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", "count": "9", "submission_left_submission_id": "481518", "submission_left_file_name": "625441_Shryke_dangerous_games_part_5.rtf", "submission_right_submission_id": "865643", "submission_right_file_name": "1177269_Shryke_dangerous_games__part_7.rtf" } ], "description": "Here is Chapter 6 of Dangerous Games, A story of a friendship that develops between two foxes amidst a rather shady backdrop.\n\nIn Part 6, everything hits the fan! We've just found out what Victor has been planning all this time, and it doesn't sit well with our heroes. All cards are revealed, all story lines come together, all questions up to now are answered!\n\nNeedless to say, if you've not read the prior parts you will be rather lost, and now that everything in the previous 5 parts is coming to a head, reading here now will be massive spoilers to everything I've written up to now! So if you think you might like the story and haven't read any of it yet, go back and read Part 1 please. Repeat: Massive spoilers ahead!\n\nNote that the auto-parser above does not respect the formatting of the original document, and can't seem to get the indentations right. I put this one up as RTF because that seems to have the least problems, but bolding and italics have been lost in the preview. I use italics for \"inner monologue\", though that should be obvious from the context even without them. If you do want the full effect, as well as clean paragraph formatting, I suggest reading from the source file.\n\nSo here it is, enjoy. Or don't. ", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Here is Chapter 6 of Dangerous Games, A story of a friendship that develops between two foxes amidst a rather shady backdrop.

In Part 6, everything hits the fan! We've just found out what Victor has been planning all this time, and it doesn't sit well with our heroes. All cards are revealed, all story lines come together, all questions up to now are answered!

Needless to say, if you've not read the prior parts you will be rather lost, and now that everything in the previous 5 parts is coming to a head, reading here now will be massive spoilers to everything I've written up to now! So if you think you might like the story and haven't read any of it yet, go back and read Part 1 please. Repeat: Massive spoilers ahead!

Note that the auto-parser above does not respect the formatting of the original document, and can't seem to get the indentations right. I put this one up as RTF because that seems to have the least problems, but bolding and italics have been lost in the preview. I use italics for "inner monologue", though that should be obvious from the context even without them. If you do want the full effect, as well as clean paragraph formatting, I suggest reading from the source file.

So here it is, enjoy. Or don't. ", "writing": "Disclaimer: This story is part of a series, entitled “Dangerous Games”. The series contains non-human anthropomorphic animal (“Furry”) characters of varying ages, adult and cub. While there are no overt sexual acts depicted in this series, the stories will contain adult themes, topics, and situations, which may not be legal in some jurisdictions. These include: frank discussions of sexual acts and character sexuality, alcohol and drug use, criminal acts, violence, adult language, weapons including guns and knives, bloodshed, grievous bodily harm, death, and events which depict underage characters in peril. \n\nIt is up to the reader to be aware of the laws regarding depictions of such material in their place of residence. If you are not allowed to read such material, due to age, religion, place of residence, or any other factor, do not continue.\n\nThis story and all characters are copyright Shryke. This is a work of fiction. All events and persons depicted are fictional, and any similarities with actual events or persons is purely coincidental. \n\nNeedless to say, if you've not read the prior parts you will be rather lost, and now that everything in the previous 5 parts is coming to a head, reading here now will be massive spoilers to everything I've written up to now! So if you think you might like the story and haven't read any of it yet, go back and read Part 1 please. Repeat: Massive spoilers ahead!\n\n\nDANGEROUS GAMES\nby Shryke\nPart 6\n\n “Heroin,” Jack repeated slowly, staring at Victor, trying to keep his face neutral. It would have to be heroin, he thought to himself. He had just read the news about Gazz, the lizard who had tried to rob Angelo and Jack, getting shot when he tried to rob someone else to pay for his heroin habit. Now Victor finally announces what he'd been working towards all this time: and it was heroin. If it wasn't so tragic, it would be funny, Jack mused ironically. \n Victor just nodded, a wide grin still splitting his face as he kept his eyes locked on Jack's. “Yeah, it's something, huh,” he said, mistaking Jack's blank stare for awe.\n Jack looked to Angelo, who was looking in the general direction of the fox and ferret, though not making eye contact with either. His face, too, was expressionless, and Jack could only imagine what was running through the younger fox's mind, as he had been somewhat distressed when he read the news about Gazz. “Yeah, umm... wow,” Jack said, looking back to Victor. \n “Big time, boys, big time!” Victor announced proudly, still reveling in his accomplishment. “I dropped a hundred-and-fifty G's on it, and I bet I turn it into half a million by the end of the year!” Jack involuntarily raised his eyebrows at this, which only made Victor seem even happier. “What do you think of the old weasel now, eh?” he said, slapping Jack's shoulder. \n “Wow,” Jack could only repeat, now with some sincerity. He knew heroin was a profitable drug, but when he heard “million” from Victor, it hit him just how profitable it was. This thought was further reinforced as Victor continued. \n “So I take that 500 grand,” the ferret said, “and give or take a Ferrari, I sink it into another batch, and before you know it, we've got millions rolling in!” He stepped closer and put one paw on Jack's arm, the other on Angelo's. \n “Damn, Vic,” Jack said, using the familiar form of the ferret's name for the first time, he abruptly noted, the realization suddenly not sitting well with him. “But let's not get ahead of ourselves,” he said, dismissing the awe that he felt mere seconds ago. \n “Quite right,” Victor said, letting go of the two foxes and taking his suit jacket off. \n “So,” Jack began, slowly, “how is this going to work? Picking it up, I mean.”\n “Quite simple,” Victor said as he walked to the kitchen and grabbed a wine bottle, pausing to pull the cork with his teeth. “Well, actually, not all that simple when I think about it.” He took a long drink directly from the bottle as he walked back into the living room. \n “The Russian's delivery guy will put the stuff into the trunk of a car,” Victor continued. “He's going to drive it down here tonight and park it in the mall, somewhere in that big parking garage. They're also Express-Delivery mailing me the spare key. It arrives in the morning sometime.\n “When it does, you,” Victor said with emphasis, pointing at Jack, “you take your car to the mall and park it, find the Russian's car, and bring it back here. We'll go get yours later on, after we all regroup here.”\n Jack nodded. It was certainly an interesting and efficient way to make a delivery. One thought had immediately jumped into his mind, however. “This isn't a stolen car, is it?” he asked. The last thing the teen fox wanted was a repeat of the last stolen car incident. Jack saw Angelo smile slightly as he undoubtedly remembered the same event. The little grey-furred fox had otherwise been noticeably silent since Victor had arrived, the older fox also observed. \n Victor laughed, as he likely was recalling the incident as well. “No, not stolen, don't worry,” Victor said. “The car was bought from a used-car lot up there, for just this purpose. Untraceable to the Russian, and we end up with a car at the end of it all.”\n “I'm going with him,” Angelo said, breaking his silence. \n “No.” Victor said sharply, “Just Jack. I don't want to risk a fuck-up.” \n Angelo turned to Victor with a snarl visibly forming on his muzzle. “When have I ever fucked up anything?” he shouted. “You wouldn't even be where you are now if it wasn't for me not-fucking things up!” The 11-year-old looked genuinely enraged, Jack thought, which was uncharacteristic for him even in the presence of Victor's usual personality swings and verbal attacks. \n “Just Jack!” Victor yelled back at the boy, who maintained angry eye contact with the ferret until Victor turned back to Jack, rolling his eyes. \n “So tomorrow,” the ferret went on, “when you hear the Express Delivery truck roll up, come on over. I'll be there to sign for it, then I'll head to work for the day: plausible deniability, you know? Angelo?” Victor looked to the little fox who had turned away in disgust from the conversation. “You'll hold things down here while Jack's making the pickup.” Angelo just muttered something, unenthusiastically, in response. \n “Well,” said Jack, watching Angelo, “you know, Vic, it would look less suspicious if I brought him with me. You know... 2 brothers just going to the mall, nothing susp-”.\n “Fine!” Victor said, interrupting with an exasperated sigh. “Fine, whatever. Just... don't fuck it up,” he said to Jack. “This is my life's work we're talking about.” He looked down for a moment. “Where the fuck was I? Oh right: you,” Victor continued, looking back at Jack, “bring the shit back here, and the two of you guard it 'till I get home at 6.”\n “And then?” Jack asked. \n “And then?” Victor echoed. “Then... we all jack-off over the stuff and have dinner,” he said sarcastically. “What do you mean “and then”?” \n “I mean, once we have it, how do we... you know... sell it?” Jack said carefully, now curious about his role in the forthcoming distribution. He more specifically want to know if he and Angelo would be selling it directly as they did with marijuana at schoolyards. \n The ferret nodded. “I got that plan going, don't you worry,” he said reassuringly. “I got some feelers out, some customers lined up, just waiting for it all to coalesce.”\n Jack just nodded, Victor having missed the crux of his question. No matter, he thought, he would certainly find out soon enough. As was increasingly typical for him, his mind began to flood with scenarios and “what-ifs”. He quickly cleared them: now was not the time for that. \n “Ok then,” Victor concluded, acknowledging Jack's thoughtful nodding as ending the conversation. “So I'll see you here tomorrow when the truck arrives. By nightfall we'll be on the way to riches!” he said as his enthusiasm seemed to be on the rise again. \n The teen fox just nodded again and forced a weak smile. \n\n Jack lay in his bed, clad only in his boxers, staring at the ceiling. He had spent most of the day since returning from Victor's apartment sitting in his living-room chair pondering the events to come, and as always, letting his mind run away with the unknowns. \n Angelo had tried to get Victor to let him spend this day with Jack, but the ferret was insistent that the little fox remain inside. Jack reckoned that because Victor had already made one concession to the kit, that of letting him accompany Jack on the forthcoming pick-up, he therefore was not going to make another by letting him spend more time with Jack. \n A completely pointless assertion of control, Jack thought, but it did speak volumes about Victor's personality. Angelo would probably spend the rest of the day in his closet-bedroom reading and, like Jack, thinking over the events to come. \n The 18-year-old had fallen asleep in his chair for a bit, and upon awakening, found he had no appetite, so skipped dinner and just went right to his bed to continue his reverie. \n Heroin. They were certainly stepping across a line from harmless vices such as cigars and caviar, into real life-changing stuff, he kept thinking. A police chase and a knife fight aside, what they had been doing up to now was fairly harmless in Jack's mind. \n It did not take him long to get to the root of things: addiction. They were crossing over into addiction territory, where the users of their products would not longer be rich doctors and lawyers buying contraband cigars, or high-schoolers looking for a bag of pot for the beach. Their buyers would be people who were buying because they physically had no choice, and would do anything to get it. \n The lizard Gazz's face entered his mind many times as he brooded. He had tried to rob Jack and Angelo on a delivery, and had gotten his chest sliced open as a result, albeit superficially. He had recently become addicted, Jack noted, and was already resorting to violence to get his next high. Attacking Angelo had cost the lizard some stitches. Attacking an armed cocaine dealer days later had cost him his life.\n Beyond his regret over Gazz came the related realization that every one of their future customers could easily be another Gazz: someone so desperate to get their next high that they would attack the two foxes to get it. Gazz had used his fists, but what if it had been a knife or a gun? Would they be walking into an ambush on every delivery? \n Jack growled angrily, as he was sure that Victor had not thought out the details to this level, especially not on the delivery side. He had been working towards this for years, the ferret constantly reminded him, yet now that it was here he still did not have a solid plan ready: he still “had feelers out”, and deals “coalescing”. As much as Jack was not looking forward to this next phase of the business, he was at the same time angry with Victor for not having all the details figured out by this point. \n Another Gazz, Jack mused. How many more of him would Jack be personally responsible for creating? How many high-schoolers would steal from their families and friends to afford their next dose, which Jack would helpfully provide, and who would end up dead when they tried to rob the wrong person? Would Jack be the one to snuff out their life to protect his own? Would Angelo? \n But what can I do? Jack thought in despair. There were only a few options open to him to put an end to all of this, but they all resulted in him losing Angelo once the state and the law got involved. He was being selfish of course, he realized, but the younger fox was now everything to him: his own brother, or even more. Would he have the strength to do the right thing, when the time came? Would he even know what the right thing would be?\n These were the thoughts that had been swarming through Jack's mind all day. It was surprisingly tiring, he thought with some amusement as he now lay in his bed. With some sadness he realized that he was laying over on the right side of the bed, rather than in the center as he had done all his life. He looked to the empty space on the left side, where Angelo had slept last night, where he had been mere hours ago. \n Jack closed his eyes and sighed deeply. There was certainly nothing he could do right now, he admitted, and anguishing over it would be useless, since he would be in the same place in the morning regardless. He looked over at his clock: 9:43pm. He decided at once to just extinguish the lights and try to get some sleep. \n The teen fox hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers, then paused. He had been pondering trying out sleeping in the nude, as Angelo did. The younger fox testified to its comfort every time it came up, but Jack had never actually done so – especially not when the kit was sleeping in Jack's bed. \n But here he was alone now, and by wearing just his boxers he was already less dressed than he normally was when he slept. He pulled the boxers down an inch or two then stopped again as he felt a slight arousal begin in his groin. This surprised him, as he had never been squeamish about his own nudity, and had never considered the mere act of undressing to be even remotely sexual. Yet for some reason, this time as he slid his boxers to his knees, the familiar feeling washed over his lower body, its effects becoming plainly visible. \n As Jack looked, still curiously surprised, a sudden knock at the front door startled him. It wasn't just that there was a knock, but that the knock was in a specific pattern: a pattern he recognized as the one that Angelo had used when knocking on Victor's door back when the ferret had had his “lady friends” over. \n Jack bolted from his bed and ran to the front door, pulling his boxers back up as he ran, but not bothering to grab his shirt from where he had discarded it on the floor. The knock repeated as Jack reached the door and flung it open, without even looking through the peephole. \n Angelo stood on his doorstep with a small bundle of clothes in his paws. He smiled at Jack as the door opened. “Hi Jack,” he said cheerfully, grinning as he saw Jack's state of dress. \n “Ange!” Jack said with a surprised tone, even though he had known from the knock who it was at his door. The bundle of clothes the kit carried only added to his surprise. “What's... what's going on?” \n “Victor says I can stay over tonight,” the little fox responded as Jack stepped back to allow him inside. \n “Oh nice!” Jack said, his sullen mood instantly evaporating at the sight of the cheerful young fox. “What's with that stuff though?” he asked as he shut the door, indicating the bundle which Angelo proceeded to drop on the couch. The cub was not wearing his usual jacket, though, which made Jack even happier: it meant that Angelo felt safe here. \n “Clothes for tomorrow,” the kit explained as he sat down heavily on the couch next to the bundle, bouncing slightly as he did. “If you don't mind me using your shower tomorrow, that is.”\n “My place is your place,” Jack said with a happy smile as he sat on the arm of the couch next to his friend. “I thought Victor didn't want you coming over though.”\n Angelo smiled. “I can be persuasive when I want to be,” he said. \n “Meaning you bugged the hell out of him?” \n “All day!” the kit confirmed with a happy grin. His face became more serious again as he continued after a pause. “He did say that if you weren't home or didn't want me staying over, that he wouldn't let me back in tonight. Oh, and if the delivery truck shows up tomorrow and I'm not already over there, he's going to cut the tip of my ear off.” He looked flatly at Jack as he said this. \n Jack rolled his eyes, his deep-seated hatred for Victor bubbling up again. “Fucker,” he muttered instinctively. Angelo giggled at this, though Jack had not intended him to hear it. \n The two sat in silence for a moment, Victor's comments sitting heavily on Jacks mind. He didn't doubt for a second that they were sincere threats, which only made the red fox's anger boil even more. But a glance to Angelo was returned with a happy smile from the little grey-furred kit, and that was enough to squelch those thoughts. \n “We need to do something about our Mr. Morrison,” Jack said rhetorically, leaning back on one arm. Angelo reached out and put a paw on Jack's paw. Jack grinned happily and put his other paw on the kit's and patted. His anger now thoroughly dispelled, the older fox stood up and stretched. \n “I've been thinking a lot today... about tomorrow,” Jack said, knowing it would be on Angelo's mind as well. “About what we're going to do-” \n Angelo held up a paw to Jack, interrupting the teen. “Not tonight,” he declared. “We'll worry about all that tomorrow. I think that... I know what we have to do tomorrow. I've got it figured out... I think,” he said, a touch of sadness creeping into his voice. Then with a happier tone, he continued, “But! That's all for tomorrow. Tonight we're not going to even think about that. Or him. Tonight it's just me and you!”\n Jack smiled. This was more than fine by him, though one invasive thought briefly crept into his mind: For one last time. \n “I was actually about to go to bed,” Jack said, indicating his undressed condition. \n Angelo seemed to ponder this for a moment, then stood up abruptly from the couch. “That... is a good idea!” he declared with a smile. \n \n Jack wiped the condensation from the bathroom mirror with a paw and began to comb his head-fur. The residual shower steam had been cleared from the bathroom by the open door, so the swath he had cleared on the mirror was dry in short order. It was mid-morning, approaching the expected delivery time of the delivery truck, and the car's key. \n The teen fox stood at the mirror, clad only in jeans as he attended to his hair. He quickly had it combed back the way he liked it, yet kept going over it with the comb. It was more of an automatic action, as he wasn't even looking at his hair in the mirror at this point – he was staring studiously at his own reflection. \n Jack watched the face in the mirror, examining every feature before settling his gaze on the eyes. They were darkly tinted, set amidst the red face-fur. They seemed to be staring back at him like those of a stranger who was wondering why Jack was looking at him. \n In fact, the more he stared at his reflection, the more he felt like this was a stranger he was looking at. The face stared back at him, inspecting Jack's face, even as he did the same to the reflection. Who are you, Jack wondered. Do I even know you?\n A deep rumble from outside jarred Jack back to reality. It was the Express Delivery truck announcing its presence as it did every morning, with the rumbling roar of its engines and the squeal of its brakes. From the direction of the sound, it had stopped a few buildings up to deliver something to one of those residents. \n “That sounds like it,” Jack shouted out the bathroom door. He put the comb down and walked out into the living room. Angelo, also shirtless, was on one knee tying his shoes, a towel draped over his head, his tail lazily swooshing. “You probably have a minute or two,” Jack told him. Angelo looked up from his shoes and smiled broadly upon seeing Jack. \n “Ok,” he said cheerfully, springing to his feet. “Don't want to lose my ear!” He pulled the towel off of his head, balled it up, and tossed it to Jack like a baseball before grabbing his shirt from the couch. \n Jack smiled as he caught the towel. “I'll be over in a couple minutes,” Jack said. \n Angelo nodded with a smile after pulling his shirt down over his head. He headed for the door, leaving his head-fur in its usual random state. \n Jack watched the kit open the door and dash outside, closing it behind him. The fox stood alone in his living room, still holding the towel that Angelo had thrown him. He looked at it wistfully. \n\n Angelo was sitting on the stoop outside the apartment he shared with Victor when Jack emerged from his own residence. The kit waved to him from across the parking lot. Apparently, the delivery truck still had some more business for other tenants, as it had not yet swung down to this part of the complex. \n Good, Jack thought. He didn't want Victor to have any excuse to get angry with Angelo for not being there in time. He would not put it past the ferret to split hairs over what constituted “on-time”; both of them being at Victor's door when the truck arrived should prevent that possibility. \n As he neared Victor's door, the delivery truck could be heard rumbling in their direction. Angelo stood and knocked his special knock pattern on the door as Jack arrived on the stoop. \n “You're up,” the kit said into the door. Jack assumed that Victor would have to sign for the package. \n The door opened. Victor stood inside and regarded the two foxes momentarily. Angelo shot him a smug sort of look that seemed to say “Yeah, that's right, I'm here on time.” Victor's eyes narrowed slightly but his face maintained a neutral expression. \n “All right, inside,” he said as the rumble of the truck announced its imminent arrival. Jack and Angelo went inside and pulled the door nearly closed as the truck pulled up outside. Jack could hear Victor outside exchange pleasantries with the driver as he signed for the package. In a moment, the ferret opened the door and unhurriedly stepped inside before closing the door. \n Once inside, his demeanor changed instantly. Victor let out a cackling laugh and held the envelope up to Jack before pulling the tear-away strip to open it. He reached a paw inside and extracted a single key and held it up like it was a championship trophy. \n “Game on!” Victor announced with a flourish of his other arm. Jack could only chuckle, despite his growing sense of unease – perhaps because of it. \n “Whoopee,” Angelo said in a flat sarcastic tone. \n Victor just chuckled. “So, you guys ready?” he asked. \n “I'm gonna get my jacket,” Angelo said, turning towards the hallway and his closet-bedroom. \n Victor watched him leave, then turned to Jack with a serious expression, another instant change of demeanor which unsettled the red fox. \n “So Jack,” the ferret began, his voice almost a whisper, “listen, one thing we need to do early is get him hooked on this shit, you know?” He motioned down the hallway with his head as he said this. \n Jack was horrified. “Wha... what?” was all he could muster. \n “I know, I know,” Victor responded, nodding solemnly, “but trust me. The sooner he's hooked, the easier he'll be to control. I'm sick of him acting like he's smarter than me, and I'm sure you are too.” \n “Right,” Jack said slowly. Play the game, he told himself. He had to act like he agreed with the ferret, like he was right on board with his notions. It actually surprised him, though, how wrong Victor was in reading him. “That could be... dangerous though,” he said cryptically. \n Victor just stared into Jack face, seemingly digesting what the fox had said. “I think I get what you're saying,” he said. “So we'll take it slow. It'd be just like him to fuck me by OD'ing.”\n Jack stared back, trying to suppress the raw hatred he felt for this... creature. “Very slow,” he said, then cleared his throat loudly as he saw Angelo in the hallway, trying to make it look like he was giving Victor the “not now” signal with the noise. \n Victor, taking the clue, turned to Angelo and clapped his hands together one time. “Ok, now you're ready,” he said. Jack detected a tone in the ferret's voice of having been caught. \n “Yeah,” the cub responded slowly: he seemed to detect the tone as well. He was clad now in his usual denim jacket, and no doubt was carrying his knife in the pocket. Jack instinctively reached back and patted the back belt-line of his own jeans where he kept his knife, taking some comfort in the feel of the weapon concealed there. \n “Ok,” Victor said again, his tone now serious. “All bullshit aside. Go get the car, drive it back here, and bring the shit inside.” He handed Jack the key before continuing. “The car is...” he pulled a slip of paper from the envelope that contained the key, “a 4-door sedan, looks like an older model, dark maroon colored. License plate is on here.” He handed Jack the slip of paper with the car's description on it. Jack chuckled as he read one line from it: “Bumper sticker says 'My other car is up on blocks.'”\n The ferret chuckled as Jack did, obviously having read the same thing. “At least you'll know it when you see it!” Victor turned to Angelo who had moved to the door with his hands in his jacket pocket. “Angelo: you know my gun drawer?” \n “Yeah, sure,” Angelo responded, an ear cocked slightly. \n “Ok,” Victor said. “Well, I'm going to leave that unlocked today, just in case. There's a .357 in there.” He looked to Jack intensely. “Use it if you have to.” Jack nodded, finding the ferrets gaze disturbing. Turning back to Angelo, he added, “But otherwise don't touch it.” Angelo responded only by furrowing his brow slightly. \n “I'll be back the usual time,” he said, then paused, thinking for a moment. Finally: “This is everything I've worked for all these years. If you fuck it up...” He stopped briefly, then resumed with a surprisingly gentle tone. “Well... just don't fuck it up.” \n Jack nodded as Victor again gazed intently at him. The ferret turned the same stare to the younger fox, who met it with an impassive face, and did not nod or otherwise respond to what he had said. “Go,” Victor ordered calmly, then without a further glance, walked down the hall towards his bedroom. \n\n Jack eased his car out of the apartment's parking lot onto the main road. He and Angelo had not said a word since Victor dismissed them and they headed outside to Jack's car. There was no more time to put off what was about to happen, and neither fox seemed to want to break the silence to discuss what they were going to do. \n The mall was about a 20-minute drive from the apartments. That time, plus however long it took to locate the delivery car in the fairly large parking garage, was all the time that remained until this next phase officially began. \n The 18-year-old was mulling over what Victor had said about getting Angelo hooked on heroin. The thought enraged him more than anything the ferret had done so far. There was, of course, no way Jack was going to allow this to happen. He would gladly slit the weasel's throat and go to prison for it, rather than allow the boy to become an addict simply so Victor could suppress and control him. \n Jack looked over to Angelo, who was staring out his window stolidly. He put a paw on the young fox's knee and patted, then grinned as he saw the kit's reflection in the window break into a smile. Angelo looked back to Jack and put his own paw on top of Jack's. It was time, Jack decided. \n “So,” he began, “what's our plan?” Jack had his own ideas, but wanted to hear Angelo's before making any decisions that would affect both of their lives so dramatically. \n Angelo looked out the front window and sighed deeply. “We can't give this stuff to Victor,” he said slowly and softly. “Whatever else happens, we... just can't.” He looked over to Jack sadly. \n Jack looked into the kit's shining blue eyes for a moment, before necessity forced his attention back to the road ahead. He could tell by the look in the little fox's face that he was fully aware of the implications of what he had just said. Jack had reached the same conclusion the day before – indeed the only conclusion that was possible, despite the personal consequences. \n “You know what that means, buddy, right?”\n “I could...” Angelo said, in a smaller voice than Jack had ever heard him use, “I... could probably live with you still. When it's all over?”\n Jack put a paw on the boy's knee again. “Ange,” he began, his own voice audibly pained, “I can't hide you for the next 7 years.” He looked into the kit's eyes again. “You have to go to school... to the doctors, that kind of thing. Which means you have to be... “official” again.” Jack struggled for the right word to indicate Angelo getting back into the system again. \n “Yeah,” Angelo replied, as if he had known this all along. \n “We have to find your mother,” Jack said. “At least then you won't get put in an orphanage again.” Jack hated to bring up the kit's mother, as it was quite a sore subject with him, and justifiably so: she had abandoned him when he was in the hospital and disappeared, taking a hasty carload of her possessions with her. \n Jack honestly believed that she had just panicked over the hospital's bills and left town, not knowing what to do. The limited research he had done into this sort of thing told him that such mothers usually return after getting their emotions sorted out, but in this case Angelo had run away from state custody before this happened. Jack hoped that this would mean that the police would easily locate her once informed of the situation. \n Angelo closed his eyes solemnly and nodded. He took another deep breath before continuing. “That's all later though,” he said, looking back out the front window. “We're going to have enough problems today.” \n “Oh yeah,” Jack replied. “You said you had a plan though?”\n The grey-furred fox nodded again. “Well for starters,” he said, “we'll have to hide out at your parents' house for a bit.” \n Jack cocked an ear, surprised. “Why?”\n “If we don't show up with Victor's stuff, he's going to start looking for us,” Angelo said. “And the first place he looks will be your apartment. He'll break into it tonight to look for clues.”\n “Crap,” Jack exclaimed. He had not thought of this, though in hindsight it was perfectly logical. “So I lose all my stuff, just like that?”\n “Nah, we have till Victor gets home,” the kit replied. “We'll deal with this car, then head back there and grab as much stuff as we can from both our places.” \n Jack nodded, following along. “Then we head to my folks' house?” \n “Yeah, for now,” Angelo said. “He doesn't know where you live, so we should be safe there 'till we figure out what to do next.”\n “We're not in the book,” Jack said, referring to his parents' being unlisted in the phone directory. “I'll have to tell them what's going on though,” he warned. “They will call the police.” \n “I know,” Angelo said, “They'll have to. But maybe we can stay there long enough to... figure things out,” he said evasively. Then with a deep sigh, he said what he had apparently been trying to avoid: “To find... her.” \n Jack looked at his friend sadly. “It is the best of a whole lot of bad, though.” \n “Yeah, I guess,” the cub said, sounding unconvinced still. “Her name is Joanne,” he said quietly. \n The older fox looked over at him with surprise as he shared this, even though it would have been a necessity eventually. “Joanne,” Jack repeated back. \n “She might be going by Peterson,” Angelo continued. “That's her maiden name.”\n “Got it,” Jack replied. Then in a more grave tone, he said, “Angelo.” The younger fox looked abruptly to him, his ears perked at Jacks somber tone. “Ange,” Jack said again, “I want you to promise me that... whatever happens with all of this... that you won't run away again. Ok? Even if they s-split us up.” Jack stumbled on the word: one little word that encompassed all his fears about the path they were taking. “I'll try to find you, and if I can't, you've got my e-mail address. Just tell me where you are and I'll come.” \n Angelo seemed to bite his lip slightly, his eyes glistening even more as he just nodded wordlessly. \n After a moment, Jack broke the thickly emotional silence, as much to keep himself from breaking down as it was to address the imminent practicality. “So what do we do about the car today? Call the cops and tell them about Victor?” \n Angelo shook his head. “We have to give them the car, yeah,” he said. “But we can't tell them about Victor yet, or our apartments become swamped with cops. No, we clear our stuff out first, get to our safe-house, then we can give them the whole story.” \n Again, perfectly logical, Jack thought. “What about the Russian?” he asked, the thought suddenly entering his mind. Ratting out Victor was one thing, but crossing a Russian crime boss could really turn out badly. \n “He won't care,” Angelo said. “The drugs are paid for, so whatever happens to them, he's got his money already. Besides, I get the impression from the way Victor talks, that the Russian doesn't really like him anyway.” The kit chuckled. “Maybe he'll do us a favor for getting rid of Victor for him!”\n Jack laughed out loud, mostly from nervous tension. Then, putting his paw on Angelo's knee again, “We're really going to do this, aren't we?” \n Angelo put his paw under Jack's so that the two were now holding hands. “We have to,” he said. It's either the two of us, or however-many hundreds... thousands... of people who will be hurt by that stuff.” \n Jack felt his lip tremble slightly as the younger fox plainly summarized what Jack had been anguishing in his mind over for the last day. There was never any other answer, he finally realized. He didn't say anything, but gave the little paw a loving squeeze. \n\n The teenage red fox steered his care around another corner in the mall's parking garage. He kept the car moving at a fairly slow crawl, which was common for mall patrons looking for an open parking space. Jack looked along one row of parked cars, while Angelo looked out his window at the other. Whenever a faster-moving car would come up behind them, Jack would pull to the side of the lane and wave them around, pretending like he was looking for something in his car. \n They were on the 4th level of the garage now, with two or three levels remaining above them. Jack was looking for the color first, a dark maroon, followed by the bumper sticker that would be the positive identification. \n “Stop,” Angelo said as the car turned another corner. Jack did so and looked out the right side window as Angelo discreetly pointed. Sure enough, there sat the car, as described. \n Jack double-checked the license plate against the slip of paper, and it was a match. He sighed, as he had been hoping that, somehow, the car would not have been there. \n “Keep going,” Angelo said. “Now that we know where it is.”\n Jack let off the brake and steered the car around another corner, now no longer giving the pretense of searching for a spot. “I'm going to park it on the other side,” he said, now steering towards the downward ramp that led back to ground level. \n “Yeah,” the younger fox concurred. “We'll walk through the mall to get back here. Don't want to waste too much time though.” \n “Should we just call the cops now?” Jack asked. “Tell them where it is and be done with it?”\n “Nah,” the kit said. “We'll put it someplace obvious. Like a handicapped spot, where they're sure to find it quick. Then we find a phone and call them.”\n “That will be fun,” Jack said, somewhat sarcastically. He was dreading the call to the authorities, in a way, mostly because he was afraid he might panic and reveal too much, and partly because that was indeed the point of no return. Once the call was made, the two were committed to whatever happened going forward. \n “I've actually thought about that too,” Angelo said as the car exited the parking garage and turned out into the exterior road that circled the mall. “Disguise your voice, definitely. And give them a code-word of some kind. So that if we need to call them again, they'll know you're the same one.”\n “I hope we wouldn't have to call again,” Jack said. \n “Well,” Angelo said with a faint smile, “This also lets us prove that we're the ones who called it in. You know, afterward... when it might be good to have that up our sleeves.” \n Jack looked to his friend and smiled. “Good thought,” he said appreciatively. For all the anguishing Jack had done, it seemed that Angelo's musings had been better directed towards plans and their consequences. \n They had driven around a third of the way around the perimeter of the mall, when Jack spotted a conveniently close parking spot open up, and steered his car into it. “Ok,” Jack said as he shut down the engine, “Let's do this.” Angelo smiled and nodded. \n The pair walked into the nearest mall entrance and proceeded in the direction of the parking garage. Jack was trying to look inconspicuous, which he had to laugh at when he caught himself – they were just two foxes walking in a fairly crowded mall: there was certainly nothing to arouse anyone's suspicion. Security would be watching the cameras looking for shoplifters or unruly groups causing trouble, not for what looked like a teenager and his kit brother walking along.\n For his part, Angelo walked beside Jack in silence, his paws in his jacket pockets, looking towards the floor in front of them. Jack looked his way several times, but the little fox didn't appear to notice. \n After a few minutes, they reached the mall's exit to the parking garage. Just outside the door was the elevator to the various floors, which the two entered with several other furs and rode to the 4th floor. They briefly paused upon exiting to allow those that got off on the same floor to disperse towards their own vehicles before starting towards the delivery car.\n Jack fumbled nervously with the key in his pocket as the two foxes approached it. Both walked to the rear of the car and stopped, rather than moving to their respective doors. Jack could see in Angelo's face the same thing he himself felt: I want to see this... I need to see it. He inserted the key and popped the trunk open. \n Inside was a black nylon gym bag, zippered shut. Jack stared at it – there could have been anything else in the trunk along with it, and he would not have seen it, such was the intensity that he focused on the bag. He wanted to will it into non-existence. \n After a moment, a small paw entered his field of view. Angelo had reached in and unzipped the bag slightly and pulled apart the open flap. Jack stared within for a moment. Inside the small opening he could see a white substance wrapped tightly in what looked like plastic cling-wrap, the kind used to wrap up leftover dinner. \n Jack looked to Angelo who looked back at him matter-of-factly. There it is, the young blue eyes seemed to say. The older fox turned back to the trunk and, reaching in, lifted the bag by its handles. There was certainly some weight to the bag. It was likely full of those cellophane-wrapped blocks. He put the bag back down in the trunk and stared again. \n “That's a lot of Gazzes in there,” Angelo said sadly. Jack had been thinking the exact same, as he had been for the last day. \n Jack looked his young companion in the eyes and smiled, despite the circumstances. He was glad the little fox felt the same way he did. “That's a lot of Gazzes who will get to live,” Jack said. “We're going to make sure of that right now.” He closed the trunk lid firmly.\n\n Jack drove the car out of the parking garage, and followed the same path he had just taken with his own car around the mall. He passed the spot where he had parked his car, and kept driving: he wanted to get to the opposite end of the mall, where the food-court was located. \n Angelo occupied himself with exploring the car as much as he could from his seat, which mostly involved inspecting the glove compartment and playing with the electric seat controls. \n “Don't get your paw-prints on too much,” Jack cautioned. The police would undoubtedly inspect every piece of the car once in their possession. \n “Hey, we're the good guys, remember,” Angelo said. “If they find our prints, that just helps prove that we were the ones who left it for them. Just be sure to give them a code of some sort when you call.”\n The older fox had been pondering this since Angelo had brought it up earlier: to give the police some code word or phrase so that in future he could use it to prove he was the caller. He had heard about serial killers doing this sort of thing in letters they sent to the press – a strange sort of authentication. \n Jack finally decided on using the last 4 digits of his driver's license number, but reversed. This would positively tie him to the call, but with enough obscurity so as not to involve him if he chose never to reveal himself. \n “Yep,” Jack agreed. “The code will be 5-4-4-0.”\n “5-4-4-0,” Angelo repeated. \n The car approached the food-court entrance where Jack intended to park. He drove past the entrance and noted the handicapped-parking spaces were vacant. He was about to pull into one, then at the last moment jerked the wheel straight again and kept driving. Angelo looked at him quizzically. \n “Just... gimme a minute,” Jack said as he started another circuit around the food-court parking section. It was time to do this, he well knew, but was still hesitant. Angelo nodded as if understanding, though he said nothing. \n After a moment, they were again around to the entrance, with the target parking spot in view. This time Jack decisively pulled the car into the parking space and shut off the engine. He looked to his young friend and nodded firmly. This was met by a corresponding nod from the little grey-furred fox. \n The pair exited the car, trying to look inconspicuous. They were, after all, parking in a handicapped space, and the last thing they needed was for a random passer-by to take issue with this fact. \n “Lock it, leave the key,” Angelo said quietly, as he came around to Jack's side of the car. \n Jack nodded and tossed the key onto the driver's seat, then manually locked the door and closed it. Yet another step that there was no turning back from. “We're committed now,” he said, starting to walk towards the mall entrance. \n “Almost,” Angelo agreed. “One more thing left.” \n The two foxes walked side-by-side to the mall entrance and went inside. This was the food-court section of the mall, with numerous small fast-food sellers distributed around the periphery, with a large open eating area in the center, filled with numerous tables and chairs. What they were looking for now was a phone. Pay phones were becoming increasingly hard to find, but there was normally at least one in large public venues such as this. \n Jack saw the symbol for a telephone handset against one wall where there was not a food vendor. He tapped Angelo's arm, who was looking over a different wall for the same thing, and the two started towards the phone kiosk. There was nobody else near it, which Jack was glad about, as he didn't want anyone listening in on the call he was about to make. \n The teenage fox's heart was racing as he and Angelo reached the phone. Jack picked up the handset and held it halfway to his ear, looking at his young friend. \n Angelo smiled at him. “We can do this, Jack,” he said encouragingly. \n Jack nodded, and with a deep breath, punched the phone's keypad: 9-1-1. \n Almost instantly a voice came on the line. “911, what is your emergency?” It was a female voice on the line. \n Jack cleared his throat. When he spoke, it was with a heavy accent and an artificial deepening of his voice. “Yes,” he began, “I am at mall, at food-court entrance. I think you should know that there is dark-red car parked in handicap space that has much heroin in trunk.”\n “Heroin?” the voice asked. “Sir, how do you know this?”\n “I know, believe me,” Jack said, still maintaining the accent. “I think you should send police to come get this. Owners will not be coming for it. Shall we say... something happened to them?”\n “Ok,” the operator said. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence on the line. Jack could hear her typing. “You said a red car? Is there a license number?”\n “Is only dark red car parked in handicap space by food court,” Jack said, looking into Angelo's eyes now.\n “Ok.” More typing. “And you say it's in the trunk?”\n “Yes, in trunk.” Jack was starting to think that they were deliberately holding him on the line so the police could find him. \n “Ok, and what is your name?” \n “My name is “person telling you about big drug shipment”. I give name later perhaps. For now, here is code number for you: 5-4-4-0. When I call back I give number and you know it is me, yes?”\n “Ok, sir, but I really would like you to stay on the phone until someone arrives,” the operator said.\n “I go now,” Jack said. “You remember code, yes? 5-4-4-0. Come get drugs.” He hung up the phone without listening further. \n “Nice accent,” Angelo said with a grin. \n “What means accent?” Jack said, still speaking in it. “This is real voice!” The two shared a brief laugh before Jack looked seriously at his little friend. “We're committed now,” he said solemnly, in his normal voice. \n “Yep,” Angelo agreed. “Let's get out of here.”\n “Want to grab lunch?” Jack asked. They were still in the food-court, after all, and Jack had missed several meals already.\n The younger fox shook his head. “No time,” he said. “I wanna get as far from Victor as we can first.” \n “Yeah,” Jack said, thinking. “You're right, lets go.” The two started towards the middle of the mall. \n Jack's car was almost exactly on the other side of the mall from where they were, so the quickest path was directly through. It was air-conditioned as well, in stark contrast to the oppressive July heat outside. Besides, Jack reasoned, the drug car was within view of the near door, and who knew what the police would do when they discovered it: they may want to question anyone who was parked nearby, or happened to pass closely. \n They walked briskly, but unhurriedly. As before, neither fox spoke as they walked, though Jack noted that Angelo was repeatedly nibbling on his lower lip, an unusual outward sign of anxiety from the 11-year-old. \n Presently, they arrived at the mall exit nearest to where Jack had parked. The older fox slowed as he approached the door, trying to look well beyond it through the glass. Though it had been less than 15 minutes since the call, he was concerned that there might be an overwhelming police response that would lock-down the mall. \n In his head, he knew that even when the drugs were found, it would be extraordinarily impractical to lock down the place and question every patron. Indeed, as the two vulpes exited through the doors, there was only the normal mall traffic to be seen. There was nothing to indicate that the car had even been discovered yet, as far away as they still were from it. \n Jack's car was parked close to the exit, and they quickly reached it. As they got in and Jack started the car, the two friends again made unspoken eye contact. “You want to go see, don't you?” Jack asked with an accusing smile after a moment. \n Angelo's face widened into a grin. “You do too I bet!”\n Jack just smiled back and pulled the car out of the parking spot. He drove the car slowly along, again as if they were new arrivals searching out a convenient open spot, though 2 pairs of vulpine eyes were locked on the portions of the building ahead that were just coming into view. \n The car approached the entrance where they had left the drug car. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, so Jack turned off of the road and into the parking lanes, trying to get closer without looking suspicious. He heard Angelo make a noise as he saw it himself at the same time. \n The car was parked where they had left it. 2 police cars were parked in the open spaces behind and next to it. Several officers and one police dog had their attention focused on the trunk. The dog would be a drug-sniffer, Jack assumed. Hopefully the heroin was not so well-wrapped as to be undetectable by a dog, he thought. \n Jack stopped the car and pretended to gawk at the police, which seemed to him to be the least suspicious thing he could do, then turned the car down the next lane of parking spots, as if still looking. Fortunately, there were no open spots readily visible, as passing them by would have dispelled the ruse he was trying to portray. \n “Let's give them a couple more minutes,” Jack said quietly. “They're... close.” \n “Mmm-hmm,” Angelo responded. “Would suck if they don't open it, huh?” He punctuated this with a laugh, as if he found the notion suddenly very funny. \n Jack did not reply. He was now wondering what they would do if the police did not in fact open the car. They could not drive it again, as the keys had been locked inside. If it sat there overnight, it would likely be towed, or possibly broken into. If the latter happened, their goal of keeping that bag off the streets would be thwarted. \n As he turned the car down the next row of parking spaces, which happened to lead back towards the drug car, he breathed a sigh of relief: it appeared from his distant vantage point that the trunk was now open. Jack had to fight every instinct so as not to race his car closer, but rather maintained his slow crawl. \n There were now 3 officers at the rear of the drug car, and as Jack inched the car closer, it soon became apparent that the trunk was indeed open. The drug dog was sitting well away with his handler, while another officer nearer the car was talking energetically into his radio, while the others had their attention locked on the interior of the trunk. \n Jack did not linger to gawk this time, but again turned his car down the next row of parked cars before letting out a deep sigh; it suddenly occurred to him that he had been holding his breath. \n “Well, that's it,” the 18-year-old said, his voice audibly shaking.\n “Yeah,” Angelo said, his voice barely above a whisper. Then with some enthusiasm, he continued. “Whatever happens next, at least that crap is off the streets.”\n Jack found that notion comforting, and felt a certain feeling of selfless accomplishment at having done this. Now remained the practicality of getting both of them well away from Victor, and then the fallout from what would happen once the ferret realized he had been double-crossed. \n Once clear of the parking rows, Jack turned the car back onto the road and nonchalantly headed for the mall's exit. When they reached the exit and were back on the main roads, this pretense of remaining inconspicuous was quickly dropped as Jack sped the car in the direction of their apartments. \n “Ok, how are we gonna do this?” Jack said, referring to the next part of the plan.\n “Well, first don't get us killed with your driving,” Angelo said with a smile. Jack laughed and backed the car's speed down to a more reasonable level. The little fox continued: “Then, when we get home, you go to your place and grab as much stuff as you can – anything important or valuable, 'cause you might not get to go back for a while. I'll do the same for my stuff.” \n “No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “I'll go in with you first. I don't want to leave you alone in there.” Even though Victor wouldn't be home for hours, Jack did not want to let the boy out of his sight now. \n Angelo nodded appreciatively. “Ok,” he said, “I don't have a lot anyway, so it will be quick. I'll just pile it all in one trash bag. Then we'll get as much of your stuff as we can fit in here.”\n “No more than an hour, tops,” Jack said. “Whatever is left after an hour... well... it can wait. I want the rest of the day to get the hell away.” Then after a pause he mused, “That will be the easy part.”\n “What's the hard part then?” Angelo said, half-laughing.\n “The hard part is telling my parents,” Jack replied. He had been putting off thinking out that part of the plan, as it had been “first things first” up until now. As fewer and fewer steps remained, he now had to give serious consideration to how they were going to react. \n “If I just bring you home and don't tell them anything,” Jack continued, now talking out the plan in real-time with Angelo, “they'll... well, they'll call the cops. If I tell them everything... they'll still call the cops. If I only tell them a little, then they'll make me tell them everything, and we're back with the cops.” \n “Yeah,” Angelo agreed somewhat sadly. “I'm pretty much expecting that we'll be talking to the cops tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest.” He looked to Jack with a playful smile. “We'll just leave out the part about me selling pot at schools.” \n “Ok,” Jack said with a chuckle. “I'll leave that out if you leave out me running from the cops in a stolen car!”\n “And racing a train?” Angelo said, now with a laugh. “Ok, I'll leave that out if you leave out me lighting that car on fire!”\n “Deal,” said Jack, laughing along with the younger fox despite the subject matter. He figured it was due to pent-up nervous energy that needed to be released. Then after his laughter quieted down, he said, “The way I see it, we were just the delivery guys, right? I mean, who knows for sure what was in those bags?” \n “Exactly,” replied the kit, even though he had assembled most of them. “We blame it all on Victor. He didn't want us knowing what was in them anyway!” \n Jack looked to his friend somberly. “So, we're going to rat out Victor, huh?” \n Angelo sighed and did not immediately respond. Then: “Yeah, I think we have to. Unless he shoots himself in despair, he will come after us. Somehow.”\n “Right,” Jack said looking back to the road. He certainly had no loyalty to the ferret, in fact he still downright despised him, so had no qualms about putting him away. He likewise agreed with the younger fox that Victor would pursue them relentlessly if he discovered that they had double-crossed him. In any case, this was just another step in the plan that had now been solidified. \n They were now approaching their apartment complex, and both foxes fell silent. As Jack steered the car into the complex, he was glad that there were few cars about. The residents of this complex tended to keep to themselves, but the last thing Jack wanted was for a neighbor to strike up a conversation about them hauling items out of two separate apartments. \n As they got close to their own buildings towards the back of the complex, it appeared even more devoid of cars. Jack pulled into the space right in front of Angelo's door, in the spot Victor usually used. No sooner had the car come to a halt than Angelo opened his door and hopped out. Jack shut off the car and followed the kit up to his door. \n Angelo unlocked the door and the pair went inside. The apartment was silent and the lights were off. Jack pushed the door closed behind him, but did not latch it shut. Angelo slowly, almost hesitantly, walked to the middle of the room and stopped. Something was clearly on his mind, Jack thought. \n “Should we...” The kit began, turning back towards Jack, “you know... grab anything else while we're here?” His ears were halfway drooped as he said this. \n Jack pondered this for a moment, then chuckled. It would surely be justice, of a sort, to get some payback from Victor. The ferret had often spoken about how he did not use banks, so even with the recent drug purchase, there should be some cash around, or even some of the gold coins that he used for longer-term storage. \n This reminded Jack that Victor had given him a small cache of gold coins to hide away in his own apartment, for safe-keeping away from the ferret's own residence. He would make sure to grab those with the other items he wanted to recover. After a moment's more thought, Jack shook his head. “Nah, let's get out of here clean. I mean, it would suck if Victor tried to get us arrested for stealing from him, right?” \n Angelo laughed out loud. “Yeah, the fucker would definitely do that too!”\n Jack smiled. “Go get your stuff, I'll wait here.” \n “Be right back!” Angelo said brightly and dashed around the corner and down the hallway. \n Jack walked towards the center of the living room where Angelo had been standing. He looked down towards the hallway, where the light was now switched on, and listened in silence to the boy rummaging around in his closet-bedroom. \n Behind Jack, the apartment's door flung open heavily. Jack spun around and was face-to-face with Victor. The ferret had a surprised look on his face. “Victor!” Jack said loudly, hoping Angelo would hear. \n “Jack,” Victor replied, sounding unsure. “What... what's going on? I see your car outside, but not the Russian's. What happened... was the car there?” \n “Victor,” Jack repeated nervously. “I... I thought you were at work.” \n “I was,” Victor replied, kicking the door closed behind him and walking past Jack to the kitchen. “Then I figured, why stay there all day when my life's work was coming together? So you got the car, right? So where is it... where is Angelo?” He looked down the hallway and bellowed “Angelo!” He turned back to Jack and walked back into the living room. “What happened?”\n Jack instinctively backed up a few paces as Victor encroached upon him. “Calm down Victor,” Jack said. \n “Calm down? What the fuck do you mean “calm down”? Where's the fucking car?” His voice was starting to get an audible tremble to it, Jack noted. “Did you get my H or didn't you?” \n “Yeah, sure,” Jack stammered, his eyes shifting between looking at Victor and looking towards the hallway where Angelo still had not emerged. “It's... it's just that...”\n “Wha... what?” Victor said, now with a nervous sort of laugh in his voice. Jack knew from experience that the ferret was close to exploding with rage. “Where's my shit, Jack?” Then turning back towards the hallway he again shouted, “Angelo!”\n “Come on, Vic,” Jack said, his own voice audibly trembling nervously now. “Just sit down and we'll...”\n “Sit down?” Victor repeated, a hint of panic now creeping into his tone, which Jack had never heard from him before. “Jack, just tell me what the fuck is going on! This is my life here!” He began pacing rapidly in front of Jack as he continued, his voice getting more animated as he went on. “You got the car, right, so why not bring it back here? There's no cops around, so what?”\n Jack took another step back from Victor, to where he almost had his back to the door. The ferret was looking alternately at the floor and at Jack as he went on. \n “Something's going on, just tell me,” he said loudly, as if arguing with himself. “I mean I'm sitting there at work thinking everything's going to plan, meanwhile you're back here in the middle of the day...” \n Victor stopped abruptly, paw in mid-gesture, pointing at the ceiling. He slowly turned to face Jack and lowered his paw to point at the fox. Jack's eyes went wide, his ears perked fully. \n “You...” Victor said, his voice now conversational again, but with a tone that suggested he had come to a realization. “You didn't expect me to be here. You thought... I'd be at work!” In a flash, the ferret reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a small pistol which he pointed right at Jack's head. “Where the fuck is my car?” he yelled. \n Jack froze, staring at the gun. A random thought entered his mind as he looked into the dark opening in its front, and a rather out-of-place thought given the circumstances: it looked like the kind that you would see a movie spy carry. \n “Hey Vic, now... easy,” was all Jack could muster. His heart was pounding now as the gun's muzzle loomed in his sight. \n “Where the fuck is my car?” Victor shouted again, though a little less frantically. “Don't think I won't blow your head into my front yard.” \n “Come on,” Jack said, “Put the gun down and we can talk.” \n “Talk?” Victor said incredulously. “What... what's there to talk about? Are you... you holding out on me? You want a bigger share? What?”\n “No Vic,” Jack replied, trying to sound soothing in hopes it would calm Victor down. “It's nothing like that...”\n “Then what is it?” Victor said, his voice edging into hysteria. “I already made you a full partner, what more do you want?” Once more he turned to the hallway off to his right and yelled, “Angelo!” \n Jack was about to say something when Victor again froze after calling out Angelo's name. He turned back towards Jack with a manic smile. \n “Angelo,” Victor said to Jack, chuckling, “You just had to take him with you, didn't you. He'll tell me where it is. If you're counting on me needing to keep you alive, well you're wrong!” The ferret's voice was escalating to a near scream now. “Angelo will tell me! He'll tell me if I have to use a fucking blowtorch on him!”\n “Put the gun down, Victor,” Angelo said. Victor and Jack both turned their heads towards the hallway, where Angelo stood, pointing a pistol at Victor – the gun that Victor had left unlocked “just in case”. \n The three stood in sort of a triangle: Victor in the middle, pointing his gun at Jack ten feet or so in front of him, and Angelo standing off to Victor's right side, slightly closer but still out of arm's reach. The 11-year-old held Victor's revolver in both paws, straight out. \n Victor coolly turned his head to Angelo, though he left his gun trained on the older fox by the front door. “Well well,” he said conversationally, “Look who finally shows up. And you're gonna threaten me with my own gun?”\n “Yeah,” Angelo said flatly. “Now put that gun down.” \n “You ungrateful little shit,” Victor said, equally monotone, as if he was chiding the young fox. “After all I've done for you, you're gonna point a gun at me.”\n “After all you've done for me?” Angelo said, anger now creeping into the little fox's voice. “I should kill you because of 'all you've done for me'.”\n “Look at you!” Victor said, and it was almost a command. “You would never have even touched a gun before me. And before Jack, I used to drive you to those schoolyards, remember? I've seen you walking like King Shit around there, guys there afraid to cross you, and girls hanging off of you. Remember? That's all 'cause of me: I made you what you are!” Angelo said nothing, but worked his lower jaw slightly. \n Jack, watching the two, pulled up on his shirt slightly to allow free access to the knife in the back of his pants. Victor must have seen this movement out of the corner of his eye, because his head turned back to Jack and he flexed the arm that held his gun, while shaking his head at the red fox: a warning not to move. \n “No,” warned Angelo as Victor did this. The ferret turned his head back to the kit. “Just... put the gun down,” Angelo repeated. \n “No, I don't think so,” Victor said, wagging his gun slightly in defiance. “What are you going to do with that thing, pup?”\n “Don't think for a second that I won't kill you,” Angelo replied. “That will be one more thing you taught me, huh?” His tone was the cold, flat tone he used on deliveries with troublesome customers, Jack noted. \n Victor chuckled, and turned his attention back to Jack. “Where's my heroin, Jack?” he asked calmly, then turned back to Angelo. “Where's my heroin?”\n “You put that gun down and we'll talk,” the grey-furred fox kit said. “But I'm not going to let you hurt him.” \n Victor's eyebrows raised at this, stretching the brown fur of his facial mask. “You're not gonna let...” He turned to Jack with a sudden look of realization again. “Hurt him?” The ferret laughed heartily, which unsettled Jack. \n “Now I get it!” Victor said happily, looking between Jack and Angelo. “You two!” He turned back to Jack, gun still leveled at the fox's face. “So Jack, tell me: how does his cock taste? Is it as good as that doctor fantasizes it is?”\n “What?” Jack exclaimed loudly, then looked to Angelo who still had his attention on the ferret. \n “You really are a piece of shit, Vic, you know that?” Angelo said angrily. \n “You ungrateful fuck!” Victor yelled, switching extremes of emotion yet again. “I made you! You'd be nothing without me!” The ferret looked back and forth between the 2 foxes again, visibly fuming, before a thought seemed to come to him that he found amusing and he calmed down somewhat. “In fact,” he continued, “you'd still be at home with your mommy, living your boring suburban life, without me.”\n “What?” Jack and Angelo both said, almost simultaneously. Jack looked to Angelo who was now looking back at him, brow furrowed slightly in confusion. \n Victor laughed again at their reaction. Then, in mocking pantomime, he put his free paw to his mouth like a small cub who had said the wrong thing. “Whoops,” he said, “Did I just say that?” \n Jack and Angelo again exchanged glances, Angelo also making sure to keep his gun trained on Victor. The ferret watched this silent conversation with amusement. \n “What,” said Victor, now with derision in his voice, “I thought you were supposed to be smart, Angelo. You haven't figured it out by now?”\n Jack watched Angelo carefully. The young kit's blue eyes were searching Victor's face, while his own betrayed that same hint of confusion. Despite the gun to his face, Victor was trying to assert control of the situation, as he always did. \n Worst of all, Jack noted, Angelo's arms were starting to wobble a bit, as the constant weight of the gun was beginning to wear on him. He still held the gun trained on the ferret, but it was probably pointed to his neck or shoulders by now. \n After a few seconds of silence following his last jab, Victor continued, starting off with a disappointed sigh. “Ok then,” he said, turning his head back to Jack, “does this help: 'What's that Mrs. Cole? You don't want to drive in this blizzard? Ok, I'll take you to the hospital to see your boy. I'm not afraid of driving in snow!'” He turned back to Angelo slowly, making eye contact out of the corner of his eye well before his head had fully turned. “Only she never made it, did she?”\n “What... what are you...” Angelo said nervously, the gun in his paws now pointed towards Victor's chest. \n Victor laughed a ridiculing cackle. “You dumb fuck!” he shouted. “She didn't abandon you: I killed her!” Angelo's eyes went wide with disbelief, which Victor laughed at again, before moderating his tone once more. \n “Not right away, of course,” the ferret said, now looking back to Jack. “First we went and had some fun, if you know what I mean. Oh, she wasn't into it at first. But it's amazing what a gun to the head does for a vixen's motivation.” He punctuated this with another cackling laugh. \n Victor continued, now in a conversational tone, like he was giving driving directions. “So... 2 pops to the head... a quick dump in Lake Royal... and back to her place to make it look like she skipped town. Pretty simple really.”\n “Why?” Jack asked, his voice almost a whisper. \n “I needed a delivery monkey,” Victor said calmly, before turning back to Angelo. “And I knew if I fed you enough of that orphanage bullshit, that you'd come running to old Uncle Vic; rather than spend your life in such a 'horrible horrible place'. Well, you didn't disappoint.”\n Angelo's face still had an expression of shocked disbelief, and the gun in his paws was now slowly moving left-right in his grip. Victor nodded at the boy. “It was that very gun, too. How does that feel?” The ferret looked between Jack and Angelo again, now looking more with his eyes than with head movement. \n What happened next seemed to move in slow motion: Angelo looked from Victor to the gun in his young paws for an instant, then back to the ferret. His expression changed from shock to hatred as his arms found renewed strength and he raised the pistol back up. \n Victor, seeing Angelo's momentary distraction, abruptly turned on one heel until his gun was pointed squarely at Angelo. \n For a brief instant, fox and ferret locked eyes over the guns they held: the young fox's blue eyes filled with hatred, the ferret's black eyes filled with mocking amusement. The moment passed.\n A single gunshot tore through the apartment like a bolt of lightning. \n \n\nTo be continued...\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Disclaimer: This story is part of a series, entitled “Dangerous Games”. The series contains non-human anthropomorphic animal (“Furry”) characters of varying ages, adult and cub. While there are no overt sexual acts depicted in this series, the stories will contain adult themes, topics, and situations, which may not be legal in some jurisdictions. These include: frank discussions of sexual acts and character sexuality, alcohol and drug use, criminal acts, violence, adult language, weapons including guns and knives, bloodshed, grievous bodily harm, death, and events which depict underage characters in peril.  

It is up to the reader to be aware of the laws regarding depictions of such material in their place of residence. If you are not allowed to read such material, due to age, religion, place of residence, or any other factor, do not continue.

This story and all characters are copyright Shryke. This is a work of fiction. All events and persons depicted are fictional, and any similarities with actual events or persons is purely coincidental.

Needless to say, if you've not read the prior parts you will be rather lost, and now that everything in the previous 5 parts is coming to a head, reading here now will be massive spoilers to everything I've written up to now! So if you think you might like the story and haven't read any of it yet, go back and read Part 1 please. Repeat: Massive spoilers ahead!


DANGEROUS GAMES
by Shryke
Part 6

          “Heroin,” Jack repeated slowly, staring at Victor, trying to keep his face neutral. It would have to be heroin, he thought to himself. He had just read the news about Gazz, the lizard who had tried to rob Angelo and Jack, getting shot when he tried to rob someone else to pay for his heroin habit. Now Victor finally announces what he'd been working towards all this time: and it was heroin. If it wasn't so tragic, it would be funny, Jack mused ironically.
          Victor just nodded, a wide grin still splitting his face as he kept his eyes locked on Jack's. “Yeah, it's something, huh,” he said, mistaking Jack's blank stare for awe.
          Jack looked to Angelo, who was looking in the general direction of the fox and ferret, though not making eye contact with either. His face, too, was expressionless, and Jack could only imagine what was running through the younger fox's mind, as he had been somewhat distressed when he read the news about Gazz. “Yeah, umm... wow,” Jack said, looking back to Victor.
          “Big time, boys, big time!” Victor announced proudly, still reveling in his accomplishment. “I dropped a hundred-and-fifty G's on it, and I bet I turn it into half a million by the end of the year!” Jack involuntarily raised his eyebrows at this, which only made Victor seem even happier. “What do you think of the old weasel now, eh?” he said, slapping Jack's shoulder.
          “Wow,” Jack could only repeat, now with some sincerity. He knew heroin was a profitable drug, but when he heard “million” from Victor, it hit him just how profitable it was. This thought was further reinforced as Victor continued.
          “So I take that 500 grand,” the ferret said, “and give or take a Ferrari, I sink it into another batch, and before you know it, we've got millions rolling in!” He stepped closer and put one paw on Jack's arm, the other on Angelo's.
          “Damn, Vic,” Jack said, using the familiar form of the ferret's name for the first time, he abruptly noted, the realization suddenly not sitting well with him. “But let's not get ahead of ourselves,” he said, dismissing the awe that he felt mere seconds ago.
          “Quite right,” Victor said, letting go of the two foxes and taking his suit jacket off.
          “So,” Jack began, slowly, “how is this going to work? Picking it up, I mean.”
          “Quite simple,” Victor said as he walked to the kitchen and grabbed a wine bottle, pausing to pull the cork with his teeth. “Well, actually, not all that simple when I think about it.” He took a long drink directly from the bottle as he walked back into the living room.
          “The Russian's delivery guy will put the stuff into the trunk of a car,” Victor continued. “He's going to drive it down here tonight and park it in the mall, somewhere in that big parking garage. They're also Express-Delivery mailing me the spare key. It arrives in the morning sometime.
          “When it does, you,” Victor said with emphasis, pointing at Jack, “you take your car to the mall and park it, find the Russian's car, and bring it back here. We'll go get yours later on, after we all regroup here.”
          Jack nodded. It was certainly an interesting and efficient way to make a delivery. One thought had immediately jumped into his mind, however. “This isn't a stolen car, is it?” he asked. The last thing the teen fox wanted was a repeat of the last stolen car incident. Jack saw Angelo smile slightly as he undoubtedly remembered the same event. The little grey-furred fox had otherwise been noticeably silent since Victor had arrived, the older fox also observed.
          Victor laughed, as he likely was recalling the incident as well. “No, not stolen, don't worry,” Victor said. “The car was bought from a used-car lot up there, for just this purpose. Untraceable to the Russian, and we end up with a car at the end of it all.”
          “I'm going with him,” Angelo said, breaking his silence.
          “No.” Victor said sharply, “Just Jack. I don't want to risk a fuck-up.”
          Angelo turned to Victor with a snarl visibly forming on his muzzle. “When have I ever fucked up anything?” he shouted. “You wouldn't even be where you are now if it wasn't for me not-fucking things up!” The 11-year-old looked genuinely enraged, Jack thought, which was uncharacteristic for him even in the presence of Victor's usual personality swings and verbal attacks.
          “Just Jack!” Victor yelled back at the boy, who maintained angry eye contact with the ferret until Victor turned back to Jack, rolling his eyes.
          “So tomorrow,” the ferret went on, “when you hear the Express Delivery truck roll up, come on over. I'll be there to sign for it, then I'll head to work for the day: plausible deniability, you know? Angelo?” Victor looked to the little fox who had turned away in disgust from the conversation. “You'll hold things down here while Jack's making the pickup.” Angelo just muttered something, unenthusiastically, in response.
          “Well,” said Jack, watching Angelo, “you know, Vic, it would look less suspicious if I brought him with me. You know... 2 brothers just going to the mall, nothing susp-”.
          “Fine!” Victor said, interrupting with an exasperated sigh. “Fine, whatever. Just... don't fuck it up,” he said to Jack. “This is my life's work we're talking about.” He looked down for a moment. “Where the fuck was I? Oh right: you,” Victor continued, looking back at Jack, “bring the shit back here, and the two of you guard it 'till I get home at 6.”
          “And then?” Jack asked.
          “And then?” Victor echoed. “Then... we all jack-off over the stuff and have dinner,” he said sarcastically. “What do you mean “and then”?”
          “I mean, once we have it, how do we... you know... sell it?” Jack said carefully, now curious about his role in the forthcoming distribution. He more specifically want to know if he and Angelo would be selling it directly as they did with marijuana at schoolyards.
          The ferret nodded. “I got that plan going, don't you worry,” he said reassuringly. “I got some feelers out, some customers lined up, just waiting for it all to coalesce.”
          Jack just nodded, Victor having missed the crux of his question. No matter, he thought, he would certainly find out soon enough. As was increasingly typical for him, his mind began to flood with scenarios and “what-ifs”. He quickly cleared them: now was not the time for that.
          “Ok then,” Victor concluded, acknowledging Jack's thoughtful nodding as ending the conversation. “So I'll see you here tomorrow when the truck arrives. By nightfall we'll be on the way to  riches!” he said as his enthusiasm seemed to be on the rise again.
          The teen fox just nodded again and forced a weak smile.

          Jack lay in his bed, clad only in his boxers, staring at the ceiling. He had spent most of the day since returning from Victor's apartment sitting in his living-room chair pondering the events to come, and as always, letting his mind run away with the unknowns.
          Angelo had tried to get Victor to let him spend this day with Jack, but the ferret was insistent that the little fox remain inside. Jack reckoned that because Victor had already made one concession to the kit, that of letting him accompany Jack on the forthcoming pick-up, he therefore was not going to make another by letting him spend more time with Jack.
          A completely pointless assertion of control, Jack thought, but it did speak volumes about Victor's personality. Angelo would probably spend the rest of the day in his closet-bedroom reading and, like Jack, thinking over the events to come.
          The 18-year-old had fallen asleep in his chair for a bit, and upon awakening, found he had no appetite, so skipped dinner and just went right to his bed to continue his reverie.
          Heroin. They were certainly stepping across a line from harmless vices such as cigars and caviar, into real life-changing stuff, he kept thinking. A police chase and a knife fight aside, what they had been doing up to now was fairly harmless in Jack's mind.
          It did not take him long to get to the root of things: addiction. They were crossing over into addiction territory, where the users of their products would not longer be rich doctors and lawyers buying contraband cigars, or high-schoolers looking for a bag of pot for the beach. Their buyers would be people who were buying because they physically had no choice, and would do anything to get it.
          The lizard Gazz's face entered his mind many times as he brooded. He had tried to rob Jack and Angelo on a delivery, and had gotten his chest sliced open as a result, albeit superficially. He had recently become addicted, Jack noted, and was already resorting to violence to get his next high. Attacking Angelo had cost the lizard some stitches. Attacking an armed cocaine dealer days later had cost him his life.
          Beyond his regret over Gazz came the related realization that every one of their future customers could easily be another Gazz: someone so desperate to get their next high that they would attack the two foxes to get it. Gazz had used his fists, but what if it had been a knife or a gun? Would they be walking into an ambush on every delivery?
          Jack growled angrily, as he was sure that Victor had not thought out the details to this level, especially not on the delivery side. He had been working towards this for years, the ferret constantly reminded him, yet now that it was here he still did not have a solid plan ready: he still “had feelers out”, and deals “coalescing”. As much as Jack was not looking forward to this next phase of the business, he was at the same time angry with Victor for not having all the details figured out by this point.
          Another Gazz, Jack mused. How many more of him would Jack be personally responsible for creating? How many high-schoolers would steal from their families and friends to afford their next dose, which Jack would helpfully provide, and who would end up dead when they tried to rob the wrong person? Would Jack be the one to snuff out their life to protect his own? Would Angelo?
          But what can I do? Jack thought in despair. There were only a few options open to him to put an end to all of this, but they all resulted in him losing Angelo once the state and the law got involved. He was being selfish of course, he realized, but the younger fox was now everything to him: his own brother, or even more. Would he have the strength to do the right thing, when the time came? Would he even know what the right thing would be?
          These were the thoughts that had been swarming through Jack's mind all day. It was surprisingly tiring, he thought with some amusement as he now lay in his bed. With some sadness he realized that he was laying over on the right side of the bed, rather than in the center as he had done all his life. He looked to the empty space on the left side, where Angelo had slept last night, where he had been mere hours ago.
          Jack closed his eyes and sighed deeply. There was certainly nothing he could do right now, he admitted, and anguishing over it would be useless, since he would be in the same place in the morning regardless. He looked over at his clock: 9:43pm. He decided at once to just extinguish the lights and try to get some sleep.
          The teen fox hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers, then paused. He had been pondering trying out sleeping in the nude, as Angelo did. The younger fox testified to its comfort every time it came up, but Jack had never actually done so – especially not when the kit was sleeping in Jack's bed.
          But here he was alone now, and by wearing just his boxers he was already less dressed than he normally was when he slept. He pulled the boxers down an inch or two then stopped again as he felt a slight arousal begin in his groin. This surprised him, as he had never been squeamish about his own nudity, and had never considered the mere act of undressing to be even remotely sexual. Yet for some reason, this time as he slid his boxers to his knees, the familiar feeling washed over his lower body, its effects becoming plainly visible.
          As Jack looked, still curiously surprised, a sudden knock at the front door startled him. It wasn't just that there was a knock, but that the knock was in a specific pattern: a pattern he recognized as the one that Angelo had used when knocking on Victor's door back when the ferret had had his “lady friends” over.
          Jack bolted from his bed and ran to the front door, pulling his boxers back up as he ran, but not bothering to grab his shirt from where he had discarded it on the floor. The knock repeated as Jack reached the door and flung it open, without even looking through the peephole.
          Angelo stood on his doorstep with a small bundle of clothes in his paws. He smiled at Jack as the door opened. “Hi Jack,” he said cheerfully, grinning as he saw Jack's state of dress.
          “Ange!” Jack said with a surprised tone, even though he had known from the knock who it was at his door. The bundle of clothes the kit carried only added to his surprise. “What's... what's going on?”
          “Victor says I can stay over tonight,” the little fox responded as Jack stepped back to allow him inside.
          “Oh nice!” Jack said, his sullen mood instantly evaporating at the sight of the cheerful young fox. “What's with that stuff though?” he asked as he shut the door, indicating the bundle which Angelo proceeded to drop on the couch. The cub was not wearing his usual jacket, though, which made Jack even happier: it meant that Angelo felt safe here.
          “Clothes for tomorrow,” the kit explained as he sat down heavily on the couch next to the bundle, bouncing slightly as he did. “If you don't mind me using your shower tomorrow, that is.”
          “My place is your place,” Jack said with a happy smile as he sat on the arm of the couch next to his friend. “I thought Victor didn't want you coming over though.”
          Angelo smiled. “I can be persuasive when I want to be,” he said.
          “Meaning you bugged the hell out of him?”
          “All day!” the kit confirmed with a happy grin. His face became more serious again as he continued after a pause. “He did say that if you weren't home or didn't want me staying over, that he wouldn't let me back in tonight. Oh, and if the delivery truck shows up tomorrow and I'm not already over there, he's going to cut the tip of my ear off.” He looked flatly at Jack as he said this.
          Jack rolled his eyes, his deep-seated hatred for Victor bubbling up again. “Fucker,” he muttered instinctively. Angelo giggled at this, though Jack had not intended him to hear it.
          The two sat in silence for a moment, Victor's comments sitting heavily on Jacks mind. He didn't doubt for a second that they were sincere threats, which only made the red fox's anger boil even more. But a glance to Angelo was returned with a happy smile from the little grey-furred kit, and that was enough to squelch those thoughts.
          “We need to do something about our Mr. Morrison,” Jack said rhetorically, leaning back on one arm. Angelo reached out and put a paw on Jack's paw. Jack grinned happily and put his other paw on the kit's and patted. His anger now thoroughly dispelled, the older fox stood up and stretched.
          “I've been thinking a lot today... about tomorrow,” Jack said, knowing it would be on Angelo's mind as well. “About what we're going to do-”
          Angelo held up a paw to Jack, interrupting the teen. “Not tonight,” he declared. “We'll worry about all that tomorrow. I think that... I know what we have to do tomorrow. I've got it figured out... I think,” he said, a touch of sadness creeping into his voice. Then with a happier tone, he continued, “But! That's all for tomorrow. Tonight we're not going to even think about that. Or him. Tonight it's just me and you!”
          Jack smiled. This was more than fine by him, though one invasive thought briefly crept into his mind: For one last time.
          “I was actually about to go to bed,” Jack said, indicating his undressed condition.
          Angelo seemed to ponder this for a moment, then stood up abruptly from the couch. “That... is a good idea!” he declared with a smile.
          
          Jack wiped the condensation from the bathroom mirror with a paw and began to comb his head-fur. The residual shower steam had been cleared from the bathroom by the open door, so the swath he had cleared on the mirror was dry in short order. It was mid-morning, approaching the expected delivery time of the delivery truck, and the car's key.
          The teen fox stood at the mirror, clad only in jeans as he attended to his hair. He quickly had it combed back the way he liked it, yet kept going over it with the comb. It was more of an automatic action, as he wasn't even looking at his hair in the mirror at this point – he was staring studiously at his own reflection.
          Jack watched the face in the mirror, examining every feature before settling his gaze on the eyes. They were darkly tinted, set amidst the red face-fur. They seemed to be staring back at him like those of a stranger who was wondering why Jack was looking at him.
          In fact, the more he stared at his reflection, the more he felt like this was a stranger he was looking at. The face stared back at him, inspecting Jack's face, even as he did the same to the reflection. Who are you, Jack wondered. Do I even know you?
          A deep rumble from outside jarred Jack back to reality. It was the Express Delivery truck announcing its presence as it did every morning, with the rumbling roar of its engines and the squeal of its brakes. From the direction of the sound, it had stopped a few buildings up to deliver something to one of those residents.
          “That sounds like it,” Jack shouted out the bathroom door. He put the comb down and walked out into the living room. Angelo, also shirtless, was on one knee tying his shoes, a towel draped over his head, his tail lazily swooshing. “You probably have a minute or two,” Jack told him. Angelo looked up from his shoes and smiled broadly upon seeing Jack.
          “Ok,” he said cheerfully, springing to his feet. “Don't want to lose my ear!” He pulled the towel off of his head, balled it up, and tossed it to Jack like a baseball before grabbing his shirt from the couch.
          Jack smiled as he caught the towel. “I'll be over in a couple minutes,” Jack said.
          Angelo nodded with a smile after pulling his shirt down over his head. He headed for the door, leaving his head-fur in its usual random state.
          Jack watched the kit open the door and dash outside, closing it behind him. The fox stood alone in his living room, still holding the towel that Angelo had thrown him. He looked at it wistfully.

          Angelo was sitting on the stoop outside the apartment he shared with Victor when Jack emerged from his own residence. The kit waved to him from across the parking lot. Apparently, the delivery truck still had some more business for other tenants, as it had not yet swung down to this part of the complex.
          Good, Jack thought. He didn't want Victor to have any excuse to get angry with Angelo for not being there in time. He would not put it past the ferret to split hairs over what constituted “on-time”; both of them being at Victor's door when the truck arrived should prevent that possibility.
          As he neared Victor's door, the delivery truck could be heard rumbling in their direction. Angelo  stood and knocked his special knock pattern on the door as Jack arrived on the stoop.
          “You're up,” the kit said into the door. Jack assumed that Victor would have to sign for the package.
          The door opened. Victor stood inside and regarded the two foxes momentarily. Angelo shot him a smug sort of look that seemed to say “Yeah, that's right, I'm here on time.” Victor's eyes narrowed slightly but his face maintained a neutral expression.
          “All right, inside,” he said as the rumble of the truck announced its imminent arrival. Jack and Angelo went inside and pulled the door nearly closed as the truck pulled up outside. Jack could hear Victor outside exchange pleasantries with the driver as he signed for the package. In a moment, the ferret opened the door and unhurriedly stepped inside before closing the door.
          Once inside, his demeanor changed instantly. Victor let out a cackling laugh and held the envelope up to Jack before pulling the tear-away strip to open it. He reached a paw inside and extracted a single key and held it up like it was a championship trophy.
          “Game on!” Victor announced with a flourish of his other arm. Jack could only chuckle, despite his growing sense of unease – perhaps because of it.
          “Whoopee,” Angelo said in a flat sarcastic tone.
          Victor just chuckled. “So, you guys ready?” he asked.
          “I'm gonna get my jacket,” Angelo said, turning towards the hallway and his closet-bedroom.
          Victor watched him leave, then turned to Jack with a serious expression, another instant change of demeanor which unsettled the red fox.
          “So Jack,” the ferret began, his voice almost a whisper, “listen, one thing we need to do early is get him hooked on this shit, you know?” He motioned down the hallway with his head as he said this.
          Jack was horrified. “Wha... what?” was all he could muster.
          “I know, I know,” Victor responded, nodding solemnly, “but trust me. The sooner he's hooked, the easier he'll be to control. I'm sick of him acting like he's smarter than me, and I'm sure you are too.”
          “Right,” Jack said slowly. Play the game, he told himself. He had to act like he agreed with the ferret, like he was right on board with his notions. It actually surprised him, though, how wrong Victor was in reading him. “That could be... dangerous though,” he said cryptically.
          Victor just stared into Jack face, seemingly digesting what the fox had said. “I think I get what you're saying,” he said. “So we'll take it slow. It'd be just like him to fuck me by OD'ing.”
          Jack stared back, trying to suppress the raw hatred he felt for this... creature. “Very slow,” he said, then cleared his throat loudly as he saw Angelo in the hallway, trying to make it look like he was giving Victor the “not now” signal with the noise.
          Victor, taking the clue, turned to Angelo and clapped his hands together one time. “Ok, now you're ready,” he said. Jack detected a tone in the ferret's voice of having been caught.
          “Yeah,” the cub responded slowly: he seemed to detect the tone as well. He was clad now in his usual denim jacket, and no doubt was carrying his knife in the pocket. Jack instinctively reached back and patted the back belt-line of his own jeans where he kept his knife, taking some comfort in the feel of the weapon concealed there.
          “Ok,” Victor said again, his tone now serious. “All bullshit aside. Go get the car, drive it back here, and bring the shit inside.” He handed Jack the key before continuing. “The car is...” he pulled a slip of paper from the envelope that contained the key, “a 4-door sedan, looks like an older model, dark maroon colored. License plate is on here.” He handed Jack the slip of paper with the car's description on it. Jack chuckled as he read one line from it: “Bumper sticker says 'My other car is up on blocks.'”
          The ferret chuckled as Jack did, obviously having read the same thing. “At least you'll know it when you see it!” Victor turned to Angelo who had moved to the door with his hands in his jacket pocket. “Angelo: you know my gun drawer?”
          “Yeah, sure,” Angelo responded, an ear cocked slightly.
          “Ok,” Victor said. “Well, I'm going to leave that unlocked today, just in case. There's a .357 in there.” He looked to Jack intensely. “Use it if you have to.” Jack nodded, finding the ferrets gaze disturbing. Turning back to Angelo, he added, “But otherwise don't touch it.” Angelo responded only by furrowing his brow slightly.
          “I'll be back the usual time,” he said, then paused, thinking for a moment. Finally: “This is everything I've worked for all these years. If you fuck it up...” He stopped briefly, then resumed with a surprisingly gentle tone. “Well... just don't fuck it up.”
          Jack nodded as Victor again gazed intently at him. The ferret turned the same stare to the younger fox, who met it with an impassive face, and did not nod or otherwise respond to what he had said. “Go,” Victor ordered calmly, then without a further glance, walked down the hall towards his bedroom.

          Jack eased his car out of the apartment's parking lot onto the main road. He and Angelo had not said a word since Victor dismissed them and they headed outside to Jack's car. There was no more time to put off what was about to happen, and neither fox seemed to want to break the silence to discuss what they were going to do.
          The mall was about a 20-minute drive from the apartments. That time, plus however long it took to locate the delivery car in the fairly large parking garage, was all the time that remained until this next phase officially began.
          The 18-year-old was mulling over what Victor had said about getting Angelo hooked on heroin. The thought enraged him more than anything the ferret had done so far. There was, of course, no way Jack was going to allow this to happen. He would gladly slit the weasel's throat and go to prison for it, rather than allow the boy to become an addict simply so Victor could suppress and control him.
          Jack looked over to Angelo, who was staring out his window stolidly. He put a paw on the young fox's knee and patted, then grinned as he saw the kit's reflection in the window break into a smile. Angelo looked back to Jack and put his own paw on top of Jack's. It was time, Jack decided.
          “So,” he began, “what's our plan?” Jack had his own ideas, but wanted to hear Angelo's before making any decisions that would affect both of their lives so dramatically.
          Angelo looked out the front window and sighed deeply. “We can't give this stuff to Victor,” he said slowly and softly. “Whatever else happens, we... just can't.” He looked over to Jack sadly.
          Jack looked into the kit's shining blue eyes for a moment, before necessity forced his attention back to the road ahead. He could tell by the look in the little fox's face that he was fully aware of the implications of what he had just said. Jack had reached the same conclusion the day before – indeed the only conclusion that was possible, despite the personal consequences.
          “You know what that means, buddy, right?”
          “I could...” Angelo said, in a smaller voice than Jack had ever heard him use, “I... could probably live with you still. When it's all over?”
          Jack put a paw on the boy's knee again. “Ange,” he began, his own voice audibly pained, “I can't hide you for the next 7 years.” He looked into the kit's eyes again. “You have to go to school... to the doctors, that kind of thing. Which means you have to be... “official” again.” Jack struggled for the right word to indicate Angelo getting back into the system again.
          “Yeah,” Angelo replied, as if he had known this all along.
          “We have to find your mother,” Jack said. “At least then you won't get put in an orphanage again.” Jack hated to bring up the kit's mother, as it was quite a sore subject with him, and justifiably so: she had abandoned him when he was in the hospital and disappeared, taking a hasty carload of her possessions with her.
          Jack honestly believed that she had just panicked over the hospital's bills and left town, not knowing what to do. The limited research he had done into this sort of thing told him that such mothers usually return after getting their emotions sorted out, but in this case Angelo had run away from state custody before this happened. Jack hoped that this would mean that the police would easily locate her once informed of the situation.
          Angelo closed his eyes solemnly and nodded. He took another deep breath before continuing. “That's all later though,” he said, looking back out the front window. “We're going to have enough problems today.”
          “Oh yeah,” Jack replied. “You said you had a plan though?”
          The grey-furred fox nodded again. “Well for starters,” he said, “we'll have to hide out at your parents' house for a bit.”
          Jack cocked an ear, surprised. “Why?”
          “If we don't show up with Victor's stuff, he's going to start looking for us,” Angelo said. “And the first place he looks will be your apartment. He'll break into it tonight to look for clues.”
          “Crap,” Jack exclaimed. He had not thought of this, though in hindsight it was perfectly logical. “So I lose all my stuff, just like that?”
          “Nah, we have till Victor gets home,” the kit replied. “We'll deal with this car, then head back there and grab as much stuff as we can from both our places.”
          Jack nodded, following along. “Then we head to my folks' house?”
          “Yeah, for now,” Angelo said. “He doesn't know where you live, so we should be safe there 'till we figure out what to do next.”
          “We're not in the book,” Jack said, referring to his parents' being unlisted in the phone directory.  “I'll have to tell them what's going on though,” he warned. “They will call the police.”
          “I know,” Angelo said, “They'll have to. But maybe we can stay there long enough to... figure things out,” he said evasively. Then with a deep sigh, he said what he had apparently been trying to avoid: “To find... her.”
          Jack looked at his friend sadly. “It is the best of a whole lot of bad, though.”
          “Yeah, I guess,” the cub said, sounding unconvinced still. “Her name is Joanne,” he said quietly.
          The older fox looked over at him with surprise as he shared this, even though it would have been a necessity eventually. “Joanne,” Jack repeated back.
          “She might be going by Peterson,” Angelo continued. “That's her maiden name.”
          “Got it,” Jack replied. Then in a more grave tone, he said, “Angelo.” The younger fox looked abruptly to him, his ears perked at Jacks somber tone. “Ange,” Jack said again, “I want you to promise me that... whatever happens with all of this... that you won't run away again. Ok? Even if they s-split us up.” Jack stumbled on the word: one little word that encompassed all his fears about the path they were taking. “I'll try to find you, and if I can't, you've got my e-mail address. Just tell me where you are and I'll come.”
          Angelo seemed to bite his lip slightly, his eyes glistening even more as he just nodded wordlessly.
          After a moment, Jack broke the thickly emotional silence, as much to keep himself from breaking down as it was to address the imminent practicality. “So what do we do about the car today? Call the cops and tell them about Victor?”
          Angelo shook his head. “We have to give them the car, yeah,” he said. “But we can't tell them about Victor yet, or our apartments become swamped with cops. No, we clear our stuff out first, get to our safe-house, then we can give them the whole story.”
          Again, perfectly logical, Jack thought. “What about the Russian?” he asked, the thought suddenly entering his mind. Ratting out Victor was one thing, but crossing a Russian crime boss could really turn out badly.
          “He won't care,” Angelo said. “The drugs are paid for, so whatever happens to them, he's got his money already. Besides, I get the impression from the way Victor talks, that the Russian doesn't really like him anyway.” The kit chuckled. “Maybe he'll do us a favor for getting rid of Victor for him!”
          Jack laughed out loud, mostly from nervous tension. Then, putting his paw on Angelo's knee again, “We're really going to do this, aren't we?”
          Angelo put his paw under Jack's so that the two were now holding hands. “We have to,” he said. It's either the two of us, or however-many hundreds... thousands... of people who will be hurt by that stuff.”
          Jack felt his lip tremble slightly as the younger fox plainly summarized what Jack had been anguishing in his mind over for the last day. There was never any other answer, he finally realized. He didn't say anything, but gave the little paw a loving squeeze.

          The teenage red fox steered his care around another corner in the mall's parking garage. He kept the car moving at a fairly slow crawl, which was common for mall patrons looking for an open parking space. Jack looked along one row of parked cars, while Angelo looked out his window at the other. Whenever a faster-moving car would come up behind them, Jack would pull to the side of the lane and wave them around, pretending like he was looking for something in his car.
          They were on the 4th level of the garage now, with two or three levels remaining above them. Jack was looking for the color first, a dark maroon, followed by the bumper sticker that would be the positive identification.
          “Stop,” Angelo said as the car turned another corner. Jack did so and looked out the right side window as Angelo discreetly pointed. Sure enough, there sat the car, as described.
          Jack double-checked the license plate against the slip of paper, and it was a match. He sighed, as he had been hoping that, somehow, the car would not have been there.
          “Keep going,” Angelo said. “Now that we know where it is.”
          Jack let off the brake and steered the car around another corner, now no longer giving the pretense of searching for a spot. “I'm going to park it on the other side,” he said, now steering towards the downward ramp that led back to ground level.
          “Yeah,” the younger fox concurred. “We'll walk through the mall to get back here. Don't want to waste too much time though.”
          “Should we just call the cops now?” Jack asked. “Tell them where it is and be done with it?”
          “Nah,” the kit said. “We'll put it someplace obvious. Like a handicapped spot, where they're sure to find it quick. Then we find a phone and call them.”
          “That will be fun,” Jack said, somewhat sarcastically. He was dreading the call to the authorities, in a way, mostly because he was afraid he might panic and reveal too much, and partly because that was indeed the point of no return. Once the call was made, the two were committed to whatever happened going forward.
          “I've actually thought about that too,” Angelo said as the car exited the parking garage and turned out into the exterior road that circled the mall. “Disguise your voice, definitely. And give them a code-word of some kind. So that if we need to call them again, they'll know you're the same one.”
          “I hope we wouldn't have to call again,” Jack said.
          “Well,” Angelo said with a faint smile, “This also lets us prove that we're the ones who called it in. You know, afterward... when it might be good to have that up our sleeves.”
          Jack looked to his friend and smiled. “Good thought,” he said appreciatively. For all the anguishing Jack had done, it seemed that Angelo's musings had been better directed towards plans and their consequences.
          They had driven around a third of the way around the perimeter of the mall, when Jack spotted a conveniently close parking spot open up, and steered his car into it. “Ok,” Jack said as he shut down the engine, “Let's do this.” Angelo smiled and nodded.
          The pair walked into the nearest mall entrance and proceeded in the direction of the parking garage. Jack was trying to look inconspicuous, which he had to laugh at when he caught himself – they were just two foxes walking in a fairly crowded mall: there was certainly nothing to arouse anyone's suspicion. Security would be watching the cameras looking for shoplifters or unruly groups causing trouble, not for what looked like a teenager and his kit brother walking along.
          For his part, Angelo walked beside Jack in silence, his paws in his jacket pockets, looking towards the floor in front of them. Jack looked his way several times, but the little fox didn't appear to notice.
          After a few minutes, they reached the mall's exit to the parking garage. Just outside the door was the elevator to the various floors, which the two entered with several other furs and rode to the 4th floor. They briefly paused upon exiting to allow those that got off on the same floor to disperse towards their own vehicles before starting towards the delivery car.
          Jack fumbled nervously with the key in his pocket as the two foxes approached it. Both walked to the rear of the car and stopped, rather than moving to their respective doors. Jack could see in Angelo's face the same thing he himself felt: I want to see this... I need to see it. He inserted the key and popped the trunk open.
          Inside was a black nylon gym bag, zippered shut. Jack stared at it – there could have been anything else in the trunk along with it, and he would not have seen it, such was the intensity that he focused on the bag. He wanted to will it into non-existence.
          After a moment, a small paw entered his field of view. Angelo had reached in and unzipped the bag slightly and pulled apart the open flap. Jack stared within for a moment. Inside the small opening he could see a white substance wrapped tightly in what looked like plastic cling-wrap, the kind used to wrap up leftover dinner.
          Jack looked to Angelo who looked back at him matter-of-factly. There it is, the young blue eyes seemed to say. The older fox turned back to the trunk and, reaching in, lifted the bag by its handles. There was certainly some weight to the bag. It was likely full of those cellophane-wrapped blocks. He put the bag back down in the trunk and stared again.
          “That's a lot of Gazzes in there,” Angelo said sadly. Jack had been thinking the exact same, as he had been for the last day.
          Jack looked his young companion in the eyes and smiled, despite the circumstances. He was glad the little fox felt the same way he did. “That's a lot of Gazzes who will get to live,” Jack said. “We're going to make sure of that right now.” He closed the trunk lid firmly.

          Jack drove the car out of the parking garage, and followed the same path he had just taken with his own car around the mall. He passed the spot where he had parked his car, and kept driving: he wanted to get to the opposite end of the mall, where the food-court was located.
          Angelo occupied himself with exploring the car as much as he could from his seat, which mostly involved inspecting the glove compartment and playing with the electric seat controls.
          “Don't get your paw-prints on too much,” Jack cautioned. The police would undoubtedly inspect every piece of the car once in their possession.
          “Hey, we're the good guys, remember,” Angelo said. “If they find our prints, that just helps prove that we were the ones who left it for them. Just be sure to give them a code of some sort when you call.”
          The older fox had been pondering this since Angelo had brought it up earlier: to give the police some code word or phrase so that in future he could use it to prove he was the caller. He had heard about serial killers doing this sort of thing in letters they sent to the press – a strange sort of authentication.
          Jack finally decided on using the last 4 digits of his driver's license number, but reversed. This would positively tie him to the call, but with enough obscurity so as not to involve him if he chose never to reveal himself.
          “Yep,” Jack agreed. “The code will be 5-4-4-0.”
          “5-4-4-0,” Angelo repeated.
          The car approached the food-court entrance where Jack intended to park. He drove past the entrance and noted the handicapped-parking spaces were vacant. He was about to pull into one, then at the last moment jerked the wheel straight again and kept driving. Angelo looked at him quizzically.
          “Just... gimme a minute,” Jack said as he started another circuit around the food-court parking section. It was time to do this, he well knew, but was still hesitant. Angelo nodded as if understanding, though he said nothing.
          After a moment, they were again around to the entrance, with the target parking spot in view. This time Jack decisively pulled the car into the parking space and shut off the engine. He looked to his young friend and nodded firmly. This was met by a corresponding nod from the little grey-furred fox.
          The pair exited the car, trying to look inconspicuous. They were, after all, parking in a handicapped space, and the last thing they needed was for a random passer-by to take issue with this fact.
          “Lock it, leave the key,” Angelo said quietly, as he came around to Jack's side of the car.
          Jack nodded and tossed the key onto the driver's seat, then manually locked the door and closed it. Yet another step that there was no turning back from. “We're committed now,” he said, starting to walk towards the mall entrance.
          “Almost,” Angelo agreed. “One more thing left.”
          The two foxes walked side-by-side to the mall entrance and went inside. This was the food-court section of the mall, with numerous small fast-food sellers distributed around the periphery, with a large open eating area in the center, filled with numerous tables and chairs. What they were looking for now was a phone. Pay phones were becoming increasingly hard to find, but there was normally at least one in large public venues such as this.
          Jack saw the symbol for a telephone handset against one wall where there was not a food vendor. He tapped Angelo's arm, who was looking over a different wall for the same thing, and the two started towards the phone kiosk. There was nobody else near it, which Jack was glad about, as he didn't want anyone listening in on the call he was about to make.
          The teenage fox's heart was racing as he and Angelo reached the phone. Jack picked up the handset and held it halfway to his ear, looking at his young friend.
          Angelo smiled at him. “We can do this, Jack,” he said encouragingly.
          Jack nodded, and with a deep breath, punched the phone's keypad: 9-1-1.
          Almost instantly a voice came on the line. “911, what is your emergency?” It was a female voice on the line.
          Jack cleared his throat. When he spoke, it was with a heavy accent and an artificial deepening of his voice. “Yes,” he began, “I am at mall, at food-court entrance. I think you should know that there is dark-red car parked in handicap space that has much heroin in trunk.”
          “Heroin?” the voice asked. “Sir, how do you know this?”
          “I know, believe me,” Jack said, still maintaining the accent. “I think you should send police to come get this. Owners will not be coming for it. Shall we say... something happened to them?”
          “Ok,” the operator said. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence on the line. Jack could hear her typing. “You said a red car? Is there a license number?”
          “Is only dark red car parked in handicap space by food court,” Jack said, looking into Angelo's eyes now.
          “Ok.” More typing. “And you say it's in the trunk?”
          “Yes, in trunk.” Jack was starting to think that they were deliberately holding him on the line so the police could find him.
          “Ok, and what is your name?”
          “My name is “person telling you about big drug shipment”. I give name later perhaps. For now, here is code number for you: 5-4-4-0. When I call back I give number and you know it is me, yes?”
          “Ok, sir, but I really would like you to stay on the phone until someone arrives,” the operator said.
          “I go now,” Jack said. “You remember code, yes? 5-4-4-0. Come get drugs.” He hung up the phone without listening further.
          “Nice accent,” Angelo said with a grin.
          “What means accent?” Jack said, still speaking in it. “This is real voice!” The two shared a brief laugh before Jack looked seriously at his little friend. “We're committed now,” he said solemnly, in his normal voice.
          “Yep,” Angelo agreed. “Let's get out of here.”
          “Want to grab lunch?” Jack asked. They were still in the food-court, after all, and Jack had missed several meals already.
          The younger fox shook his head. “No time,” he said. “I wanna get as far from Victor as we can first.”
          “Yeah,” Jack said, thinking. “You're right, lets go.”          The two started towards the middle of the mall.
          Jack's car was almost exactly on the other side of the mall from where they were, so the quickest path was directly through. It was air-conditioned as well, in stark contrast to the oppressive July heat outside. Besides, Jack reasoned, the drug car was within view of the near door, and who knew what the police would do when they discovered it: they may want to question anyone who was parked nearby, or happened to pass closely.
          They walked briskly, but unhurriedly. As before, neither fox spoke as they walked, though Jack noted that Angelo was repeatedly nibbling on his lower lip, an unusual outward sign of anxiety from the 11-year-old.
          Presently, they arrived at the mall exit nearest to where Jack had parked. The older fox slowed as he approached the door, trying to look well beyond it through the glass. Though it had been less than 15 minutes since the call, he was concerned that there might be an overwhelming police response that would lock-down the mall.
          In his head, he knew that even when the drugs were found, it would be extraordinarily impractical to lock down the place and question every patron. Indeed, as the two vulpes exited through the doors, there was only the normal mall traffic to be seen. There was nothing to indicate that the car had even been discovered yet, as far away as they still were from it.
          Jack's car was parked close to the exit, and they quickly reached it. As they got in and Jack started the car, the two friends again made unspoken eye contact. “You want to go see, don't you?” Jack asked with an accusing smile after a moment.
          Angelo's face widened into a grin. “You do too I bet!”
          Jack just smiled back and pulled the car out of the parking spot. He drove the car slowly along, again as if they were new arrivals searching out a convenient open spot, though 2 pairs of vulpine eyes were locked on the portions of the building ahead that were just coming into view.
          The car approached the entrance where they had left the drug car. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, so Jack turned off of the road and into the parking lanes, trying to get closer without looking suspicious. He heard Angelo make a noise as he saw it himself at the same time.
          The car was parked where they had left it. 2 police cars were parked in the open spaces behind and next to it. Several officers and one police dog had their attention focused on the trunk. The dog would be a drug-sniffer, Jack assumed. Hopefully the heroin was not so well-wrapped as to be undetectable by a dog, he thought.
          Jack stopped the car and pretended to gawk at the police, which seemed to him to be the least suspicious thing he could do, then turned the car down the next lane of parking spots, as if still looking. Fortunately, there were no open spots readily visible, as passing them by would have dispelled the ruse he was trying to portray.
          “Let's give them a couple more minutes,” Jack said quietly. “They're... close.”          
          “Mmm-hmm,” Angelo responded. “Would suck if they don't open it, huh?” He punctuated this with a laugh, as if he found the notion suddenly very funny.
          Jack did not reply. He was now wondering what they would do if the police did not in fact open the car. They could not drive it again, as the keys had been locked inside. If it sat there overnight, it would likely be towed, or possibly broken into. If the latter happened, their goal of keeping that bag off the streets would be thwarted.
          As he turned the car down the next row of parking spaces, which happened to lead back towards the drug car, he breathed a sigh of relief: it appeared from his distant vantage point that the trunk was now open. Jack had to fight every instinct so as not to race his car closer, but rather maintained his slow crawl.
          There were now 3 officers at the rear of the drug car, and as Jack inched the car closer, it soon became apparent that the trunk was indeed open. The drug dog was sitting well away with his handler, while another officer nearer the car was talking energetically into his radio, while the others had their attention locked on the interior of the trunk.
          Jack did not linger to gawk this time, but again turned his car down the next row of parked cars before letting out a deep sigh; it suddenly occurred to him that he had been holding his breath.
          “Well, that's it,” the 18-year-old said, his voice audibly shaking.
          “Yeah,” Angelo said, his voice barely above a whisper. Then with some enthusiasm, he continued. “Whatever happens next, at least that crap is off the streets.”
          Jack found that notion comforting, and felt a certain feeling of selfless accomplishment at having done this. Now remained the practicality of getting both of them well away from Victor, and then the fallout from what would happen once the ferret realized he had been double-crossed.
          Once clear of the parking rows, Jack turned the car back onto the road and nonchalantly headed for the mall's exit. When they reached the exit and were back on the main roads, this pretense of remaining inconspicuous was quickly dropped as Jack sped the car in the direction of their apartments.
          “Ok, how are we gonna do this?” Jack said, referring to the next part of the plan.
          “Well, first don't get us killed with your driving,” Angelo said with a smile. Jack laughed and backed the car's speed down to a more reasonable level. The little fox continued: “Then, when we get home, you go to your place and grab as much stuff as you can – anything important or valuable, 'cause you might not get to go back for a while. I'll do the same for my stuff.”
          “No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “I'll go in with you first. I don't want to leave you alone in there.” Even though Victor wouldn't be home for hours, Jack did not want to let the boy out of his sight now.
          Angelo nodded appreciatively. “Ok,” he said, “I don't have a lot anyway, so it will be quick. I'll just pile it all in one trash bag. Then we'll get as much of your stuff as we can fit in here.”
          “No more than an hour, tops,” Jack said. “Whatever is left after an hour... well... it can wait. I want the rest of the day to get the hell away.” Then after a pause he mused, “That will be the easy part.”
          “What's the hard part then?” Angelo said, half-laughing.
          “The hard part is telling my parents,” Jack replied. He had been putting off thinking out that part of the plan, as it had been “first things first” up until now. As fewer and fewer steps remained, he now had to give serious consideration to how they were going to react.
          “If I just bring you home and don't tell them anything,” Jack continued, now talking out the plan in real-time with Angelo, “they'll... well, they'll call the cops. If I tell them everything... they'll still call the cops. If I only tell them a little, then they'll make me tell them everything, and we're back with the cops.”          
          “Yeah,” Angelo agreed somewhat sadly. “I'm pretty much expecting that we'll be talking to the cops tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest.” He looked to Jack with a playful smile. “We'll just leave out the part about me selling pot at schools.”
          “Ok,” Jack said with a chuckle. “I'll leave that out if you leave out me running from the cops in a stolen car!”
          “And racing a train?” Angelo said, now with a laugh. “Ok, I'll leave that out if you leave out me lighting that car on fire!”
          “Deal,” said Jack, laughing along with the younger fox despite the subject matter. He figured it was due to pent-up nervous energy that needed to be released. Then after his laughter quieted down, he said, “The way I see it, we were just the delivery guys, right? I mean, who knows for sure what was in those bags?”
          “Exactly,” replied the kit, even though he had assembled most of them. “We blame it all on Victor. He didn't want us knowing what was in them anyway!”
          Jack looked to his friend somberly. “So, we're going to rat out Victor, huh?”
          Angelo sighed and did not immediately respond. Then: “Yeah, I think we have to. Unless he shoots himself in despair, he will come after us. Somehow.”
          “Right,” Jack said looking back to the road. He certainly had no loyalty to the ferret, in fact he still downright despised him, so had no qualms about putting him away. He likewise agreed with the younger fox that Victor would pursue them relentlessly if he discovered that they had double-crossed him. In any case, this was just another step in the plan that had now been solidified.
          They were now approaching their apartment complex, and both foxes fell silent. As Jack steered the car into the complex, he was glad that there were few cars about. The residents of this complex tended to keep to themselves, but the last thing Jack wanted was for a neighbor to strike up a conversation about them hauling items out of two separate apartments.
          As they got close to their own buildings towards the back of the complex, it appeared even more devoid of cars. Jack pulled into the space right in front of Angelo's door, in the spot Victor usually used. No sooner had the car come to a halt than Angelo opened his door and hopped out. Jack shut off the car and followed the kit up to his door.
          Angelo unlocked the door and the pair went inside. The apartment was silent and the lights were off. Jack pushed the door closed behind him, but did not latch it shut. Angelo slowly, almost hesitantly, walked to the middle of the room and stopped. Something was clearly on his mind, Jack thought.
          “Should we...” The kit began, turning back towards Jack, “you know... grab anything else while we're here?” His ears were halfway drooped as he said this.
          Jack pondered this for a moment, then chuckled. It would surely be justice, of a sort, to get some payback from Victor. The ferret had often spoken about how he did not use banks, so even with the recent drug purchase, there should be some cash around, or even some of the gold coins that he used for longer-term storage.
          This reminded Jack that Victor had given him a small cache of gold coins to hide away in his own apartment, for safe-keeping away from the ferret's own residence. He would make sure to grab those with the other items he wanted to recover. After a moment's more thought, Jack shook his head. “Nah, let's get out of here clean. I mean, it would suck if Victor tried to get us arrested for stealing from him, right?”
          Angelo laughed out loud. “Yeah, the fucker would definitely do that too!”
          Jack smiled. “Go get your stuff, I'll wait here.”
          “Be right back!” Angelo said brightly and dashed around the corner and down the hallway.
          Jack walked towards the center of the living room where Angelo had been standing. He looked down towards the hallway, where the light was now switched on, and listened in silence to the boy rummaging around in his closet-bedroom.
          Behind Jack, the apartment's door flung open heavily. Jack spun around and was face-to-face with Victor. The ferret had a surprised look on his face. “Victor!” Jack said loudly, hoping Angelo would hear.
          “Jack,” Victor replied, sounding unsure. “What... what's going on? I see your car outside, but not the Russian's. What happened... was the car there?”
          “Victor,” Jack repeated nervously. “I... I thought you were at work.”
          “I was,” Victor replied, kicking the door closed behind him and walking past Jack to the kitchen. “Then I figured, why stay there all day when my life's work was coming together? So you got the car, right? So where is it... where is Angelo?” He looked down the hallway and bellowed “Angelo!” He turned back to Jack and walked back into the living room. “What happened?”
          Jack instinctively backed up a few paces as Victor encroached upon him. “Calm down Victor,” Jack said.
          “Calm down? What the fuck do you mean “calm down”? Where's the fucking car?” His voice was starting to get an audible tremble to it, Jack noted. “Did you get my H or didn't you?”
          “Yeah, sure,” Jack stammered, his eyes shifting between looking at Victor and looking towards the hallway where Angelo still had not emerged. “It's... it's just that...”
          “Wha... what?” Victor said, now with a nervous sort of laugh in his voice. Jack knew from experience that the ferret was close to exploding with rage. “Where's my shit, Jack?” Then turning back towards the hallway he again shouted, “Angelo!”
          “Come on, Vic,” Jack said, his own voice audibly trembling nervously now. “Just sit down and we'll...”
          “Sit down?” Victor repeated, a hint of panic now creeping into his tone, which Jack had never heard from him before. “Jack, just tell me what the fuck is going on! This is my life here!” He began pacing rapidly in front of Jack as he continued, his voice getting more animated as he went on. “You got the car, right, so why not bring it back here? There's no cops around, so what?”
          Jack took another step back from Victor, to where he almost had his back to the door. The ferret was looking alternately at the floor and at Jack as he went on.
          “Something's going on, just tell me,” he said loudly, as if arguing with himself. “I mean I'm sitting there at work thinking everything's going to plan, meanwhile you're back here in the middle of the day...”
          Victor stopped abruptly, paw in mid-gesture, pointing at the ceiling. He slowly turned to face Jack and lowered his paw to point at the fox. Jack's eyes went wide, his ears perked fully.
          “You...” Victor said, his voice now conversational again, but with a tone that suggested he had come to a realization. “You didn't expect me to be here. You thought... I'd be at work!” In a flash, the ferret reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a small pistol which he pointed right at Jack's head. “Where the fuck is my car?” he yelled.
          Jack froze, staring at the gun. A random thought entered his mind as he looked into the dark opening in its front, and a rather out-of-place thought given the circumstances: it looked like the kind that you would see a movie spy carry.
          “Hey Vic, now... easy,” was all Jack could muster. His heart was pounding now as the gun's muzzle loomed in his sight.
          “Where the fuck is my car?” Victor shouted again, though a little less frantically. “Don't think I won't blow your head into my front yard.”
          “Come on,” Jack said, “Put the gun down and we can talk.”
          “Talk?” Victor said incredulously. “What... what's there to talk about? Are you... you holding out on me? You want a bigger share? What?”
          “No Vic,” Jack replied, trying to sound soothing in hopes it would calm Victor down. “It's nothing like that...”
          “Then what is it?” Victor said, his voice edging into hysteria. “I already made you a full partner, what more do you want?” Once more he turned to the hallway off to his right and yelled, “Angelo!”
          Jack was about to say something when Victor again froze after calling out Angelo's name. He turned back towards Jack with a manic smile.
          “Angelo,” Victor said to Jack, chuckling, “You just had to take him with you, didn't you. He'll tell me where it is. If you're counting on me needing to keep you alive, well you're wrong!” The ferret's voice was escalating to a near scream now. “Angelo will tell me! He'll tell me if I have to use a fucking blowtorch on him!”
          “Put the gun down, Victor,” Angelo said. Victor and Jack both turned their heads towards the hallway, where Angelo stood, pointing a pistol at Victor – the gun that Victor had left unlocked “just in case”.
          The three stood in sort of a triangle: Victor in the middle, pointing his gun at Jack ten feet or so in front of him, and Angelo standing off to Victor's right side, slightly closer but still out of arm's reach. The 11-year-old held Victor's revolver in both paws, straight out.
          Victor coolly turned his head to Angelo, though he left his gun trained on the older fox by the front door. “Well well,” he said conversationally, “Look who finally shows up. And you're gonna threaten me with my own gun?”
          “Yeah,” Angelo said flatly. “Now put that gun down.”
          “You ungrateful little shit,” Victor said, equally monotone, as if he was chiding the young fox. “After all I've done for you, you're gonna point a gun at me.”
          “After all you've done for me?” Angelo said, anger now creeping into the little fox's voice. “I should kill you because of 'all you've done for me'.”
          “Look at you!” Victor said, and it was almost a command. “You would never have even touched a gun before me. And before Jack, I used to drive you to those schoolyards, remember? I've seen you walking like King Shit around there, guys there afraid to cross you, and girls hanging off of you. Remember? That's all 'cause of me: I made you what you are!” Angelo said nothing, but worked his lower jaw slightly.
          Jack, watching the two, pulled up on his shirt slightly to allow free access to the knife in the back of his pants. Victor must have seen this movement out of the corner of his eye, because his head turned back to Jack and he flexed the arm that held his gun, while shaking his head at the red fox: a warning not to move.
          “No,” warned Angelo as Victor did this. The ferret turned his head back to the kit. “Just... put the gun down,” Angelo repeated.
          “No, I don't think so,” Victor said, wagging his gun slightly in defiance. “What are you going to do with that thing, pup?”
          “Don't think for a second that I won't kill you,” Angelo replied. “That will be one more thing you taught me, huh?” His tone was the cold, flat tone he used on deliveries with troublesome customers, Jack noted.
          Victor chuckled, and turned his attention back to Jack. “Where's my heroin, Jack?” he asked calmly, then turned back to Angelo. “Where's my heroin?”
          “You put that gun down and we'll talk,” the grey-furred fox kit said. “But I'm not going to let you hurt him.”
          Victor's eyebrows raised at this, stretching the brown fur of his facial mask. “You're not gonna let...” He turned to Jack with a sudden look of realization again. “Hurt him?” The ferret laughed heartily, which unsettled Jack.
          “Now I get it!” Victor said happily, looking between Jack and Angelo. “You two!” He turned back to Jack, gun still leveled at the fox's face. “So Jack, tell me: how does his cock taste? Is it as good as that doctor fantasizes it is?”
          “What?” Jack exclaimed loudly, then looked to Angelo who still had his attention on the ferret.
          “You really are a piece of shit, Vic, you know that?” Angelo said angrily.
          “You ungrateful fuck!” Victor yelled, switching extremes of emotion yet again. “I made you! You'd be nothing without me!” The ferret looked back and forth between the 2 foxes again, visibly fuming, before a thought seemed to come to him that he found amusing and he calmed down somewhat. “In fact,” he continued, “you'd still be at home with your mommy, living your boring suburban life, without me.”
          “What?” Jack and Angelo both said, almost simultaneously. Jack looked to Angelo who was now looking back at him, brow furrowed slightly in confusion.
          Victor laughed again at their reaction. Then, in mocking pantomime, he put his free paw to his mouth like a small cub who had said the wrong thing. “Whoops,” he said, “Did I just say that?”
          Jack and Angelo again exchanged glances, Angelo also making sure to keep his gun trained on Victor. The ferret watched this silent conversation with amusement.
          “What,” said Victor, now with derision in his voice, “I thought you were supposed to be smart, Angelo. You haven't figured it out by now?”
          Jack watched Angelo carefully. The young kit's blue eyes were searching Victor's face, while his own betrayed that same hint of confusion. Despite the gun to his face, Victor was trying to assert control of the situation, as he always did.
          Worst of all, Jack noted, Angelo's arms were starting to wobble a bit, as the constant weight of the gun was beginning to wear on him. He still held the gun trained on the ferret, but it was probably pointed to his neck or shoulders by now.
          After a few seconds of silence following his last jab, Victor continued, starting off with a disappointed sigh. “Ok then,” he said, turning his head back to Jack, “does this help: 'What's that Mrs. Cole? You don't want to drive in this blizzard? Ok, I'll take you to the hospital to see your boy. I'm not afraid of driving in snow!'” He turned back to Angelo slowly, making eye contact out of the corner of his eye well before his head had fully turned. “Only she never made it, did she?”
          “What... what are you...” Angelo said nervously, the gun in his paws now pointed towards Victor's chest.
          Victor laughed a ridiculing cackle. “You dumb fuck!” he shouted. “She didn't abandon you: I killed her!” Angelo's eyes went wide with disbelief, which Victor laughed at again, before moderating his tone once more.
          “Not right away, of course,” the ferret said, now looking back to Jack. “First we went and had some fun, if you know what I mean. Oh, she wasn't into it at first. But it's amazing what a gun to the head does for a vixen's motivation.” He punctuated this with another cackling laugh.
          Victor continued, now in a conversational tone, like he was giving driving directions. “So... 2 pops to the head... a quick dump in Lake Royal... and back to her place to make it look like she skipped town. Pretty simple really.”
          “Why?” Jack asked, his voice almost a whisper.
          “I needed a delivery monkey,” Victor said calmly, before turning back to Angelo. “And I knew if I fed you enough of that orphanage bullshit, that you'd come running to old Uncle Vic; rather than spend your life in such a 'horrible horrible place'. Well, you didn't disappoint.”
          Angelo's face still had an expression of shocked disbelief, and the gun in his paws was now slowly moving left-right in his grip. Victor nodded at the boy. “It was that very gun, too. How does that feel?” The ferret looked between Jack and Angelo again, now looking more with his eyes than with head movement.
          What happened next seemed to move in slow motion: Angelo looked from Victor to the gun in his young paws for an instant, then back to the ferret. His expression changed from shock to hatred as his arms found renewed strength and he raised the pistol back up.
          Victor, seeing Angelo's momentary distraction, abruptly turned on one heel until his gun was pointed squarely at Angelo.
          For a brief instant, fox and ferret locked eyes over the guns they held: the young fox's blue eyes filled with hatred, the ferret's black eyes filled with mocking amusement. The moment passed.
          A single gunshot tore through the apartment like a bolt of lightning.
          

To be continued...
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