their higher thoughts were nonexistent. For each of them, their lives had taken on one single mission: KILL.

Beatrix made a grab for the gun. Even if it was empty, it was still a heavy sumbitch. She raised it like a caveman about to strike stone to stone and make fire. She brought it down on Brad's head hard enough to swat him clear across the room.

Brad landed badly on the unopened boxes of supplies. He felt something cut his ribs. At this point, he really didn't care what it was. At this point, he was starting to think that lying down and falling asleep forever might be a really great idea.

Beatrix got to her feet. She staggered over to Brad, not knowing how to kill him anymore but determined to give it her best effort.

Brad tried to get up again but he'd fallen at such an awkward angle it was hard to get his footing.

There was no sound in the room but their hot, wet gasps of breath.

The rabbit grunted something that might have been witty if she'd been able to articulate it. She raised her gun, holding it by the barrel like a hammer, meaning to bash Brad's skull in.

Brad knew he had neither the time nor the strength to roll out of the way in time.

"Yo, bitch!" a jovial voice called out from behind them.

Brad looked up.

Beatrix turned around.

Tyler was standing there in the doorway, milking his dramatic entrance for all it was worth.

He grinned at Beatrix, ratlike and feral. "Thanks for the nap."

"Disobedient li'l asswipe," she slurred, completely punch drunk. "Gitcher ass back in bed."

Tyler shook his head. "Actually, I think it's time for you to witness the power of this Fully Armed And Operational Battle Station!!!"

Brad really thought he was hallucinating when Tyler shot lightning bolts out of his fingertips.

Beatrix went rigid as an ironing board as several thousand volts of electricity rampaged through her body.

Tyler giggled. "That's so cool." He gave her the juice again. Beatrix jerked and twitched, dancing like an animatronic scarecrow.

Brad fumbled his way upright. He walked forward, feeling like his guts had turned to hamburger inside him. He watched Tyler put on his little show with as much interest as he could coax out of his brain.

The electricity lit up Tyler's face eerily as he made Dr. Beatrix dance and dance like a puppet on a string. He jolted her ceaselessly, blasting her backwards until her face hit one of the big machines and partially fused there.

Tyler hit her with everything he had, but eventually he ran out of power. No biggie. He kinda figured this was only a temporary side effect from his adventure in the wiring. When it was all over, most of Dr. Beatrix Beverley's snow white fur was soot black. Her hair looked like a science experiment. Her face... Well, some things are simply too upchuck-inducing to describe.

The smell of deep-fried rabbit filled the air. Aside from the burned fur stench, it almost made Brad hungry. "She dead?"

Tyler leaned in a little closer. Part of Beatrix's cheek crackled and slid off. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure," he said with a grimace. Then he perked up. "Hey, maybe if I consume her heart, I'll absorb her powers!"

Brad gave Tyler a look asking if the mouse had lost his mind.

Tyler shrugged it off. "Never mind. Saw it in a comic book." He looked Brad over. "Geeze, you look like shit. You okay?" he asked tactfully.

"I think she killed me and I'm too dumb to die," Brad replied.

Tyler chuckled. He came over and put Brad's arm around his shoulders. "It's over. We're all gonna get out of here now. The cops are gonna come and they'll see everything that happened. We won."

"Cool," said Brad. "Is Karen okay?"

Tyler nodded. He wasn't the strongest of mice, but he was nevertheless able to help his roommate out of the supply room and eventually out of the rest of the basement. "Karen threw up a whole lot, but she's okay now."

"Huh?" Brad asked.

Tyler cringed a little. "She, uh, made kind of an icky discovery. While I was realizing I could make sparks come out of my fingers, she decided to see if she could maybe wake up some of the other patients."

"Any luck?"

The mouseboy shook his head sadly. "She said their souls have moved on. Their bodies are alive, but they're all dead. Like, permanently. And then she lifted the sheet on this one kid and found out exactly why they've been keeping kids in comas instead of just dumping us in the river or something."

Brad felt like maybe he didn't want to know, but had to ask anyway. "Why?"

Tyler looked like he had something really filthy in his mouth. "Living autopsies," he said.

Brad came pretty close to barfing right then. It made perfect sense though. Keeping someone alive costs so much more than just killing them off. Why bother, unless you're getting something out of it? And in this case, The Project was: all the experimental specimens they could ever want. "To find out why we're weird," Brad concluded.

Tyler nodded.

The two boys emerged from the maintenance area back into Ward Zero's room of beds. Karen was there waiting for them. Overjoyed that he was alive, she immediately gave Brad an absolutely gargantuan hug. His eyes got very big and he tried very hard not to scream in pain. After he explained that he'd just been shot multiple times at point-blank range, Karen apologized about six billion times.

The trio left Ward Zero behind. The crowd was still gathered at the entrance door when they emerged, only now it was swollen to preposterous size. Karen, Brad and Tyler nudged their way through the crowd and started immediately up the stairs to reunite with their friends and tell them the good news. Ding dong, the witch was dead.

Had they stayed with the crowd at the doors a little while longer, they might have run into Monsoon, and then things might have turned out quite a bit differently.


     ~~~


Back in the supply room, Beatrix twitched.


*****


     -MONSOON-

Driving like a mountain out of hell, Monsoon screeched into the parking lot in front of King's Orchard and nearly slammed into a lamppost.

One look and he knew the voice in his head hadn't been a hallucination. Through the hospital's thick glass windows, he could see dozens upon dozens of furs, patients and staff alike, all pounding on the glass and begging for help. Random people from town had trickled in and were standing around staring stupidly (all of them waiting for someone *else* to do something). Eventually someone with a cell phone thought to call the cops, but wasn't sure what to tell them other than that the doors up at the local nuthouse were stuck. The dispatcher did not place this at a high priority, but sent two cars out anyway. They had not yet arrived.

Monsoon left his vehicle and thundered across the parking lot, mad as Mars and just drunk enough to not care what he was doing. He didn't even shut the door behind him.

Some stick-thin woman got in front of him. "Um, excuse me? Do you know what's going on here?" she asked feebly.

"No," Monsoon replied. He moved her effortlessly out of the way with one hand.

Beyond the glass it looked like a sardine convention. The people inside were just a few moments away from trampling each other. Monsoon could already see some of the smaller kids shoved roughly up against the windows as bigger kids, and even staff, took turns looking out into the parking lot, screaming and pounding the window as if they thought it could make any difference.

Monsoon scanned faces until he saw Camilla. He got as close to her as he could, having to step through some ornamental bushes by the side of the entrance to do so. "What's Going On?" he brayed.

The bobcat could hear him fine, even though the glass made him sound a bit like a fish. "The fire alarm went off and the doors won't open!" she shouted back.

Monsoon nearly replied, 'Can't you break the glass?', but then realized that if they could, they already would have. "How close is the fire?" he shouted. He couldn't see any flames from the outside.

"I don't think there is one!" Camilla responded. Unfortunately, she was wrong.

The problem with a false fire alarm is that if a fire *does* start, no one notices. On the fifth floor, one of the staff had bumped against a coffeemaker in their rush to escape the droning alarm. It had brushed against some paper. The paper made contact with the hot metal and started to burn. It was a fire small enough that someone could have doused it with a styrofoam cup if they'd noticed in time. No one did though, and instead it began to spread in earnest.

Monsoon tried to think past his booze-buzz. If the fire alarm had gone off, why weren't the revolving doors opening? Then he thought of something obvious. "You've tried the fire exits, right?"

Camilla looked at him as if his head was full of rocks. "Of course, dammit! They won't open either!"

"Th' fuck?" 'Since when do fire doors not open when there's a fire?' Monsoon thought. He felt unreal, like this had to be a dream. He was standing half in a bush while his coworkers acted like caged zoo beasts and the fire doors wouldn't open.

Then he felt a shiver go up his spine. This was Beatrix's doing. Had to be. Given what he'd seen the night before, he knew nothing was too evil not to believe about this place. The idea that the mad doctor had wired it to burn everyone alive if a fire broke out was startlingly plausible.

Monsoon assessed the situation. He was strong. Could he bust the door open? No. There was a limit to even *his* strength, and metal was it. Inch-thick glass too. Was there anything in his SUV he could use? He consulted his mental index. Spare tire. Jack. Tire iron. Toolkit...

He stopped suddenly, feeling like a moron. The solution was obvious.

The windows on either side of the door were big and wide and made of glass. He had an SUV. A big, black, tough-as-shit SUV. Eureka.

"Get everyone to move back!!" he roared at Camilla.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to drive through the window and get you the hell out of there," he said with false calm.

"Monsoon! You can't!!" she shrieked.

"Why not?" he replied immediately.

The bobcat's mouth snapped shut. Sure, the cops might show up soon enough. But they also might not. There might be more important things for them to respond to than a false fire alarm and a bunch of panicking kids. Plus, the phones were down everywhere in King's Orchard. No one in the hospital had been able to call for help. (Except Veronica of course, and Camilla was already fairly sure she'd dreamed that part.)

"Okay, everyone, get back! We have to get away from the windows now!" Camilla called out. She started waving her arms in a shooing motion. The rest of the staff caught on and tried to help her, but it didn't do much good. The kids were crazy, spooked and confused, and making far too much noise already for the staff's voices to register much.

Monsoon decided the direct approach would be best, as it usually was. He turned and stomped back to his truck. Some fool had his head through the door, looking around inside. Whether out of curiosity or thievery, Monsoon didn't give a rat's ass. He picked the fool up by the collar and flung him off into the night.

Monsoon got behind the wheel, closed the door and fastened his seatbelt. Safety first.

He made the engine growl. He turned on the high beams. Some of the more rational kids inside the lobby realized what was coming and started scrambling away as fast as they could.

Monsoon pushed his mighty vehicle forward slowly. He ran over a concrete divider. The giant vehicle laughed. Monsoon was not an uneducated car buyer. He hadn't chosen this machine for its looks, but because it was the toughest four-wheeled motherfucker money could buy. He felt that a man's vehicle should be a reflection of themselves.

One of the decorative bushes died gruesomely as a fat, heavy tire squashed it to salad. Monsoon skillfully tapped the hospital's window with the fender. He revved the engine twice.

At that point, pretty much everyone knew what was coming. Staff and kids alike all ran for their lives, dragging along anyone else who didn't grasp the inevitable yet.

Monsoon shifted into reverse. He backed up until he felt the divider thunk against his rear wheel. He thought that'd be far enough.

He depressed the brake and pumped the gas a few times. The engine made sounds like a prehistoric monster about to charge and kill. Monsoon had to admit to himself, this was all pretty cool.

He waited until he was absolutely certain no one was in his way. Even the parking lot rubberneckers had enough sense to give him a wide berth.

Monsoon put a death grip on the steering wheel and stomped the accelerator.

The SUV roared forward like a lion. Monsoon had just enough time to turn away before the front end plowed into the glass. Just as the massive window shattered, Monsoon pumped the brake. He didn't really want to plow into a support beam. As glass danced in the air, the mighty SUV rolled on through like a cannonball.

A giant white fist appeared out of nowhere and punched Monsoon in the face.


     ~~~


The next thing he knew, the sound of a fire alarm was in his ears and his cheek hurt like bloody hell. He opened his eyes and was surrounded by white. The airbag.

Monsoon did a body check. Nothing broken as far as he could tell. He tried to move. No sudden, horrendous pain signalling that an artery was punched through by craggy shards of glass.

Monsoon tried the door and it opened as obligingly as always. He got out and surveyed the damage. It was just like the movies. The adolescent in him couldn't help but smirk.

The lobby was messed _up_. The window had vanished into sparkles. Tire tracks were ground deep and dirty into the nice, colorful carpet. Paintings had fallen off their hooks and were ruined forever. The tropical fish were all very grateful that their tank was far enough away to come out unscathed. In all, Monsoon had bagged two couches, four chairs, a table, uncountable magazines and was about two feet away from the receptionist's desk. Miraculously, he hadn't hit anything fixed.

He looked over his SUV's front end. It was scarred up pretty bad. The bumper was twisted like silver licorice. The hood looked like a mad cyborg had used it for a bongo drum. And the windshield was swiss cheese. But the beast still looked like it could get him home tonight. Monsoon smiled affectionately and gave the hood a pat. "Good girl."

Camilla came out of hiding. She stared for a moment at the path of destruction, then noticed Monsoon standing there, muscles rippling, looking like a page out of a comic book. "Oh, you're not dead! That's wonderful!"

Monsoon jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Made you a way out, too," he said, smiling casually, as if he drove through buildings every day.

Relieved furs began pouring out of Monsoon's makeshift exit, careful not to scrape themselves on the jagged bits that still remained in the window frame. Those who were barefoot were lifted up and over the glass by helpful staff. The former captives of King's Orchard spilled out into the night, breathing in the cold, clean night air, whooping it up and feeling free.

Camilla gave Monsoon a hug. "Thank you, T'halu. You were like a knight in shining armor."

He grinned, savoring this moment of ultimate coolness.

"That was _bitchin'_!" Ginny piped up. She skittered out of hiding to gleefully inspect the chaos. "Did you do that on purpose? And can you come to my house next!?"

Monsoon winced. "Just out of curiosity, what color is the sky in that little world of yours?"

"Toilet water!" she shouted triumphantly.


*****


     -KAREN-

As soon as they stepped into the stairwell, Karen, Brad and Tyler were met by three enormous security guards.

"This blows," Tyler whined.

The three guards looked like mean machines. They all had great big muscles and black sunglasses that hid their eyes. They didn't have the regular hospital uniforms on. They looked like they'd been shipped in from a prison or a military base. Karen thought it was likely they'd been ordered in especially to deal with the coming rebellion. She hoped that Beatrix hadn't planned on it taking place so soon, and that there wouldn't be more of these guys all over the hospital for Holly and the others to deal with.

"You're coming with us," the guard in front said mechanically.

Tyler was still propping up Brad. He whispered in the catboy's ear, "Should I see if I've still got any volts left?"

Brad thought about that a minute. His head was clearing now, but he was still in an awful lot of pain and didn't think he could stay conscious for another fight.

"No," Karen said defiantly, making the choice for all of them.

The guard in front made a short, clipped laugh. "Kid, we're ten times bigger than you and we've got guns. Drop the cute stuff."

"Dr. Beatrix wants you back on Ward F," another guard said. Those had been the last orders she'd given. None of them knew she was now lying charbroiled in the basement.

That gave Brad an idea. He stepped forward.

"Okay," he said with a shrug.

Karen looked at him like he was crazy. Brad giving up? Impossible!

He looked back at her. "We were going up there anyway and I don't feel like climbing all those freakin' stairs," he explained in a whispered hiss.

Oh. That made sense. "Okay, I give up too," she told the guards.

"Same here," Tyler concurred.

The guards were mildly stunned. They'd been told to expect a fight and that they'd probably have to use restraints. "Well... alright then. No bullcrap though. Just come with us and everything will work out fine."

Brad smirked ever so slightly. "Okay, dude. But you'll have to carry me."

One of the guards snorted. "Are you kidding?"

"Nope," Brad said. "Look at me. I've just been through a meat grinder. There's no way I can make it up there on my own. Maybe if you gave me a week."

"He's really hurt bad," Karen added, trying to help his case.

The guard growled and rolled his eyes. "Fine." He picked Brad up and the tomcat obligingly went limp as a noodle. "Fuckin' kids..."

"Thanks a bunch," Brad said.

"Um, I gotta be carried too," Tyler said.

"No goddam way!" was the response.

The mouseboy looked indignant. "They did laboratory experiments on me, man!"

"Um, I threw up a lot just now. I don't think I can walk either," Karen said, now realizing how perfectly they could turn this situation to their advantage.

The other two guards cursed a bit but finally gave in and picked Tyler and Karen up as well. This job was just a paycheck to them, after all. They were told only what they needed to know and no more. Since they'd figured on having to drug these brats and drag them back upstairs anyway, doing it this way didn't make much of a difference.

With that, the trio of guards carried the trio of patients up the stairs, back to Ward F. Karen allowed herself to relax. What a great opportunity to rest up and get back some strength before taking on whatever challenge the night might throw at them next. If Beatrix had been down in Ward Zero waiting for them, who knew what was waiting upstairs for the rest of her friends? Probably more guards. Karen was pretty sure Holly and the others could handle mere mortals though. Her group might be looking for her and Brad and Tyler right now. Of course, they might also have been captured and sedated. Karen didn't think that was likely though. She had a pretty good feeling that the worst was over now.

The guards huffed and puffed. Karen lounged in the arms of her bearer like a queen on a moving throne. Brad was actually napping. Tyler was nothing but dead weight, having slipped out of his body moments ago to make sure he still could. It appeared all systems were go. He slipped back inside himself and smiled. Being back in his own flesh-and-blood bod felt great. Just as cozy as he remembered it. Getting to hang around inside Karen had been an interesting experience, but he was glad it was over with. He was even more glad that she hadn't needed to pee while he was inside. Some things he simply did not want to explore.

About halfway to their destination, a sound like a minor explosion rocked the lobby and made all of them stop and look over the railing. It sounded an awful lot like someone had just driven a truck through the front entrance at high speed.

"Was that the canisters in Ward Zero?" Karen asked Tyler.

"If it was, you wouldn't be able to ask me that. You'd be splattered all over the place like bug guts," the mouse said grimly.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tyler's guard asked.

"We're crazy people! Pay no attention to us!" Tyler declared.

The guard just grunted and continued on up the stairs.

Brad was starting to feel a bit better. His insides didn't hurt as much as they had before. He thought maybe they were beginning to rearrange themselves. His ear still hurt from being marked by Beatrix's bullet though. The puncture there would never grow back. He could only bounce, not heal himself like Holly. Or Beatrix herself. Brad chuckled at the irony. The crazy bitch hated him and all the other kids so much because she couldn't stand to see so many little reflections of herself day in and day out. 'Pathetic,' he thought.

After they'd reached the sixth floor, the fire alarms abruptly cut off. The silence was so sudden it was almost frightening. No one knew why it had happened, but they all knew their ears were grateful.

Karen looked down at the steps beneath her. How they seemed to move backwards as her guard carried her forward. It was mildly hypnotic. She looked up and realized there was just one more flight to go before they reached Ward F. She had no idea what would happen then. The guards might lock her up, or drug her, or put her in restraints. But without Dr. Beatrix to turn their prisoners over to, what would the guards do then? Would she and Brad and Tyler be set free when the cops finally showed up?

These questions were laid to rest quite suddenly as they came around a corner and saw Holly standing there on the landing, looking pissed as a vengeful Greek goddess and holding a gun.

Karen smiled brightly.


*****


     -HOLLY-

The three guards were suitably stunned. With their arms full of tired kids, there was no way they could grab their weapons in time to defend themselves. Their hearts weren't hard enough to just drop the children on concrete.

"Hi there, rectumheads," the pistol-packing squirrel said to them. She was a mess. She looked like she'd been bathing in blood. Five other kids were behind her, all looking like they'd also taken the long way through Hades and left no witnesses behind.

Holly brushed the hair out of her eyes. "I've got a gun and I've always wondered what it'd feel like to shoot someone's testicles off," she said matter-of-factly. "You're going to put my friends down. Gently. Then you're gonna run. You're gonna run all the way back downstairs without stopping. Though I can't guarantee I won't shoot you in the backs like a bunch of virus-covered cockroaches when you do."

Tyler grinned ear to ear. "How I missed those dulcet tones!"

"Shutcher yap or I'll plug you too, maggotbrain," she snapped, but she was smiling fondly when she said it. She couldn't disguise the fact that she was incredibly happy to see her friends all okay. Especially Tyler.

The guards did the smart thing when faced with a crazy, blood-stained squirrel holding a firearm. They put Brad, Tyler and Karen down. Gently. And then they fled like Olympic sprinters.

Holly fired a warning shot behind them just for fun. "Yarrr! Run like the lily-livered cowards ye be!!"

"What the hell was that?" Benjamin asked.

Holly shrugged. "Dunno. I just felt all piratey for a second."

With that out of the way, the two groups were finally able to rejoin. They whooped and hollered, expressing their joyful relief that none of them had kicked the bucket. The nine children all converged on the stairs and shared hugs and plenty of winces as sore spots were accidentally squeezed. Everybody told everybody else what had happened. The news that Dr. Beatrix had met her richly-deserved demise was met with great jubilation.

Brad and Keith slapped palms. "Dude?" Brad asked, pointing to Keith's shoulder.

The fox grunted. "Broken arm. You?"

"Shot five times."

Keith's eyebrows went up. "You win."

"Elvira!!" Tyler shouted. He ran at Holly and gave her an enthusiastic embrace. "Didja kick some ass?"

She nodded. "Sorta. We got the crap beat out of us by these two hyper speedfreaks with weapons, but we got rid of them. Beatrix?"

"Fuckin' *dead*!" Tyler gleefully reported.

"ALRIGHT!!" Holly yowled.

Tyler described the scene with animated hand gestures and sound effects. "She and Brad got into it and she shot him a few times, but the bullets bounced right off him like Superman! They pounded each other for a bit. Then I showed up and electrocuted the living shit out of her!"

"How!?"

Tyler made an 'I dunno' gesture. "I guess I built up a charge. It was like the biggest static electricity poke in history! Didn't last long though, but I *totally* fried Dr. Bitch-trix's brains! It was like perfect poetic justice!"

Holly hugged him tight. Her voice lowered so that no one else could hear as she dropped her tough-girl act for a fleeting moment. "Even though I insult you a lot, I'm really, really glad you're okay," she whispered.

Tyler was touched. Before he could stop himself, he responded by planting a red-hot smoocheroo on her lips.

When he pulled away, Holly's eyes were wide open and she looked like her mind had blown a fuse.

The mouseboy grinned sheepishly. "Uh, heh..."

Without warning, Holly grabbed the back of Tyler's head and smashed his lips into hers. She drove her tongue into his mouth and showed him what a *real* kiss was like.

"WHOA!!" Tyler gasped when it was over. "You kiss like a twenty-ton sewer pump!"

"I hope that's a compliment, you skinny dweeb. I could crack you like a stick right now."

He smiled suavely. "That's exactly what I love about you."

Her expression softened, turning just a little puzzled. "Are you serious? Like, are you really not kidding this time?"

Tyler was blushing and trembling a little, but his eyes showed nothing but sincerity. "Holly, I really like you. Seriously. Totally. You're smart and cool and I love how you can match wits with me like we're arch-enemies. But it's fun knowing we're really not. And, um..." He bit his lip and looked extremely unsure how she'd take this. "And I think you look really sexy too."

"What!?" she yelped in total disbelief.

"Well, not *now* obviously. You are kinda covered in blood..." Tyler clarified. "But normally, yeah. I love the whole punk thing. You look strong and all self-assured 'n stuff. I *know* you could snap me in half if you wanted to, and that's sorta scary, but it's also kind of a turn on. Plus, I like your butt."

"You've _gotta_ be lying now," she said flatly.

"No way!" Tyler insisted. "It's all round and hot! I wanna spank it!"

Holly laughed out loud, starting to cry just a little as she realized Tyler was serious. She'd crafted her outward image to reflect her hatred of her family and her desire to be the antithesis of them. She _wanted_ to look repulsive. The very idea that someone could *like* the way she looked was too impossible to consider. Yet the little cheese-eater was looking more serious than she'd ever seen him before. "...Thanks," she said softly. "I, um... I like you a lot too."

He giggled stupidly, happy beyond words that this hadn't backfired on him. He'd been pretty sure though. 'Why else would she call me all those names if she wasn't secretly wild about me?' he reasoned.

She smirked. "I always kinda thought you were gay though."

Tyler shrugged. "Sometimes."

Holly swirled a lock of his hair around her finger. "Isn't there some rule against dating chicks you meet in an insane asylum?" she asked, her smile grateful and genuine.

Tyler opened his mouth...

"...and if you say 'rules were meant to be broken', I'll punch you in the face."

He giggled. "Naw, I was just gonna say that anyone who thinks so can eat a pound of rhinoceros shit."

Returning his giggle, she kissed him again.

Rubiella snickered. "Oooooooh! Tyler 'n Holly are kiiiiissing!" she said with a grin.

"Damn straight," Holly mumbled out of the side of her mouth.


*****


     -KAREN-

"We should go, guys," Karen spoke up. All the I'm-glad-you're-okays were done now. Getting the hell out of here was top priority. Especially considering that most of them could benefit from a trip to the emergency room.

Ruby nodded. "My nose hurts."

"Do we have any unfinished business on Ward F? Anything we left behind?" Karen asked.

"My comic books!!" Tyler suddenly wailed, panic in his voice. "You *can't* make me leave them!"

Karen rolled her eyes. "We're supposed to be _escaping_."

"Do you have any idea how much those things are *worth*!?" he countered. "Okay, admittedly, not much. ...But they will be when I'm fifty!"

"I wouldn't mind spitting on Thurston's bloated corpse a few times," Holly added.

"My wallet's back there," Keith mumbled.

Karen 'grrr'ed. "Okay, fine. We'll all go back to the ward. But we gotta make it Really Quick! Everyone run to your rooms and only grab stuff you can't possibly leave behind!"

With their leader's permission, the battle-weary group went up a few more stairs and were back in the place they'd hoped they'd left behind forever. It looked thoroughly deserted now. Triumphed over. Karen smiled at that idea as she carefully stepped around the gunk Ginny had reduced the airlock doors to.

The kids scrambled to their rooms. Tyler made a beeline for his comics. Brad remembered the book Dr. Jones had given to him, and wondered if there was any way he could return it someday. Rubiella and Victor both had stuffed animals that meant the world to them. Keith grabbed his wallet, though the money meant nothing compared to the photos inside. Holly fished around in her folded clothes for her secret spare nose ring and clipped it on; she'd felt naked without it. Benjamin was practical. After getting a few things of his own, he ripped off his roommate's stash of candy, figuring the other kid wouldn't be needing it anymore. No one saw where Sherri went, naturally.

Karen herself stood in the hallway and kept a lookout. She didn't need anything from her room. It was all old junk now. She'd started to think of her life before King's Orchard as her 'old life'. She was a new furson now. She didn't want that to go away when she returned to her parents. In fact, the more she thought about it, she realized she really didn't care if she ever saw her mean ol' mommy and daddy ever again. She felt proud of herself for finally seeing them as they truly were.

After inserting her nose ring, Holly went immediately to the quiet room to defile Thurston's remains. She kicked his ass and spat a fat gob on his tail. "Have fun burning in hell, ya creepy pedophile piece of shit," she told him. She really wished she had to pee too, but no such luck.

Victor came out to the hallway and called out, "I've got a backpack if anyone's got stuff they want me to carry for 'em!" Brad and Tyler took him up on the offer, sheathing their books. Ruby gave her stuffed bunny a kiss before plopping it in the bag too.

Benjamin approached. "Hey, dude, let me carry that," he offered. "I'm holding onto the list anyway." Victor thought that was a good idea and passed the backpack over. Benjamin took the scratchy envelope out from under his shirt (it had been driving him nuts all this time) and stuck it inside. "Besides, we don't want anything in the way of that killer butt of yours next time it goes off!"

Victor groaned. "Do you have to keep teasing me about that?"

"Of course," Benjamin said with certitude.

Far down the hall, a lost-sounding voice emanated from the airlock. "Is anyone still here?"

Karen recognized it immediately. She swiveled around. "Doctor Jones!?"

It was indeed. The pudgy mustachioed otter stepped gingerly over the melted doors, his thick tail moving behind him like a reluctant pet. He looked befuddled, as if not quite sure if all this was a dream. "Karen! My goodness, what are you doi-*Oof*!" The little raccoon didn't give him time to finish as she lunged at him and wrapped him up in a hug.

"You're okay!" Karen sang out.

"I'm certainly glad to see you too!" he said, patting her on the head, startled but happy. He noticed all the other children in the hallway. "Benjamin? Ruby? What are you all still doing here? Didn't you hear the fire alarm?"

"There's no fire, that was just Keith," Benjamin blurted.

Keith scowled at him.

"Uh... Yeah. Keith threw a ball and it hit a sprinkler head," Ben quickly recovered.

Dr. Jones knew a lie when he heard one, but didn't press it. He had been downstairs in the lounge when the alarm went off. Since then, he'd been wandering the halls trying to find someone to tell him what was going on, and also checking to make sure everyone was safely evacuated. When the alarm abruptly cut off, he'd been heading for a last stop at his office to get his briefcase. Then he'd heard voices that sounded a lot like his patients.

"Hi, Doc!" Ruby said happily.

"Oh, hey," Holly said as she exited the quiet room. She really hoped they could keep him from seeing what was in there.

Dr. Jones saw her and did a horrified double take. "My God, Holly! You're covered in blood!" he exclaimed. He took a closer look and realized that most of the other children looked roughed up too. Curse his nearsightedness! Further proof he needed a stronger prescription on his glasses.

"Um yeah..." Holly tried to think of a way to explain it without really telling him anything. If Dr. Jones was truly innocent in all this, it was probably for the best that they keep him in the dark. At least until they were all safely out of here.

"It doesn't matter," Karen said firmly. She fixed a fierce gaze on Dr. Jones, demanding he believe her. "All that matters is that we get out of here right now."

He hesitated, then nodded. He'd never seen Karen act so commanding before. "Yes. Whatever's the case, I think that would be for the best."

He took Karen's paw and turned back towards the door.

He froze in shock.

BAM!!!

BAM!!!

BAM!!!

The three shots were so loud they ripped the universe apart. A sound like a kick in the chest. A sound with teeth.

Red flowers bloomed from the side of Dr. Jones' face, his shoulder, and his stomach. His glasses flew through the air like a butterfly. Karen had to scramble back out of the way to avoid being flattened by his falling body.

Standing in the airlock with a smoking gun, Dr. Beatrix smiled with satisfaction. She'd had to go back to her office for more bullets (and to turn off that fucking fire alarm) and was not at all happy with the state it was left in. She felt much better now though.

"I never liked you anyway, you pompous ass," she remarked with a giggle.


*****


     -BEATRIX-

Her clothes were burned black in multiple places, stained red in others. Her hair was an explosion of scorched strands. But the albino bunny's fur was snowy-white as always. Reassembling herself had been a touch painful this time, and certainly time-consuming, but not the worst she'd ever come back from.

Holly was paralyzed for a second's worth of shock as she watched one of her favorite grownups die in a blaze of bullets not ten feet away from her. Guilt hit her like a brick as she realized she was still holding a gun, but hadn't been able to use it in time. There was still time for revenge though. Snarling with fury, she put Beatrix in her sights.

Dr. Beatrix was unconcerned.

BAM!!!

Another pullet passed through Holly's forehead, through her brain, and out the other side. Holly's expression of shock as she fell looked almost comical.

Screams of rage and sadness came as the remaining children couldn't figure out whose side to rush to first.

Dr. Beatrix sniggered. "Oh, don't get all worked up about it. She'll pop back up in a few minutes anyway."

Tyler was cradling Holly's head in his lap, feeling her blood run down his fur and tears run down his cheeks. "You bitch, I fucking COOKED you! WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD!?"

"Because I'd never allow myself to be killed by someone like you, you filthy, loudmouthed turd," she replied curtly. She waggled the gun at him. "Now, please keep that mouth shut or you're next. And if you or anyone else touches that gun, I'll blast your face right off your skull like a peanut-butter sandwich."

Brad tried to take Dr. Jones' pulse. Nothing. He shook all over as a razor-sharp sob passed through him. This man that had tried to understand him instead of flinching from him or screaming at him, this man that had made him feel like a strong, smart boy instead of a 'problem child', was gone.

Tyler was trying to force life back into Holly by smacking her cheeks and whispering threats in her ear that if she didn't get her ass up right this instant, she'd never be able to insult him again. His humor and anger could not conceal his hurt though.

The other children were all weeping and frightened. Only Karen was still standing. Her eyes were blank. She looked like a mannequin. Her rage had not yet pushed past her shock, but it would soon.

This was what Dr. Beatrix liked. Not necessarily the violence or the crying, but the fact that she was the center of attention once more. As she should be. She commanded their respect now. No snappy insults from Tyler. No heroics from Bradley. Little Karen had gone stiff as a scarecrow. Dr. Beatrix fondled the butt of her gun like a hard cock. Power felt good.

"I think you've all forgotten whose hospital this is," she announced. Ward F's hallway was dead silent apart from her clear, cold voice and the sound of tears. "You've been very bad little boys and girls. You've caused a lot of mischief and you're up past your bedtime. You're also a bunch of disgusting freaks who ought to be breathing dirt and maggots right now instead of air. Just having to look at you little monsters every day makes me want to puke."

Brad glared at her, wanting to say something back but not daring to. Not while her finger was still on that trigger. He was _furious_ that she was not still lying dead in Ward Zero. Furious at her, but also at fate. What sane universe would give the power of immortality to a madwoman?

Beatrix smiled as a dazzlingly wonderful idea came to her. "Children, I think we should all play a game," she declared, sounding like a kindergarten teacher.

They looked at her like she was crazy, which of course she was.

"This game doesn't have a name, but I think you'll like it nonetheless," she continued. Her eyes twinkled merrily and her grin was unspeakable. "Here's how it works: I'm going to give you all one chance for most of you to survive. One little chance. If one of you steps forward and offers their life, I will spare the rest of you. I will shoot the volunteer through the head and make it swift and painless. Then I'll put the gun in your hands, Bradley." 

The tomcat's eyes widened. He couldn't have heard that right.

She smirked at his reaction. "Oh, don't worry. Seeing as you're already in a mental hospital, I don't think you'd go to jail. You'd just come to live with me forever as one of my patients. I would have so much fun 'treating' you," she said with a razor smile. Then she thought of something. "And no, you can't volunteer. It has to be one of your friends."

'Fuck,' Brad thought. He'd been just about to. Death would be a million times better than spending the rest of his life with her.

"Also, if no one volunteers quickly enough, I'll just shoot all of you. In the gut, so you'll suffer," the rabbit said. She giggled. "Doesn't that sound like fun? Choose quickly now!" Dr. Beatrix was in a very interesting mental state at the moment. She felt positively elated, high as a kite. She wondered if Tyler had done something to her brain.

In fact, he had. Beatrix's brain had not been able to reconfigure itself exactly after Tyler's lightning had scrambled it. It was now malfunctioning quite badly. She was just beginning to spiral out of control, but was getting worse at an exponential rate. Soon she would lose all contact with reality and all concept of consequences. God save us all.

Tyler glanced at the hole in Holly's head and noticed that it was already starting to close up. Maybe she'd recover in time to put an end to this. If she didn't though, Tyler wondered if he volunteered, could he simply jump out of himself when Beatrix pulled the trigger? Would he become a ghost then? Or would his spirit just vanish once his body died?

The children were silent, terrified, enraged. Every one of them thought about Dr. Beatrix's choice. They all thought about whether they had enough courage to die for their friends, and if Beatrix was even telling the truth that she'd let the others live.

Shattering the uneasy silence, Benjamin suddenly spoke up. "I'll do it."

The frail fox had slipped the backpack off and nudged it behind Victor with his foot a moment before. Now he stood up and faced Dr. Beatrix. He felt cold inside. He'd been thinking about Keith, Holly and Ruby defending him from those ninja twins, about how cowardly he felt watching his friends lose blood to protect him. He'd come through that horrorshow with barely a scratch. His glasses weren't even broken. He thought that maybe this would make things even.

Beatrix smiled. Her finger caressed the trigger of her gun obscenely. "Really now?"

     ~~~

Karen was just on the verge of breaking out of her trance and rushing at Beatrix to grab the gun when a voice whispered in her ear.

     ~~~

"...Are you sure?" Beatrix asked Benjamin, putting a sensual purr on the end.

     ~~~

"Karen? I'm sorry I haven't been helping you guys out so far, but I've been fuckin' *waiting* for a chance like this with you and that evil bitch together in the same room!! This is it!" Always-Jimmy-Never-James's voice was nearly vibrating from intensity and glee. Karen thought she'd never heard him sound so crazy.

     ~~~

Victor tried to hold Benjamin back by grabbing his ankle. Benjamin cried a little, but did not look down at his friend.

     ~~~

"Do you trust me, Karen?" Jimmy asked urgently.

     ~~~

Benjamin nodded to Beatrix.

     ~~~

Fearfully, Karen whispered as low as she could. "What are you going to do?"

     ~~~

"What a good boy, laying down his life for his friends," Beatrix simpered. "How sweet."

     ~~~

"Do You Trust Me!?" Jimmy demanded.

     ~~~

Beatrix took aim.

     ~~~

"I trust you," Karen said. She did not believe herself though. Her instincts said that whatever Jimmy had planned was something he'd been planning for years, and that it was going to be hideous when it came.

     ~~~

Benjamin pictured his mom crying at his funeral. Assuming The Project wouldn't just whisk his body away and dump it in the desert somewhere.

     ~~~

Jimmy grinned, his nicotine-stained teeth bright and sharp. "Then LET ME IN." Karen did not have time to ask what he meant by that. She felt a spiritual force hurl itself into her. An invading presence with incredible, brutal strength. Horrified, she allowed it to take over.

     ~~~

"Any last words?" Dr. Beatrix asked.

     ~~~

Karen burst suddenly into tears. *Loudly*.

Beatrix was so startled she jumped, but she didn't lower the gun.

"I'M SORRY!" Karen screamed.

Bawling, she ran at Dr. Beatrix and clamped her arms around the woman in a hug. "I'm a bad girl! You're right! Please don't hurt my friends! PLEASE! I was stupid! I never should have disobeyed you! Please, please, Dr. Beatrix!"

The rabbit was more than a little surprised. Karen, the leader of the rebellion herself, was boo-hooing like a baby? How fascinating! That meant she'd successfully broken the little snot! All the girl's toughness was gone and she was reduced to nothing more than what she always was; a pathetic child. Moments like this were what Beatrix lived for.

Grinning hard enough to hurt and not noticing at all, the white rabbit placed the barrel of her gun directly on top of Karen's head. When she made the shot, the bullet would go straight through to the floor and Karen would shit all over herself. The mental image made Beatrix squeal with delight. She knelt down to Karen's eye level. She adored seeing someone's will destroyed, but she had to see it in their eyes to make absolutely certain.

"Karen? Karen, sweetie? Look here. Look at Auntie Beatrix." 'Look at me so I can see your expression when you die,' she added in her mind.

Still sobbing and sniffing pitifully, Karen wiped her eyes and tried to open them far enough to see the woman in front of her. "Please, Dr. Beatrix! Do you want me to call you Auntie Beatrix? I will! I'll do anything! Just *please* don't hurt my friends! Let them go home!"

"I will let them go home, Karen," Beatrix lied. "Just let me see your eyes."

Karen sobbed even harder, trying but failing to open her eyes. Dr. Beatrix leaned in closer, nearly touching foreheads. "I need to see your eyes."

Karen's eyelids snapped suddenly open. It was not her eyes behind them though.

Beatrix was startled for just a second.

That was all Jimmy needed.

Using Karen's hands, he grabbed the sides of Beatrix's face and forced her into a violent, vengeful kiss.

Beatrix writhed violently like a fish on land. Fighting to get away from the revolting child and unable to comprehend why it was doing such a disgusti-

Then she stopped completely. Still as stone.

Karen broke away, gasping and spitting. "Jimmy! What the hell did you just DO!?"

Dr. Beatrix was frozen, her eyes blank as marble. She looked like someone had flipped her off switch.

The children watched, scared and confused. They'd gone through so much tonight their systems couldn't take much more.

Then slowly, Beatrix rose.

She stood up straight, then looked around. Complete disbelief was on her face. She moved as if she'd just been born.

Slowly, she looked down at the gun in her right hand.

Then she put the palm of her left hand directly over the barrel and casually blew a hole in it.

BAM!!!

The sudden noise made Karen and everyone else jump back. Blood flew from Beatrix's paw and the bullet sailed clean through into the floor.

Beatrix lifted her hand and looked through the hole, right at Karen's face.

Karen stumbled back, nearly tripping over Dr. Jones.

Then Beatrix began to laugh. Slowly at first, then building. Rising in pitch and volume, reaching a crescendo of a cackle that seemed to shake the hospital's walls. The classic madman's laugh of triumph.

"I DID IT!!!" Jimmy screamed.


*****


     -JIMMY-

The wolf-in-rabbit's-skin was still for a moment, simply luxuriating in this delicious, impossible moment. Ward F was deathly quiet. The overhead lights were blindingly bright and the stench of blood clung to the air.

Jimmy grinned. Beatrix's lips split like flesh peeled off a skull. Jimmy's eyes bulged in her sockets like cueballs. He giggled. "Hee... Gwee-hee-hee-hee..." He looked like a man who'd been shot with a lethal dose of psychotropic drugs and was enjoying his last seconds of life to the fullest.

Slowly, savoring every second, Jimmy reached up to Beatrix's face.

He tugged her left eyelid down and probed the eye. Soft like Camembert cheese. He inserted one finger all the way to the back of the socket. Then another.

Giggling still, he ripped Beatrix's crushed eye out and flung it over his shoulder. It landed with a soft 'plop' on the carpet.

"STOP IT!!" Ruby screamed. She'd seen far too much gore this night already.

If Jimmy heard her, he gave no indication. His grin grew a little wider though.

Karen was aghast. Her heart pounded. She stared, horrified, wondering what in hell she'd helped unleash. 'Why didn't I stop him taking control of me!?' she wondered. But she already knew the answer. She had known that Jimmy's plan had to involve Beatrix, and Karen wanted to see him hurt her. Karen wanted to see Beatrix suffer. It was a cruel desire, but she knew she was justified in feeling it. Dr. Jones' corpse lying motionless a foot behind her was proof enough of that.

But this wasn't what she'd expected. What Jimmy had just done was nothing short of torture. Like pulling the legs off a helpless insect. Karen couldn't see anything of the Jimmy she knew in the furson before her. She wondered if he'd lost it. She wondered if taking over Beatrix had driven him insane.

His grin never waning, Jimmy took in a long sigh, tittered, then cast Beatrix's glassy, remaining eye directly at Karen.

The little coon's heart stopped.

"Karen," Jimmy breathed. "Karen, Karen, Karen... You were perfect, you know." His voice had a rusty door-hinge creak to it. The voice of a jack-in-the box clown left to rot in an attic for decades.

Trembling, Karen hesitantly asked. "W-what do you mean?"

He licked his/her lips. "You went along with everything I said. You believed me like a good girl. And most importantly, you never asked the wrong questions..."

Karen had no idea what Jimmy meant by that or what to say back to him. He seemed completely out of his mind right now, and he was still holding a gun.

Jimmy tilted Beatrix's head to the side. "Aren't you going to ask them now? This is my big moment, after all. The one I've been waiting for for TEN FUCKING YEARS!!!" Spit and blood flew from Beatrix's mouth as he screeched.

Karen jumped back and just barely kept herself from tripping over Dr. Jones. "Jimmy, you're scaring me again! You said you weren't going to do that anymore!" She was starting to cry now. Not from fear, but worry that her wolven friend in the leather jacket was gone forever.

Jimmy paused. Like a machine powering down, his grin fell. His mind was all clockworks and confetti now from trying to keep Beatrix safely locked away inside him (Oh, he could feel her in there, screaming and screaming and screaming for release and he *loved* it), but a small shred of his rational self forced its way through. "That's right. I did say that."

A spark of hope. Karen took a step forward as she noticed Jimmy's eye didn't look quite as mad anymore. Also, something white was festering in Beatrix's other socket. The bunny healed quickly, it seemed.

Always-Jimmy-Never-James spoke quietly and slowly now, over-enunciating because it took so much concentration to speak like a sane man. "Here's the question you never asked me, Karen: 'Jimmy, what kind of powers do you have that made The Project come after you?'"

Karen gulped. She _hadn't_ ever asked that. And for the life of her, she couldn't understand why. Maybe it was because Jimmy was so guarded about his personal life. But still, it was a natural thing for her to wonder. Why *hadn't* it occurred to her? Was that a part of his power right there? Had he clouded her mind?

Speaking cautiously like a hostage negotiator, Karen asked, "Okay, Jimmy. What is your power?"

Dementia flashed in Jimmy's eye again and the grin returned. "Hee hee hee... I DON'T HAVE ONE!!!" He jumped up and did a little dance, celebrating the insanity of it all. He jerked Beatrix's limbs like a puppet, which she effectively was.

Karen didn't understand. "Then why'd they pick you?"

"It was a MISTAKE!" he shrieked, grinning hard enough now to stain Beatrix's teeth red. "All I am is your garden-variety psycho headcase! There's not a damn thing special about me! Never was!"

He pointed a claw right at Karen's nose. "...Until now."

The claw had blood on it. Karen was nearly hyperventilating.

Jimmy saw the terror on her face and shut his eyes for a moment (the left one was almost fully formed by now). He took a deep breath, shivering at the end of it. He was dangerously close to flying off the edge of reality there, but he reined it in again. This was Karen he was talking to, he reminded himself. Karen, who he cared about, even if he'd used her cruelly to get himself where he was now. "You finally gave me a superpower of my very own, Karen. I can't tell you how grateful I am."

Karen looked up. Jimmy was Jimmy again. She couldn't take this back-and-forth much longer. "I still don't understand..."

He smacked Beatrix's forehead. "Oh come on! It's right in front of your nose! Or rather, Beatrix's nose!" He snickered. "I'm *inside* her, for fuck's sake! Do you have any idea how many times I tried and failed to possess this bitch!? Standing there in her office, watching while she destroyed people's lives, punching her and kicking her and trying to do *anything* to hurt her and I COULDN'T!?"

He stepped back and flung his arms out wide, taking in the glory of the moment. "But now here I am! And here *she* is!" He poked at Beatrix's temple hard enough to break the skin. "Trapped! Caught like a fly in a pitcher plant. My itty-bitty prey. Man oh man, you should hear her scream. You should hear some of the shit she's saying right now! The threats she's making!" He chortled. "She really thinks she's in control! She doesn't get it yet!!"

Jimmy reached up and drove the barrel of the gun into Beatrix's forehead. "_I'm_ driving this bus, you bitch! ME!!" he screamed at his prisoner.

Karen jumped at the sight of the black metal. "Jimmy, don't!" she cried out.

To her astonishment, he hesitated.

He looked calmly contemplative. "Actually, Karen, you're right. Why should I? I mean, we all know by now it wouldn't mean anything. She'd just come back to life in a half hour or so."

"Right," Karen said, nodding. She hoped Jimmy was understanding the futility of it.

He wasn't. "That'd take too long! I wanna have fun NOW!" Jimmy said brightly. Smiling a deranged little smile, he shoved the gun between Beatrix's legs and blew off her crotch.

BAM!!!

A deluge of fluid poured from the wound, not all of it blood. Pieces of Beatrix's anatomy flew everywhere.

Jimmy squealed in delight, drunk on glee. He could hear Beatrix's wails of pain but couldn't feel a thing himself. So wonderful!

Everyone else recoiled. Shock and disgust was written across their faces. They all hated Dr. Beatrix, but everyone, even Brad, thought this was going to far. Victor turned his head and quietly barfed on the carpet.

Karen had her paws over her mouth, in horror as well as to keep out the smell. "Oh Jesus, Jimmy! Stop it! Please!" she croaked.

"Now why would I wanna do a thing like that?" Jimmy asked. "I'm just getting started!"

Beatrix had been reduced to making guttural, mindless animal sounds of pain that echoed off the insides of Jimmy's soul. If being forced to stand after having a crater blasted through her groin was agonizing, being forced to walk was *excruciating*. Jimmy knew this and happily turned the screw, stepping closer to Karen and smiling.

Beatrix's left eye was almost back to normal now, except that the pupil was malformed. It looked almost like the number eight.

Karen thought she was very close to wetting her pants.

"Karen, I know this must be hard on you to watch, but you cannot understand how much I hate this woman. Do you get that? You Cannot Understand How Much I HATE This Woman."

Karen turned her face away, unable to look at that mutant eye anymore. "Fine! Hate her! We all do! But why do you have to torture her like this!?"

"Because she deserves it," Jimmy said firmly. "She _needs_ it. And more than that, *I* need it. I've been waiting ten years for this moment, Karen. Nothing's gonna stop me from doing what I have to do."

The way he'd said that, Karen knew immediately what he was planning. "Jimmy, no..."

"I'm gonna kill this fuckin' whore," Jimmy said. He was smiling casually, basking in the glow of his triumph. Handling Beatrix was easier now. He'd gotten the hang of it. He was very nearly back to his old self. Good. No fun experiencing the greatest moment of your life if you're too insane to fully appreciate it.

Brad spoke up suddenly. "You can't. I already tried."

"Well then you just didn't try hard *enough*!" Jimmy corrected. "I'm gonna take her out to the power plant. I'm gonna make some Kentucky Fried Beatrix."

"But I..." Tyler started.

Jimmy nodded to him. "I know. That's where I got the idea from. But this time I'm going to hit her with so much raw voltage she'll turn into _dust_! Let's see her come back from THAT shit! And if she does, I'll just kill her again! And again and again and again!" He jumped up and down to punctuate each 'again'.

Karen could see by the look in his eyes she was losing him again. "But what if it *never* works, Jimmy? Are you just going to keep torturing her forever?"

"Of course," he replied immediately. As if the answer was as obvious as two plus two. "Karen, I'm in her MIND, goddamnit!" he snapped at her. "You have no idea the things she's done. The atrocities she's pulled off here at King's Orchard are only the tip of the iceberg. She's been The Project's number one brainwasher for decades. She's killed more people than you've ever met in your life. I'm in her *memories*! I can see everything she's ever done and everyone she's done it to! I can..."

Jimmy stopped abruptly and stared off into space.

He'd stumbled across something. Something interesting. It took him a second to realize the full magnitude of it. When he did, his face lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Why, you sneaky bitch!" he exclaimed. "You were hiding that all this time!"

Without warning, he suddenly rushed across the room, straight at Keith, and latched onto the fox's broken shoulder with both hands.

Keith had no time to react. As soon as those albino fingers touched him, pain erased his ability to think. Tears burst from his eyes and a shrill scream burst from his throat.

"Oh my God!! What are you *doing*!?" Karen yelped.

"Let him go!!" Victor yelled.

Jimmy's face was the epitome of concentration. "Gimme a second. I've never done this before."

Keith screamed and screamed. Louder than any fire alarm in the world. He was in so much pain right now he wished God would strike him down with lightning.

"LET GO NOW!!" Rubiella bellowed. She rumbled over and grabbed Jimmy's shoulders, intending to rip him off Keith and fling him across the room.

Instead, Jimmy shot out one of his hands and hit her palm-first in the nose. He clamped down. She grunted in confusion, then screamed too as pain unthinkable ripped through her whole face.

Karen ran up and started pounding Jimmy with her fists. "You're killing them! Let them go! Let them go!!"

He turned to her and spat savagely, "Karen, will you fucking TRUST me for a second!?"

She was stunned by that. Mostly by the fact that he'd sounded completely rational when he said it, even though it was obvious he was straining with all his might from intense concentration. What did he mean though?

Keith was almost out of breath from screaming at the top of his lungs for so long. But then he noticed the pain was starting to ebb. Like water running down a drain, it all went away quite rapidly. All of it. Including the pain from his broken arm.

Ruby stopped screaming soon after. Jimmy released her poor nose and she reached up to touch it. The cut Kuri had given her was gone. She ran her paws over her face. *All* her cuts were gone! Not just on her face, but her whole body!

Keith held up his paw and wiggled his fingers, needing visual confirmation before he could believe the miracle. "Dang," he said.

"You're welcome," Jimmy snarked at him.

"You could've fucking *warned* me first!" Keith said.

"How was I supposed to know it'd hurt that much? I've never done this before!"

Tyler was trying to comprehend this. "Wait a minute... Beatrix is a _healer_?"

Jimmy nodded. "Yep."

Tyler twitched. This new information was making it suddenly very difficult to believe in a sane and rational universe. "You're saying that of all the people in the world, that power got wasted on HER!?"

"Ironic doesn't even begin to describe it," Jimmy said. "She's never used it once. Except on herself, of course. Just imagine, though! She could've become a world-famous surgeon, or travelled to some third-world country and become the messiah."

Brad understood perfectly. "But she didn't... Because that would have meant admitting she's a freak like us."

"Exactamundo," said Jimmy. Looking through her brains, he could see just what a sick little bunny Beatrix was. The woman's whole life was an elaborate denial mechanism. Beatrix had been been born with a head full of bad chemicals anyway, but when she'd realized she was also a freak, she drove herself into full-blown insanity fighting the idea. She was *normal*, she insisted to herself. She had to be! She worked so _hard_ at it! She was just like any other little girl in the neighborhood, not some science-lab mutant! When The Project took her, they found the unthinkable; a patient who eagerly *begged* to be rid of her abnormality. She responded so well to treatment, she was given tasks 'helping' the other patients. She excelled beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

Jimmy cocked his head at Brad. "That's an awful lot of blood on you," he noticed.

Brad stepped back, shaking his head vigorously. "Hell no! You're not putting her hands on me!!"

Tyler tried to reason with him. "Dude, she shot you in the stomach! What if you're internally hemorrhaging 'n stuff?"

Brad knew that was probably true. But *still*... The idea of those pigmentless paws touching his fur was anathema.

Jimmy approached, fingers flexing.

Brad grit his teeth and looked away. "Fine. Do it! But make it quick!"

Jimmy put his hands on Brad's shoulders.

"Wait!" Brad suddenly piped up.

"What now?" Jimmy snarked.

"Leave the ear if you can," he said. He thought about all those images of tough-guy cats with notches in their ears, and about how those wounds symbolized victory in battle. "I think I'm starting to like it. Besides, I'll get to tell everyone I got shot and survived. Instant cool points."

Jimmy shrugged. "Whatever."

Beatrix's hands tightened and Brad screamed.

Tyler couldn't help but feel a creepy parallel to what he must've looked like getting zapped the night before. He held Brad's paw while his cat friend shook and shrieked.

Brad felt like giant sewing needles were flying around inside him. He felt like his intestines were full of molten metal. He felt like miniature atomic bombs were going off in his gut.

Then it was over.

Jimmy took Beatrix's magic paws away and Brad nearly collapsed. He was shaking and panting. Tyler had to prop him up.

"Hurt, huh?" Keith said.

Brad nodded weakly.

"Feel better now?" Jimmy asked. "It was like I could 'see' your insides. You were really fucked up in there. You would've gone to bed tonight and not woken up the next morning."

"Thanks," Brad mumbled. He didn't want to die of course, but the experience had been very nearly not worth it.

Jimmy turned and saw Holly lying on the floor. "Let's see if I can do something about her."

He knelt down beside the squirrel and Tyler did too. Jimmy put his hands on Holly's forehead. "Oh, this one'll be easy. She's nearly there. She just needs a little boost." The black wolf focused Beatrix's power and gave Holly a good, solid blast of it.

Holly sputtered and jerked, coming close to sitting bolt upright before flopping back down again.

"Holly!!" Tyler shouted.

She opened her eyes and made a sound like, "...hwaaaah..."

Tyler patted her cheeks. "You're okay! You're okay!"

She grumbled like she'd just woken up with a hangover. "Did I die again? Goddammit..."

Laughing with relief, Tyler hugged her.

Jimmy stood up. "Anyone else?"

Karen, Tyler and Sherri were all mostly unscathed, save for some bruises. "I know I've only got some cuts, but I'd still rather die than let those hands touch me," Benjamin said. Victor nodded in agreement.

Jimmy made a 'suit yourself' gesture.

Karen gently poked Jimmy's shoulder. "Um, do you think you could do anything about him?"

Jimmy turned and saw where she was looking.

Dr. Jones' corpse.

He flinched. "Jesus... I have no idea." He got up and knelt down again by the otter's body. "I'll try."

Karen stood back and hoped, hands clasped together in front of her muzzle.

Jimmy put his hands on Dr. Jones. Beatrix's hands. The hands that could heal, the hands she'd never even tried to use. 'Selfish cunt,' he thought. Concentrating hard, he grunted and released her power.

The body jerked.

"He's alive!" Karen shouted.

Jimmy growled at her. "That was _me_. I moved him by accident! Just be quiet for a second and lemme do this!"

Karen backed off, hurt by his tone.

The black wolf tried again. He was using Beatrix's body like jumper cables. With each jolt, he could 'see' every inch of Dr. Jones' insides. Every nerve, every cell. He could see how extensive the damage was. He flooded the corpse with the rabbit's power, but it was a futile effort. It didn't have the man's own immune system to feed on. Growling again and again as he forced the power into Dr. Jones, Jimmy looked like a man giving CPR to someone who was beyond help.

"Fuck!!" He stood up suddenly, furious. He stood there breathing hard. The body did not move.

Karen padded over to Jimmy. "You tried," she said.

"I tried and it didn't work," he responded sourly.

"Well, you still helped me," Brad said, trying to be helpful. "You kept me from dying."

Jimmy acknowledged that with a mumble. "Can't raise the dead though. That sucks. Beatrix can save her own ass as many times as she wants, but not anyone else."

"Come on, Jimmy," Karen said. She touched his paw gently. "Let's just get out of here."

Jimmy shook her paw away. "You guys can, but I've got somewhere else to be."

Karen realized what he meant by that and was furious. "You're still thinking about the power plant! You still want to kill her!"

He fixed a hard, cold look on her. "I never *stopped* thinking about killing her."

Turning his back on her, he started heading towards the airlock.

"Jimmy, wait!" Karen ran after him.

The wolf paused, but did not turn around. "You're not going to stop me, Karen. If you try to stop me, I'll hurt you. I'll have to. Believe me, I don't want that." His tone made it clear that the discussion was over.

Karen was stunned that he'd say such a thing to her. She couldn't think of anything to say back. She felt helpless.

Blood dripping down her legs with every step, Jimmy forced Beatrix's body through the double doorways. He disappeared down the hall.

Karen stood like a stone and watched him go. Her heart was a mess.


*****


     -KAREN-

Tyler was helping Holly to her feet. She was understandably flustered. "What the frogshit is going on? Beatrix kills me, then she saves my life?"

"It was actually that ghost guy Karen's been seeing. He took over her body," Tyler explained.

Holly nodded. "Right. I thought that was it, I just wasn't sure."

Karen stared at the empty airlock. She felt lost for a moment. She pushed the feeling away with anger. Gathering herself, she turned around and faced her friends. "We have to go stop him," she said resolutely.

Tyler sneered. "Why?"

Karen growled and balled her paws into fists. "Just *because*! It's not right!"

"I can't see a damn thing wrong with it," Sherri said unexpectedly. Her voice was ice cold.

Keith nodded agreement.

Karen stamped her foot. "You *guys*!" Her frustration wasn't just because they weren't agreeing with her, but also the fact that she couldn't even come up with a reason to agree with herself. "I thought I was supposed to be the leader! I thought you were sposto do what I tell you!!" she yelled petulantly.

Holly came over to her, her expression gentle but firm as concrete. "Karen, normally we would, but Beatrix just killed Dr. Jones and shot me in the goddam face. I don't care _what_ Jimmy does to her."

"I know!" Karen shot back. "...I know. I don't care what he does to her either. I just..." She reached for it within herself, and finally understood why she felt so strongly. "I'm just worried what will happen to Jimmy. I don't want him to go to hell for being a murderer."

Benjamin snorted. "You believe in that shit?"

"SHUT UP!" she snapped at him.

He flinched, surprised by her fierceness.

Karen reached a decision. She hung her head but spoke clearly. "I don't care what the rest of you do. I'm going after him. Even if he's gone nuts, he's still my friend and I care about him." Making her heart a stone, Karen turned and walked away.

She heard footsteps behind her and then felt a paw on her arm. She jerked it away. "Don't try to stop me, Brad."

"I'm not," he said calmly. "I'm going with you."

"No you're not!" she yelled at him.

"I'm going with you," he insisted.

Karen grunted angrily. She gave him a hard, angry shove with both paws. "You just want to see him kill her, don't you? You just want to watch her die!"

Brad's expression didn't change. "So? Even if I do, I'm still coming to make sure you don't get hurt."

Karen was surprised by that, but didn't soften. She 'hmph'ed. "I'll be fine."

"I don't care, I'm still going."

They stared at each other with venom in their eyes for a moment, then Karen spun away huffily and dashed through the airlock. Brad ran after her.

"You can follow me if you want, but I'm not gonna slow down for you!" she called over her shoulder.

"You don't need to!" Brad shot back.

As her feet hit the hard stairs and her heart thudded in her chest, Karen thought back to him, 'Thank you.'


*****


     -JIMMY-

Because Beatrix's brain was at his command, Jimmy could recall all her memories as easily as his own. She was a go-kart and he was behind the wheel. It felt glorious. It felt like he was wearing her like a costume. She was trapped somewhere in his stomach, screaming and fighting but unable to get out. That was by far the best part, listening to her scream.

Because he had her memories, that meant he knew about her secret elevator. He sprinted up to the eighth floor. Running fast sent unimaginable spasms of pain through Beatrix's groin. The harder he used it, the more he kept it from being able to heal itself. Beatrix was bellowing mindlessly in torment. Jimmy chortled. Revenge was the sweetest feeling in the world.

He found the elevator easily. It was inside one of the many featureless doors along the U-shaped hallway. He typed in Beatrix's passcode and hit the lobby button.

The doors closed and machinery hummed. He tossed the gun in the corner. He didn't need it anymore.

He knew Karen would try to follow him. He knew why, too. She cared about him. He hated having to abandon her like this, but this moment had been scripted in his mind right from the start. It wasn't just a matter of getting Karen and Beatrix in the same room, he'd had to help Karen's revolution succeed first. He had to gain her trust. He knew possession would only work if she allowed him in.

He'd never dreamed it would be so easy though. The more time he'd spent with Karen, the stronger he became. First she could see him when she wasn't dreaming. Then he was able to touch Tyler with his cigarette. It was then that the idea came to him of using Karen for a bridge. It had worked so beautifully. Better than he could ever have hoped for.

He wasn't proud of how he'd acted back there. He hated the fact that he could be so cold-blooded. But punishing Beatrix was more important than sparing Karen's feelings.

Jimmy no longer cared what happened to his immortal soul. It didn't matter where he went after Beatrix died. He didn't even care if he ceased to exist. He would murder her in cold blood, and he would enjoy it. He was doing this for revenge, yes, but this was bigger than his own desires.

He would have done it for himself anyway, but thinking about all the graves this woman had filled made it a necessity.

The elevator doors opened.


*****


     -KURI & WILL-

Beyond King's Orchard was a wide green meadow. Now in the night air, the kelly grass shifted and strained under the persistent breeze. A chill breeze. One just cold enough to cut. The meadow was there not just because it looked so aesthetically pleasing in the brochure photos, but for a practical reason too. If anyone escaped, it left them no cover to run to. They could be picked off easily by tranquilizer darts as they fled.

In front of the hospital, pandemonium reigned. Police vehicle lightbars flashed everything red and blue, red and blue, red and blue. It gave the madness a kind of carnival-like atmosphere. Staff members were shouting explanations to slack-faced cops. Children were running amuck everywhere; some screaming, some singing, some fighting. One kid's hand got stepped on and she wailed like a banshee. One kid slipped off to piss on the side of the building just because he could. Dozens of kids ran off into the shadows and freedom. Others begged the police to help them find their mommies and daddies. Several looky-loos from town were clustered about, pointing at the fire on the fifth floor and wondering when the hell the firefighters were going to show up. People took pictures with their cell phones. Monsoon was busy ripping the airbag out of his steering wheel with a pocketknife so he could see out the windshield again.

Resting against the bark of a wide oak tree on the very edge of the property, Kuri and Will Rennault saw all of this. But none of it concerned them.

Will was crying. He told himself it was shameful, that this was how a baby acted, not a man. But he still couldn't help it. He couldn't take his eyes off the rushed but careful bandage job Kuri had done on his wrist. It was swelled up to the size of a softball now. It throbbed with his heartbeat, sending jabs of pain shooting down his arm every second. 

Kuri was seated right beside her brother, arm around his shoulder. While he watched his injury, she watched the hospital.

There was nothing they could do now. For starters, they had no idea where they were. They knew nothing of this part of the country. King's Orchard had been their world for so long, they didn't know where anything was beyond its walls. No doctors, no emergency rooms. They were certainly not going to get up and ask the police for help. Aside from the fact that they were both still sticky with blood, Kuri would have sooner given up her life before her blade.

Will stared at his wrist and wondered how long it would take for his hand to wither up and fall off. He wondered how he was going to live the rest of his life as a cripple. He wondered if maybe Kuri could make him a hook to wear.

Kuri's face was marble and her eyes were steel. "We could go after them, you know," she said softly. Her tail twitched.

Will was quiet for a moment. Then he sniffed back a sob and said, "No."

Kuri narrowed her eyes. "Will, they took your hand."

"No, _I_ made that choice," he corrected her. "What happened was an accident, and I gave my hand to protect you."

"Still..." A low growl came from her throat. "They're still in there, and they're not expecting us to-"

Will hissed angrily. "No, Sis! Just shut up! Leave it!"

She turned and looked him int he eye, incredulous. "How can you be defending them!?"

"I'm not," he said. "I'm just worried for you."

"Me!?"

"I'm willing to drop it but you aren't. We lost, okay? There's no shame in it. It was six against two. We *almost* won, but we didn't. I'm still alive and you're still alive. We'll manage. I don't want you to get all obsessed over this. You talk in your sleep sometimes, and I don't wanna hear you going on and on about some stupid vendetta."

She scowled, angry at how well her brother knew her. "Eat my shit, Will."

"I will if you'll shut up about this," he cracked.

Kuri was about to reply, but her ear twitched in the direction of King's Orchard. Someone was coming.

They were on their feet with weapons in hand quicker than it takes to tell it.

Will squinted. "Is that...?"

"Holy shit it is!" Kuri shouted, hope rising in her heart. "Auntie Beatrix!!"

The twins sheathed their weapons and ran to greet their protector. Everything would be alright now! Dr. Beatrix would know what to do. She always knew what to do. She'd do something about Will's hand and everything would be okay again.

"Auntie Beatrix!" Kuri called again.

The figure stopped.

"Auntie ...Beatrix?"

The rabbit had Beatrix's form and her fur, but the expression was someone else's. It gave off an air of 'who the fuck are you two?'

"It's us..." Kuri said meekly.

The figure glared. "I don't _care_ who you are. Get out of my way."

The twins exchanged a look. This was definitely not their Auntie Beatrix. Something had happened to her. Amnesia? "Did you get hit on the head or something?" Will asked.

The figure ignored them and walked right past, heading towards the power plant.

Will dashed around in front of her, brandishing his staff with his good hand. "Stop."

"You're in my way," the figure growled.

"Who are you? You don't act like our Auntie Beatrix," Kuri said from behind.

"That's because I'm not *anyone's* damn 'Auntie'! Leave me the fuck alone!!"

"You're an imposter," Will said.

"Give her back," Kuri said.

"_Now_," Will said.

The figure paused, and then it smirked. "You really want her back? You really want Beatrix Beverley back?"

"That should be abundantly clear by now," Kuri said. She poked the imposter just hard enough with her knife to make her point.

The figure grinned. "Fine."

Jimmy closed his eyes, and Beatrix opened them.

"YOU WORTHLESS, USELESS LITTLE PIECES OF SHIT!!!" she screamed.

Freed so suddenly, Beatrix didn't know which one of them to kill first. She made a lunge at Will and when he easily jumped away, she snatched at Kuri. 

"Do you have ANY idea how much goddamned MONEY we spent on you!? You were supposed to be up there *killing* them! You were supposed to protect me and The Project! What the Christ are you doing outside? What, did you join their side? I bet you did, you little traitors! I'm gonna rip your fucking tails off and make you EAT them!!"

Horror flooding their eyes, the twins stared at her as she attacked them again and again. Beatrix was swinging drunkenly and too mad to think, but murderous intent leaked out of her pores like gas. They knew if she managed to catch a handful of their fur, she'd tear their throats out.

"Get BACK here!!" Beatrix screeched. "I OWN you little fuckers! You weak, stupid, lazy FREAKS!!"

This was not a trick by the imposter. Even twisted by hate, the twins knew their Auntie's speech and body language. This was her, revealed to them for all that she truly was.

Transfixed, unable to reconcile this bloodthirsty madwoman with the mother-figure who had read them stories and said 'goodnight' to them, Kuri was frozen.

Beatrix made a lunge at her, hands outstretched to strangle...

And then she went rigid as a board. Beatrix fell face-first into the grass as if she'd been shot.

Kuri gulped. "D-did you do that?" she asked Will.

Will shook his head.

Beatrix began to get up.

The twins were side-by-side in an instant, weapons out, ready now to defend themselves properly.

But it wasn't Beatrix anymore. It was the imposter. To their shame, the kittens were relieved.

"_There's_ your Auntie Beatrix," the figure said.

Kuri felt like her life was shattering. "How? Why was she acting like that? I thought she loved us!"

For the first time, the imposter's hard expression softened. He knelt down beside Kuri at eye-level. "Listen close, kid. She has never loved you. Get it? _Never_. She's incapable of love."

Will immediately protested. "But what about all those times she was nice to us!?"

"An act," the imposter replied. "You were nothing more than two loaded pistols to her. I'm inside her now. I can see all her memories, all lined up in front of me like a poster gallery. She's never cared about you. Not for a second. All she cared about was that you were her backup plan in case things went FUBAR."

"What's that mean?" Will sniffled.

"Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition."

"That sure sounds like tonight..." Kuri admitted softly.

The imposter looked away from her at Will. "Your wrist broken?" he asked.

The kitten nodded.

The impostor sighed. "Here, lemme see it."

"What are you going to-" An unholy scream of pain ripped the night. Will was bellowing at the top of his lungs as the impostor squeezed his wrist like a grapefruit.

Kuri's blade was jammed deep in the imposter's guts in an instant. "LET HIM GO," she thundered.

The imposter showed no sign that he felt anything at all. He looked at her with mild annoyance. "It hurts for only a minute; he'll be fine."

Kuri twisted the knife. "I don't think you heard me."

"I don't think you heard ME!" the imposter shouted in her face.

Will had been roaring like a lion, but now he was mewling like the kitten he was. The pain was fading. When the imposter took Beatrix's hands away, Will stared at his wrist in amazement. He wiggled his fingertips. Good as new again. No swelling, no pain. He looked at the imposter but was too awestruck to thank him.

Kuri touched her brother's paw gently. Will didn't flinch away. His wrist was healed to perfection.

The imposter stood up. "I want you two to think about something," he said, and his tone made it clear that they'd damn well better listen closely.

They did.

"Beatrix _could_ have done that, but she didn't. I did. I don't know who the hell you are and I don't care anything about you. But I fixed your wrist. Beatrix wouldn't have done that with a gun to her head."

He loped off towards the power plant again. "She's _never_ loved you," he repeated.

Kuri and Will stood silently and watched Beatrix go. Not just her form, but their illusions of her.

Their hearts were sick and heavy.

Will massaged his wrist.

The night breeze skimmed the grass tops and sent shivers up their fur.

The twins watched Beatrix for a long time, then turned away as if given some secret signal. 

"Come on, brother," Kuri said sadly.

She took Will's paw in hers. They began to walk.

Their direction didn't matter. They were completely alone now, no matter where in the world they were.


*****


     -KEITH-

With Karen gone, there was nothing left to do but get the hell out of King's Orchard and say goodbye to it forever. It wouldn't be a good idea to be standing around in a room full of dead bodies when the cops finally showed up.

Hand in hand, Holly and Tyler led the way out the airlock and back down the stairs. Hopefully for the last, *last* time. Even though those of them with injuries had been healed and all of them felt a bit refreshed, the thought of slogging down those seven flights of steps again was torturous. They had forgotten that with the fire alarm turned off, the elevators were operational again. This turned out to be exceptionally good luck.

"Do you think Karen and Brad will be okay?" Victor asked Benjamin.

The fox shrugged. His hand was on the rail and his head was pointed down as he walked. "Maybe. I guess so. Jimmy'll probably kill Beatrix no matter what. In fact, I hope he does. Karen will be sad about it, but I'm sure she'll get over it."

Victor nodded. He couldn't think of anything to add to that. He hated Dr. Beatrix too, but his heart wasn't hard enough to want to see her dead.

"Do you smell smoke?" Sherri asked.

The others sniffed the air.

"Yeah..." Holly said uneasily.

Tyler leaned over the railing. Two floors below, he could see it. "Shit, there really *is* a fire!"

"Are we trapped!?" Victor yelped.

"I can't see yet," Tyler said.

"Good. I hope this place burns to the goddam ground," Holly said.

Tyler snarled. "That would *not* be a good thing, remember? The canisters? All the evidence in Ward Zero that'll go BOOM!?"

Holly remembered now. "Oh my god! All those coma kids are gonna die!"

Uneasily, Keith spoke up. "Maybe I can do something."

"Like what?" Holly asked.

The fox shrugged. "I dunno. I got a feeling." He turned away and started off down the stairs. The others had to hustle to keep up with him.

The smoke started to really stink a half-floor down, and past the sixth floor landing it became unbearable. Everyone was choking on it. "It's *smelly*!" Ruby whined.

Keith didn't like it either, but it wasn't affecting him anywhere near as much as the others.

"What's your plan?" Tyler asked him.

"I don't _know_!" Keith replied angrily. Before anyone could talk him out of it, he ran further down the stairs, straight into the smoke.

"He's sure got some balls," Benjamin had to admit.

The smoke stung Keith's eyes, but he kept on going. He wasn't confident at all about his idea, but not trying it would make him a coward. He thought about all the evidence that would vanish with this building if it went up in flames. Sure, they still had Benjamin's list, but it wouldn't mean much without physical proof.

The fire was obviously coming from the fifth floor. The smoke was so thick Keith could feel it on his fur; greasy, and the smell was making him nauseous. He pressed onward.

The door on the fifth floor landing had smoke oozing out of it like a black waterfall. Keith could barely see past it.

He reached for the handle. Instantly he yipped and yanked his paw away. The metal was red hot. Keith braced himself, gritted his teeth and grabbed it again. He felt his flesh sear. He pulled the door open anyway.

A wall of flame hit him like a tidal wave.

Keith shut his eyes tight. The fire was all over him, *eating* him. The heat didn't bother him, but the flame itself felt like a huge, heavy animal on his chest taking tiny chunks out of his flesh.

In desperation, he whipped his hand back like casting a fishing line. Calling the fire to him. He prayed it would work.

Like a well-trained pet, the fire obeyed.

Howling like a tornado, the fire swirled around Keith, drawn towards him like a vortex. There was so much of it, Keith didn't know if he could contain it all. He had no idea if he'd die trying. He did not break the connection though.

The fire poured into him with the force of an oncoming train. The entire ward was aflame and there was more fire inside than Keith had ever seen before in his life. It was all around him, licking at his face, turning his clothes to ash, tearing at his fur.

In a strange, terrible way, he enjoyed it. Felt a kinship with it. Even as it was tearing him to pieces.

And then it was over.

Outside, the firefighters (who had finally arrived just minutes earlier) looked at each other in slack-jawed astonishment. They'd only had the hoses turned on the blaze for two minutes, and then the flames just up and disappeared. Many a head was scratched.

Keith took in a huge breath, gulping for air. He was flat on his back on the concrete. He felt sore and raw all over. He reminded himself that that meant he was alive.

He looked through the Ginny-melted doors of Ward D's airlock. Everything was scorched to ash beyond it. The whole place was gutted, a total wreck. But there wasn't even a single burning ember left. Keith had absorbed it all.

"I did it," he said, surprised as anyone else. A puff of smoke emerged from his mouth. "Sweet."

He was still panting when his friends arrived a moment later. Tyler and Benjamin immediately helped him to his feet. "Jesus, is there anything *left* of you under all that?" Tyler gasped.

Keith looked down at himself and realized he was covered head to toe in soot. He was as black as a bear. His clothes had been reduced to cinders, so he was also buttnaked.

"I'm fine," he croaked. "I could use a glass of water though."

"And some clothes," Holly teased.

"If you want, I'll run back up and get you some," Victor offered. "Your room's number 12, right?"

Tired and uncaring, Keith waved it away. "Screw it. I'll just check on the fourth floor to see if anyone there's my size."


*****


     -KAREN-

If Jimmy had not encountered the Rennault twins, Karen and Brad would have never caught up to him in time. Sometimes fate takes interest in the lives of mortals long enough to dip her cosmic finger into our reality and give it a little swirl.

Karen hustled down the steps at a punishing pace. She forced herself not to stop until she reached the bottom. She blanked her mind and thought of nothing else but Jimmy in Beatrix's skin, and what he planned to do to her. She kept running. To her immeasurable relief, Brad stayed behind her every step of the way. Hearing his footsteps reassured her. She'd been stupid to storm off in a huff like that. She knew she'd need someone else to help her track Jimmy down and bring him back to reality. She was glad she had a friend as dependable as Brad.

By the time she'd reached the first floor, she'd burned all her anger off like the alcohol in a rum cake. She let her body's needs take over for a moment. Right that second, all Karen cared about in the whole world was the drinking fountain a few feet down the hall. She stomped the pedal and her mouth filled with orgasmically cold, clean, delicious water. Brad popped up beside her a moment later and they took turns, gulping water then gasping for breath.

When their thirsts were sated and their chinfur was soaked, they looked at each other and nodded. No apologies were needed. They were simply done being mad over something so silly. Their purpose united, they hunted for a way outside.

With the fire alarm turned off, the doors weren't sealed shut anymore. Karen and Brad exited through the same door that Clifford Markman would never use to catch a smoking break ever again. (Months from now, after the hospital declared him physically fit to stand trial, his smokes in his lawyer's office would be the last shred of pleasure left to him.)

The cool breeze wrapped around them soothingly, cooling their tired young bodies down after their long run. It ruffled their fur and made them feel energized.

Across the meadow, there was the tall, fenced-in spires of the electric plant.

Karen allowed herself a very small moment to enjoy the night air a moment longer, then started running again.

As they hustled across the flat, grassy area, they could hear all the hullabaloo behind them. By now it was a regular circus. Police and fire department vehicles ringed the parking lot. No one was talking quieter than a shout. A few reporters had shown up in a news van and were trying admirably to get a coherent story out of the patients.

Kuri and Will were far enough away by then that the closest either of them came to meeting Karen and Brad that night was a fleeting glimpse of movement in Will's eye as he looked back at King's Orchard, the only home he'd ever really known. (The two pairs would not actually meet until much later, under very, very different circumstances.)

Karen and Brad reached the fence. Karen stopped to lean against a twisted old maple a few feet away. Brad bent over and held his knees, panting hard.

"You're not gonna throw up are you?" Karen asked, concerned.

Brad just shook his head side to side. "I'm alright," he said as he straightened up.

Together they looked at the fence. It rose up into the sky, much too high to climb and topped with barbed wire to boot. Beyond it lay a wide, colorless field of gravel. Huge sun-bleached machines hummed in there. They looked like enormous drill tips, or freakishly mutated offspring of the Eiffel Tower. This place did an extremely good job at looking foreboding.

Brad took a step towards the fence.

"Wait!" Karen said. "It might be electrified." She had no idea if it was, but it seemed a plausible idea, given the location.

Brad shrugged nonchalantly. "I'll check it out." He reached out and grabbed the chain link with both paws.

Immediately, he stiffened and a look of agony came over his face. He shook like a lightning rod.

"BRAD!!" Karen screamed.

He let go of the fence and grinned at her. "April Fool's."

She gave him the Evil Eye. "You're an asshole."

He smirked, not denying it.

Karen did her best to keep scowling and not smile. She had to admit though, he'd gotten her good. And she'd been so on edge worrying about Jimmy, a bit of comic relief was much-needed at this point. "So how are we gonna get in? How did Jimmy get in, for that matter?"

"Over there," Brad said immediately.

"How do you know that?"

He pointed it out. "Just follow the blood."

Karen squinted and saw what he was talking about. She padded over to a ragged hole in the fence a few yards away. It stank of blood. Dried redness and patches of white fur were caught on the edges of the rift. It didn't take a lot of detective work to figure out that Jimmy had found a small hole and had simply forced Beatrix's body through it. After all, what did it matter to him how much pain he caused her?

Brad took hold of the bent metal and pulled it as wide open as he could. He gestured with a jerk of his head for Karen to go first.

She nodded thanks and did.

Brad squeezed through afterwards, scratching his shoulder in the process. Just bad enough to be annoying.

They were inside now. The gravel felt treacherous under their feet. Easy to slip on. Not too fun to slip and land knee-first on a bunch of tiny, dirty rocks.

"We gotta find Jimmy," Karen said.

Brad held up a paw. "I thought I heard something." He closed his eyes and his ears swiveled around like two miniature radar dishes. "I think he's over there. I heard someone talking, I think."

"Okay," Karen said.

Brad started off.

Karen touched his arm and held him back.

He swiveled around. "What?"

She hesitated. "I'm sorry I acted like a jerk to you back there."

He made a little 'feh' sound; No apology necessary. He waved her to come on so they could finally end this night.


     ~~~


They found Jimmy hunched over in the maze of electric towers, splotched all over with blood and gibbering a mile a minute to the soul he'd trapped within her own body.

Karen's foot skidded on the gravel.

Jimmy whirled around to look at them.

It was a moment that practically demanded a hard rainstorm and a flash of lightning in the background for maximum dramatic impact. But all there was was the chilly night wind.

Jimmy's eyes were full of murder. "I warned you," he said.

"Hurt me then," Karen said defiantly. She took a few steps closer, showing that she was not at all scared of him and that she wasn't going to tolerate his bullshit anymore. "Kill me. Fry me like you want to do to Beatrix. I'm not going to let you go through with it though."

Jimmy was floored for a second, then laughed a sharp, high-pitched laugh of derision. "What is your deal?" he brayed. "You're telling me you _don't_ wanna see this blackhearted bitch kick the bucket forever?"

Karen had finally come to terms with exactly that. "Of course I do. She's a horrible, evil furson and, yeah, I want her to suffer. I know it doesn't make me a bad girl to say that."

"So why can't you just leave me alone to do this?" Jimmy asked. Reasonably enough, he thought.

"Because this is about *you*," Karen said.

Jimmy stood silently for a moment. "I don't care what happens to me after I kill her, Karen. Her death is more important than I am. I'm like a bullet that kills a monster because it needs to be done, that's all."

"Bullshit!!" Karen screamed viciously.

Her anger actually startled him.

She pointed an accusatory finger at his face. "Maybe you think you're not worth anything, but I think you are! I think you're a really smart, nice guy who made me feel better about myself and made me feel confident and..." Karen realized she was crying. "And I care about you!!"

Jimmy's heart was not so stony he wasn't moved by her words just a little. "Even after I used you to get to Beatrix?"

"Of course I do. You don't stop being friends with someone just because they do one really selfish, mean thing to you."

That stung. "Karen... you don't know the whole story."

"Then tell me," the little raccoon shot back. "I've got alllll night!"

He shook his head. "Nuh-uh. You're just trying to stall me. Not gonna work." He moved towards the nearest machine.

Karen ran up and jumped in front of him. "You're gonna have to kill me before I let you kill Beatrix," she growled, fierce as a lynx.

Jimmy was flatly shocked. "You're serious about this..."

"No duh," Karen said.

Jimmy pondered her behavior. "I don't GET you, Karen. Why the hell are you going on this big crusade for my soul?"

She was tired of his playing dumb. "I already told you."

Jimmy stepped back. He looked, for just a moment, remorseful. "Karen, what I showed you... was an act."

She shook her head. "I don't believe you. I trusted you; I know you're a good furson."

His eyes hardened. "Karen, I'm a goddam sociopath. We're really good at lying."

This time she _really_ refused to believe him. She shook her head. "Nope, I don't buy it. I saw on a TV show that sociopaths don't have a conscience. I _know_ you have one." She remembered how bravely he'd defended her from the legion of dead souls the night he'd given her the courage to 'broadcast'. She remembered lying with her head on his leather jacket when she was cold and tired.

Always-Jimmy-Never-James took a few more steps back, now feeling slimy disgust slither like a worm over his heart. "I was born without a conscience, Karen," he said. "I'm not lying. I'm not pulling the word 'sociopath' out of my ass. That's what the doctors called me, and they were right. You don't know a damn thing about what I used to be like. I'm GLAD you don't know. I don't want to *dirty* you by telling you the things I used to do before I was even your age. To neighborhood pets, to kids at school, to my teachers. To my own parents..."

Karen did not want to believe it, but his eyes were completely clear of madness. This was all coming from his heart.

"I don't know if the hospital contacted my parents or if they contacted the hospital. Either way, they were glad to be rid of me. I don't blame them for feeling that way. I wonder sometimes, did they feel a little relieved when they heard I'd been shot to death?" He took in a slow, deep breath. "I wouldn't blame them for that either."

As he let everything out, he began to pace a little. Karen kept her eyes on him the whole time in case this was a trick. "Being a monster never made me stupid. In fact, I was smarter than most other kids my age. I knew I was fucked up, but I also thought everyone else was some inferior species. I couldn't get why they all acted so fucking *dumb*. Of course I hated them. I felt like they weren't anything more important to me than lab experiments.

"But here's the weird thing. When The Project got their hands on me and stuck me in Safe Harbor - a place a lot like King's O, just a lot more primitive - it actually *helped* me. Not the fuckin' doctors. But the other patients.

"I was in Ward B. Same system as here: B's where they keep all the ones who are 'a danger to society'. Keith can tell you what that's like. Take prison and remove what little dignity's left; there you go. But the other kids, they didn't know shit about me. They didn't know I was a psycho. They just treated me like I was normal. Said 'Hi' to me. Asked if they could borrow cigarettes.

"At first I lashed out. I thought they were making fun of me or something. I did a lot of stupid things that would have made normal kids run screaming. These guys either laughed it off or, I couldn't fuckin' believe this, *forgave* me."

Jimmy patted Beatrix's breast, looking for a pack of cigarettes. "Dammit, I wish this bitch smoked."

He continued without a butt in his mouth, which made him feel slightly panicky. "They were *decent* to me, do you get that? I had never felt that from anyone before. They didn't know what an utter shit I was, so they didn't know any better. But after a little while, I realized I _liked_ it. I liked having people say 'Hi' to me in the halls instead of calling me a sicko. I started thinking that maybe I should try to be different. Maybe I should stop enjoying having a heart made of stone and try behaving like normal people do.

"When my friend Blade told me about his powers, and the rest of his friends showed theirs off too, I thought they were gonna beat the crap out of me when I told them I didn't have anything like that. Blade just shrugged. He said I was cool even if I wasn't like them." Jimmy fixed his gaze on Karen's. "Do you have any idea what that was like for me? To have someone not cast me out, but instead just accept me for who I was, as *fucked-up* as I was!?"

Karen thought she had a very good idea of how that felt. "It must have scared you at first, but then made you feel wonderful," she said.

Jimmy was startled by how well she'd nailed it. "Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And when Karen, _my_ Karen, started hanging around me and it finally got through my dense, piece-of-shit brain that she liked me, that cemented it. She was the nicest furson I'd ever met. It pissed me off that they'd put her in B with all the rest of us nutjobs. She stole some cars. So what? She was better than all of us combined. I was fuckin' _honored_ that she liked me. Of course, she was seeing stuff in me that wasn't there by a long shot. She thought I was withdrawn because I was all cool and mysterious and thoughtful, and really, most of the time I'd just been thinking about how to avoid people and escape from that shithole as soon as possible. But when she talked to me, it made me want to be that furson she thought she was seeing. Do you understand that?"

Karen nodded.

Jimmy brushed Beatrix's hair back out of his eyes. "I started going along with their treatments. Taking the tests, taking my meds, shit like that. I even borrowed some psychology books so I could read up on what was wrong with me and how normal people are supposed to act. I made myself better. I've always been proud of the fact that I could be horrified by what I'd used to be."

"Just because you were born without a conscience doesn't mean you can't grow one if you want it bad enough," Karen said wisely.

Jimmy slapped his thigh. "That's right! Totally right!" He paced some more. "I just faked kindness and unselfishness until I could do it for real. I screwed up a lot, but I was in a mental hospital anyway. None of my friends expected me to be perfect.

"So then one day Blade told us in the cafeteria that he'd put everything together and realized it wasn't a coincidence that all these kids with weird abilities were all locked up in one place. He thought the government wanted us for their own little science fair projects. Karen was the one who came up with the plan to escape, and Blade was the one who set everything up. We all agreed to it."

Jimmy's face hardened. "The night that we tried, I watched Dr. Beatrix open Blade's face like a can opener with that gun of hers."

He looked pained now, like he was having a heart attack. "I watched it happen, but I hadn't done a good enough job fixing myself by then. All I could think about was saving my own ass.

"I ran away. And Beatrix killed me for it."

Jimmy took a sudden, angry step towards Karen and shouted in her face. "NOW are you starting to get it? Now are you starting to understand why I don't care about anything else in this world other than making sure this cold-blooded cunt dies? She killed my friends and I couldn't stop that from happening because I was _weak_. I don't give a flaming rat's *ass* that she murdered me; I fucking deserved it for being such a coward. But dammit, I have another chance now! I have another chance to stop her before she kills anyone else!!"

Jimmy's tone was desperate, begging her to understand and give him her blessing so he could finally live out this moment he'd spent ten years suffering for. But Karen couldn't do that. "I understand, Jimmy. I really do. I hate Beatrix, Brad hates Beatrix, we _all_ hate Beatrix. She's a horrible, horrible monster that needs to go away forever. But Jimmy... I don't want you to die with her. I don't want you to kill yourself because you're still mad you made a mistake back then."

He snorted. "It wasn't a 'mistake'. I ran when I should have stayed and fought. People died because of me."

"_Wrong_," Karen said fiercely. "They died because Beatrix killed them, not you. What if you _had_ stayed and fought? What if she'd blown two holes in the front of your head instead of the back? You'd *still* hate yourself for not doing enough! You're acting like a total idiot, Jimmy!!"

Out of the blue, a part of him suggested quite rationally that he could indeed just believe her words and end this now without killing himself. But that was the easy way out, he insisted. He needed to be punished for his failure, just like Beatrix did. "No. I'm sorry, Karen, but I've spent ten years thinking about this. Nothing you can say will stop me from going through with it."

She didn't believe him. Karen knew Jimmy wanted to forgive himself and let go. She understood so much about him now that he'd finally told her all this. She wondered if it explained why he couldn't get rid of his eternal pack of cigarettes. Perhaps they were symbolic of his constant, unending punishment of himself. "Whatever you did back then is the past. You've redeemed yourself. You helped me and my friends escape. It's over now, Jimmy. You won."

He snarled, trying hard not to listen to her. "Where was I when you needed me most though, huh? In the quiet room when Thurston was trying to rape you, or down in Ward Zero when Beatrix had a gun? Where the fuck was I!? I was standing there watching, waiting for my chance to get you and Beatrix in the same room. I was only thinking of myself!!"

Karen glared angrily at him. "Screw you, Jimmy."

"See, you're pissed at me!"

"No, dammit!" she corrected. "I'm angry that you think I *needed* your help! That's an insult. You helped me find my confidence, and I'm grateful for that, but I'm NOT HELPLESS!" she shouted, her voice strong as an angel's trumpet. "I got out of both those situations just fine, without your help. I might've appreciated it if you'd offered, but I never _needed_ it."

Jimmy was, frankly, awed. How could this be the same Karen he'd met under the streetlamp just a few nights ago? He couldn't help but smirk. "Okay, okay. Fair enough. You're far from helpless, Karen."

"Damn right. I chose not to be a victim anymore, just like you can choose not to hate yourself anymore. If you've got the guts."

That was a deliberate low blow. But an effective one. Jimmy decided to end this quickly before she could say anything more to sway him. "I'm making my choice, Karen," he said calmly.

He stepped towards the machinery again. "I'm making it right now."

"Jimmy, damn it!!" Karen screamed.

"Wait," said Brad.

Brad had hung back and kept silent until now, respecting that Karen had this under control. He hated to steal the spotlight from her, but he had something of his own to add.

Jimmy sighed theatrically and ran a hand up the side of his face. "Jesus, Brad! You're gonna join in now too!?"

The tomcat nodded. "You can't kill Beatrix," he said serenely, like he was stating a scientific fact.

Jimmy laughed. "Have you not been listening? Have Karen and I not already had this conversation!? Fine. Fine! I can wait a few more seconds. What is it, Brad? Why can't I fucking zap this bunny's brains to dust, huh? Tell me why!"

Brad was unruffled. "Because if you kill her right here and now, it'll look like we did it," he gestured at Karen and himself. "And The Project will hunt us down and murder the hell out of us."

Jimmy's jaw dropped.

Karen was stunned. All her arguments rendered moot in two sentences! She was reminded of Alexander the Great and the Gordian Knot.

Jimmy opened his mouth to argue with that. "Wuh... Wait... No... Um..." He tried a dozen different arguments in his head.

"FUCK!!" he said finally, giving up.

Brad smirked. His record remained intact. Undefeated.

Karen began to smile too. She looked at Jimmy with a flagrantly 'I told you so' grin. "That's right, Jimmy. If you go ahead and do it, they'll find her smoking corpse and probly all sortsa evidence we were here. Fur or fingerprints or something. They'll do it; they'll track us down and shoot us in our sleep. Now wouldn't that be awfully _selfish_ of you?" she said with a giggle.

He glared at her. "You don't have to rub it in."

Karen *beamed*.

With an angry rumble in his throat, Jimmy started walking back towards the hole in the fence, his angst-bubble thoroughly popped. "You won. Happy?" he spat at Brad.

Brad nodded. "Yup."

Jimmy mumbled and swore under his breath. "Goddamned unassailable logic..." He patted Beatrix down again and came up empty-handed. "*Jeezus*, I wish this bitch smoked!"


*****


     -MONSOON-

The mountain was sitting in the driver's seat, trying and finally succeeding in getting the engine to turn over, when the stairwell doors opened and a miracle walked out into the lobby.

"Monsoon!" Tyler shouted. He looked around at the amazing mess of the lobby. "Holy balls! Did you do all this?"

"TYLER!?" Monsoon roared. He was out of his SUV in a heartbeat and had his arms wrapped around the boy a second later.

"Cripes, leggo!" Tyler gasped. "I've already been dead, I didn't like it!"

Relieved, astonished, befuddled and relieved some more, Monsoon put the boy down. "You were in Ward Zero!"

Holly strolled up. "Karen found his spirit in the TV set and she 'n Brad put him back together again," she explained.

Monsoon twitched. "I sort of understood that."

Rubiella was the last one out of the stairway. "Moosoo!!!" she suddenly exploded. She charged over like a freight train. "Give kiss! Give kiss! Give kiss!"

Monsoon was more than happy to. He covered her furry cheek in kisses. "I looked all over for you guys! I wondered where you were especially, Rubykitten. Normally, you're pretty easy to spot in a crowd," he gently teased.

She giggled.

"Sweet ride," Benjamin assessed, running a paw along a shiny black bumper of Monsoon's SUV.

"Thanks. I think she'll make it out of here too."

Holly had a fantastic idea. "Will it seat six passengers?" she asked eagerly.

Monsoon smirked. "You bet your fur."

"Excellent! You see, we just kinda killed Thurston and drove off Beatrix's security guards and Brad and Tyler both killed Beatrix a few times but she came back to life and now she's possessed by some ghost friend of Karen's and he's probably gonna kill her - Beatrix, not Karen - so I figure The Project's gonna want to assassinate all of us pretty damn soon and it would be really, really great if you could take us all to a motel or something for the night."

Monsoon blinked. "I heard 'we killed Thurston' and everything's a blur after that."

"We had to," Keith said defensively. "He was gonna rape Karen!"

Monsoon closed his eyes for a second as rage very nearly overwhelmed him. "You didn't even have to tell me that, Keith. I would have been fine with it anyway. That man is scum."

"_Was_ scum," Holly gleefully pointed out.

"How'd he die?" the mountain asked.

"Ruby picked him up and slammed him into a wall head-first. She turned his spine into an accordion," Tyler reported with gusto.

Monsoon looked at Ruby. "Really?"

Shyly, she nodded.

He hugged her. "Good girl!!"

Ruby purred.

"So, what about the motel idea?" Holly asked.

The mountain nodded. "No problem. I should have come back here to help you kids sooner. It's the least I can do."

"What about Brad and Karen?" Victor pointed out.

"Where are they?" Monsoon asked, suddenly worried.

"Remember I said Beatrix's possessed? They're all over at the power plant trying to convince Jimmy not to kill her," said Holly.

Monsoon paused a second. "...Why?"

"That's what I said!" Sherri piped up.

Monsoon opened the passenger door. "Well, hell. Climb on in. Let's go look for them."

"I call shotgun!" Tyler and Holly shouted at the same time. They stared each other down.

"Can you even *fit* in a single seat?" Tyler quipped.

Holly gave his tail a very hard yank.

Tyler giggled. "You're so damn cute when I piss you off!"

Sherri remembered something and tapped Benjamin on the shoulder. "Do you still have that list of names?" she asked.


*****


     -SHERRI-

While the others drove off in search of cat and 'coon, Sherri stayed behind to deliver Benjamin's important envelope. They'd promised they would come back for her as soon as Brad and Karen were with them.

For a scant second, Sherri realized she could simply run away right now, find a pay phone, and call her parents collect to come pick her up. But no. She had a job to do. Her friends were counting on her. That was an almost completely foreign sensation to Sherri, and she decided it merited further study. At least, that was what she told herself. She wasn't quite ready to admit how fascinating it felt to be part of a group and how much she wanted the feeling to continue.

Invisible and clutching the big envelope tightly to her chest, Sherri wandered around amidst the chaos in front of the hospital. People were scurrying aimlessly all around her. She casually dodged them. She was looking for someone who seemed trustworthy and levelheaded. She didn't know exactly what to look for, but figured she'd know it when she saw it.

...And there it was.

On the edge of the parking lot was a police car with a lanky coyote in a sheriff's hat leaning up against it, arms crossed and eyes alert. He had a big nose but was still roguishly handsome. He was hanging back, watching the show, knowing that he couldn't start a proper investigation until this mess had calmed down a bit (In reality, he was thinking about his wife's ass. But Sherri didn't know that).

The coyote's partner was a fat wolverine who was currently eating fried chicken out of a greasy box. He looked up, drumstick halfway to his mouth, and saw Sherri. "Hey Bill, there's a kid."

"I have eyes," he shot back. The sheriff then turned and tipped his hat to the young bunny. "Evening, little ma'am."

Sherri nodded politely. "Hello. Are you honest and incorruptible?"

The sheriff smirked. "I'm Bill Pardy," he said, as if that explained everything.

His partner guffawed and got chicken residue all over the front seat. "Haw! Pardy's such a goody-two-shoes, he wouldn't even steal second base!"

Bill didn't lose an ounce of composure. "Now that is really hilarious, Gus. Tell me, do you have a bunch of Emmy-winning sitcom writers following you around all the time, supplying you with great material like that?"

Gus glared at his partner. "You're a dick, Pardy."

The coyote spread his hands: 'I am who I am.'

Sherri thought this guy seemed suitable. She held the envelope out to him. "Here."

He took it. "What's this?"

"Something really important," she said, deadly serious. "Guard it with your life."

Pardy chuckled. He figured it must be some crayon doodles or something. This kid had come out of a nuthouse after all. He opened the envelope and looked inside. He was surprised by the contents. "John Edison Germaine..." His brow furrowed. "Who the heck is John Edison Germaine?"

Gus looked over, crumbs in his mustache. "What is that?"

Pardy pulled out the list and looked at it closer. He hadn't realized the stack of paper was so thick. "Names. It's a gigantic list of names. It goes on for pages like this. 'Alice Marianne White', 'Luther Thomas Goodchild', 'Charles Oscar Blackwing', 'Enzo Luigi Scapaldi'... All these dates are from the thirties." He riffled the paper. "And the forties, the fifties, the sixties..." He came to the last name. "'Tyler Phillipe Lorenzo'. Added just last night. What the hell IS this?"

He looked up, and the parking lot was empty.

He scanned it with his sharp eyes, looking everywhere for the little girl. "Where'd she go, Gus?"

"I didn't see her leave."

The coyote whacked him on the head with the list. "Your skull's as empty as my refrigerator was in college."

Gus 'harrumphed' and went back to his chicken.

Bill Pardy scowled and looked at the names again. "Whatever this is, I'm not gonna be able to sleep until I find out," he muttered, all kidding aside.

Hidden from his eyes only a few feet away, Sherri smiled. She'd made a good choice.


*****


     -ALF-

As Alf the erstwhile cook finally saw King's Orchard looming up out of the darkness through his windshield, he saw something else so brain-meltingly impossible, he stared for nearly fifteen seconds before he could believe it.

Brad and Karen were walking along together with Beatrix beside them.

A flash of unthinking rage overcame the fox. He pounded the horn and drove his little red car straight off the road, directly at the woman who had ruined his life.

As if the situation wasn't bizarre enough, Beatrix turned, saw the car, and didn't run.

And even more confusing, Brad and Karen jumped in front of the rabbit to protect her!

Alf braked and jumped out of the car. "Get away from them!!" he screamed at Beatrix.

"Hi, Alf," Jimmy said casually.

"It's not Beatrix!" Karen tried to explain. "Okay, it's her body, but this is Jimmy; he's my ghost friend. Beatrix killed him ten years ago and he's possessing her!"

Coming from Dr. Beatrix's lips, Alf never would have believed it. Coming from Karen however.... The fox hesitated. "You're okay?" he asked Karen, needing to be sure. "She doesn't have a gun pointed at you that I can't see, or something like that?"

Karen shook her head. "Everything's fine now, Alf. It's all over." She smiled brightly. "I'm _really_ glad to see you though!"

"Me too, Karen." Alf finally allowed his guard to drop. He came over and gave Karen a gentle hug. He had no bad thoughts when it happened, and did not feel guilty this time.

Brad came up and gave the blue-haired fox a smile too. "I never got to thank you for the cell phone. Sorry you got Beatrix'ed for it."

Alf chuckled at the idea of the doctor as a verb. "No problem. I took this job in the first place to make life not so sucky for you kids."

He stood up and looked over the white rabbit before him. It was Beatrix's body, but none of her body language. "So... You're really not her?"

Jimmy put his paw out. "Always-Jimmy-Never-James. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Shrugging, Alf shook the paw.

Brad had a devilishly good idea. "You know, Alf, Jimmy's in total control of her. He can hurt her as much as he wants and can't feel any of it himself."

It took Alf a second to get what Brad meant by that, but then he grinned ear to ear. "So, Mr. Always-Jimmy-Never-James, you wouldn't mind then if I, say, ...punched her right in the face?"

Jimmy grinned too. "Not at all, my good man."

Karen couldn't see anything wrong with it. "Go for it, Alf!" she cheered.

Filled with unthinkable glee and grinning like the Cheshire cat, Alf drew back his fist and slammed it into Beatrix's face with every iota of strength in his body. Blood flew from her nose and she crumpled in a heap on the grass.

"That's for showing me those photos!!" he screamed.

He radiated with vengeful merriment a moment, then looked concerned. "Jimmy? You okay?"

The black wolf giggled as he got back up. "I'm fine! Can't say the same for Beatrix, though. She's howling right now."

Alf nodded. "Good."

Karen patted his paw. "Great job, Alf."

"How'd it feel?" Brad asked.

"Better than anything in my whole life."


     ~~~


Not long after, Monsoon's SUV and Alf's little red Japanese whatsit nearly bumped noses on the road between the hospital and the power plant.

Everyone got out and lots of hugs were exchanged. Monsoon and Alf shook hands, each glad to finally know for certain that the other wasn't on Beatrix's side. Holly and Tyler were happy that Brad and Karen had succeeded, and only mildly disappointed that Beatrix was still alive. Brad asked Keith why he'd changed clothes and the fox didn't tell him a damn thing. The kids all did their best to fill in everything that had happened for the benefit of the grownups. Alf and Monsoon needed a little help believing some of it at first (Brad did his head-spin trick again and Alf nearly jumped over Monsoon's SUV), but once they learned of all the suffering the poor kids had gone through, they pledged to do everything in their power to help them. Both the mountain and the blue-haired fox were devastated to hear about Dr. Jones. Neither of them felt any remorse whatsoever for Thurston Caercase. Holly told Karen about her motel idea and Alf agreed strenuously with it. Tyler asked if they could stop at a Big Kahuna Burger on the way, since he was so hungry he could eat a chunk of fried Beatrix. Most of the other kids were equally in need of nourishment. Monsoon and Alf checked their wallets, found they had plenty between the two of them, and agreed. Then Benjamin remembered Sherri and they all drove off to pick her up.

(While in transit, Jimmy remembered something important he'd stumbled across while combing Beatrix's memory. To Tyler's considerable relief, Jimmy told him that Beatrix had been bluffing about the sterility-causing agent in the drinking water. Not only would there be no way to keep the staff from going barren too, but The Project had found absolutely no evidence that special powers were hereditary. Brad, who had only heard part of that, leaned over and said, "Wait, WHO'S trying to screw around with my balls!?")

When Sherri was retrieved and the two grownups were ready to see the last of King's Orchard forever, Jimmy said a final goodbye to Karen. He said he had some business to attend to; an idea he'd had that made him suddenly very grateful to her and Brad for talking him out of killing Beatrix. He told them what it was and they all giggled devilishly. It was perfect.

Karen gave Jimmy a long hug. "Thanks," she said.

"I should be thanking you," he said softly.

"How about we both thank each other and that's that?" she said.

"Sounds good to me." He hugged her tight, then stepped away. "If I ever get the chance, I'll drop by your dreams sometime," he promised.

Karen smiled sadly, knowing that might not ever happen. But there was always hope. "I'd like that, Jimmy."

"See ya," he said. Waving with Beatrix's arm, he walked off, back towards the hospital.

The others were bundled up in Monsoon's SUV where Sherri was telling everyone about the nice sheriff she'd given the list to. Karen and Brad were sitting together in the front seat of Alf's car.

As the fox drove away, Karen watched King's Orchard get smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror...


*****


     -JIMMY-

Always-Jimmy-Never-James looked around at all the people gathered in front of the hospital. He spotted what he was after; a nice little bunch of cops.

They were standing by their squad cars, swapping stories, trying to build a picture of what had happened that made sense. They'd gotten almost nothing but conflicting reports so far.

Jimmy walked up to them. "Hi there!" he said politely. "I'm Dr. Beatrix Beverley, director of the hospital. I'm a complete psychopath and I've killed dozens and dozens of children. I'm ready to tell you every last disgusting detail of my crimes, but first I'm about to do something incredibly stupid."

Stunned by this confession-out-of-nowhere, the officers couldn't react in time to stop Jimmy from kicking one of them square in the nuts.

They reacted just fine *after* that though.

As a hail of fists and billy clubs rained down upon Beatrix's body, Jimmy tried hard to keep the smile off her face.


*****


     -KAREN-

It was over now.

Finally, this horrible, endless night was over. This whole hellish _week_ was over. Despite a lot of pain and a lot of blood, all of her friends had come through more or less alright. Karen sat in the passenger seat of Alf's car, sandwiched between her cat and fox friends, and smiled proudly.

'You did it,' her inner voice told her.

'I sure did,' Karen was happy to reply.

The motor of Alf's car hummed soothingly. It was a very quiet car. Brad yawned.

Alf stared ahead at the road, following Monsoon's license plate. They'd decided that, after they picked up some chow, they'd head to a motel near a major intersection that they both knew of. They weren't sure how two men requesting a room for themselves and nine children would look to the motel staff, but if anyone asked, they'd claim it was a school-related field trip.

"What now?" Brad asked Karen, unable to keep the sleepiness out of his voice.

"What do you mean?"

He sat up and stretched a little. "Like, where do we go from here? There's three other hospitals like this out there. The Project's not gonna let us go this easy. What do we do?"

Karen shrugged. "I don't know. I guess we'll figure it out as we go along."

Brad nodded. "We're probably going to have to stay out of sight for a while."

She nodded, then realized what he'd left unsaid. "I'm sure if you call your mom, she'll come out and help us stay hidden."

Brad smiled a little. That was certainly true. He wanted to see his mom again more than anything else, and he was sure she'd do everything in her power to help them once they explained the situation. Especially since she hated Dr. Beatrix anyway. "Yeah, maybe all our parents can help out. Like an Underground Railroad kinda thing."

"Well... not everyone's parents," Karen said. "Mine won't. In fact, I'm thinking of calling them up as soon as we find a pay phone and telling them that they can sleep like babies forever because I never want to come home again!"

Brad chuckled approvingly and gave her a shoulder nudge of encouragement.

She smiled at him. Getting back to the problem at hand though, Karen thought about the other moms and dads. "Tyler's will probably. They sound nice. And Keith's, and Ruby's. Holly's parents are a _definite_ no."

The tomcat couldn't argue with that.

"Benjamin's mom might, if she can get his dad out of the picture. I dunno about Victor's dad. And Sherri's parents are a maybe."

"Monsoon'll stick with us," Brad said with certainty.

"I will too," Alf added.

Karen giggled. "Well, we already know that!" she said, and hugged him.

Alf felt a small pang of guilt then. Not about himself, but for Karen. It wasn't right for him to let her keep thinking he was just a normal, everyday nice guy. He had to be honest with her. And if she was horrified by what he said, he'd pass Monsoon, stop his car, let Karen and Brad get in with them, and never bother her again.

He couldn't look at her directly. He glanced in the rear view mirror, then locked his eyes on the road. "Karen, I..."

She looked up and made a little 'What?' sound.

"I have a secret I've been hiding from you. A bad secret. I'm a bad furson. Well, sometimes... I'm trying to get better though."

She was confused and concerned. "What do you mean?"

He was trembling. He cared about Karen, about all the children, deeply. He hated the idea of them fearing him, but lying to them to keep it from happening was simply wrong.

"Sometimes..." he said, his voice wavering. "I have these thoughts. Evil ones. Ones I've been trying to get rid of for years. Karen, I..." It was damned near impossible to just come out and say it, but he did. "...sometimes I'm like Thurston Caercase."

Karen smiled knowingly. She leaned over and rested her head on the fretful fox's shoulder. "Alf, you're _nothing_ like Thurston Caercase."

The fox was so touched by her words, the car swerved a little. He blinked back a tear. "No, no, Karen, you don't understand. I mean..."

She interrupted him. "I don't care what kind of thoughts you have, Alf. Everyone has bad thoughts sometimes. I know you'd never act on them, so I trust you."

He smiled, his heart feeling big as the world. He turned his head for just a moment to see that her smile was genuine. "Really?"

She nodded.

Brad laughed a little. "Plus, if you do, we can always have Ruby beat the crap out of you."

Alf laughed out loud. "Yeah, okay. That's acceptable."

There was a small sound from the backseat then. Everyone looked up in the mirror and was surprised to see ten tawny fingers appear on their seat backs, followed by two gigantic ears.

"Zeek!?" Brad shouted. "How the hell did you get in here?"

The little fennec brushed some sleep dirt from his eyes. "The voice in my head told me to go outside and wait behind a bush for a little red car to pull up. It did, and then it said for me to crawl in the back, hide myself, and get some sleep."

"Sorry I woke you up then, little guy," Alf said. He reached back over the seat for a handshake. "I guess ten kids'll fit in a big enough motel room as well as nine."

"Did the voice tell you why you were supposed to come with us?" Brad asked.

Zeek paused for a moment. Street lights reflected in his pale blue eyes. "You're gonna need a lot of money to hide from The Project," he said absently.

True enough, but Brad didn't see the significance of that statement. "Yeah?"

Coming up on the road was a small convenience store. Zeek pointed it out to Alf. "I think I'm about to tell you to pull in there and buy a lottery ticket."


*****


END OF BOOK FIVE


