Chapter 1: Pigs
Chapter Text
You house-proud town mouse
Ha, ha, charade you are…
Autumnvale, New Hampshire. Population 956 at the last census. Diverse population of humans and animalfolk. A large agricultural community. Several murders for a town its size.
In a bigger city, the murder rate of Autumnvale would be about average, perhaps slightly higher. In a small town? It was abnormally large. And the baffling thing was, no one could put their finger on the exact reasons why. There was no organized crime in the area, and the poverty rate hovered around a meager 3.5%. It seemed that things simply had a tendency to spiral out of control around the town, and fast.
Most of it could be attributed to the Nightwalkers, vicious apex predators that stalked the outskirts of town after dark in the winter months. A few foolish out-of-towers or staggering drunks ended up wandering the village after curfew over the years. These same people were found the next morning, or rather, shredded scraps of their clothes and the occasional picked clean bone were found in patches of crimson-soaked snow the next morning.
But even with this avoidable danger, there were… “incidents.” Autumnvale’s mayor, Caine Mason, insisted that any casualties were referred to as “incidents” until proven otherwise. In fairness, he was occasionally correct. A young man who fell off a roof he was trying to fix and broke his neck was an incident, or a woman that stepped on a rusty nail and died from lockjaw two weeks later was an incident. But, there were times when even their silver-tongued mayor had no choice but to declare something much more suspicious than an “incident.”
Gangle, the owner of the local black box theater, was out for her morning walk in early January. When the sun rose to a safe enough height that the Nightwalkers slunk back to the woods, the ribbon-woman would go for a walk around town, practicing her lines aloud. It helped her remember them better if she actually got a chance to say them. That was the funny thing about plays. Just reading them lost almost 80% of their essence, you needed to perform them, or at the very least, watch a performance.
“‘There is none worthy, respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods will have fulfill'd their secret purposes-’” she spoke angrily. She then paused, looked at her lines again, and tried them again in a more heartbroken tone. She hummed and read the rest of her monologue.
They were doing Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale to celebrate the cold season’s onset. Gangle was playing Paulina, who was always her favorite character in that play. A lady who had the guts to stand up to a paranoid king… pretty inspiring stuff.
A crow flapped its way over to the nearby signpost, where the town map was held, grappling with something in its beak, a large berry with the stem still attached. Gangle smiled at the large black bird.
“How now, why comes ye here, envoy of the night?” she said, giggling at her imitation of Elizabethean writing. “You find something good to eat, buddy? Whatcha got?”
She looked a little closer at what the crow was holding. It was shiny and mostly white, the stem a pinkish-red. What sort of berry was white this time of year?
The crow flipped the object around in its beak to get a better grip. Gangle put a ribbon to her mouth. A black spot rimmed with a circle of blue sat on the other side of the object.
An eyeball. The crow had someone’s pretty blue eye clutched in its beak.
“Oh my god…” Gangle whispered. The crow blinked a beady eye at her before flying off to the treeline at the end of the path. There, an entire murder of crows had gathered, croaking and squawking irritably at one another and clambering over an object up in the branches. They pecked bits of red offal from the central mass and swallowed them in a few toothless gulps.
Gangle hugged her libretto close to her body, turned and ran for the center of town.
Pomni woke up hungry. That was pretty common for most people, but it was becoming annoyingly common for her to open her eyes, regain some semblance of consciousness, and for her stomach to immediately let out a ghastly, soupy rumble. Pomni growled right back it, throwing her quilt off of her body.
“Ugh, I know, shut uuuuuup.”
She rolled out of bed, wincing at how cold the wooden floor was on her bare feet. Her studio apartment had a radiator by her bed at the very least, but that did nothing to warm up the rest of it. Her pajamas, a pair of charcoal gray sleep shorts and a pastel yellow university t-shirt weren’t exactly warm either. She dreaded how cold the toilet seat was going to be…
She performed her necessaries (the seat was unsurprisingly freezing), brushed her teeth and hair, took her medication, then went back to her bed, taking her quilt and wrapping herself up. She checked her watch. 9:17.
Her studio apartment was Spartan, but clean and free of bugs. The main room consisted of her bed by the radiator at the far side. On the right wall, the door to her closet of a bathroom and a tiny kitchenette with a gas stove and sink. On the left, her desk and easel, the slotted doors to her pantry, and her clothes closet.
When she took this graduate assistantship, she hadn’t expected the ritz, but it really sucked to experience the January chill. Autumnvale was a great little town, but it was stupidly cold and dark in the winter. Full dark fell around the 7 PM curfew, and if she wasn’t back in her room with the door shut and barred by then, she was apparently at risk of running into Nightwalkers, whatever the hell those were. With a name like that, they definitely were to be avoided…
She opened the slotted doors of her pantry, where she also had her built-in ironing board that she never used and trash can. She reached on her tiptoes to grab her tote of dry food and snacks from the top shelf. Maybe some trail mix or some crackers would tide her over for a bit so she could stay in and draw-
Nothing. She was out of dry food. The only thing that remained were a few packets of ketchup and mayo leftover from the last time she got a sandwich at the café. She made a sort of warble of defeat and rested her forehead on the tote. Nothing to eat. Nothing to tide her over so she could draw. Drawing. You know, the thing her school was fucking paying her for-
“Screw it.”
She grabbed all the packets of sauce and squirted them into her mouth, white and red mixing together into a pink mess that she swallowed in one go. She licked her lips.
“…Not terrible. Not filling though…”
She sighed. She would have to go get something from the café. She liked the café, especially the waitress Ragatha, but she was behind on her drawings. She had a chiaroscuro drawing to do in pencil by the end of the week, and she was running behind on the acrylic painting due in February. It may be January, but those took time!
Ugh. Fine, whatever. She’d go to the café quickly and order the cheapest thing on the menu. What was that, toast? She could eat toast. …Maybe she could eat more than toast. Nothing too pricey, waffles or French toast and a coffee at most. She needed to have enough in her piggy bank to purchase more supplies if she ran out. She was getting a little bit low on green paint, since landscapes, wouldn’t you know it, needed a lot of green.
She sighed and stretched, her stomach gurgling again.
“I just gave you eggs, vinegar and tomato paste, pipe down!” Pomni groused. You really became aware of how demanding your stomach was when you didn’t have someone around making sure you ate three square meals every day.
Pomni opened her closet, taking off her pajamas. She put her undergarments in the hamper but set her shirt and sleep shorts aside. If they smelled clean, there wasn’t much point in only wearing them for one night, that just filled the laundry basket faster. She put on some fresh underwear and tugged on a long sleeve black shirt and some insulated black snow pants. She covered her shirt with a white zip-up wool fleece, and for the third layer, her off-white puffer jacket. She pulled on some thermal socks and her black snow boots, and finally put on her gray university beanie. Getting dressed just to go outside in the winter was exhausting, but this would hopefully be the only time she’d have to. She slung her purse over her shoulder and pulled the board blocking her door loose, setting it down carefully, then she turned the deadbolt and slid the door chain out of its track, opening the door to the outside.
Pomni’s breath rose in puffs of vapor as she locked the door to her apartment. It had snowed a few inches that weekend and hadn’t quite warmed up enough to melt anything, so the ground and the rooftops were still blanketed with white. She carefully took the steps down from the second floor, gripping the cold wood railing. Her landlord was good about salting the steps, but she was convinced one of these days she might slip on a hidden patch of ice and smash her tailbone, so she always clung to the railing. Once she reached the ground she breathed a steaming sigh of relief and crunched down the road.
She heard the commotion coming from town about halfway up the road. Was there an open-air market today? It seemed too cold for that… she walked a little bit faster. She hurried past the farms, where piebald cows grazed and flicked their tails in the snowy pastures. Pomni sometimes liked to stop and pet them if they were close enough, but not today. She turned the corner onto Autumnvale’s main road, and saw the telltale blue and red lights emanating from the main square.
She gulped, wiping her cold, damp nose on her pocket handkerchief, and walked a little closer to the hullabaloo. Townsfolk were gathered on the main road’s sidewalks, some talking worriedly to each other in small groups, others staring at the commotion up ahead. The forest edge at the far side of the road was cordoned off by yellow tape tied to orange and silver plastic pylons. A few men and women in blue jackets and silver badges stood around the perimeter, a few of them talking with civilians. Behind the tape, three men were talking to the ribbon-woman that ran the theater, Pomni couldn’t quite remember her name. She looked very shaken up and might have been crying, but it was too far away to tell.
“Pomni? Is that you, hun?”
A familiar voice made the art student spin about. Ragatha hurried across the road towards her, carefully to avoid slipping on the icy snow. Pomni almost didn’t recognize Ragatha out of her usual waitress uniform, but the patch over her right eye tipped her off. She had on an elegant purple peacoat with black buttons and a Pompom hat dappled with white and pink. Her rich red curls bounced as she approached Pomni.
“Hey hun… You okay?” she said, her warm and pleasant voice tinged with worry.
“Yeah, I’m fine. What’s all this..? I just got here.” Pomni asked.
Ragatha let out a sigh with a pained expression. “Oh, Pomni, it’s horrible. Did you ever meet Kaufmo?”
“No?”
“He’s… He was a comedian, he would do shows at Gangle’s playhouse sometimes. But he struggled a ton with all different sorts of things, you know, mental issues and… and he…”
Ragatha’s eye welled up with tears and she stifled a sob with a pink-gloved hand.
“Oh no…” Pomni had never heard of Kaufmo, but seeing Ragatha like this immediately motivated her to throw her arms around her friend. The taller woman hugged Pomni back, squeezing her tight against her shaking chest. Pomni hated hugging people, or letting anyone into her personal space if she could help it. Her shrink told her it had something to do with unwanted stimulation, whatever that meant.
Wasn’t wholly unpleasant. Ragatha was nice and warm, and smelled good. She might ask for a hug again sometime.
Ragatha eventually let go and wiped her eye on the back of her glove.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to just fall apart like that… I guess you never expect something like this to actually happen until it does. Poor Gangle was the one that found him… I closed the café as soon as I heard…”
“No, I completely understand.” Pomni said, but swore to the heavens internally. It was a rotten, selfish thought, but she was really banking on grabbing a quick breakfast and going back home to work.
“Do you need anything, Pomni? Have you eaten?” Ragatha asked, wiping her eyes again.
“Uh… No, I’m-I’m fine.” Pomni replied, despite her stomach lurching in despair. Ragatha was in no state to be working right now, no matter how painfully stupid hungry she was. Oh god, she was hungry…
Ragatha nodded. “Okay. I’m gonna head home and lay down. I’ll call you and let you know if I’m feeling well enough to open the café tomorrow. Bye for now, honey.”
“Bye, Ragatha. Sorry about all this.” Pomni replied.
The redhead gave a fragile smile before sniffing loudly, either from the cold or her tears, clearing her throat and heading down the sidewalk with her hands in her coat pockets.
Pomni watched her friend go for a moment before looking back at the crime scene. A suicide… How horrible. She couldn’t even fathom how awful it must be for the people who were close to Kaufmo. Or for Kaufmo himself. Everything being so empty and black for him that the only option was… She trembled a little just imagining sinking to a place like that.
“You know what the cops are saying, right?”
Pomni jumped a bit when a wolfman appeared at her side. He was a good six feet tall, black fur with a notch in his ear. Curiously, he also had an eyepatch, although it wasn’t nearly as elegant as Ragatha’s, being plain brown leather. He put a cigarette in his teeth, sparking a match with a single flick of his thumb-claw.
“Uh… no, I don’t. What are they, um… saying?”
The wolf lit his cigarette and shook out his match, flicking the burnt out remnants into the snow. He took a long drag, the end lighting up orange, and expelled the two jets of smoke out of his nostrils. Pomni waved her hand in front of her face. Cigarettes smelled goddamn nasty.
“Short drop and a sudden stop,” the wolf said, making a tugging motion above his neck and making a mock choking noise from his throat. “They said the crows were going at him by the time they found his body up a tree.”
Pomni frowned. She didn’t want to be near this bozo anymore. “Thank you for telling me that.” she said dryly, before walking further into the crowd. The wolf with the eyepatch watched her leave a moment before spitting onto the road and taking another pull on his cigarette.
Pomni slipped in between people, looking for somewhere, anywhere, where she could find some food. She had gone whole days without food in the past, but she regretted it every time. She never got any good artwork done when her mind was flashing her favorite foods in delicious technicolor through her brain, and her stomach hurt so badly she would sometimes just lay down and hold herself. By the end, she would feel like she was floating a couple inches off the ground, and would scarf down one of those Hungry Man specials at the café, meant for workers pulling a 14 hour shift at a sawmill. The kind with three fluffy pancakes with butter and hot syrup and two golden over easy eggs on toast, and hot, juicy sausage and crispy bacon and crunchy hashbrowns that went perfectly with ketchup… UGH, she was so hungry!
She looked at any of the shops on the street for something to eat, until her eyes fell onto the sign on one building
Kingston Charcuterie
Beef, Pork, Poultry, Lamb
Made fresh daily
Bingo.
Pomni entered the butcher shop, the bell above her tinkling. She stomped the snow off her boots on the welcome mat. She wasn’t much of a meat eater, but options were slim and she was hungry. She wanted a big sandwich, maybe roast beef or chicken with the works, lettuce, tomatoes, Mayo or mustard, maybe some horseradish if it was a roast beef sandwich, all served on a big fat Kaiser roll… ugh, that would hit the spot.
The shop appeared to be empty at the moment. A few prime cuts of meat sat in a display cabinet. A brisket, a London broil, a big T-bone steak she could never afford, a long chain of sausage links… She touched the plastic case longingly. Her stomach made a hideous noise.
She stood up and looked over the counter. There were a few white paper bags in a neat stack, presumably for putting customer orders in. A knife set hung on some hooks beside a stack of cutting boards, sitting washed and damp in a deep-basin sink. One of the cleavers had a blade that looked like it was bigger than Pomni’s head. For cutting up elephants, should the need arise.
Her eyes fell upon a bell with a sign next to it. “Ring for service.” Pomni stood on her toes and pressed the bell. It made a satisfying tingggggg sound. She would have pressed it multiple times if her superego had allowed it.
“Um, hello? Anyone there?” Pomni peeked around the counter as best she could. There appeared to be a door leading out back, but it was shut. Maybe the owner was out there?
She rang the bell again. “Excuse me? I’m sorry to bother you, but you’re the only open shop right now. Could I please get something to eat?”
She thought she heard a voice from outside.
“Uh… w-what?”
“I said ‘I’m outside!’” came a voice so deep it was almost subterranean. “Come on back, I don’t like yelling across my shop.”
Pomni gulped. Aw, crap… If she wasn’t so famished, she’d probably have said “That’s okay, I’ll come back later!” and left, never to return. She hated having to jump through hurdles at stores. It always made her really uncomfortable when some poor employee had to do extra work just for her. Pay, say thank you, get out, that was her motto.
But her stomach overpowered her nerves, and she opened the counter hatch and headed towards the closed back door.
The person behind the door barked out another order. “You need gloves and a hairnet! They’re by the door.”
Pomni looked around, and saw a pair of boxes, one full of disposable clear plastic gloves and the other nylon hairnets. Pomni removed her beanie and put it in her coat pocket, sliding on the hairnet and putting on the gloves. It took a second since two fingers kept slipping into one finger hole, but she got it after a few tries. She then swallowed and opened the door to the outside. She promptly gasped.
Outside appeared to be a small courtyard behind the back of a barn. The double doors hung open, and inside, the barn appeared to have been converted into a meat cutting room. A frozen pig carcass hung from a chain on the ceiling, upside down and neatly split open down the middle. Its insides had been carefully removed and placed into bloody buckets, one for the heart, kidneys and other small organs, one for the liver and two for the intestines. The butcher himself was busily working on removing one of the dead pig’s back legs, carefully yet firmly cutting off the choicest bits of meat to place in another bucket.
The butcher appeared to be a purple rabbitman, wide and tall. He stood a little over six feet, burly chested and with thick forearms. He had on a brown butcher’s smock and thick black rubber gloves, both garments sticky with blood, over a white collared shirt and white pants with heavy, steel toed boots. He had his long ears tied off in a hairnet. He finished carving off the pig’s flank, blood dribbling out of the fresh wound and into a drainage grate on the floor. He placed the frozen flank, the leg still attached, into a waiting bucket, then turned to look at Pomni.
His eyes were a penetrating lunar yellow with black pupils. His nose appeared to be hidden under purple fur. He smiled, revealing a set of huge, fanglike teeth that seemed to be almost endless in number.
“How can I help you this morning, dear customer?~” he rumbled. His voice was like a growling alligator.
“Uh-” Pomni began. “Uh- a-are you- uh- are you open?” Smooth.
“Sign says open, right?” the butcher rumbled. He rinsed the knife he had been using to cut off the pig’s flank in a nearby hot tap and put it back in the knife block. He traded it for a massive cleaver, twirling it in his paw.
“Uh… well yeah, you just weren’t at your… uh… counter.”
“Most people don’t come ‘til noon. Lunch rush. You must be craving it bloody.”
He said this with another razortooth grin. His lupine eyes reminded Pomni of Little Red Riding Hood. “My, grandmother, what big eyes you have.” …Did that make her Little Red? At least this guy didn’t want to eat her. Hopefully. He must have been a crossbreed, since she’d never seen a rabbit person with teeth like that.
“I’m… really hungry. Uh, and you’re open. And the café is closed- did you hear about what happened?”
The butcher reared back and chopped into the pig’s other leg with the cleaver, making a loud and meaty THWOCK sound.
“Yup. It was the comedian, right? Sucks to hear.”
“Yeah… uh, do you-“
The butcher took another mighty swing with his cleaver, and there was a clean snap sound. He must have cut right through a bone, how strong did you have to be to slice through a damn bone in one go…?
“Do I what?” The butcher grunted.
“Do you recommend anything?” Pomni finished.
This earned her another shark-like smile from the butcher.
“You gotta be a little more specific than that. You talking about my preferred meat? My preferred cut? My favorite method of cooking?”
Another huge swing and snap, and the butcher exhaled, rinsing off his cleaver at the hot tap before swapping it for the smaller knife. He examined the blade, tutted and removed a sharpening rod from the block as well, scraping the knife on it.
Pomni swallowed. “Erm… I guess… Damn, I don’t know. I didn’t think there’d be a ton of options. I was kinda just hoping to get a sandwich…”
“That’s the best part of butchery. So many options, no waste. Take a look at Wilbur here.” The butcher nudged the pig carcass with the handle of his sharpening rod, which swung lazily. “I’m not throwing any of him away. His shoulder? I can make steak and mince out of it. His loin? Spare ribs, rib racks and pork chops. His legs? Diced pork, stir-fry, leg steak, and more. When I clean off all his pork and ham, I’m gonna sell his bones to be ground into fertilizer, and I’m gonna see if they can make his trotters into gelatin. I can even make honeycomb tripe out of his stomach and sell his other vitals to make dog food. He’s feeding dozens of people and animals, and helping farmers too.”
Pomni’s stomach ached at the descriptions of meat the butcher described. What she wouldn’t give to sink her teeth into a hot, juicy pork chop with applesauce right about now… But she was also pleasantly surprised at how resourceful this fellow was. As he got back to work cutting off the flank, she observed how nimble and delicate his knife work was. It reminded her of how she used a pencil or a brush or a palette knife to create her sketches and paintings.
He was an artist. Just in a different and decidedly more morbid way.
“Uh, to tell you the truth Mister, uh… Mister Kingston, I-”
The butcher let out a dark chortle. It would have been spine-chilling to hear a laugh like that in the dark.
“Nah. Mr. Kingston is my dad. I’m Jax. What’s your name?”
“Uh… Pomni. I’m a grad student. I’m here on an art scholarship, I’m renting that apartment past the farms.”
The butcher, evidently named Jax, tilted his head back.
“Ahhhh.~ Art, huh? Interesting. Who’s your favorite artist?”
Pomni blinked. She expected the reaction she always got when people learned her major. “What kind of work can you get with an art degree?” You know, the one thing you DON’T ask a student? But she was completely disarmed by this question.
“Uh… Oh, gosh, um… I uh…” she stammered.
“I’m a fan of darker stuff, personally. Big surprise. You know Francis Bacon? He’s a favorite of mine. Not just ‘cause of his name.” Jax let out that same dark chuckle.
Pomni giggled, both from surprise and from the bad pun. She really hadn’t expected to be so charmed by this guy, especially since he had on an apron damp with pig’s blood. Plus, how many people had she met that could just casually mention Francis Bacon..? Okay, several, but most of them were artists like her.
“Um… since we’re talking about bacon, do you think I could order that sandwich..? I think I know what I want now.” Pomni said.
“Sure. Lemme just wrap things up here and-”
Inside the shop, the bell above the door jangled and several pairs of feet clomped on the wood floor.
“Mr. Kingston? This is Chief Detective Sutler, Autumnvale Police Department. Are you in?”
Pomni felt her heart skip a beat. Oh god, the police? She couldn’t handle the cops right now. She had work she needed to do, if they pulled her in for questioning, she could be stuck in some dingy interrogation room for hours… She thought about running, but there was only one way in or out of the butcher shop. She gulped and looked at Jax. He rolled his eyes and put a gloved hand on his hip, his left hand still holding the French knife he was using to remove the choicest bits of meat from the pig.
“Yeah, I’m in the back. Gloves and a hairnet, please.” he shouted.
Pomni had to stop herself from crying out “NO DON’T!” The footsteps were moving towards the back door, oh no, where could she-?
There were three wooden barrels on the left wall of the courtyard, about four feet tall each. They were stamped in green ink across the front.
Sinclair Fertilizer Plant
Attn: Jurgis Žukauskas
1370 Ellabell Pkwy
Dock 3
Thetford, VT
05043
She could easily hide behind those if she crouched. So Pomni hastily backstepped and then ducked behind the barrels. Jax watched her out of the corner of one of his moonlike eyes before he walked forward a bit, past the barrels, so the detectives wouldn’t walk past them and catch a glimpse of her.
She prayed her growling stomach wouldn’t give her away.
“And how can I help you gentlemen today?” she heard Jax say.
“Good morning, Mr. Kingston. These are my colleagues, Detective Sergeants Beauregard and Wexley.” the first detective, Pomni remembered his name was Sutler, said.
“Morning to you both. I’m assuming you're here about what happened to Kaufmo.” Jax rumbled.
“Yes we are, unfortunately. We found him deceased at the edge of the woods this morning. He was hung by his neck from a pine tree.”
Pomni heard Jax sigh.
“Yeah. It’s a damn shame. He made a lot of people happy over the years. Me included. You ever hear his routine about the diner?”
“I’m afraid not,” Sutler continued. “But I agree that his death was a tragedy.”
“Death. You mean suicide?” Jax inquired.
“Well you see, Mr. Kingston-” Sutler began.
“Jax.”
“Mr. Kingston,” Sutler continued. “There’s a detail we’ve been trying to keep hidden from the public. Mr. Kaufmo wasn’t just hung. His arms were slit open, elbow to palm.”
“Fuck,” Jax replied. “That’s grim. Why keep it a secret though? I’ve heard of people taking multiple different options to end their lives if the first fails. Sad but true.”
“Because the coroner informed us that, from the angle of the wounds, it looks like those cuts weren’t self-inflicted.”
There was a pause. Pomni shivered.
“So, you think someone sliced open his arms, bled him out and hung him from a tree to make it look like a suicide?” Jax said after a moment. “Okay. So why come to me?”
One of the other detectives spoke up. He had an accent from the big city. “Because we found this, about a hundred feet away, hidden under a rock.”
Pomni peered through a tiny gap in the barrels. The detectives, two men and one goat, stood in a semicircle. Sutler, the leader, was a man with silvery hair, steely brown eyes and a handlebar mustache over his upper lip. He had on a long, tan duster. The other two, Beauregard and Wexley, she wasn’t sure which was which, were in blue cop parkas. The human was a slightly heavyset man with a wide mouth and a beanie displaying his badge, and the goat was in a brown ushanka with the ear flaps down, rainbow-tinted aviators over his eyes and a toothpick in his teeth. None of them had put on gloves or hairnets.
The heavyset cop held a large plastic evidence baggie containing a carving knife and some flecks of dirt.
“That’s one of your knives, right?” The goat officer said, flicking his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.
“I’m not sure, maybe.” Jax replied evenly. “I’ll have to check the make. But you do know I sell knives in my shop, right? Doesn’t mean it belongs to me.”
“No one is accusing you of anything, Mr. Kingston.” Sutler said, raising his hands. “But if it did come from your shop, we need to know. Do you want to take a look?”
“Yeah, lemme see.” Jax took a step towards the officers, but they tensed, the goat officer even hovering a hand over his sidearm.
“After you put that knife down, Mr. Kingston.” Sutler said, nodding towards the French knife Jax held in his left paw, still stained with blood.
“Ahhh, I’m sorry, officers. Didn’t mean to frighten you.” Jax said, his tone poisonously sweet. “Here.”
The rabbitman turned and threw the knife through the open barn door, where it landed with a noisy clang into the sink beneath the hot tap.
“Bullseye. That better?” Jax replied, smiling wide enough to show each and every one of his fangs.
The heavyset cop shook his head and handed the butcher the evidence bag. Jax took it and examined it carefully, holding it up to the light, turning it this way and that.
“Hmmm… yup, this does seem like one of mine. I get these special from the ironworks. You can tell ‘cause the blade will shimmer like the surface of a bubble in the light.”
Jax handed the wide-mouthed cop back the evidence bag. “You can have a look at my sales log if you want, that’ll tell you everyone that’s bought a knife within the past year at least.”
“What time was sunrise this morning, Beauregard?” the goat officer asked.
“Safe sunlight started around 7:23 AM.” the officer with the evidence bag replied.
“Where were you starting around that time, Mr. Kingston?” the goat officer, Wexley by process of elimination, asked.
Jax looked up at the sky, muttering to himself. “Well, let’s see. I get up around six, have my coffee and breakfast, feed the animals in the barn… get here around 7:45… 7:23 AM…that would put me around my house, on the main highway, near the Snapfinger Creek bridge. Roughly.”
Pomni was, again, impressed. She never kept track of the time that closely unless she had an assignment due. Knowing your whole routine down to the minute without a watch, that took brainpower.
“Can anyone place you there?” Sutler asked.
“Doubt it. Didn’t see many people out yet and I live by myself.” Jax replied.
“Convenient, but unsurprising.” Wexley said.
Pomni felt a hot wash of anger. They were already accusing Jax. Probably because they thought they were alone with him. Maybe it was her already being irritable from not eating, but she felt the words bubbling up her throat before she could swallow them back down.
“Hey!”
The officers and Jax all turned towards the barrels, Wexley’s smirk disappearing.
“The hell..?” Beauregard muttered.
Pomni got up and walked out into the courtyard. She was acutely aware of her stature, but she was too upset to care.
“Did you dust that for prints?” she demanded.
“Miss?” Sutler inquired.
“I said, did you dust for prints? Fingerprints! On the knife. You’re supposed to do that, aren’t you? You’re cops!”
The detectives looked at each other, then back to Pomni.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Beauregard asked.
“A customer. Jax was supposed to be making me something to eat until you three showed up.”
“Why were you behind those barrels?” Wexley inquired, seeming mildly amused.
“Because I’m afraid of you. I don’t trust cops, especially not racist cops.” she glowered at Wexley, her fists balled up.
“Woah-ho-ho.” Wexley held his hands up, smirking again.
“Miss, are you the grad student living by the farms?” Sutler asked.
“Ah, college kid. That makes sense.” Wexley added.
“I’m 25.” Pomni snapped.
“Be that as it may, Miss, we can’t have civilians at a police interview. Would you mind stepping outside?”
“I am outside.”
“Don’t get smart with the Captain, Miss.” Beauregard ordered.
“Why? What are you gonna do? Arrest me?! For what? Hiding from you? Talking back? Calling out your- EEP!”
A paw that could cover her entire face came down firmly on her shoulder. Jax had removed his butcher’s glove and set his right paw on her shoulder.
“Your order is ready inside, ma’am. It’s on the house. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
Pomni looked up (holy SHIT he was huge) at Jax. His frightening eyes were… soft. Grateful, even. Was she blushing? Her face was really warm.
“Take whatever. Thank you.” he mouthed, winking.
Okay now she was certainly blushing-
She shot one more withering look at the cops before rushing into the butcher shop.
She had to be quick before the cops tried dragging her off for “obstruction” or “hurting their feelings, boo-hoo.” She removed her gloves and shoved them in her pocket, then looked inside the counter from behind, deciding on a flank steak that was big, but not as enormous as that T-bone steak. She picked up some sandwich paper from a box on the counter and grabbed it. It was cold against her fingers, and quite heavy. She dropped it into a paper bag with a heavy thump. It made her mouth water thinking about cooking it medium-rare at home…
She didn’t want to leave Jax behind, but there was unfortunately nothing she could do. If she got herself arrested, even without a conviction, the university might cancel her scholarship. Still, what business did those stupid thugs with badges have to be such assholes to Jax?! Sure, she didn’t know him very well, but he was polite to her, and was giving her free food! And… he wasn’t terrible to look at either. Maybe it was the height… or the voice. Or the muscles- Ack, no, she was supposed to be mad! Hangry! Very hangry!
It must have been because he was a crossbreed. No, it was definitely because he was a crossbreed.
Crossbreeds, sometimes called nasty things like “half-breeds,” “troglodytes” or, most simple and horrible of all, “mutts,” were a mix of different species. It was perfectly possible to interbreed, but they had been treated like third-class citizens for years. Crossbreed children were dumped into foster care or “forgotten” on street corners. Crossbreed adults were shunned by the general public and forbidden from moving into certain neighborhoods. Why? Prejudice, plain and simple. Racist people liked to think that being part animal made you more prone to animalistic behavior, or that if you were two different kinds of animal, it somehow corrupted the “purity” of one another’s DNA. Ugh, it made her want to puke. Just because someone was part wolf, or part sheep, or part human, didn’t mean they didn’t deserve a loving family, and friends, and enough to eat just like everyone else.
She stepped out of the butcher shop, looking back at the door sorrowfully. She took her hairnet off and replaced it with her university beanie. Maybe she could call someone? Who did she know? They did find his knife, but that could have been anyone that planted it there. She was a little biased, admittedly, but-
“Hey short stuff.”
Pomni jumped and spun around. That wolf from before was back. He had smoked most of his cigarette down to the filter.
“Hello,” Pomni replied coolly.
“So, you went to see the cannibal, huh?” the wolf asked.
Pomni’s brow furrowed. “Cute nickname. Can you get outta my way?”
“It’s not a nickname. Jax eats little bunnies. First he hits them with a metal rod, then he peels the-”
“Sir!” Pomni snapped.
“Trevor,” The wolf replied, offering a paw to shake. Pomni only stared at it. Trevor sniffed and put the fingers back onto his cigarette.
“Is there anything else you wanted to say? Or are we done here?” Pomni said with a glare.
“Yeah. I wanted to warn you. Jax there has a penchant for violence. Did you know he gave me this when we were just nine years old?” Trevor tapped his eyepatch.
“But why did he give you that?” Pomni asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Beats the hell outta me. We were just playing and-” Trevor held up his claws and crinkled his muzzle in a mock snarl.
“Uh huh. You know, seeing as how your sense of humor revolves around making fun of suicidal people, I find it a little hard to believe your story.”
Pomni walked around Trevor. “Now if you’ll excuse me- I’m going home to make brunch.”
She crunched through the snow, not bothering to look behind her. Trevor dropped his cigarette on the ground and stomped it out, smearing a bit of ash on the road. A few cops still milled about the crime scene, keeping civilians away. A crow watched them from a nearby rooftop.
Chapter 2: Sheep: Part 1
Summary:
Pomni meets up with some new and old friends. She posits an idea to help Jax.
Notes:
Chapter 2 got too big, needed to split it in half. Sorry!
Chapter Text
What do you get for pretending the danger’s not real?
Pomni fell out of bed with a jolt at the sound of her telephone ringing. She hurriedly detangled her quilt from around her foot as the phone rang again, followed by the caller ID loudly and robotically blurting out:
“CALL FROM- PRIVATE CALLER.”
“Gee, thanks…” Pomni mumbled. She had no idea why her parents got her a phone with caller ID. It almost never worked unless the person had a private cell, and the only people she knew who could afford one of those were her parents… Hm, she might have just answered her own question.
She grabbed the phone off the charging dock and hit talk before it could ring again.
“Hello…?” she said sleepily.
“Hey Pomni, it’s Ragatha! Did I wake you up?”
Pomni cleared her throat. She checked her watch. 12:47. Sweet Jesus… how embarrassing.
“Uh- n-no, you didn’t… what’s up? You okay?”
“Oh yeah, I’m fine, hun, but have you seen what’s going on downtown?” Ragatha asked, her tone hushed. A faint susurrus could be heard in the background of the phone call.
“Uh… no. I’ve been at my apartment since I got steak from Kingston’s Charcuterie yesterday morning… Working on stuff for school, you know? What’s happening?”
“You were at Kingston’s yesterday…? You know Jax then?” Ragatha’s tone turned much more serious.
“Uh, yeah..?”
“Honey, he was arrested.”
Pomni covered up the mouthpiece of the phone and loudly swore. She uncovered it and kept talking.
“Are you serious..? Why?” she asked. Her concern was quite genuine, but her surprise was not. She knew why.
“They’re saying that it looks like someone killed Kaufmo with a knife and hung him up a tree to make it look like a suicide… oh god, it’s horrible. But they found a knife from Jax’s store in the woods nearby, and they said that was good enough evidence to arrest him. They took him in last night around 6 PM…”
Pomni sighed. She knew it would happen… Those stupid cops already had him pegged for the murderer. There was some evidence sure, but-
Well… maybe she was wrong. Maybe they did find some evidence incriminating him that came up, fingerprints (like she demanded they look for), a piece of purple fur or something… Maybe she really was just letting her biases get in the way.
“…all over Main Street. …Pomni, baby, you there?”
Pomni blinked back into her apartment, and realized that Ragatha had been talking the entire time she’d been arguing with herself.
“Uh- s-sorry you broke up for a minute, what did you say?”
“I said that someone must have said something, because there’s a huge protest going on outside the station, saying it was an unfair arrest! There’s out-of-towners, some locals, they’re all over Main Street! I think I see a news van out there..! You can probably hear ‘em right now!”
“Oh god, is that what that background noise is? Holy shit. Are… you okay, Ragatha?” Pomni asked.
“Me? I’m a little shaken up. Jax has been providing supplies for the café for years! He gives us our steak, our burgers, our bacon, our sausages… and he’s my friend. He can be a bit rude and he’s scary looking, but… I don’t think he’s capable of…killing people.” Ragatha whispered the last two words.
“I don’t think he is either,” Pomni said. “And-And I only met him for a few minutes yesterday. Sure, it’s suspicious about the knife, but he sells knives! Someone could have used one they already bought or stole one. And-And I was there when those cops showed up, and I saw how they acted! They looked ready to shoot him and one of them said something really nasty…”
Ragatha sighed. “You wanna know the sad part, honey? That doesn’t surprise me even a little. Autumnvale is a nice place, but some people around here like things in their place, and if you fall outta that place… It can be hard for you. But I hope you don’t think our whole town is like that.”
“Oh- No- No, not at all! I love the friends I’ve made here. You’ve been amazing…” Pomni said. She meant it. Ragatha had basically taken on the role of her big sister here.
“Aww… That’s so sweet of you, Pomni. You’ve got enough to eat, right? I’m sorry I closed the café yesterday…”
“No, Ragatha, don’t worry. I was fine, and you needed the day off. But I can come see you now if you want? I haven’t had breakfast yet and I ate my whole steak yesterday…”
She could practically feel Ragatha’s luminous smile through the phone. “Well sure, hun, come and visit! I’ll make you something special. Just be careful, okay? These protesters are making me nervous…”
“I will. See you in a bit, okay?” Pomni said with a smile.
“Bye.~” Ragatha said, and there was a click at the other end.
Pomni hopped off her bed and got herself dressed. Fresh underwear, then shirt, then pants, then fleece, then puffer, then purse. She looked out her window, saw it was snowing, and added a pair of black gloves and a white scarf, topped with her gray university beanie. It didn’t match her outfit, but maybe with this on, the protestors wouldn’t yell at her. She was on their side, after all, she thought something was fishy about the whole thing too…
She stepped outside, looking around at the falling snow. Big, fat flakes that looked like wisps of cotton. She held out a black-gloved hand and caught one. The flake remained on her palm for a moment before the heat from her hand caused the fluff to recede into water on her glove. She smiled.
She put her glove back on the strap of her purse, then turned to look at the stairs. They were dusted with snow, and no doubt slippery.
She huffed and gripped the railing tight. One step at a time, never let go. Repeat for all thirteen steps.
An excruciating minute later and she was at the bottom, panting and sending up plumes of steam. She appreciated being on the second floor to avoid the rats and bugs, but having to climb up and especially down these icy stairs was brutal… One of these days she was going to slip and fall and it was gonna suck.
“You okay, Miss?”
Pomni looked up at the unfamiliar voice. An abstract person sat atop a horse. They had a triangular head, bright pink, with no visible mouth and a shiny metal hook for a left hand. They wore a heavy poncho, colored dark green with yellow diamonds, and a brown cowboy hat. They sat atop a horse with an unusual coat, a nearly perfect split between black and white stripes and plain white fur.
“Um… hi. Yeah, I’m fine, just… uh… stairs.” Pomni pointed to the offending structure, still out of breath.
“Mmm. You headed into town?” the person on the horse asked.
“Yeah. You heading there too? Have you heard about the protests..?” Pomni asked.
“Yeah. I’m close friends with the guy that got arrested. I’m gonna see if I can post his bail.” they said.
Pomni perked up a bit. “Oh, great! Uh, I’m a friend of his as well! I saw the way the cops treated him…”
“Really? Tell me about it, I’ll give you a lift into town.”
The person on the horse turned their mount around the opposite direction, offering their non-hook hand. Pomni took it, carefully sliding her feet into the stirrups and climbing up onto the horse, sitting herself a bit clumsily behind the rider. The horse shook their head and snorted in annoyance.
“I’m Zooble. This is ZigZag.”
Zooble patted the side of their horse, gently tugging on their reins so they turned back towards town, then flicked the reins with a soft “giddyup.” ZigZag chuffed and trotted forward, leaving horseshoe prints in the new fallen snow.
“Hi, I’m Pomni. I’m here on an art scholarship.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot Mayor Mason started doing that. You’re here a full year, then?” Zooble asked without turning around.
“Yeah. Until I get my Master’s in May… I really love it here though… Well I love most of here. Winter has been pretty rough.” Pomni admitted.
Zooble chuckled. “Yeah, we have harsh winters. Our nights are especially bad. You’ve been staying inside after dark, right?”
“Mhm, always. If I die, my parents will have wasted money. Worse still, the college will have to liquidate my loans.” Pomni replied, putting her gloves to her cheeks in mock horror.
Zooble chuckled once again. “I’m not surprised you fit in here, you came pre-fit with small-town snark.”
“Thanks. Oh, so, yeah, I saw Jax yesterday. The cops were already gung-ho about arresting him… You’re his friend, right? You don't think he would do something like that, right…?”
Zooble was silent for a moment. “To someone like Kaufmo? No.”
“Wait- what do you mean?” Pomni asked, leaning a ways off of ZigZag to get a better look at the rider’s face.
“What I mean is that… He would never hurt anyone that didn’t really have it coming. I don’t know if you know, but the other kids made his life hell growing up. They called him a freak and said his parents abandoned him ‘cause he was so ugly and a half-breed. But… he fought back one day. It was bad. And ever since then, he hasn’t taken shit from anybody. I bet the only reason he even went with the cops is because if he put out one of their eyes or snapped one of their arms, he’d get his brains blown out or thrown away to rot. He’s got a temper, and he’s capable of a lot when you push the right buttons… but no. He wouldn’t hurt Kaufmo. Or me, or Gangle, or Rags.”
“…Or me?” Pomni asked.
“…I dunno. Are you a good person?” Zooble retorted.
“I’d like to think so…” Pomni replied meekly. “He seems to like me okay. He let me have a steak yesterday.”
“Really? He almost never gives anyone free food. He mumbles and grumbles about just giving me enough beef chuck to make stew.”
“Is that right..?” Pomni felt her face warm up again.
As they approached the town, they faintly heard the chanting of a good-sized crowd.
“AUTUMNVALE ISN’T FAIR! RACIST PEOPLE EVERYWHERE! AUTUMNVALE ISN’T FAIR! RACIST PEOPLE EVERYWHERE!”
Zooble tugged gently on ZigZag’s reins, slowing her to a stop. ZigZag nickered uneasily at the commotion up ahead, Zooble putting a hand out to pet her neck.
“Yeah, I know it’s loud, princess. Don’t worry, we’ll tie you off right here, okay?” they soothed.
Zooble then hopped down off the horse, landing firmly on both feet. They looked up at Pomni.
“Need help, city girl?”
Pomni bristled a tiny bit at that comment. Sure, it wasn’t a lie or anything, but it always made her feel… inexperienced. Sheltered.
“I got it,” Pomni replied. She looked down at the snowy ground. It was a drop for sure, especially for someone her size. Well, what did she have to lose other than the use of her ankles?
She slid off the horse, hitting the snow with both feet a bit too hard and fast, buckling and being forced to catch herself with her hands. She stood up immediately and dusted the snow off her gloves.
“You go on ahead. I gotta tie her off and put on her blanket.” Zooble said.
“Okay, thanks for the ride… Do you really think you can cover Jax’s bail?” Pomni asked, looking down at the snow.
Zooble sighed. Their breath steamed.
“Hope so. I’m just one person, and the bail for suspicion of murder is gonna be a small fortune. But I got a lot in savings. You didn’t hear it from me though.”
“I… don’t have much money, but I can try and help.” Pomni said. She desperately needed that money for groceries and art supplies, truth be told… She wasn’t sure why she even offered.
“Nah. Thanks, but nah.” Zooble said, tying ZigZag’s halter to a wooden perimeter fence nearby. “Do have a quick question, though.”
“Yeah?”
Zooble opened one of the saddle bags and looked at Pomni. Even though they had no visible mouth, looking at their eyes made it clear that they were smiling.
“You said you only met Jax yesterday, and you’re dead-set on helping him out. Why’s that?” Zooble asked, removing a green and yellow horse blanket.
“Because…” Pomni swallowed and felt her already rosy cheeks darken. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Yup, that is true…” Zooble replied expectantly, shaking out the blanket.
“Y-Yeah. I’m… I’ll see you up ahead. Thanks again.”
“Be seeing you.” Zooble said, a laugh on the edge of their voice.
Pomni put her hands in her jacket pockets and crunched her way towards town. The roar of emotions in her belly distracted her long enough for her to reach the hubbub on Main Street.
A crowd of around four dozen people had gathered outside the Autumnvale police station, some familiar faces from around town, some people Pomni didn’t recognize that must have come from neighboring towns, maybe even her city. A few people held signs written on bright yellow or green poster paper, a few having opted for foam boards instead. They read things such as:
“DIFFERENT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE”
“YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN BLACK AND BLUE”
“AUTUMN-FAIL”
“WHERE’S THE EVIDENCE?”
“JUSTICE FOR JAX!”
An older chickadee birdman in an orangish-brown leather jacket and black toque stood at the head of the crowd. Pomni recognized him as the town doctor. She’d seen him a few times. He seemed to be the leader of the group, but that could be because he was the only one that had a bullhorn. He turned it on and spoke into it.
“We aren’t going to lay down and let the police continue to treat crossbreeds like second-class citizens! Not here, not in any other city!”
He then led the crowd in another chant of “AUTUMNVALE ISN’T FAIR, RACIST PEOPLE EVERYWHERE!”
Nearby, a news anchor and her cameraman interviewed a chess piece shaped fellow in a red flannel jacket and a fishing hat, who wrung his hands nervously.
“And you raised him, Mr. Kingston?” the anchor asked into her mic before offering it to the man.
“Y-Yes my wife and I raised Jax, the mayor found him abandoned in a cabin in the woods and brought him to us when he was just bite-sized.”
Pomni tried to walk a little closer inconspicuously.
“And you believe he’s innocent?” The anchor asked.
“Of course. Jax is a good boy. People around town have treated him so rotten.” Mr. Kingston said adamantly.
“You think that there’s bias in the arrest?” The reporter asked.
“Definitely, definitely. Some people around here still call him a cannibal, can you believe that? Just because he’s part wolf and needs meat in his diet, they call him a cannibal.” Mr. Kingston said, wounded.
“And what do you have to say about the knife that was found near the crime scene, Mr. Kingston?” The anchor asked.
“I say ‘malarkey.’ Jax sells those knives in his shop, anyone could have taken one and put it there. They probably picked him on purpose!”
Pomni listened a while longer before looking out amongst the crowd again. A few of the same cops from the crime scene the previous day stood in front of the station behind sawhorses, along with some new ones. Autumnvale must have brought in other precincts to keep the situation under control. One particular officer, a human with a gold badge and in a wide brimmed white cowboy hat and aviator shades, stood along with them, hands on his hips. Probably the sheriff.
The protest leader spoke into his bullhorn again.
“The detectives who made the arrest are nowhere to be seen! Isn’t that intriguing, everyone?”
The crowd booed.
“It seems that they feel perfectly comfortable bullying a man when they outnumber him, but once we show up, they go missing! Isn’t that intriguing?!”
Another round of booing and hissing from the crowd, one person shouting “Fuckin’ cowards!”
“Yes, these enforcers of justice seem to only bother enforcing said justice if it’s against people they don’t like!”
He continued on as Pomni slipped behind the crowd. The café was located just beyond the protest. No doubt, they were all going to head there after the demonstrations finished. Although from the amount of fervor in the crowd, it didn’t seem to be losing momentum anytime soon.
As she crossed to the other side of the road to the café, she spotted Trevor leaning against the post office next door. He locked eyes with her, a cigarette smoldering in his teeth, and grinned spitefully. Pomni hurried into the café.
“Hey! Good afternoon hun!” Ragatha waved. Pomni couldn’t help but smile and wave back. That sunny smile could cure sickness if someone could figure out how to bottle it.
“Good afternoon to you, miss.” another voice chimed in. A woman composed of a white mask and red ribbons sat at the counter, a black beret on her head and a cup of coffee in her hands. Er… ribbons.
“Come and sit, Pomni! You’ve met Gangle, right?” Ragatha poured another cup of coffee for the art student.
She stomped the snow off of her boots before going to sit at the counter, taking off her puffer jacket and hanging it over the back of her usual chair before climbing up into it.
“Um, I don’t think in person, but I saw your production of A Streetcar Named Desire . You were an amazing Stella!” Pomni said.
Gangle gave a worried smile. “Oh no, you weren’t there the night I forgot my lines, were you?”
“I don’t think so, I don’t remember any mistakes. Um, the guy who played Stanley was amazing too, so intense… Thank you.” Pomni accepted her mug from Ragatha.
“Ahh, yeah, Gummigoo. You know he’s actually a complete sweetheart in real life? We had to practice the scene where his character hits mine over and over with the stunt coordinator since he didn’t even want to pretend to hit me.”
Pomni added sugar and cream to her coffee, two blue packets and one little plastic cup, and stirred it.
“So how are you holding up this morning, baby? You said you saw those detectives get onto Jax, right?” Ragatha asked, leaning both her hands on the counter.
“Oh. Yeah, I did. I hid for a bit because I didn’t want to get in trouble just for being there… but then one of them said something really horrible and I yelled at them.” Pomni sipped her coffee. Bitter stuff, but it had a pleasant chocolatey taste on the edge of the flavor.
“What did they say? They didn’t call him a… you know…” Gangle whispered.
“No. They weren’t that blatant, but one guy, I think his name was Wexley, basically said Jax lived by himself ‘cause he’s a crossbreed. Said it was ‘understandable.’”
Ragatha made a disgusted noise as she went over to the griddle, pouring batter onto it. “I don’t understand how people that pea-brained are allowed to carry badges. Well it’s no wonder they’re not showing their faces right now. Probably got sent back to the big city with their tails between their legs. Buncha bullies…”
“Yeah… I’ve been meaning to ask, how did they find out so quickly..? The-The demonstrators, I mean. I thought Jax only got arrested last night…” Pomni inquired.
“It was probably Dr. Wren that found out,” Gangle replied, pointing out the window. Her ribbon pointed towards the older bird fellow with the megaphone. “Our town doctor. He’s always been about issues like this. You know, institutional racism and stuff? My guess is he jumped at the chance to get a crowd together. And look at the turnout!”
Pomni hummed. “Well, I’m glad he did.”
“Hm, I dunno,” Ragatha replied from over at the griddle. “Personally, I wish he’d have just waited a day or two so we could at least lay Kaufmo to rest. So many people here in town are still processing the fact that he might have been murdered, and he’s out there hollering his lungs out, disturbing everyone’s grieving.”
“B-But what about Jax? Doesn’t he deserve justice?” Pomni replied.
“Well of course he does, baby, but if he’s really done nothing wrong, he’ll be out of the jailhouse in 72 hours..” Ragatha flipped a pancake.
“He’ll- huh?” Pomni tilted her head.
“She’s right, I almost forgot…” Gangle chimed in. “This town has a Speedy Trial law. Since we’re such a small community, there’s not many trials. So there’s a 72-hour limit in place for someone being held in custody without substantial evidence… If Jax really didn’t do anything, and I don’t think he did, they’ll have to let him go in a couple days.
“And I’ll betcha the only people that are itching to find evidence on him are those detectives, and who knows where they went? With that protest out there, all our cops are busy keeping that under control. No time to be sniffing around for clues.” Ragatha added, testing the firmness of her pancakes with her spatula.
Pomni felt herself relax. That was… good news.. There was a pretty decent chance that they’d let Jax go tonight. Maybe she’d wait for him if the crowd had died down by then…
“W-Wait, so that means that the knife..?”
“Unless it had his DNA or prints on it, it’s not good enough. It’s like people have been saying, anyone could have bought it and hid it out there.” Gangle explained.
Ragatha gave a surprised smile over her shoulder at Gangle as she stacked the pancakes on a plate. “Well, look at you, Nancy Drew! Who taught you all this detective stuff?”
Gangle gained red blush marks under her eyes and looked down at the counter. “Oh, you know… I do a lot of research for my roles. We did an Agatha Christie play once…”
Ragatha brought over a short stack of pancakes, dusted with powdered sugar and topped with whipped cream and some fresh strawberry slices. She set the plate down in front of Pomni, along with a boat of maple syrup.
“Eat it while it’s warm, honey.” Ragatha cooed, pecking the art student on the cheek.
“Thank you Ragatha…” Pomni sighed. How this absolute peach of a woman remained single was a mystery to her. Wasn’t any of her business, anyway. She dug into the food. It was delicious, fluffy and moist cake mixed in with rich, hand churned cream and the bright flavor of strawberry. She could eat this every day for the rest of her life and never get tired of it.
The door to the café swung open, and a person in a yellow and green poncho stepped inside, stomping off their boots chasing snowflakes from their hat.
“Zooble! I was wondering when you’d show up! You want the regular… Zooble?”
Ragatha’s sunny voice darkened with worry as she saw a stain of red on their hand, which they were currently wiping off on their poncho.
“Zooble, are you bleeding?!” Pomni cried out.
“No, it’s not my blood. I punched Trevor in the nose. Might’ve busted it.” Zooble’s voice sounded hollow and distant. Their hand reasonably clean, they sank down into a chair by the window, resting their arms on top of the table.
“Trevor? The wolf?” Pomni asked. No, Trevor the marmoset, stupid.
“Yeah. He laughed at me when the sheriff turned me away. ‘Tough luck, pizza-head.’ I heard a crunch.” Zooble looked at their hand and clenched it a few times. “Anyway. Couldn’t post his bail. The Sheriff told me it was 500 thousand. ‘Possible homicide.’ I don’t even have half of that.”
“Oh, Zooble…” Ragatha opened the counter hatch and went around to see them. “Honey, I’m so sorry… But, we were just talking about the speedy trial law. If all they have is a knife that came from his store-”
“Horseshit…” Zooble mumbled.
“If there’s no DNA on the knife, then-”
“HORSESHIT!” Zooble bellowed, banging on the table with their fist. The sound rattled the glass salt and pepper shakers. Everyone jumped.
“Zooble, I’m sorry-” Ragatha began, but Zooble cut her off.
“You know how the system is! It doesn’t matter how many angry people wave signs around out there, or if the doctor gives some nice speeches on a megaphone! Jax is a crossbreed, and they’re gonna find some ‘new evidence’ or dig up some old law that makes it so he gets put away for good! Don’t you get it?! Those sheep big city detectives they hired took one look at Jax and saw he was a freak, so he must’ve done it! And our redneck-ass, no-brain FUCK of a sheriff agrees with them! They’ve been waiting to do this- they…”
Tears beaded in Zooble’s eyes, and they collapsed into their chair, shoulders shaking.
“They’ve been waiting…” they moaned.
For a while, there were no sounds other than the faint din outside and Zooble’s soft sobbing. Pomni couldn’t blame them… if her best friend was being put away on flimsy evidence based on prejudice alone, she’d have cried like a baby. Hell, she felt a little bit like crying now…
She pushed her half-eaten plate of food away and shyly walked over to Zooble. The cowboy looked at her through red, puffy eyes.
“What?” they spat.
“…I… I want to help.” Pomni said.
“I just told you there’s nothing we can do, kid… unless your mommy and daddy have $500,000 sitting around the house, this is the end of the line…” Zooble wiped their eyes on the non-bloodied parts of their poncho.
“Don’t say that. We can look for more evidence.”
“How? They’ve got the crime scene cordoned off… we’ll get in huge trouble if we go there…” Gangle said.
“What about Jax’s sales log? That’s like a list of suspects!” Pomni proposed.
“Cops already took it. I saw ‘em carrying it out of the shop when they hauled him away in cuffs…”
“Dammit…” Pomni chewed on her thumbnail. “Okay. Okay, what about this? Does anyone know where Kaufmo lived?”
“He lived not far from here,” Ragatha said. “His house was over near Gangle’s theater.”
“Do you think we could get a look inside it?”
“What? Pomni, what for?” Gangle asked.
“I dunno… anything! Clues about who might have it out for him!”
“Look, city girl. I appreciate your enthusiasm… I do. But the cops-” Zooble began.
“Are all busy, dealing with that.” Pomni pointed out the window at the crowd. “All we have to do is see if those three asshole detectives aren’t sniffing around the place, and we can look inside, right?”
“Pomni…”
“Look, Zooble’s right. Unless a miracle happens, the system is gonna do what it can to get Jax put behind bars for good. We need to at least try. Right?”
“I… But… Pomni, what about you? Aren’t you worried about losing your scholarship?” Gangle asked.
“Yeah. But… I think I… I want to make a difference in this town more than I want to just use it to further myself. You guys… this place has done so much for me, and I… I want to give something back.”
Zooble used a napkin to wipe their eyes. “It helps she also has a crush on Jax.”
Pomni turned bright red. “Hey! That’s not-”
“Aw, Pomni… that’s so romantic. A lover, wrongly imprisoned... It’s like a Carolinian play!” Gangle said, looping her ribbons together as though she was clasping her hands.
“Wh- He’s not my lover! We only met for like five minutes!” Pomni grabbed her beanie and tugged it down over her face.
“And yet you’re willing to risk your higher education to save him. Yup, you’ve totally got it bad, honey.” Ragatha added, crossing her arms and smiling.
“Sh-Shut uuuuuuuup!” Pomni whined.
“Well… I wouldn’t be much of a best friend if I didn’t do something incredibly stupid for him. Alright, let’s go, kid.” Zooble got to their feet, drying their eyes one more time.
“I’m twenty-fiiiiiiive!”
“You’re twenty-five? Jeez, you coulda fooled me. What are you, four foot two?”
“Four foot NINE!” Pomni snapped, shuffling out the door as Zooble held it open for her. Zooble said their goodbyes to Ragatha and Gangle before following after Pomni.
“Do you think they’ll find anything?” Gangle asked.
“Honey, I hope so. I… doubt it. But I hope so.” Ragatha replied.
Chapter 3: Sheep: Part 2
Summary:
Pomni investigates, runs into big trouble. Big, BIG trouble.
Notes:
This one is gory, and kinda on the Whump side. Have fun!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Now things are really what they seem
No, this is no bad dream!
Zooble and Pomni arrived outside Kaufmo’s house. It was, thankfully, unguarded. The cops really must have been stretched to the limit quelling the protests downtown. Zooble hopped off of ZigZag and tied her off on the nearby fence, taking an apple out of her bag as a reward for her hard work today. She even got an extra apple, hopefully to curb her appetite enough so she wouldn’t eat any of the neighbor’s lawns.
“You be good now, okay, princess?” Zooble said, touching faces with ZigZag. The horse gave a content snort. Pomni hopped off the horse, a little less clumsily this time.
“Alright. So we go looking for clues. We don’t take anything, just make some notes. We should keep our gloves on just in case-”
“‘We?’” Zooble tilted their cowboy hat up. “Nah, I think ya meant you . This was your idea, so you’re taking the initiative. I thought about it on the way over, I’m not risking a B&E charge.”
Pomni frowned. “I thought you said Jax was your best friend. You’re not willing to risk it all for him?”
“Watch it, city girl,” Zooble warned, pointing their hook at Pomni. “The guilt trip card won’t work with me. Don’t forget, you’re a pretty young lady with rich parents who can bail you outta trouble. Me? I’m the weirdo that’s friends with The Autumnvale Cannibal. Cops’ll take one look at me and clap me in cuffs.”
Pomni glared at Zooble for a moment, but her expression softened. They did have a point, given how prejudiced the cops were around here. Still, it wasn’t quite that easy…
“I’m not here for fun, I’m trying to help your friend. My scholarship is at stake if I get caught, so I’ll have to go back home to my family and explain how I lost the one chance to get my MFA.”
Pomni looked down at the snow. “And my parents aren’t that rich… I took out huge loans to get through college, and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the assistantship money.”
Zooble looked at Pomni for a long while. Their breath steamed in a consistent pattern, like a machine.
“Can you… can you stop looking at me like that?” Pomni murmured, shrinking her neck down until her chin sat between her shoulders.
“Alright. Here’s my offer. You go in and do what you gotta do. I’ll keep watch out here.”
“Okay. Is there a way you can signal me discreetly if someone is coming?” Pomni asked.
“I’ll have ZigZag whinny.” Zooble replied, petting their horse’s nose gently.
“You…trained her to do that?”
Zooble looked at Pomni, a star of pride in their eyes. “She knows a lot of tricks. Now get going, we’re wasting time.”
Pomni nodded, approaching Kaufmo’s front door. He lived in a condo, one of those situations where a big house was divided into two separate living spaces. Zooble told her Kaufmo lived on the bottom floor, #7. She tried the handle and it didn’t budge. Nah, she couldn’t be that lucky. She glanced around on the front stoop. If she was a little lucky, she might be able to find a hide-a-key. She checked below the welcome mat that read “Definitely Not a Crack House”, then noticed a collection of smooth rocks stacked in a little cairn in the corner. Pomni picked up a few of them, until one on the bottom rattled.
Bingo.
She popped the top of the fake rock open and a key dropped into her gloved palm. She gave a thumbs up to Zooble, who discreetly tipped their hat in response. Pomni slid the key into the door and opened it. She then carefully replaced the key and the fake rock, going inside the anteroom and locking the door behind her.
A set of wooden stairs led up to #8. To her right was the door to #7, which she gingerly attempted to open. It clicked open with no problem.
Kaufmo’s condo wasn’t much. A big hardwood room made up most of the living space, divided into a living room, granite top kitchen and hallway leading into the back of the condo, presumably the bathroom and bedroom.
Pomni took a careful look around. A few gossip magazines on the coffee table, dirty dishes from a days old meal sitting in the sink, the food now caked on and probably in need of a scrub with steel wool. Pretty normal stuff. Altogether pretty clean for a guy that had serious depression. He had a monstera deliciosa in a terracotta pot by the couch that was turning somewhat brown, in desperate need of water. Pomni thought about giving it a quick drink from the kitchen faucet, but remembered she was trespassing and thought not. She moved into the back of the condo.
The bathroom was a little cluttered and the sink had a lot of toothpaste stains on the marble, but it was also relatively clean. She opened the mirror cabinet and found a ton of pills. Zoloft, Escitalopram, Prozac, Xanax, Lithium… yeesh, this guy tried everything. There were some she had never even heard of before. What in the hell was “hydroxizine?” Hm.
She looked down at the toilet and saw it was clogged. The water nearly reached the top of the bowl. Someone might have flushed something they shouldn’t have down there… that, or she was about to make a very bad and very gross mistake. She picked up the plunger sitting beside the toilet, your classic wooden handle and pink rubber affair, and stuck it into the water. After only two or three pushes, she lifted up the plunger, bracing herself for the worst.
Pills. Dozens of waterlogged and half dissolved pills of different shapes and colors floated out onto the surface of the water. Some were plain green circular tablets, some were capsules divided into blue and orange halves, some were bright pink like Benadryl.
Kaufmo appeared to have a full stock of pills in his medicine cabinet, and another full stock of them dumped into his toilet.
Her eye caught something else in the toilet water. Something black and charred. Burnt paper? Something was burned and flushed down the toilet along with a whole pharmacy’s worth of pills. It was impossible to tell what the document was since it was scorched black and mostly dissolved by the water. The toilet, its throat now clear, slurped the refuse down the drain with a sloppy gurgle. The tank began to refill with a long sigh of relief.
Pomni set the plunger back down and closed the lid of the toilet. A clue? Perhaps. But who could-
From outside, ZigZag whinnied.
Pomni’s heart leapt into her throat as she heard cars pull up outside. A large black pick-up and a black van, both with an official looking red, yellow and blue seal on the side. Oh God. Nononono.
She looked around for an exit. The front door was out of the question, but was there a back door? No, she hadn't seen one! Didn’t that violate some kind of fire code?!
A few people in matching blue uniforms exited the vehicles. One of them, a burly blonde woman with a strong jaw, approached Zooble while the others, two men and a bull, came up to the door. She had to find an escape route, or a hiding spot, or-
Window. There was a window! At the end of the hallway, there was a sliding window!
She pulled apart the sunbleached maroon curtains and hurriedly turned the window lock. It had rarely been used and stuck fast, so Pomni had to give it a vicious, adrenaline-charged crank to open it. It finally squealed open with a weak sprinkle of taupe paint chips all over the sill. She grinded the window along its track, feeling a puff of wintry air as she heard boots in the anteroom.
“Alright, you know the drill, guys. Heavy stuff in the van first, bed, couch, tables, tv-”
Pomni climbed and leapt out the window without looking, her purse snagging on the sill and popping open. She fell about six feet and landed on her ass with a thud in the shared backyard, her stuff strewn about everywhere around her.
“Oh, snap. Hey, Cliff. Window’s open. Someone mighta broke in.” a voice said from above her.
“Aw, shit. Someone better tell Charlene. You see anyone down there?”
Pomni scrabbled about, grabbing everything she could that had fallen out of her purse, pencils, bottles of Advil and pads, a notebook for quick sketches, her wallet… she cradled them all and hurried over to the side of the house. Luck threw her another bone, as a strong pine tree had been growing in the backyard for who knows how long. Its branches kept too much snow from falling onto the grass, so there wasn’t quite enough on the ground for her to leave bootprints. She made it around the side of the house, pressing herself against the bricks and panting hard, sending up steam in long jets. She covered her mouth.
“Nah, I don’t see anybody.” someone just out of sight said from the window.
“You think the dude just left his window open?” another voice asked.
“Nah, if he did there’d be snow on the ground in here. Someone prolly climbed in from back here.”
Pomni hurriedly stuffed her belongings back into her purse and crept around the edge of the house. She peered around the corner.
Zooble and the blonde woman were still talking. She couldn’t run out there now, they would immediately figure out what was going on. Pomni took a look at the logo on their vehicles.
TRUSTED REPOSSESSION SOLUTIONS
(TRS)
Repo men. They were just repo men… not the cops. Still, not good. The cops were just one call away, and didn’t repo men work for the government..? One of the men exited the house and said something to the blonde woman, who looked at Zooble with narrowed eyes.
“Case the whole place, make sure nothing’s missing. Thanks, Tyler.” the woman put her hands on her wide hips. “You mind opening your saddlebags?” she said to Zooble.
“Not at all,” Zooble replied.
Zooble opened their bags and took out everything. In one bag, apples and carrots in a Tupperware container and a few road flares. In the other, a bouquet of flowers still wrapped up in shiny plastic and a pretty pink satin ribbon, a few tools for leatherwork, and a bottle of huge pills, presumably for ZigZag.
“What are these for?” the repo woman said.
“I told you, I’m here to pay my respects.” Zooble said. They took the bouquet and laid it in front of Kaufmo’s mailbox.
The Bull repo man lumbered out onto the porch. Pomni only knew it was him since she saw a single long white horn from her hiding place.
“Hey, Charlene, we checked the whole place. Nothing’s missing.” he grunted.
“Nothing’s missing? Really? You checked everything?” the repo lady asked.
“Yup. Tv, desktop, loose change, drugs, it’s all still there. The only thing is… it looks like someone might have used the bathroom.”
There was a lengthy pause.
“It looks like someone might have used the bathroom.” she echoed.
“Yup.” the Bull said.
The repo woman looked off to the side for a minute. She then turned back to Zooble. “Okay. Uh, I guess you’re free to go.”
“Toldja I wasn’t up to anything.” Zooble drawled.
“Nope, I was wrong. Looks like you were just the victim of some bad timing and a crackhead that needed to pee.” the woman said. She looked as though she had never expected to say those words in that order.
“Should we check for anything that got stolen out back, boss?” the bull asked.
Noooo nonono please no…
“Uh….. nah. He didn’t have a grill or anything listed in the inventory.”
Pomni sighed deeply.
Zooble climbed up onto ZigZag. “Good luck with everything, Miss.” They gently flicked ZigZags reins and headed off down the road. The repo woman went into her truck with a clipboard and paper and went inside.
Once they got far enough down the street to see Pomni hidden beside the house, they locked eyes with her. Pomni motioned them to move along. It would still look incredibly suspicious if she suddenly ran around the side of the house and jumped onto Zooble’s horse. Zooble gave the faintest of nods and continued on.
Pomni remained pinned to the side of the house for a good 45 minutes. She couldn’t just run away, it needed to look like she was just a pedestrian… just another passerby on her way, tra la la. It needed to be perfect. She waited until the entire repo team was inside, apparently working on getting the bed frame out of the house, and then she dashed up the hill. She made it to the sidewalk unnoticed, and, just to cover her tracks some more, she walked in the opposite direction of Zooble.
The adrenaline had worn off, and she felt cold to her bones. Standing still for that long in snowy weather was NOT a good time. She sneezed into her sleeve.
“Bless you,” one of the repo men said, carrying out the mattress down the porch steps with his team.
“Thanks,” Pomni replied, sniffling and continuing on in that direction. She didn’t stop moving until she was well out of sight, turning the corner and leaning against a street sign, letting out a long, relieved sigh. She enjoyed the cold sunlight for a few moments before continuing on.
—
Pomni’s watch read 6:07 by the time she had reached the café. Where had the time gone..? She’d gotten up around 12:45, it took her around twenty minutes to get ready, the ride to town with Zooble was another twenty minutes, she ate half her brunch and left with Zooble around 2:30, another twenty minute ride to get to Kaufmo’s house, about an hour spent looking around the house and pinned down by the repo men, and her walk back to town was almost another two hours since she had to find her way through the town streets on foot. It wasn’t a big town, true, but the freezing single digit gusts and heavy snow on the ground slowed her down considerably… 7 would be soon, which was when you absolutely needed to be inside, although it was really recommended you be behind a drop barred door around 6:30, as cloudy or moonless nights make it so some extra hungry Nightwalkers were emboldened to start their hunt a little early. The sky was covered in snow clouds the entire day, so it would be a darker night faster.
Pomni coughed raggedly. Her throat felt raw, her face hurt from chilblains, her lungs felt clotted, and she was exhausted. She had found something resembling two clues, but nothing that incriminated anyone else. All she had really gotten was a nasty oncoming cold.
She arrived at the cafe doors to find them closed and the lights off. Ragatha went home to beat the sunset. It was expected, she had the good sense to not risk her own life. But man… she’d been hoping to warm up at least a bit before the long walk home.
She trudged home. The sky was turning a pleasant shade of pink. Would have been more pleasant had she not been freezing her ass off. She just wanted to lay in bed by the radiator. It had been an awful day.
Zooble was right. She was just a stupid city girl. The college was paying her to draw fucking pictures, for God’s sake. What the hell could she accomplish out here?! She was wasting everyone’s time… her parents and the townsfolk’s. And her own.
She climbed the stairs to her apartment, slowly. As she arrived at her door, she leaned against it let out a protracted sigh, followed by a nasty cough. She leaned over the railing and spat the gunk she coughed up out onto the snow.
She heard something. Was her phone ringing? She pressed an ear to the cold door. Yeah, her phone was ringing. Probably her parents. Great. She opened her purse to get her keys, content taking her time and letting it go straight to voicemail. She didn’t want to talk right now, or do much of anything right now.
Her keys weren’t in her purse.
“Huh..?”
She patted her puffer jacket’s pockets and her fleece. Empty. What the hell, what had happened to-?!
Oh god.
When she jumped out the window. Her purse opened. Her keys must have fallen out. They were miles away, buried under snow, and the sun was setting.
“Oh no… no… no God, no, NO!”
Pomni hurried to the stairs. Okay, calm down. Calm down! if she sprinted across town, she might be able to make it back to Kaufmo’s house in time to grab her keys. They were probably right under the window where she fell, blending in with the grass or an errant drift of snow. She would just run, run like her life depended on it, which it did! All she had to-
When her boot hit the second step, she slipped.
Her stomach squeezed itself into a ball and she let out a shriek, falling sideways. Her right arm slammed into the stairs, blocking any blunt force trauma to her ribs but in turn ripping open the skin under her coat. Her forehead scraped the freezing concrete and her beanie fell off as she rolled over twice, the sharp edges of the stairs narrowly missing her spine but in turn slicing her back as she rolled out onto the snow.
Pomni laid there for a moment. Slowly, she let out a long, pained, howl. Pain bloomed fiery red on her right arm, her forehead, and her back. She felt sticky hot blood weeping out of her forehead, sticking to her bangs and nearly getting in her eyes.
She tried moving her hurt arm. It wasn’t broken but it flared with pain the moment she moved it. Even with her body going numb from the snow, it hurt in the same burning hot way rope burn or road rash felt, like it would never go away and that all your nerves had been grated off and screamed together in agony. She feebly rolled onto her hands and knees, blood dripping from her head in dark beads onto the snow. She felt tears spill out of her eyes and snot run out of her nose.
There was a sound beside her. She looked. She stopped crying.
A beast laid not 20 feet away from her. It was almost completely camouflaged by the darkness save for a pair of white, foglike eyes, teardrop shaped and running the entire length of its bulky, Bull terrier-like skull. Its body was slim, almost disproportionately so to its head, with long, curved legs and hooved feet. It looked at Pomni with tranquil hunger. Upon Pomni making eye contact with it, the Nightwalker rose to its feet, padded silently over to the girl, and sank its teeth into her side.
Pomni let out a scream, shock having melted away into primal terror as the Nightwalker bit into her torso. Her multiple layers only halted the blunter of its teeth, its two front canines cutting through the fabric like garden shears and plunging into her belly. Pomni drove her fists into the Nightwalker’s head, the creature hanging on, nonplussed. It attempted a deeper bite only for Pomni kick it hard in one of its legs, causing it to stumble onto the snow and let go for a moment. Threads of white polyester clung to its bloody fangs. Pomni scrabbled backwards, her body being practically unable to process the level of pain it was currently in. If she could stand up, she would have just fallen right back down as her legs felt boneless. She was dead. She was going to die.
The creature licked its chops free of blood and fluff before padding its way towards Pomni, in no particular rush. It made no sound as it attacked, not even a growl of effort or surprise at being knocked down. It was as unfeeling as the blackest, coldest winter night. And it wasn’t done with her yet, no sir.
Something glinted in the air. The Nightwalker froze as a wet shluck sound cut through the snowy wind. It stumbled over, twitching and confused, unaware of why it suddenly had such an awful pain in its side.
A butcher’s knife was buried up to the handle in its hairless black abdomen. Pomni screamed again as an enormous beast on two legs thundered through the snow at them, eyes glowing with yellow moon malice. The Nightwalker opened its maw in feeble resistance as the beast skidded over to it, grabbing the knife and pulling it all the way down across its belly, steaming black entrails shlorping onto the snow as its skin and muscle were peeled away by hairy paws. The Nightwalker dropped its head onto the snow, its eyes dimming like a dying lightbulb. Dead.
Pomni felt her consciousness fading as well. Soon, the beast would fall onto her too, digging into the wound in her side with its paws and ripping her open like a gory birthday present. The last thing she saw before everything went black was that horrible pair of yellow eyes, looking down at her, furious, hungry…
…concerned?
—
Autumnvale had it out for Jax since he was a baby. Nothing in life was ever just given to him, he had to take it. He had to chew off the hands that abused him, and if that meant losing any chance at going to school with “normal kids,” fine by him. He only liked his parents and Zooble anyway. Everyone else thought he was a freak and a monster.
So that’s exactly what they got once he reached adulthood. Jax played into the monster persona, snapping his daggerlike teeth at anyone that came too close, enjoying his meat bloody and raw and sometimes live in front of horrified socialites, hiding in dark corners so his piercing, lupine eyes glinted at passerby and terrified them about walking the town’s streets at night. He didn’t try to act pleasant, because that got him nothing. Just frightened looks at best, slurs and insults at worst. At least being a monster made people leave him the fuck alone.
So it was no surprise, really, that someone in town decided it was time to put him away for good. Even if he hadn’t done anything wrong, the faintest whiff of trouble on his part would cause the cops to jump on him like a pouncing tiger. Cut out the benign tumor before it ruptured and became malignant. It was a clever little trick, using one of his knives to cut Kaufmo’s arms. Probably didn’t even need to actually kill Kaufmo, someone probably just found him in the tree and slit his arms open. Any excuse to get Big, Bad Jax off the street.
What was a surprise, however, was when the Sheriff came to his cell late that evening. Posturing little twerp that he was, the Sheriff liked to make himself look like a tough guy by wearing shades and a cowboy hat. It made Jax snort derisively every time he saw him. “Lookee me, mommy! I’m a big boy in a big hat!”
The Sheriff looked the color of sour milk, and his hands shook as he fumbled with his keyring to open the door to Jax’s cell.
“What’s the occasion? You wanna play with the bunny, copper?~” Jax purred, showing off his fangs.
The Sheriff opened the door, stepping back and quaking with either rage or fear or a concoction of both.
“Your bail’s been posted, Kingston. You’re free to go.”
Jax’s smile fell. “Someone paid half a million? On me?”
“That’s what I just said, now get outta here. We’ll return your belongings up front.” The Sheriff barked.
Jax didn’t move. The sheriff smacked his nightstick against the bars.
“Get going! I’m tired of looking at your ugly face!”
Jax thought it was a joke, a pretty predictable one too, but, against all common sense… it wasn’t. Someone anonymous had posted his bail, and he was soon up front of the police station, getting all of his belongings back and signing release papers. He didn’t have much on him when those dick-swinging big city detectives rolled up to arrest him, just a knife he was using to make pork chops and his keys. The cops undid his handcuffs and he was led outside.
It was around 6:15, so that crowd that had been yelling about letting him go all day had been sent away to avoid the Nightwalkers. Thank god. All those people cheering for him would have made him berserk. Even his dad wasn’t waiting for him, but he didn’t hold it against him. He was getting up there in age, and Nightwalkers could probably make quick work of him now. Maybe the cops just… didn't tell anyone he was getting out tonight. That wouldn’t surprise him. Jax took a long, deep breath, savoring the fresh, cold night air, before tucking his hands in his pockets and heading down the road out of town.
He had only one stop to make before he went home. That girl he met just before the gumshoes showed up. What was her name? She either didn’t tell him or only told him once. He remembered where she said she was staying. That teeny little apartment on the edge of town. He wanted to pay her a visit.
She intrigued him. She was one of the few people that wasn’t terrified of him right off the bat. He wanted to at least say thank you in person for sticking up for him like that. Zooble would’ve done the same, but they had been friends for two decades. The Girl only met him for a few minutes and wanted to help him. He wondered what it could have been?
Perhaps she was intrigued by him too.
It wasn’t until he got about halfway up the road by the farms, the sunlight gradually fading out from pink, that he heard a high pitched scream. He normally wouldn’t care about some idiot staying out past curfew ‘cause they thought they were invincible. But he only knew of one person who lived out in the boonies like this who might get caught by a Nightwalker.
He ran, pulling his knife out of his pocket, towards the noise.
—
Jax carried The Girl on his shoulder, moving as quickly as his legs could carry him. He knew there would be more Nightwalkers. There were always more Nightwalkers. But, he knew this town like he knew meat; exactly where to cut through.
At the end of the road, he slid down into the gully where Snapfinger Creek ran. There was nowhere for any of those things to hide down here, and if you were fast enough, which he was, it shaved off about ten minutes of time you might waste taking the main road. The water was soaking his boots, yet he kept on moving. His fur would delay the onset of chilblains long enough for him to get home and warm up. More importantly, so she could warm up.
The Girl was conscious, but barely. Her body trembled, presumably both from shock and from cold. She didn’t have any broken bones, but there were some nasty scrapes on her arm, her head and her back, and the Nightwalker took one hell of a bite out of her side. He could smell the blood. They normally went right for the head with those big-ass mouths of theirs… she got lucky for getting so unbelievably unlucky.
Soon enough, he reached the end of the creek at Snapfinger Creek Bridge, clambering up the hillside and onto the bridge. He sniffed, testing the air for the smell of blood and dark.
Nothing. Just The Girl’s wounds. She was sticky against his shirt. Normally the scent of blood made him hungry, since it meant fresh meat, ready for the cooking. Right now, it just made him scared.
He went back to running, keeping his eyes peeled at all times. Full dark had only just fallen, so The Nightwalkers probably hadn’t had the chance to group up in their little herds. Good. If The Girl had been out around ten or eleven, they all would have pulled her apart like a chicken wing.
He eventually saw the worn-out old roof of his barn, his animals would need food… But they could wait. They had some leftover food in their troughs, The Girl needed to be patched up or she would die. He hurried across his pasture, plunging his hand into his pocket and pulling out his ring of keys. Propping The Girl against his shoulder and holding her fast with his chin, he found his house key whilst moving. He felt hard-packed dirt under his boots, and knew he had found the path to his house. It had snowed a good deal, but not enough to completely hide the earth beneath it. He came up to his door, unlocking it swiftly, slipping inside and slamming the door shut, pulling down the drop bar.
He flicked on the lights. His house was only a touch warmer than the outside due to him not running the furnace for nearly two days. Warmth could wait, wounds needed sealing now.
The hospital was the better choice if he wanted The Girl to live, but it was a much longer trip, which meant more time for the Nightwalkers to come out. He was tough, yes, but he wasn’t tough enough for a herd of them. And it would just delay The Girl getting help long enough for her to bleed to death. He held The Girl under his chin again and pulled a blanket out from the trunk at the foot of his bed, one that had become weathered and a little smelly over the years. It was white with blue and black stripes, he couldn’t even remember why he had it. No love lost if The Girl bled all over it.
He flipped it open and laid it out on the floor, gently laying The Girl down on the blanket, supporting her head as he did so. Her mouth hung open and she trembled. Her chest rose and fell. Her puffer coat had a massive hole in the side with polyester wisping out of it, her hat was missing, and the white fleece she wore was soaked and scarlet.
“Okay… I’m doing this so you live.” he said to her. He undid her jacket and fleece, leaving her in just a torn open black shirt and snow pants. He gulped and gingerly lifted the shirt off of her belly, it clinging to her body before peeling itself free. She had a large set of bite marks in a sideways “U” shape along her side. Nightwalkers only really punctured with their top teeth, the bottom more used to hold prey in place so they could drink their blood. Most of the top teeth only scraped The Girl’s skin, but the canines got her good. They left deep punctures on her belly. It hadn’t gotten through her stomach lining, thank god, the sepsis that would cause would have been hellish agony for The Girl. Lines of blood and pinkish pus oozed from the punctures, and these were clearly her biggest predicament at the moment.
“Clean them and patch them. Then she’ll be okay.” Jax said to himself. He went to his bathroom and grabbed his first aid kit and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol. It was half empty and hadn’t been used in maybe a year. But it was still alcohol. He found a washcloth, a clean one, and doused it in the alcohol.
“Okay. Sorry in advance.”
He gently swabbed the cloth in the deepest punctures, scooping out blood and pus. The Girl let out a burbly cry and convulsed, Jax touching her gently on the side of the face.
“Shhhhhshshsh, I gotcha I gotcha I gotcha, I’m makin’ it better…” Jax crooned. The toothmark he cleaned out was a clean pink for a moment before it bloomed red with fresh blood. That was good, all the infection was out and now the body was working to patch itself up. He found some gauze and gently packed it into the wound, The Girl mewling in the back of her throat.
“Shhhhhh, I know, I know… I know it hurts, but I’m makin’ it better…”
He covered the packed wound with one of those big fat square bandages. Now onto the next one. He rinsed the washcloth free of blood and discharge in his bathroom sink, wrung it out, rinsed it again, wrung it and reapplied more alcohol.
“Okay, here we go… last big one.” Jax said as he came back to The Girl. He gently scooped the wound clean. This time her eyes opened and she gasped sharply.
“Hhhurting me…!” she slurred.
“I know, but I have to, I’m cleaning your bite… you’re lucky to be alive…”
Jax startled himself at how soft and delicate he made his growl of a voice sound. Did he really care all that much about this girl..?
“Where’m I…” the girl slurred, her voice frail.
“My house. Do you remember me? I’m Jax.”
It probably wasn’t a good idea to mention that he was the town butcher, as in her delirium, The Girl might think he meant that he was going to butcher her.
“Jax…?” she mumbled.
“Yeah. Jax Kingston. What about you?” he asked. Hopefully she wouldn’t remember that if she had already told him.
“Pom… Pomni… aren’t you s’posed t’be arrested.. ooooowwwww…”
She let out a moan of pain as Jax packed the other wound with gauze.
“Pomni. Sorry, that’s the last one, I promise.” he soothed, putting another big bandage over it.
Pomni coughed hideously, clutching at her stomach in pain.
“Hurts so much… cold…”
“Okay. I can fix the cold part at least. Just let me-”
“C-C-Cold… please no more…”
Alright. The biggest wounds were patched up, she was freezing. He scooped her up, leaving his medical supplies behind, and went over to his bed. He wrapped her up in his quilt, only her head being visible. He let her lay swaddled for a bit as he got a fire going in his hearth. He hadn’t gotten too much new firewood, but it burned okay. He picked her up again, unwrapping her from the blanket and putting it around both of them, making sure she was close to him. She really was freezing, any longer out there and she might have gotten hypothermia…
He sat in front of the fire, her in his lap. She laid against him, shivering. Eventually, the shivering became less severe. The warmth of the fire and his fur was finally starting to work.
She coughed again and whimpered with pain. Jax ever so slightly tightened his grip.
“I gotcha.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “I gotcha…” He felt a peculiar warmth in his chest, not just from her gradually returning body heat. He kept wanting to tell her that he had her, that she was safe. Even if she didn’t answer back.
Tomorrow he would take her to the hospital where she could get real help. But right now.
He had her. She was safe.
Notes:
He’s like a bear! He’s like a big purple bear that loves Pomni!
Chapter 4: Dogs
Summary:
Pomni and Jax talk and sleuth and kiss. A major revelation occurs.
Chapter Text
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you,
You'll get the chance to put the knife in…
—
Pomni was dimly aware of a deep ache in her side. This pain wrestled her from sleep, and she blinked awake. She looked up, but instead of her apartment’s cheap popcorn ceiling, she saw a ceiling with visible oak joists and beams. She looked down at herself, and saw a red and black checkered wool throw blanket wrapped around her rather than her quilt. She looked around and saw herself in a wood cabin, sparsely decorated. A sturdy wooden table and chairs in the middle of the main room, a braided, dull-colored wool rug laid across the floor to keep one’s feet warm, a brick fireplace with a shovelful of still warm ash in the hearth. Tilting her all the way up, she could see a small CRT television sat on an end table, in front of a cheap brown loveseat with red chenille cushions. It looked like someone had slept there last night, the pillows stacked at one end and a rumpled blue blanket on the couch.
She raised her arm to check her watch. It hurt a lot. She saw that her arm had been wrapped up in elastic gauze, but her watch was still on her wrist, although the screen had cracked. 7:21 AM. She moved the blanket aside with her left hand, her good hand, to look at herself. She was in a black t-shirt too large for her that appeared to be ruined by a bleach stain, and what appeared to be a pair of red long johns, also too big for her.
She heard the flush of a toilet and a door open at the far end of the room, but she couldn’t turn all the way to look without aggravating the pain in her stomach. A heavy pair of boots approached the bed, and she thought about throwing the blanket over her head like a child hiding from the monster in her closet.
“Hey. You’re up.”
A deep and growly voice greeted her. Above her stood a burly rabbit-wolf hybrid in a white collared shirt, black dress pants and a pair of black suspenders. He smiled sheepishly, trying not to show too much of his enormous teeth. She recognized him. He was the butcher shop owner.
His name was… Jax.
“Sorry, I just got back from feeding my livestock…Do you remember what happened last night?” the rabbit asked.
Pomni thought. She came home, and she couldn’t get in her apartment, and then…
“You got attacked by a Nightwalker,” the rabbit-wolf said. “I’m not sure what happened before then, but I found it biting into your side right outside your apartment. I know you probably feel horrible, and I don’t blame you, but you actually got sorta lucky. Nightwalkers like to travel in packs, so you probably ran into one that had wandered off from the group. A juvenile or runt or something.”
Pomni looked at him with big eyes. He cleared his throat.
“We should get you to the hospital as soon as we can. I patched you up as best I could, but I’m no doctor. You prolly need stitches.”
He looked at her again. Neither of them said anything for a moment. Jax’s ears pinned back, and he scratched behind one of them.
“…Uh. You were freezing too, so I had to warm you up by the fire and get you into dry clothes. Didn’t want you to get hypothermia…” His ears perked up. “A-Are you hungry? I can make you some food.”
Pomni opened her mouth to speak, but an eruption of coughing came out of her instead. She winced at the pain that flared in her abdomen when she did, clutching at her belly after her throat was sated.
Jax looked away with a grimace. “I know, I’m sorry… hang on, I might have something for the pain and cough. It’s not much, but…”
Jax looked inside the first aid kit he left sitting on the table. There was a small packet of extra strength aspirin inside that he gingerly opened with his large fingers. He went into his bathroom and found some acetaminophen in the medicine cabinet, filling a small glass cup with water from his kitchen tap. He carried the pills in one hand and the cup in the other.
“Can you sit up? I don’t want you to choke.” he asked.
Pomni attempted to scoot up in bed, but the nerves in her arm flashed with a pain that cut right to her ulna and she whimpered.
“Here, I’ll be quick,” Jax set the pills and water on the table and gently put his paws under her armpits, sliding her up against the headboard. She whined from the brief pain, but she remained sat up as Jax brought a chair over to the side of the bed and picked up the medicine and cup again.
“Open,” he requested. She opened her mouth and he put the pills on her tongue, bringing the brim of the glass to her lips. “Easy…”
She drained the entire thing, panting and then coughing again, her face crumpling in pain.
“That's all I got,” he growled meekly, putting a paw onto her left shoulder.
Pomni panted, sniffed twice through a clogged nose, swallowed, and managed to speak.
“Jax… weren’t you in jail? Did you… escape..?” Her voice was raspy.
Jax smiled a bit, still doing his best to hide his fangs. “Nah, I got bailed out. No idea who did it. My dad’s never seen that much scratch in his life.”
“Zooble wanted to bail you out yesterday but they didn’t have enough money…” Pomni mumbled.
“Sounds like them. Nah, I got no idea who did it. But I’m glad they did, cuz that way I was in time to get that Nightwalker off you. What were you doing outside?” Jax asked.
“I got locked out… Slipped and fell on the steps… I lost my keys at Kaufmo’s house…” Pomni rasped.
“Kaufmo’s house?”
“I went yesterday… I wanted to see if there was…” Pomni had to stop to swallow, smothering another cough. “If there was anything that might implicate someone else for his… you know… murder.”
Jax tilted his head, letting out a short, breathy laugh. “That’s… Uh, why? I mean, thank you, but-”
“Because you didn’t do it. I know you didn’t do it. Those detectives… I saw the way they looked at you. It wasn’t fair…”
Pomni bit down on her left hand’s fingernails. “But… if you got bailed out, then it was for nothing, wasn’t it..?”
“No,” Jax leaned forward a bit. “That’s… I don’t think any stranger’s ever stuck their neck out for me like that. Thank you.”
Jax smiled again. It was too wide to hide his large, frightening teeth, but Pomni’s pale face became dusted with pink anyway.
“We didn’t find anything anyway before the repo men got there. Just a bunch of pills and a scrap of burnt up paper someone flushed down the toilet…” she wheezed.
Pomni coughed again, groaning at the pain it caused her. Jax rubbed her shoulder.
“We should go to the hospital. I’m not all that hungry right now… But I don’t know if I can walk.” Pomni admitted. “Is it cold out?”
“Uh, I can turn the weather on.”
Jax got up from his chair and pressed the power button of his television with a hollow tink sound. The screen hissed to life, and the audio kicked in.
“-surprised everyone yesterday when he posted bail for Mr. Kingston.”
Jax’s eyes widened somewhat, and he sat down on the loveseat. The same news anchor that was interviewing Jax’s dad on Main Street yesterday now stood in front of the police station. The scene cut to Autumnvale’s mayor, a teeth-humanoid in an impeccably tailored red suit jacket and yellow scarf, standing at a podium in front of town hall.
“The people of Autumnvale have made their stance quite clear. The persecution of crossbreeds is already intolerable enough as it is, and the demonstration out here has shown that Autumnvale is just as tired of it as I am. Therefore, due to my dissatisfaction with the investigation and the evidence, I posted Jax Kingston’s bail yesterday evening.”
The crowd erupted into equal parts cheers and shouts of protests. The picture cut back to the news anchor.
“Police informed ADC news this morning that Mr. Kingston was privately released at 6:15 last night to avoid a scene. The detectives who arrested Mr. Kingston, as well as Kingston himself, have yet to be reached for comment.”
Pomni couldn’t quite turn to look due to her injuries, but she heard Jax give a short, incredulous laugh.
“I’ll be goddamned… Mayor Mason actually did it.”
He gave another short laugh, switching channels on the television to the weather.
“Do you know him..? The mayor?” Pomni asked. She couldn't help but smile right along with the butcher.
“He saved me. He found me when I was a baby, after my fake parents abandoned me. He also helped these grow in.”
Jax showed off his entire maw of razor sharp teeth. Pomni couldn’t help but shiver, despite how kind he had been. When something had big teeth, it was scary, a primal feeling buried deep in her animal brain.
“Is that… a good thing?” Pomni asked.
“Suuure it is. I’m part wolf, meat’s part of my diet. Plus, if I didn’t have that passion, I never would have opened the best butcher shop in the country.”
Pomni smiled again. “Well, I’m happy for you. But we still don’t know who actually did it… Killed Kaufmo I mean.”
“That can wait. You need the hospital. The only issue is, it’s not getting above 23 degrees today, and your snow clothes got… really messed up.”
Jax picked up her puffer jacket with the massive hole ripped in the side from off the table, and in his other hand, showed her fleece and black long sleeved shirt, the blood had dried on both to the point that it would probably never come out in the wash, unless said wash contained antimatter.
“Ohhh… my mom bought those for me…” Pomni said weakly. “They were part of my going away present…”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to sew.” Jax replied. “Ragatha might, but I don’t even think she could fix a mess this bad… But the good news is, I’ve got spare winter stuff. I used to wear it as a teenager, but it’ll probably still be big on you…”
He went over to the wood trunk at the foot of the bed and opened it, the hinges squeaking. After a few moments of rustling, he got out an insulated brown leather jacket with cream fur trim, a gray trapper hat and baggy, dark green squall pants.
“It’s not Gucci, but it beats freezing.” Jax said.
“You know what? That’s fine with me-” Pomni had another coughing fit, clutching her midsection in pain.
“Fuck..!” she exclaimed.
Jax rose to his feet, putting the chair back under his table. “Yup, that’s my cue to get you to the hospital. You need help getting dressed?”
“Uh… no, I uh…” she stammered with a blush.
“Look, I already cleaned you up and got you changed into dry clothes last night, so it’s no big deal. I don’t want you torturing yourself over pride or anything.” Jax said, looking up at the ceiling.
“I mean… I can do it. Just… if I need help, I’ll… call you? I guess?”
“Sure. I can hang out in the bathroom. Just holler if you need anything, okay?” Jax said. He set the clothes down on his bed, tucked his hands into the pockets of his work pants and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
It took a good fifteen minutes and a great deal of whinging on her part, but Pomni got herself dressed. The only thing that hadn’t been swapped for something dry and warm was her underwear, which she silently appreciated quite a bit. She examined the bandages on her belly, which were reddish-brown with blood, but otherwise fairly clean. The wounds on her forehead and back had been washed and bandaged as well, although a few locks of her hair were quite sticky with dried blood. She needed a shower when it was safe to take one.
“Okay, I’m done.” Pomni called out, sitting on Jax’s bed.
Jax exited the bathroom and smirked upon seeing Pomni.
“I know, I know, I look like I’m wearing my dad’s clothes.” Pomni sighed.
“You look cute.” Jax replied.
Pomni felt her cheeks warm up. “Th-Thanks… so, are we just gonna call an ambulance? Since I don’t feel strong enough to walk…”
“Haven’t got a phone. I can walk you there.” Jax said. “What would be the most comfortable way for me to carry you?”
“You don’t have a car..? Or a horse?” Pomni asked.
“Nope. I get everywhere on my own two feet. When you’ve lived in this backwater as long as I have, you get good at moving around quickly and quietly.”
Pomni sighed. “Okay, fine. I guess we don’t have a choice, really.”
“What? Are you worried I’ll drop you? I carried you all the way here before, didn’t I? While running.”
Pomni sighed. “Okay. But before we go, can we get my keys? I know they’re still sitting there under his back window…”
“I’ll get ‘em after I drop you off. Hospital first. Come on, upsy.”
Jax scooped Pomni up carefully, placing his hands around the gash on her back. Pomni made a faint squeak in surprise, but luckily, he didn’t aggravate her wound. He must have gotten really good at picking up dead weight over the years.
“Shit, you’re tiny. Like lifting a bag of corncobs.” Jax grinned. Up close his teeth were even bigger than they looked, each one about the length of a toothpick.
“Yeah, well… you stink.” Pomni shot back. “You always use bacon grease as soap?”
Jax laughed. His chest bounced. “As if you can smell anything right now.”
“I can smell you . You ever thought about bathing once every few years?” Pomni covered her nose, but her smirk betrayed a playfulness to the gesture.
He opened the front door, shutting it behind him and locking it. Impressively, he balanced her on one palm and still managed to keep his hand off her back wound.
The morning air was freezing, as expected. Pomni felt a wave of shivers roll through her body upon feeling the bitter winter cold again. She felt her body gearing up for another coughing fit and clapped her hands over her mouth.
“Don’t worry, I gotcha…” Jax said.
She let out a painful, barking cough into her gloves. She winced from the pain, which was only mildly dulled from the pill Jax gave her. As it finally subsided, she turned her head to the side and spat a gob of phlegm into the snow.
“Nice shot,” Jax chuckled.
“Mmmrrrrgh…” was the only thing Pomni managed to say. She rested her cheek against his chest. The warmth felt good.
—
While Dr. Wren’s office was the town psychiatric clinic, Autumnvale Regional Medical Center was where citizens were treated for injuries or sickness. It was a small building not too far from town, only one floor with twenty beds, five nurses and three doctors.
The nurse at the reception desk did a double take from her pulpy romance novel when a six foot tall rabbit-wolf entered the lobby, carrying what looked at first like a bundle of clothes, but was actually an adult woman.
“She fell down some stairs and got attacked by a Nightwalker. I did my best to patch her up, but she needs real medicine and stitches. It hurts for her to walk, too.”
The nurse narrowed her eyes at Jax before looking at Pomni. “You… fell down some stairs..?”
Pomni caught on immediately and rolled her eyes. “Yes, I fell down some stairs. He didn’t do this to me. He saved my fucking life, actually.”
She let out another barrage of coughs and groaned in pain, Jax smiling gratefully at her,
The nurse soon had Pomni in a wheelchair, taking her to the emergency room. The surgeon, a Persian woman almost as short as Pomni with rectangular glasses and bright red lipstick, tended to her. She applied some local anesthesia to Pomni’s belly and removed the bandages, Pomni only feeling a faint rip as her skin had gone totally numb.
“You know, these are cleaned and dressed quite professionally,” the surgeon said as she removed the gauze from the bite mark with a pair of forceps. “Your friend out there did a fine job. So, tell me what happened?”
Pomni thought a moment. It was easier to focus now that the pain had finally been put on mute. “There was this… I don’t want to call it a dog, it had hooves and no hair…”
“Nightwalker,” the surgeon said, picking up her suturing needle and threading it with Kevlar. “Awful monsters, they are. They come in all different shapes and sizes. Some of them move on two legs, like people. Some of them have too many arms and legs.”
“Uh huh. Well it came over and bit me, hard. It must have seen I was already hurt. But Jax… he got it with a knife and carried me to his house. I would’ve bled out or froze without him…”
Pomni coughed, the nurse giving her a menthol drop to soothe her throat so she wouldn’t jostle the surgeon’s needlework.
“Well, we’re all glad you’re safe. Did you ever find your keys?” the surgeon asked with a slight smile.
“No, but I know where they are…” Pomni said, sucking on the menthol drop. It felt great on her throat but tasted like chemical honey. “Jax said he’d go get them.”
“Well, that’s good. I’m glad you have someone who can look after you here, even if you’re from out of town…” the surgeon said as she cut off the thread with a pair of scissors before moving to the next bite. “Your wounds aren’t infected, but we are going to give you a tetanus and rabies shot just in case. I’m also going to give you some painkillers, are you allergic to any medication?”
“I have a sulfa sensitivity,” Pomni said. “Oh, I am on antidepressants though… I have the pills in my apartment.”
“We can probably give you some if we have any in the hospital pharmacy. I’ll have to check if they haven’t expired. Have you had anything to eat?” the surgeon inquired.
“No. Since my stomach doesn’t hurt right now, I could go for something to eat. I also need to call my parents. Man, they’re gonna be pissed…”
“Don’t be silly, they’ll be worried and relieved. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times.” the surgeon replied as she started on the next wound.
Pomni sighed. She supposed the surgeon was right, but she really hoped that her parents didn’t panic and want to take her back home. She was four hours away from the big city anyway, it wasn’t like it was a short trip for them. She had work to do as well, not just for school.
—
Jax sifted through the snow under Kaufmo’s back window. The drift wasn’t as heavy due to a colossal pine tree that had probably been here since before the town was even founded, but it was enough to hide a small object like keys.
Eventually, he found a few bits and bobs that might be in a lady’s purse buried in an inconspicuous patch of snow: a half eaten roll of breath mints, a bobby pin, and a ring of keys. Jax held up the keys between his thumb and pointer finger. It was one of those flimsy 99 cent things you could buy at any gas station, with two keys and a little charm dangling off one side. The charm appeared to depict a little blue smiling face with black eyes and sharp teeth.
“Hm. Cute,” Jax said to himself as he tucked the keys into his pocket. He looked into the window . So she had really gone in there looking for clues, huh? Brave of her, if careless. Well, now that the government repossessed all of Kaufmo’s things (he probably didn’t have a will), whatever clues there may have been were long gone.
That is, unless the cleaners hadn’t come yet.
Jax shaded his eyes and looked into the window. Too dark to tell. He tried the window. It was locked. He tried again, a little harder. It didn’t move. He tried again with his full strength. There was a loud twuuuuuung accompanied by the sound of metal clinking across a wooden floor, and the window slid open. Jax double checked to see if anybody was around, then climbed inside.
There wasn’t any furniture at all in the condo, really. The refrigerator in the kitchen appeared to be the only thing left. The hardwood was covered in gritty bits of crud that must have been under rugs, dust bunnies and a couple bits of loose change and chewed pen caps that had lived under couches and chairs for who knows how long. It smelled dusty and lonely. Jax rubbed his nose.
He took a brief look inside the bathroom. It was still a bit grimy, but otherwise empty. He checked the mirror cabinet. Empty. He opened the toilet lid, then closed it. Yeah, he wasn’t about to go sticking a paw in there, sorry Pomni.
He checked the last room, the bedroom. It was the only room with carpeting, and thus Jax could see where everything used to be thanks to the impressions in the floor. A bed, a dresser, something like a bookshelf or wardrobe. That was it. There was another window to the outside, but it wasn’t like you could take those out of the house too. Nothing in the closet either.
He turned to leave out the window he came through when his boot kicked something tiny on the carpet, about the size of a pebble you’d put in an aquarium. It skittered across the carpet and tapped the wall, coming to rest after rolling a short distance. Jax picked it up and held it towards the light filtering through the window.
A capsule, half blue and half orange. The blue side marked with a string of letters, TEBA, the orange marked with numbers, 7199. He sniffed it. Smelled like… the floor. His sense of smell was good, but he couldn’t pinpoint what a pill was for just by sniffing it once. He put it in his back pocket for later, then stepped out of the window into the snow. Maybe Pomni knew what it was for, or one of the doctors at the hospital. He crunched up the sidewalk back towards the hospital. He was always thankful for his fur, it was like having a coat year-round.
“KINGSTON!”
Jax’s long ears sprung straight up upon hearing a voice call for him. He growled and turned, expecting to see Trevor or some other goon waiting to pick a fight for “getting off easy.”
Instead, it was two people on a striped horse. The person in the rear clambered off the back and ran forward, a chess piece shaped fellow in a red flannel jacket and bucket fishing hat.
“Jax..! Oh, my boy!” Kinger threw his hands around Jax’s burly torso and pressed an ear to his chest, squeezing him with all his might.
“Dad..! Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t…” Jax began. He could feel Kinger’s breath and shoulders hitching.
“We all thought they were gonna put you away forever, Jax…” Kinger whispered, tears running down his face.
“…I did too, dad.” Jax replied tenderly. He hugged the old man back as tight as he could without hurting him. His real dad.
“I’m so glad you’re here…” Kinger sobbed.
“Me too… I’m sorry I didn’t call, really. Something huge came up, I- OOF!”
Jax felt a fist box him in the side. He looked over to see Zooble, their fist raised and quaking.
“Something came up, huh? It better have been life or death, you stupid! Meathead! Asshole!” Zooble punctuated the last three words with three more sharp blows to the side. Jax’s arms were still around his adoptive father and thus too preoccupied for a counter hit.
“Zooble, cut it out already, that shit hurts! Sorry dad…”
The cowboy relented with a huff and hugged Jax as well. The butcher rolled his eyes, but smiled and put an arm around them too.
“So what was so important you couldn’t let your friends and family know you were outta jail?” Zooble demanded.
“That art student girl, Pomni, she- I was on my to vi- I was on my way home and I saw her getting attacked by a Nightwalker. She needed help.” Jax explained.
Zooble withdrew and tilted up their hat incredulously. “Wait, Pomni? Seriously?! I just saw her yesterday, we were casing Kaufmo’s place over there for any evidence that might get you off the hook? She got attacked! Shit, man, I hope it wasn’t ‘cause I left her behind…”
“Good job son! Killing a Nightwalker all on your own… your mother would have been proud!” Kinger said, at last releasing Jax and wiping his eyes.
“I know she would’ve, dad… But no, it wasn’t you, Zooble. She lost her keys.” Jax held up and jingled Pomni’s keychain. “She’s in the hospital now if you want to see her. I had to keep her from bleeding to death last night…”
“Ugh. What a fuckin’ mess… Sorry, Kinger. I’m glad she’s okay though.” Zooble said, putting their hand and hook on their hips.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Jax,” Kinger said. “And good for you for helping a stranger. I raised you right.”
“You know she’s got a crush on you, right?” Zooble added, a smile in their voice. Jax arched an eyebrow.
“What? Don’t be stupid. She’s just thankful someone was around to save her skinny little butt.”
“Ohhhh no no, we figured it out yesterday. She’s got a huuuge crush on you. I bet she thinks you’re her knight in shining armor now.” Zooble elbowed the butcher in the side.
Jax scoffed, but there was an unmistakable shy smile on his face for a moment before it turned into a smirk.
“A crush, huh? You mean like the kind you have on Gangle?”
Zooble rolled their eyes. “This again? Don’t try and change the subject, man.”
“I’m not. I’m very much still on the subject of crushes. In fact, I think I was just thinking about what those flowers left by Kaufmo’s house were originally for. There was a card left in the bouquet.”
Jax removed a small paper card with elegant lavender cursive written on it from his back pocket. Zooble somehow turned even more pink.
“Let’s see, ‘To Gangle, From Your Secret Admirer,’ with two little hearts after it! How cute! Now who do ya think coulda left that there, hm?”
Zooble flicked the card out of Jax’s paw and pulled the brim of their hat almost entirely over their face, climbing up onto ZigZag.
“We’ll meet you at the hospital, FangFace. I’m gonna go tell Ragatha about what happened and hope she doesn’t swoon.”
“You better tell Gangle too. Unless you’d rather send her a card, ‘Secret Admirer.’” Jax leered, feral teeth on full display.
He ducked an apple thrown at his head, waved goodbye to his dad, and watched the two of them ride off into the distance.
Jax put his hands in his pockets, smiling a little less wickedly to himself. So, she had a crush, huh? He couldn’t think of a time anyone had ever liked him like that. There had been a few disgusting remarks thrown his way by some of the lint-brained, redneck wife-beaters that hung around the bar and hardware store. It must have been some kind of weird sexual racism thing, where you hate someone for their race but at the same time think they’re hot. Gangle told him about it once. He didn’t much care why. The mouths that issued those taunts now had significantly less teeth or tongues in their heads anyway.
But… he was alright with this. He liked her too, and it felt good. For ages, he didn’t understand stories with romance in them. Putting your mouth on someone else’s mouth and calling them cute things always felt weird and sort of childish to him.
Now he got it. Maybe he could try doing those things with her, if she was okay with it. He’d have to watch his teeth though.
—
Pomni had been on the phone with her mother for almost 30 minutes. The nurse, a sheepwoman, had sat her in a wheelchair and trundled her down to the white corded phone on the wall.
“Of course I understand, mom, but I’m not going home… Because I’m okay on my own… I’m 25, mom! If something happens with my stitches, I’ll just call an ambulance… Yes, they have ambulances here, mom, they’re not Amish… Mom, I have insurance, you helped me set it up! I’m not going to max out my copayments, I- look, can I talk to dad? Well, when’ll he be home..? Oh, okay. You didn’t tell him I was in critical condition or anything, right? Thank you.”
Ragatha sat nearby, reading the newspaper. She had, of course, dropped everything and closed the café when Zooble informed her about Pomni’s ordeal, rushing over to the hospital to check on her. Ragatha had tried to call Pomni twice the previous evening to let her know about Jax being bailed out, and was nervous the rest of the night upon not getting an answer back. Sitting here and keeping an eye on Pomni helped curb some of the guilt she felt, however irrational it was.
“Everyone locks their doors around 6:30 or 7:00 around here, and now I kinda understand why… I’m only joking, mom… Um, I don’t know about tonight, it’s a four hour drive. Okay. Okay, well, if you’re dead set on coming tonight, leave ASAP, and book the room now. Like, now now. I know you’re worried, mom, but I don’t want you or dad getting hurt… Uh… Shoot, I don’t know the name of the inn. Do you want to talk to Ragatha? She can help. I need something to drink, anyway, my throat hurts... It’s just a cold, mom. Okay, here she is. Love you too, talk in a sec.”
Ragatha was over by the phone in a heartbeat, Pomni handing it off to her and wheeling her way down the hall towards the drink machine.
“Hi, Ella! Holding up okay?” Ragatha said in her sweetest voice. “Oh, I understand, all of us are shaken up. But she’s a tough girl, she’s doing awesome. Okay, you got a pencil?”
Pomni reached the humming drink machine and took her pocketbook out of her purse. She shook out a few coins into her palm, sorted out three quarters and poured the rest back in. She reached up to the machine’s coin slot gingerly and dropped in two quarters. The surgeon told her to not bend too far up or down to keep from popping any stitches, so she had to awkwardly push the coins in with the very tip of fingers to avoid stretching her arm out. The last quarter slipped off her finger and chinged onto the floor, rolling a few feet away before laying tails-side up.
“Goddamn it…” Pomni rolled her eyes and reopened her pocketbook. She didn’t want to risk ripping her sutures.
“Here,” a deep voice said.
Pomni looked up to see Jax picking up the quarter and sliding it into the coin slot. From her sitting position, he looked even taller.
“What do you feel like?” he asked, hovering a finger over the selection buttons.
“Root beer, thanks,” Pomni said with a smile.
Jax pressed the appropriate button with his thumb, the machine whirring for a moment before a silver can of Barker’s Root Beer clunked noisily into the vending slot. Jax picked up the can and cracked the pop top. He sniffed it and recoiled.
“Smells like medicine,” he said as he handed it off to Pomni.
“I just took painkillers, a decongestant and my anti-depressants, I know what medicine tastes like.” Pomni smirked.
She took three long swallows of root beer, the manufactured hyper-sweet taste like ambrosia after the pills and bland hospital food, the cold and prickly bubbles easing the soreness of her throat. She belched, grimacing in disgust and putting a fist to her mouth.
“Euck- okay, that tasted like medicine…”
Jax laughed a bit, then reached into his pocket and offered Pomni her keys. “These are yours, right?”
“You found them…”
As she took the keys, she turned over his large paw and placed a small kiss on his knuckle. Jax looked at the back of his hand like it had suddenly grown an extra finger.
“Sorry,” Pomni giggled, blushing. “Was that too much?”
“No, it… I just… I’ve only ever gotten those from my mother.” he replied distantly.
Pomni smiled. For all his razortooth smiles and talk of blood and butchery, there still existed something warm and fragile inside that bulky frame.
“I could give you one on the lips too, if you wanted.” Pomni said, keeping her gaze on the floor.
Jax’s moon yellow eyes widened somewhat. He scratched the back of his head and looked at the ceiling for a moment before looking back down with a short laugh.
“Why?” he asked.
“I want to,” Pomni answered without hesitating.
Jax opened his mouth to answer. He found he had no words. He gently gripped the armrests of Pomni’s wheelchair and lowered his upper body down to her eye level. Up close, he looked… fluffy. Downright huggable. His eyes, usually so laser-focused and piercing, darted about.
Pomni went for it. She leaned in carefully and laid a chaste kiss on the rabbit-wolf’s lips. Jax’s ears pinned back, but his eyes closed with hers for the moment it lasted.
The kiss broke, only lasting a moment or two, and the two of them stared at one another.
“My breath wasn’t bad, was it?” Jax asked with a sheepish, sharp-toothed smile.
“It can’t have been any worse than mine, I haven’t even brushed my teeth today.” Pomni replied.
The two of them laughed shyly, before Pomni touched her forehead with Jax’s and closed her eyes.
“Thank you for everything…” she whispered.
“Pomni, hun! Your dad is on the phone!” Ragatha called from around the corner.
“Coming!” she replied, her voice still slightly weak. She gave Jax one more grateful smile before turning her chair around and wheeling towards the corner.
“Oh! Pomni, wait! I found something at Kaufmo’s house.” Jax took hold of one of the push handles to keep Pomni from leaving, taking the capsule out of his back pocket. “Look. You said he dumped all his medicine, right?”
Pomni handed Jax her drink as she took the pill from his paw.
“Oh. Yeah, this is- this is like the kind I take! It’s Prozac. Or the generic version of it, at least. It-”
Pomni blinked, then held the pill closer to her eyes and squinted. She thought for a moment before she gasped and covered her mouth.
“What?” Jax asked urgently.
“I think I know what happened to Kaufmo.”
“What? Seriously? You’re not just-”
Pomni nodded feverishly. “I think I’m onto something. But there’s one thing I need you to do for me before we go pointing any fingers.”
Pomni handed Jax back the pill, whispered something to him, then wheeled forward, only for Jax to grab a push handle again.
“Wait, how am I supposed to convince them to do that?!” Jax demanded.
“Use their biggest weakness against them. Be scary.” Pomni said with a smile before wheeling around the corner.
“Ragatha! Do you have any idea how to get in contact with ADC?”
2 hours later…
The news anchor checked her makeup one last time before taking her mark, in front of the hospital by the double door entrance. The protestors from the previous day had gathered outside, some carrying signs congratulating Jax, others had signs asking for more justice to be served on the part of crossbreeds. The news anchor tapped her earpiece.
“We’re rolling? Okay- Thanks, Rob, many folks in Autumnvale, including myself, were floored to hear this afternoon’s story. 22-year-old Jax Kingston, proprietor of the town butcher shop, faced arrest on suspicion of murder only yesterday. However, Autumnvale’s Mayor Caine Mason posted Kingston’s half-a-million dollar bail out of his own pocket, citing ‘dissatisfaction with the evidence and investigation.’ And it would appear that Mr. Kingston did something truly heroic not fifteen minutes after he was released from the town jail.”
The footage cut to B-Roll of a young woman in a hospital bed talking to a nurse.
“25-year-old grad student Pomni Freeman found herself in a life or death situation at 6:30 last night, when she fell down the flight of stairs outside her apartment and encountered a juvenile Nightwalker waiting for her at the bottom.”
It cut to Pomni laying in her bed. She looked quite tired.
“It just walked up and bit me in the stomach. Like it was the most natural thing in the world…” she said.
“It must have been terrifying. Can you even describe how you felt?” the interviewer said from off camera.
“Like I was going to die. Alone, cold and screaming…” Pomni replied dourly.
The news anchor continued.
“But, in a miraculous stroke of luck, Kingston heard her screaming and rushed in.”
It cut to Jax being interviewed. He loomed over the entire news crew. The boom mic operator had to stand on a stepladder.
“I got the monster off of her, then I got her somewhere safe.” he grunted.
“How did you feel?” the interviewer asked.
“…Afraid.” he responded after a lengthy pause. “Afraid for her.”
It cut to B-Roll footage of the mayor, Caine Mason, at his desk, working on some important-looking paperwork.
“ADC was informed of these events via an anonymous tip just a few hours after the mayor announced that he bailed out Mr. Kingston.”
It cut to Caine, at his desk, fingers knit together.
“Hopefully this will serve as an example of how crossbred people are just as deserving of our respect as anyone else. This is a landmark moment.” he said.
The camera cut back to the news anchor.
“But not everyone agrees, Rob. As you can see, some townsfolk have gathered outside Autumnvale Regional Medical Center behind me, some to celebrate Mr. Kingston’s achievement, others to-”
There was a commotion behind the anchor. The crowd appeared to be agitated by something occurring at the entrance.
A shape humanoid in a green and yellow poncho and cowboy hat had wrestled the megaphone out of Dr. Wren’s hand, shouting into it.
“EVERYONE LISTEN UP! Pomni Freeman has an important announcement regarding the… uh…”
They paused, looking at a nearby woman made of ribbons and a white mask for help. She whispered a few things to them, and they spoke up again.
“…regarding the encouraged suicide of Kaufmo.”
The news anchor waved at her cameraman, “Keep rolling, keep rolling!”
Pomni, still in her wheelchair but wearing a brown leather jacket and a gray trapper hat, both too large for her, rolled over to take the bullhorn. Jax stood right beside her.
“Test, test… Okay. Uh. Hi, everyone. I can’t talk very loud, I have a cold. Uh, as you know, Jax Kingston has been the chief suspect in this case. But… I’ve uncovered some evidence that proves otherwise. I know I’m not a cop, and I’m willing to sacrifice my scholarship for the evidence I’ve obtained. The truth is… Kaufmo really did just kill himself. And this is why.”
She held up a small blue and orange capsule.
“Uh, this is Fluoxetine Maleate, also called Prozac. It’s an SSRI that helps with anxiety and depression. Kaufmo took these just as I take them, every morning. The one I’ve got right here, it’s a fake. A placebo. I had Jax ask one of the doctors to check and make sure it was a real pill, pretending it was one of the ones I got from the pharmacy. I’m… sorry I lied to the hospital staff, but you wouldn’t have believed me if I had just asked you to analyze it. I have the proof right here…”
She held up some complicated looking paperwork.
“What tipped me off was the letters and numbers on the capsule. Anyone that takes generic Prozac will tell you the pattern on the capsules is always TEVA-7189. This one says TEBA-7199. It’s just a capsule of sugar.”
There was a murmur in the crowd.
“Kaufmo was on fake antidepressants. That’s why he killed himself. He was taking all different sorts of medication, but he wasn’t improving. So… he gave up. He decided to end it… Nothing was helping… But why? Why was it all phony?”
She turned slowly to glare at Dr. Wren.
“I know what you did, you twisted fuck.”
“What I- excuse me?” Dr. Wren replied.
“You call yourself a doctor? You gave Kaufmo placebos for who knows how long, so his depression got worse. Then, when the poor man offed himself, you dumped the fake pills, and replaced them with real ones in case someone ever tried testing them. I found all those pills you flushed down the toilet!
“But that wasn’t the only thing you flushed, was it? Nope. You burnt something and flushed it down the toilet too. Right? What was it? Something to push him over the edge even further. Hate mail? Some kind of threat? Something that would make him lose all hope. The final nail in the coffin for him to end it all.”
Dr. Wren had gone red in the face. “Young lady, these are completely baseless allegations! How can you say something so-”
“I’m not done! Then, when he hung himself from that pine tree, you slit his arms with one of Jax’s knives, hid the knife badly so the cops would find it and blame Jax, and then you waited for him to get arrested so you could send out a rallying cry to aaall these people who actually wanted to help, and you could look like a hero. Well, I hate to tell you, Dr. Wren. You’re not a hero. You’re a freak! All you did was bully a man that everyone loved into killing himself, then you made the guy who was already the town pariah into the main suspect because it looked good to defend him!”
“Stop this right now! You’re demeaning an entire movement with your lies! You don’t-” Dr. Wren let out an incredulous laugh. “You don’t have any proof that one word of your insane story is true!”
“You’re right… I don’t,” Pomni replied. “None of this has any hard evidence, there’s not even any proof that this pill came from Kaufmo’s house. Just my word. But guess what? You’re the only one that can prescribe anti-depressants around here, and I’ve got proof that these didn’t come from the hospital pharmacy and that they’re fake! I don’t care if you don’t get convicted! I don’t care if this all gets thrown out in court and you walk! You’re DONE. I know that you’re guilty! And now everyone else knows you’re guilty! Here in town and out in tv-land!”
Pomni pointed the bullhorn at the news crew, who were still rolling. She turned back towards Dr. Wren, whose face had bleached.
“Congratu-fuckin’-lations! You made a good movement look worse and you took a man’s life away! Was it worth it? Do you feel like a hero?! ”
Pomni devolved into a coughing fit, dropping the bullhorn to the ground with a clatter. Jax held her handkerchief to her mouth, then wheeled her back towards the hospital entrance, the cowboy and ribbon woman following after them. A growing murmur began to rise in the crowd, Dr. Wren staring dead-eyed into space. The news anchor turned back to the camera and swept her hair out of her face, clearing her throat.
“Well. I guess that’s back to you, Rob.”
Notes:
Hey, do me a quick favor. Don’t spoil who did it in the comments, okay? It kinda ruins the mystery.
Chapter 5: Pigs on the Wing
Summary:
Pomni and Jax tell all.
Notes:
This is the end for now. One day I may return to this AU cause I like it a lot. Enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
A green 2000 Honda Accord pulled into the Medical Center parking lot around 2 pm. A fair skinned brunette woman in a black leather coat and a red scarf emerged from the passenger side. She winced a bit at the cold, but marched forward anyway.
“Ella! Wait for me!” her husband, similarly pale, in a tan duster and blue baker’s boy cap, stumbled out of the driver’s side, hurriedly putting his keys and cellphone into his pocket.
“I just need to see her,” the woman replied.
“I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to worry as well,” her husband muttered.
“Vladimir, save your carping for later!” Ella snapped.
A woman with curly red hair and an eyepatch over her right eye stood outside the entrance in a violet peacoat and white-and-pink Pompom hat. She took a drag off of a mostly spent cigarette, dropping it and grinding it into the snow with her boot upon seeing the two out-of-towners.
“Ella and Vladimir?” she asked with a glowing smile.
“That’s us, you must be Ragatha,” Ella replied, giving a thin and nervous smile in return. “It’s a pleasure to put a face to a name. How’s Pomni?”
Ragatha led them inside, tamping the snow off her boots. She led them down the hall.
“She’s just fine! I know you two must be worried sick, but she’s right as rain. She’s eating and drinking, and… well she’s definitely talking. She’s actually talking to some police officers right now.”
“Police offi- Excuse me?!” Ella cried.
“No, no, don’t worry! She did something really amazing! Come on, she’s in here.”
Ragatha led them into room 6. In addition to two local police officers, one of whom appeared to the sheriff if the cowboy hat and aviators were any indication, an enormous rabbitman in a white shirt and suspenders stood off in the corner. He eyed the two of them with mild suspicion, before seeming to understand their relation to Pomni and looking away again.
“Mom, Dad!” Pomni smiled and held out her hands from her hospital bed. She looked tired and her voice rasped, but she had color in her cheeks.
“Oh, honey! I’m sorry we took so long!” Ella went over and grabbed her daughter’s hands. “Are you okay? What’s going on? You’re not in trouble, are you?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out, ma’am.” one of the officers, the woman without a cowboy hat, answered.
Ella looked from the police officer back to Pomni. “Pomni, what happened?”
“Well… she appears to have helped us solve a murder case.”
“Oh, is that all?” Vladimir replied distantly.
“What?!” Ella cried. “Pomni, what have you been doing?! You said you were just attacked by an animal, what’s all this about- murder?”
“I’m sorry, mom. It’s been… it’s been a wild few days.”
Pomni turned to the police officers. “Can I fill them in on everything?”
“Might as well, we could stand to hear the whole story over again.” the sheriff drawled.
Pomni told them everything. From the biased detectives, to looking for clues in Kaufmo’s condo, to the Nightwalker, to Jax rescuing her. All the way to the announcement she made on the news. She only left out the part about Jax going to investigate, since she didn’t want him nailed for breaking and entering. By the end of the story, both of her parents looked like they had run a marathon. Pomni paused to take a long drink of water.
“I know it wasn’t safe, or smart, but I needed to do something. Anything. I knew as soon as I saw that fake pill, that…”
“Pomni. It’s okay, I just… it’s so much at once.” Ella admitted.
“Normally you’d be in a lot more trouble, Ms. Freeman. You trespassed, and that evidence you found is inadmissible in court, since it was obtained illegally.”
Pomni looked down. “So there goes my scholarship, right?”
“Well… Dr. Wren came forward and admitted everything. Seems like you were correct. He had been giving Kaufmo fake pills, in hopes of him killing himself and stirring up advocacy for his cause.”
“Bastard…” Pomni whispered.
“So, even though your methods were unorthodox, you did help us track down the real culprit,” the female officer continued. “The sheriff and I agree that we can let you off with a warning this time.”
Pomni’s parents sighed in unison.
“All of that said, we don’t want you poking around in police business anymore,” the sheriff said. “You got incredibly lucky that our perp had no spine. If he had decided to shut his mouth and get a lawyer, he probably would have walked.”
“I know. I just…” She looked across the room at Jax. They locked eyes. “I knew you had the wrong guy…”
Jax gave her a small smile.
“We did,” the female officer said. “And for that, we owe Mr. Kingston an apology.”
The sheriff seemed to clam up a bit, but he chewed his lower lip and walked over to Jax.
“On behalf of the Autumnvale Police Department, I’d like to apologize for the mistake we made.” he groused.
“…Thanks,” was Jax’s curt reply.
The sheriff nodded stiffly then motioned towards the door. “Let’s go, Melissa, paperwork ain’t gonna finish itself.”
He stepped out the door, the female officer smiling at Pomni’s parents.
“Pleasure meeting you two, enjoy the rest of your day.”
She followed the sheriff out of the room. Pomni’s father looked at Jax, the rabbit-wolf blinking in response.
“You rescued my little girl, sir,” Vladimir said.
Jax got to his feet after a moment. Even though Vladimir was the tallest in the family, he only came up to Jax’s armpit.
“Just doing the right thing, Mr. Freeman…” he muttered. Pomni had to swallow a giggle at how shy the crossbreed was acting around her dad.
“Thank you so much… I’m forever in your debt, Mr. Kingston.” Vladimir extended a hand. Jax looked at Vladimir’s hand for a few moments before he took it in his own enormous mitt and shook it gingerly.
Ella approached the butcher as well. She opened her mouth to say something, finding no words. She threw her arms around Jax, who jolted and held his arms out to the sides.
“We owe you the world, sir…” she whispered tearfully. The top of her head only came up to his diaphragm.
“Uh… I uh… Y-Yeah, thanks. I mean- you’re welcome.” Jax stammered.
“Mom…” Pomni whined, blushing.
Her parents stayed for as long as they were allowed, chatting with Ragatha and septuple-checking if Pomni was alright and that she for certain had everything she needed. Jax mostly stood outside the room, sizing up anyone who came too close. It wasn’t until Pomni called him inside the room that he began to speak more to her parents.
“So, you’re a butcher, Mr. Kingston? Is that a very lucrative business in this town?” Vladimir asked.
Jax had to think for a moment. Lucrative. What did that mean again..?
“Erm… yes. I have a lot of customers.” he replied after a pause.
“I’ve been a satisfied customer for years,” Ragatha added with a glowing smile. “He’s got the best bacon, the best pork chops, the best steaks- oh my gosh, you guys need to try my steak and eggs tomorrow! It’s the blue-plate special!”
“I’ve had one of his steaks… they’re amazing.” Pomni said, sucking on a cherry menthol drop. The hospital thankfully had some of those in stock along with the lemon-honey kind.
“Wow, I’m surprised. The drive into town seems like nothing but wheat and cornfields…” Ella said.
Jax made an unpleasant sound in his throat. “I hate corn.”
“I was going to ask. You are part wolf, right? Are you an omnivore?” Vladimir asked.
“Dad…” Pomni chided, but Jax raised a paw at her and nodded reassuringly.
“Yeah. I eat meat and greens. Just not corn. Fuc- Uh, screws with my stomach.”
“Well, that’s no love lost, really. As a dietitian, I can tell you that corn is mostly just starch and sugar,” Ella said. “And I can tell you’ve been eating right, Mr. Jax.”
“Mom…!” Pomni exclaimed.
“What? He’s in excellent shape. You could learn a thing or two from him, Pomni.” Ella’s tone became a bit more stern. “You’re not just eating instant noodles and toaster pastries, right?”
“No, mom…” Pomni grumbled.
“I make sure she’s well fed, Ella, don’t you worry.” Ragatha chirped.
There was a small commotion from down the hall as Gangle, in her beret and holding her libretto for A Winter’s Tale , hurried in along with Zooble. Jax looked up from examining his own bicep and smiled at his cowboy friend.
“Hey, ‘Secret Admirer.’” he said, a knowing gleam in his moon-yellow eyes.
Gangle spoke up before Zooble had time for a retort.
“Guys! We should turn on the-” Gangle noticed Vladimir and Ella, holding her libretto a little closer to herself. “Oh, uh… excuse me. Hi, am I interrupting?”
Pomni’s mom smiled and got to her feet, shaking one of Gangle’s ribbons. “No, not at all. I’m Mirella Amadeo, Pomni’s mother.”
“Hello,” Vladimir said shortly.
Pomni smiled a bit, her mom was always the most social in the family.
“Oh, it’s a pleasure to meet you!” Gangle said with a nervous but happy laugh. “My name is Gangle, and this is my friend Zooble. Their pronouns are they/them.”
“Howdy,” said Zooble, doffing their hat.
“We should turn on the news, it’s gonna start any minute! Channel 03!”
Pomni picked up the remote from the nightstand and switched on the small, wall mounted CRT television in the corner of her room. When the screen fuzzed with snow, she pressed a few buttons before the picture flicked to black, then to an animated intro for the 5 o’clock news.
“ADC News: Your window to the world,” a smooth-voiced man announced.
The picture cut to a well-dressed cougarman and human woman behind a glass desk in a somewhat futuristic-looking newsroom.
“Good evening, I’m Robert Watts,” the man began.
“And I’m Jennifer Silman, and this is ADC News. Our top story tonight…”
The camera zoomed in on Silman, a screen over her right shoulder showing a photo of the Autumnvale Regional Medical Center.
“…the ongoing homicide investigation of Autumnvale man Kaufmo Hawkins has taken yet another startling twist. Earlier today, Pomni Freeman, the young woman rescued from a Nightwalker attack by the previous suspect Jax Kingston, gave an explosive accusation in front of Autumnvale Regional Medical Center.”
The picture cut to footage of Pomni talking into the megaphone earlier that day.
“You’re not a hero. You’re a freak ! All you did was bully a man that everyone loved into killing himself, then you made the guy who was already the town pariah into the main suspect because it looked good to defend him!”
Pomni covered her face with her blanket, her parents looking at her incredulously. Jax gave a proud smirk. The picture cut back to the cougarman news anchor.
“The man Miss Freeman accuses in that clip is Dr. Cole Wren, Autumnvale’s 64-year old psychiatrist…”
A photo appeared over his right shoulder, showing a mugshot of Dr. Wren. His eyes were hollow and his expression vacant.
“…who Miss Freeman accused of prescribing fake antidepressants to Hawkins, in the hopes that he would take his own life. Wren swiftly turned himself in after being accused, and, according to the APD, confessed to everything.”
The picture cut to a high ranking officer, who the screen identified as Commissioner Waylon Richmond, at a press conference. Flash bulbs blinked intermittently as he stood on a podium.
“The coroner’s report shows that Mr. Hawkins had no trace of antidepressants in his bloodstream at the time of his death… He had to have been off of them for months.”
It cut to the mugshot of Dr. Wren again, with the male news anchor narrating over it.
“The reason? Wren says that he wanted to be seen as a pioneer for social justice, framing Autumnvale’s butcher Jax Kingston…”
It cut to an image of Jax being handcuffed and let into a squad car. He glared daggers at the camera.
“…for the crime. Kingston is a crossbreed and has faced tremendous prejudice both as a child and an adult.”
It cut to Kinger, sitting in his living room, looking forlorn.
“When he was a boy he would come home from school with bruises and cuts all over… He said the other kids trapped him in the jungle gym, poked him with sticks and threw pebbles at him. They said he was a ‘[censored]’ and belonged in a zoo or the circus… he was only seven.”
Pomni looked at Jax. He simply watched the screen, poker-faced, with his arms crossed. The news footage cut to a picture of Dr. Wren shouting into a bullhorn in front of the crowd of protestors.
“Wren confessed that he wanted to have Kingston wrongly convicted so he could lead a protest for crossbreed rights, to not only raise awareness for the cause, but also to be seen as a hero. ADC News, Robert Watts.”
The footage cut back to the newsroom, the female anchor turning to the male.
“I gotta tell you Rob, this entire case was like something out of a spy thriller. So many twists and turns!” she exclaimed.
“I have to agree, Jen, and we have to commend the work of the young lady who brought this accusation forward-”
Pomni swiftly mute the television and covered her face, which had turned tomato-red.
“Please no more…” she begged.
“No more? Pomni, you’re a hero! You got a vile human being arrested!” her father declared.
“I’m not a hero! I just…”
“Impostor syndrome, it’s a bitch.” Zooble said.
—
Visiting hours ended at 5:30, so soon enough it was time for everyone to head out. Pomni was gently encouraged by both her surgeon and her parents to stay overnight to let the bites knit and in case any of her stitches popped. Pomni agreed. She had work she needed to do, but her parents insisted they would call her school and inform them of the situation so she could get an extension. Besides, she didn’t much feel like moving anyway.
Her mother and father (and Ragatha) all kissed her goodbye and wished her a peaceful evening, her parents promising to return as early as possible with breakfast. Gangle lent her a book to read, the works of Eugene Ionesco, and Pomni politely accepted it even if she was too tired to read much of anything. Zooble merely bid her goodnight, but, after everyone left, squeezed Pomni’s hand and thanked her “from the bottom of their heart” for helping Jax.
As for Jax, he excused himself to the restroom a few minutes before closing time. He remained missing as everyone said their goodbyes, but a few minutes after Zooble left, he returned.
“You’re gonna get in trouble…” Pomni said with a weary smile.
Jax smiled right back, his sharp teeth on full display. Pomni was either too familiar with him or too fuzzy inside to be frightened of the sight of it anymore.
“I’ll risk it. You know, I still owe you for helping clear my name. Even if Caine bailed me out, I’m sure the cops would have been gangstalking me for ages…”
Pomni shook her head. “You don’t owe me a thing. You saved my life and got me the clue I needed to get a confession out of Wren. We’re even Steven.”
Jax chuckled. “Alright, so we’re even. But what if I wanted to give you something anyway?”
“Depends on what you wanted to give me.” Pomni replied, as coquettishly as she could given her exhaustion.
Jax walked across the room and knelt at her bedside. “Just a question. Would you ever want to go out and see the town together? Preferably not while I’m carrying you, unless you enjoyed that.” Another wolfish smile.
“Har har. But yeah, I’d love that.” Pomni replied. “As soon as I’m feeling better and get some of my work done.”
“Sounds good. …You know…” Jax looked at the floor, still maintaining a smile. “I was kind of hoping to give you something else.”
“I was kind of hoping you’d give me something too.” Pomni replied, taking a hand and petting one of his ears. They were thick and shaggy. She wanted to cuddle one.
Jax knelt forward and pressed a kiss to her lips. He had gained a bit more confidence since their last kiss a few hours ago. Pomni felt the tip of his tongue on his lips, fighting the urge to slide her own hungrily into his mouth, but she overcame her id. She was in the hospital, after all, there was a time and a place for that sort of thing.
She held the back of his head gently, keeping his lips against hers for a good half minute. He let out a low, long but gentle rumble against her lips that tingled her all over, giving her gooseflesh. Oof, the thought of hearing that right in her ear…
The kiss broke, Pomni petting his ears and tickling under his chin. He crooned happily. She kissed him again on the forehead.
“Alright. More tomorrow, you don’t need to get in trouble again.”
“Okay. Promise?” he asked with a tiny, eager smile.
“I promise.”
Jax nodded and gave her another toothy grin. It was so threatening before… He passed by the sheepwoman nurse as he went through the doorway.
“Sir, visiting hours have-”
“Already leavin.’” Jax replied, holding up a hand without looking at her.
He walked to the front door, hands in his pockets. It had been a day of firsts. The first time he’d ever had a guest to his house that wasn’t his parents, the first time he’d ever been really thanked for doing a good deed for a stranger, the first time he’d ever been kissed by someone other than his family… Hell, three kisses in one day. That was pretty amazing. His first girlfriend. Was she his girlfriend? Maybe. It was surreal to think about. Girlfriends and boyfriends weren’t for him. For two decades now, he’d grown to accept this. But, here he was.
He half expected to wake up back in jail. A pleasant dream his mind had cooked up about a pretty customer he met at his shop, right before those three dick-swingers woke him up behind bars and told him they were transferring him to prison for the rest of his days. Where had they gone, anyway? Probably back to the big city. They hadn’t done much of anything other than find planted evidence and get shouted at by a cute little lady. What men. Muy chulo.
He stepped outside. It had dipped down into 20 degrees, but it felt good. Bracing. Tonight he’d stoke a fire and make some beef stew, maybe chicken soup. Something good for a winter night. He wanted to call Zooble and tell them what happened. No, wait. He didn’t have a phone. What the hell was he thinking? Call up his best friend and gossip about a relationship? That sounded more like the kind of girl that would have picked on him back in school.
“Hey, freak.”
Speak of the devil.
Trevor took a drag on his cigarette, stepping out from behind a parked truck.
“Hey, Cyclops. That your truck? Or you taking a leak behind it?” Jax smiled, showing all of his teeth.
Trevor snorted mirthlessly. “I suppose you think you’re in the clear since the mayor decided to pardon you. Am I right?”
“Well, the guy who actually did it turned himself in. So, yes. I can tell you’re just broken up that it wasn’t me that killed the comedian. I can see tears in your eyes- sorry, eye.”
Trevor’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “Hilarious. You oughta be a comedian. I’m laughing real hard on the inside.”
Jax tilted his head in mock curiosity. “So, why’re you here, Trevvy-boy? You want a kiss?”
“I’m here to tell you, mutt , that you’re not off the hook. I still owe you for this-” Trevor pointed to his eyepatch. “-and just cuz you got a little bleeding heart from the city to call out that quack, doesn’t mean you get to walk.”
“Hm? What, are you saying you did it, Trevor?”
“No, I’m saying-”
“Yeah, you don’t have the spine to kill someone.”
Trevor’s lip curled upwards again. “I’m saying, I think you did it, and you got Little Miss Moneybags to bribe the mayor into bailing you out.”
Jax snorted. “Please. You honestly think I got that kind of influence?”
“I do know that Miss Daddy’s Money in there is a bleeding heart, who’d probably fall for your sob story.” Trevor grunted. “Maybe even get a wittle cwush on you. Isn’t that right, half-breed?”
“Aw, someone needs new material. Look, you gonna take your shot, or no? ‘Cause I’d like to go home.” Jax said, passing by Trevor and stepping out onto the road.
“Hm. So you’ve not had her.” Trevor said pensively. “Funny. She had a great time with me.” Trevor grinned lasciviously and lolled his tongue out.
Jax stopped walking and turned to look at his bully. “What did you say?” His pupils dilated, his yellow eyes gleaming rings of bloodlust.
“I said Miss Richie Rich had a go-”
In an instant, Jax rushed towards Trevor. His claw flashed in the orange sunset, rocketing towards Trevor’s face. The wolf instinctually raised a hand to block the swing, but it was too late. His claw was within jabbing distance of his one good eyeball. He feebly braced for impact, even as the claw rocketed past him and poked him gently on the snout.
“Boop.~”
Jax prodded Trevor on the nose, pulling his claw back and smiling mischievously. Trevor growled and rubbed his nose with the back of his arm.
“What the fuck was that, freak? Huh?”
Jax shrugged. “Today has been the best day of my life. I feel too good to fight you. Besides, I know for a fact Pomni wouldn’t even touch your cretin ass, because she’s my girlfriend.”
“Yeah right-” Trevor began, only for Jax to spin about on his heel and head off towards his house.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“I’m not done talking to you, freak!” Trevor shouted.
“Yeah you are.” Jax replied.
“She’ll see you for what you are! You’re a monster! I know you are!”
“Yeah yeah yeah. Keep shouting. You got nothin.’” Jax replied, and he began to whistle.
And as the sun dipped below the horizon, gleaming an iridescent orange, no more words were exchanged. Both of them knew Jax was right.
So, I don't feel alone on the weight of the stone
Now that I've found somewhere safe to bury my bone
And any fool knows a dog needs a home
A shelter from pigs on the wing
Notes:
Thanks for reading, everyone!
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HansMcDUck on Chapter 1 Thu 23 May 2024 12:34PM UTC
Last Edited Thu 23 May 2024 12:35PM UTC
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Forcedtoclown (Guest) on Chapter 1 Thu 23 May 2024 05:40PM UTC
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dragon_creates on Chapter 1 Sat 25 May 2024 08:39AM UTC
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Mentallyillhungrycat on Chapter 1 Thu 10 Jul 2025 12:59AM UTC
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theboywithburninghands on Chapter 3 Sat 25 May 2024 11:28PM UTC
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STARYYHYDRI on Chapter 4 Sat 01 Jun 2024 10:53PM UTC
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