Broken Pieces

Chapter Thirty-One

By Roofles

Is it nature or nurture that defines a person. That makes them who they are.

Was Mikhail always doomed to become a monster being born a tiger? Tasting Red for the first time? Was that all it took as Logan lunged for Ginger.

Then what was Logan’s excuse as he grabbed hold of one of her long-exposed ears? Was what Mikhail had done to him irreversible? Did it somehow change Logan? Or was he too born a monster as Ginger fired the gun.

The bullet whizzed past his face as Logan pulled her in closer and smashed his forehead against her. The smaller, softer bunny didn’t even see the follow up of his knee coming as Logan hit her. Her body lifted up off the ground as she gasped, the pain radiating outwards from the pit of her stomach he had hit.

Pain fueled the fear inside and Ginger fell to her knees as Logan let go. Taking her gun, he checked it over before turning and pointing it at Barnes.

“Don’t.” Logan warned. “You know I’m not afraid to shoot you, sir.” He said in a cold voice, daring Barnes to try anything.

He didn’t. The older hare just looked at Logan as if expecting this from the start. Barnes didn’t move or try and talk to Logan. Just sat there waiting.

What about Ginger? A rabbit? Born to a colony, forced to fight to survive. Was it her home then that made her this way? Was it nature or nurture that birthed such a monster.

Logan didn’t even see the rabbit until she was on his back. Her buck teeth bit and tore into his shoulder and he cried out, forcing his hand not to pull the trigger as Ginger pulled Logan back with her, away from Barnes as the two continued to fight.

Blood tripped from her mouth as Logan elbowed her in the side of the head, knocking her off. She bounced off the ground and jumped to her feet. Moving in just as quickly. Closing the already small distance between them in a blink of an eye, giving Logan no time to turn the gun on her.

She battered it away, hitting the inside of his wrist with a quick jab, forcing him to loosen his grip on the gun before dropping it. Logan brought his other arm up, blocking the next punch that followed and retaliated with one of his own.

Her nails cut into his arm, but Logan didn’t care. He didn’t mind as he threw his weight into every punch as the two fought.

Just as how Bosch had taught them. Boxing each other without giving ground and trying to gain it as they pressed in on each other. Logan might’ve been bigger than she was, but the rabbit had nails he didn’t, and he was thankful, for a change, for wearing the long sleeves as they traded blows.

The look on her face was pure elation. A look of ecstasy as she fought with the man. Planning this from the start? Or did Ginger just enjoy fighting that much. Logan didn’t know, didn’t care as he blocked another blow as she kicked at his exposed side, changing up from boxing to mixed martial arts.

She dropped down, circling her long, muscular leg before going for the inside of his. Aiming for just above the ankle and missed by a hair as Logan lifted it up and dropped it back down in a axe kick. Changing from boxer to Taekwondo. His heel coming down where her face had been a second prior.

Ginger cartwheeled backwards like a skilled gymnast. Distancing herself from him and getting back on her feet with the grace of an athlete. Opening her arms up, she spat blood to the side. Logan pressed a finger to one nostril and blew blood and snot from the other one.

“Round two?” Ginger asked and was already moving in before Logan got a chance.

Or are some people just born bad…?

It had been a question Logan had always struggled with as he dove after her. Ginger hadn’t focused on him but had gone for the gun. Just as Bosch had taught them. She was smaller than the rest of the group but was expected, just like everyone else, to keep up. As long was expected to keep up.

Human, hare, rhino, bull, wolf, lion, tiger, jaguar…? It didn’t matter. If you couldn’t keep up? That was your fault, no one else’s. Not because of your species or birth or sex… anyone, with the right training, can go toe-to-toe and Ginger was proving that now.

She fought Logan because she thought she could fight him with her fists. Logan proved to be a stronger adversary than she’d expected. Distancing herself, she changed her plans and went for a weapon. The gun she had knocked out of Logan’s had earlier. Changing it up, adjusting learning, using tools or tricks? All of it was exactly as how Bosch had taught them.

“If you’re weaker? Then get a truncheon or police baton. Arm yourself so you don’t lose.” Bosch had drilled into them. Each one at a time. Taking a personal interest in them. If they couldn’t keep up with their training? They’d be permanently dismissed. “If that doesn’t work? Change the playing field. Get on higher terrain than them. Ambush them. Jump them from behind. Get close to them. Sleep with them. Do whatever you have to, to win. It doesn’t matter how scummy it is. How dishonorable some will say it is. The winner gets to write history. Never forget that…”

And Ginger did. When Logan ran towards her, sliding and kicking the gun away? Ginger changed it up again. Jumping off the ground, dodging Logan’s follow up attack, she bounced off the console, the wall and took the high ground. Leaping into the air, turning as she did so and using the motion and her full body to bring the kick down at Logan’s face.

She didn’t have the strength the others did. She had to make every move she made count. Ginger was a rabbit. A nobody. On the lowest part of the food chain. She fought for the scraps those in the colony would toss down at her. The runt of the litter, left to rot in some dirty hole in the ground.

Until she bit the hand that fed her.

She would learn from Bosch. She would put up with Barnes. Ginger would deal with Logan. Every step was just another step forward. To go higher. Use them as stepping stones, lowering herself down, swallowing her pride and pretending to the be the innocent bunny rabbit she’d been born as… until she bit their heads off. One by one.

How did she get here? Ginger couldn’t even remember as Logan caught her leg, grabbing hold of her ankle with one hand and thigh with the other. The two looked at each other, stopping in that second as Ginger realized her mistake.

“No matter how hard you try, you can never change who you were born as.” Such words made her laugh. Such words hurt more than any punch or knife wound. Such words were the last thought she had as Logan, born as a human, a man, stronger and more capable by birth than her grabbed her leg.

“You can’t change a tiger’s stripes.” Such a saying Logan had always heard. From Bosch. From his Aunt. From his parents. Everyone had told him that.

And spun her, throwing her, into the countless screens on the wall.

“No matter how hard you try.”

“No matter how hard you want it to be different.”

“You are born what you are. Until the day you die. Pray then, that whoever is on the other side? That in your next life, you aren’t born… a rabbit.”

Ginger’s entire body lit up as she broke through the screens, electricity coursing through her system as Logan turned away from the horrifying sight. Or the sound she made.

A screeching sound like nails on a chalk board, the cry of a wounded rabbit desperate pleas. Wanting to be different. To try and fight the system she was born into. Hate and fear and panic and spite mixed and swirling together, blending into a horrifying thing that was, and is, the burnt corpse of the rabbit that fell between them.

Logan covered his nose, looking away from the sight of it. Of her.

Was it nature that made her this way? Nurture that turned her into a monster? Or was it the society they were born into that didn’t let a rabbit be a rabbit and a tiger be a tiger?

Logan may never know as he turned to face Barnes.

The old hare was looking down at the corpse of his daughter. There wasn’t a trace of remorse on his face. Pity? Maybe pity. Logan couldn’t tell as he walked over and picked up the fallen gun. Lifting it and aiming towards Barnes.

“I’m sorry.” Logan said in the silence of the room, outside the crackles of the broken TV monitors. “I had to do it.”

“I know.” Barnes said, still looking down at her body. “She wasn’t the first.” Barnes said in a soft voice. “So many of my children, forced to fight each other for food. Food! We of The Noble Hares aren’t even able to feed our own and… this is the result of it. Some live. Others die. And we let the vicious cycle continue.”

Barnes rested back in the seat, looking so very old and tired. Numb to things. Logan blamed the drug he’d taken for that.

“You were never going to let her replace you…” Logan coldly said.

“No. But it was nice, wasn’t it? To let her believe that she, a rabbit, could amount to anything in this world…?” Barnes almost smiled. His tired face looked incapable of doing so anymore. “Born on the bottom of the food chain. Always looked down, both physically and metaphorically, by her coworkers, neighbors, the people on the street…? No one would ever look at a rabbit and see them as anything more than one.”

“A tiger can’t change it’s stripes, right?” Logan said the words Barnes liked to  say to him.

“No… No, I guess they can’t.” Barnes sighed heavily, resting forward on his cane as if it were the only thing supporting him now. “We wished they could, don’t we?” Barnes looked up at Logan and, that time, Logan knew the look on his face.

The look of pity that Logan hated seeing others look at him with. When others saw the scars Mikhail left on his back? It was the same look. A look of pity for what a carnivore, a predator, had done to him.

Barnes, with his scarred face, might’ve been the only one though to understand how Logan felt. For he knew what it was like to lose it all from the person you loved the most, and the mark they left behind when they did so.

“People think, it’s a piece they take from us. That we’re broken after it. But that’s no the truth,” Barnes coughing into his hand. Looking down at the blood in his palm. “It’s not broken… it’s misshapen. Deformed. The trauma that it, we, experience reshapes us. Defines us. Turns us into something we aren’t. It resembles what, who, we are but we aren’t the same after. Are we?”

“No.” Logan agreed and added little else to that. “Barnes. You need to stop this.”

“We are already born on the bottom of the food chain. Born with fear in us.” Barnes just rambled on as if he didn’t hear Logan. “That fear changed us. Warps us. Turns us into something… else.”

“Barnes!” Logan said louder and the tired, old hare looked at him.

“You’re afraid, just as I am. Aren’t you, Logan? Always afraid of them and yet, that’s what entices you to them. Like a moth drawn towards a flame? A forbidden kind of love. It’s exciting. Making you feel… alive. And that’s the thing Logan. That’s what gets you off. The fear. The fear of dying, the drive to want to live. No matter how much that fear changes you, warps you, turns you into something that isn’t… you, any longer.” Barnes said with an empty, blank look on his face.

Staring. Staring at nothing. Staring at the memories of something Logan couldn’t see or know as if it played before the old hare like a movie. A recording. Replaying, over and over again. Haunting him. Drowning him in self-pity and misery and fear…

For if Logan had the nose of a lion or a tiger or a wolf… he could’ve smelled the fear exuding from the old hare this entire time.

“It’s the only way.” Barnes muttered. “To make them see.”

“Barnes, enough! For fuck sake. You’ve already done enough… we get it. People get it. It’s over.” Logan pointed the gun at the hare. It would’ve been so easy, right there and then to pull the trigger. To end it. His friend’s suffering…

“No. Not yet. We need to force them to swim… to see… Drown them in the very drug they import in!” The hare told Logan back in the security room, watching the feed playing to the side. Watching as the sharks and orcas swarmed into the building. Flooding it with bodies as they all gathered here, for Barnes’s final show. “They’ll drown in that water, like a dying man of thirst. They can’t help it. Even if they know how dangerous it is, they’ll willingly jump in for more.”

Logan glanced over at the screens. Seeing each and every one of them filled with people. New people. The new arrivals that Barnes was waiting for. Tossing the chum and bait into the waters until the fish came swimming in.

There weren’t enough tigers in the city to sate Barnes’s thirst for revenge. So he targeted someone else. A different group. A neutral group that ran the middle of the city and kept the big three from killing each other on the street.

The Marina. The one place that even those in political power chose to overlook. That the police didn’t dare interfere with. The people that could import all the drugs into the city they want and only others would suffer because of it.

“You planning to clean up the city now? I thought that was my job.” Logan gave a harsh laugh.

“Just doing what no one else had the balls to do.” Barnes offered a weak shrug of a shoulder. “The drug ruined me. Like so many others. I took it out of curiosity. In hopes it might help with this pain,” Barnes coughed. “It didn’t… it only makes you crave more. It takes that edge of just enough for you to wet your lips before asking for more.”

“You blame them for what you did to yourself…?” Logan shook his head as he holstered the pistol and walked closer to him. “You are under arrest for… well, fuck. SO many things. Fuck Barnes. Fuck! Why couldn’t you figure something else out.”

“I already have.” Barnes said, looking at him.

“…What?” Logan took a second. “What did you do.”

Barnes just looked over at the screen. “Why do you think I brought you here, Logan? I was hoping we could enjoy the show. Together.”

“Barnes!” Logan grabbed the old hare by the cotton vest he was wearing and shook him violent. “What did you do!”

“It’s already to late.” Barnes just coughed as Logan threw him back into the seat. “It’s to late. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I made sure if I ever got cold feet…? Even I couldn’t stop it.” He looked up at Logan who was now staring at the screens as if waiting for a bomb to go off. “It’s on a timer… any minute now…”

“You’re going to dose the entire building?” Logan angrily spat at the hare, turning to look back at him. Pain washed over Logan’s face as he just stared at this man. His friend. The person he could talk to about what had happened. The only person who could possibly understand what it was like to be scarred by your lover.

“The sprinkler system has been altered to only effect the major hallways, that those men are coming in from. That’s why I made those entrances so accessible, heh… They broke in anyways. They should’ve expected some kind of consequences.” Barnes gave a weak smile. “There’s no point in drugging the others. Everything is already being recorded. Once they see the show these criminals will put on for them? They’ll be rushing to the voting booths. Maybe not for me. Not for some hare with a foot in the grave… but they will. They’ll come out in mass to vote against them. To change things…”

“And when people hear of what happened here?” Logan asked. “Even if you kill me, others will find out…”

“We’ll control the news feed about it.” Barnes shrugged. “You think people will care to dig into the truth? Even if it’s a bunch of bullshit. It’s exactly what they want to see. To see a bunch of predators as the monsters they are. It’s as simple as that. No one is going to question The Marina’s attack. Everyone already knows The Noble Hares went into the neutral zone. This’ll only be seen as a retaliation for what we did.”

“This has Bosch written all over it…” Logan feared the jaguar was somehow in on it.

“Bosch? Bosch will be caught up in all this. When an FBI agent ends up dead during a gang related attack? The government won’t be able to look away. Not any longer.” Barnes coughed.

“And what about the captives? The Alpha-mate? Why even bring him in?” Logan shot a look over at the older hare.

“Don’t worry. He’ll be fine. Humans have a natural… resistance to Primal. Have you ever wondered why that is?” Barnes lifted an eyebrow up. “Because humans are the one who made it, Logan. You made it to turn us into the animals you always saw us to be…”

Logan didn’t want to get in about that. If what Barnes was saying was true, and it most likely was. The old hare didn’t have anything to lose any more telling Logan this. Not even he was going to bother to kill Logan after it all happened.

Logan would just be another witness to the events. Someone to go out and tell everyone that happened here. To stoke their fears and turn them into a raging, uncontrollable wildfire that’d consume the city, the state and possibly the entire country.

“Then why Alan?” Logan gritted his teeth, shaking with anger. Anger at what Barnes had done. At his own helplessness…

“We’ll lure his wolf daddy into the cage,” Barnes said with another shrug. “The Alpha will come. We’ll drug him up? Record the show! And let everyone see that a predator and prey? Can’t ever be together.” And his face fell, staring coldly at Logan.

“You…” Logan opened his mouth several times before closing it. “You did this, to him, because you hated a human being with a wolf…?” Logan couldn’t believe how petty that was. How low and childish it all came down to.

To lure the Alpha here and drug and kill him? That’d make sense. To bring Alan in to be used as a piece in this sick game to prove his point? To justify why Barnes couldn’t be with his tigress? That was low. Petty. Disgusting…

“Do you know what it’s like to always be afraid, Logan?” Barnes rested back in his chair, holding the cane with both hands. “To be afraid of… everything. To always be looking over your shoulder? About everything? Afraid the predator next door will break in and kill you in your sleep? That the person sitting in the cubicle next to yours might snap at any moment and kill everyone in the office? Riding in an elevator with one of them…? That fear eats away at you. From the inside. Like a cancer, devouring you slowly. Driving you to do the extreme to get even a sense of security at the end of the day… People have forgotten that fear. I’m going to remind them what was always there.”

“And how does this make you feel secure, Barnes?” Logan dared the hare to explain as he motioned towards the monitors.

Even now, sharks and orcas were fighting against the hares on guard. Cutting through them as they pressed ever forward, onwards towards them. Aiming to punish those who had dared to step into their territory, without ever knowing the trap that was about to be sprung on them.

“It doesn’t.” Barnes said and his voice sounded so tired, his eyes looking so exhausted as he leaned forward. “I’m just… tired, Logan. So very, very tired. Tired of running. Of fighting. Of being afraid… at least, this way? Everyone can finally see what I see. Every day of my life. Ever since I was born. Born in fear of those I had to live with. Deal with. To see every damn day of my life… of her… it’s about time.”

Logan turned to go.

“Don’t.” Barnes warned him. As he always did. A hare’s natural instinct to detect danger was always something Logan had, in a way, admired… until it consumed Barnes. “There is nothing you can do. Even if you walk outside? Immune to Primal? Those out there will tear you apart… just as they’re going to tear you apart.  

And the old hare turned to face towards the screens once more on the wall.

Logan could only join him, watching the horror being shown before them as the sprinklers systems kicked on. Logan could practically hear the ticking of the clock before it stopped, and they did so. Every screen showed what was happening somewhere in the Menagerie. Water raining down on those in specific hallways and rooms. Over the sharks and orcas coming in from the neutral zone to the hyenas breaking down the side wall.

Every person Logan hadn’t warned was here. Falling for Barnes’s trap. He had broadcasted what he was doing here. The old hare might as well have put a giant sign above the building pointing down towards it. It was like a flame. A flame to a moth that couldn’t fly away before being burned.

The Marina and The Cackle had come here knowing the dangers, yet never seeing that the ones they needed to fear the most? Were each other.

As the water rained down the drug soaked into the skin of those from The Marina. Sharks and Orcas skin breathed water. They needed to constantly dose themselves with spray bottles or wet rags to keep from drying out. They rarely came this far into land, and now they’d regret it.

Logan wanted to look away. To turn away from the screen as he watched people keel over, gripping and grabbing at their bodies as the drug soaked into their system. He was sure it was some diluted version of Primal. But that much? That amount? It could’ve been lethal if they stayed in the building.

Not that they were of any right mind to think of such a thing.

Sharks and orcas attacking each other. Jumping on one another. The hyenas turned on their friends and family alike. Every person exposed went wild and feral. Others broke off, chasing down lone hares that cowered and fled on all fours like feral animals as they were dosed, unaware it seemed of Barnes’s sick plans.

The two stayed there, in the safe room, watching as blood splattered the hallways, bodies were torn apart and chewed and devoured…

“We’ll record it all. Splice the pieces together, do the necessary editing.” Barnes repeated, watching the screen with a blank look on his face. “No matter what happens from here, Logan? There is no going back. Once everyone sees this? It’ll be chaos. All hell will break loose. There will be no going back to the peaceful, quiet times of burrowing into the ground. Digging deeper and deeper to get away from them… Everyone will be afraid. Like we are.”

“Madness. That’s all this is.” Logan stood there, watching. Unable to think of anything to do. He was watching each screen. Looking them over. Certain rooms were void of the chaos, so far.

Rooms around the building had been safe. The sprinkler system not effecting them as if being manually turned off in these parts of the building. Only the central and side hallways were affected. Leaving those in the back rooms safe and unharmed… for now.

Those who had gathered here for Barnes’s inauguration, as if he’d already won, were just juicy pieces of meat waiting to be devoured. Gathered together, unaware of the dangers flooding towards them.

“It’s like a terrifying zombie movie…” Logan realized as he watched a shark devour one of the hares on screen. Biting and tearing into them. So much red. It spilled out from their twitching body, dying from the bite? Or from blood loss? Logan wasn’t sure.

“It’ll just take another war. Another civil war to save this country. The world. From them.” Barnes watched the screen with growing delight, a smile pulling up on his tired face as Logan had enough, moving in.

Shoving the old hare back into the chair, Logan ripped the cane from his hands and turned it on Barnes. Pointed the end of the sharp cane at his throat, he glared down at the man he had once trusted. The black pointed tip dug into the thin hide of the hare as Logan eyes burned down from above.

“Now then.” Logan said. “You are going to tell me where these recordings are.” Logan pressed the cane closer.

“It’s too late!” The fear on Barnes’s face was real and he looked like a different man. The diluted solution of Primal in his system making him act out even more on his impulses and instincts. “The show has already started! You can’t stop it.

“No. But I can’t make sure you don’t win in the end…” Logan leaned closer. “I’ll delete all the tapes. All the recordings. This isn’t a live feed, you made sure to tell me that much. You need to edit it to make you guys look innocent and harmless. Not the truth. You’re fabricated truth? I’ll make sure that never sees the light of day!”

“L-Logan, we can talk about this!” Barnes pressed back into the chair as the human pressed closer. “You don’t know what y-you’re doing! This’ll change everything. Everything! I’ll be able to stop them. Catch them. Hunt them down and kill them!”

“These people are not animals, Barnes.” Logan pulled the cane back before jabbing it deep into his shoulder. He saw the red bleed from the hare’s flesh as Barnes turned away, trying to hold back a scream. “They are not monsters.” Logan pulled the cane out before jabbing it in again. “They are not predators!” Logan breathed out. “I am.” Logan said. “I am the monster you should be fearing right now… not them.”

“Everyone… will… thank me.” Barnes gritted his teeth.

“Everyone? Or herbivores? Those that remain.” Logan twisted the cane making Barnes cry out. “Everyone already fucking knows the truth, Barnes! No one is trying to act like they don’t! We just play dumb so we can sleep at night. That’s all. We all know that herbivores would win a world war… but what then? What would be left of the planet if everyone fought? Nothing. At least nothing worth fighting for… Revenge? Revenge doesn’t bring back the dead…” Logan leaned in real close, baring his teeth as if he was about to bite the hare. “Now. Tell me. Where the recordings are being kept? Or I will torture you until you crack.”

Barnes, shaking from head to toe, lifted an arm weakly and pointed towards the back room. “The main onsite storage is back there. H-here is the key.” Barnes hesitated before reaching into his coat.

Logan stopped him. Grabbing his wrist, twisting it, and then shoving it aside. He reached into Barnes’s coat and pulled out a key ring. On it were several plastic cards.

“Here is how things are going to go from here.” Logan said as he pulled back. He forced Barnes to his feet, turning him around by an arm and twisting it upwards behind his back. “You are coming with me. First. You are going to open every door and walk before me into it. If it is a trap? They will blow your god damn head off. Despite it all, Barnes? I know you… because you know me.” Logan leaned in closer. “You want to live. Despite all the fear and all the bullshit, behind all the drugs you’ve been taking for who knows how many years… despite the cancer,” Logan voice soften. “You want to live. Just like the rest of us do. To see the sun rise tomorrow. Even predators want to live…”

“Don’t compare me to them.” Barnes hissed at him, anger flashing in his eyes his face twisting from one emotion to another.

Logan shoved him forward, towards the door. “You know as well as I do, Barnes. After all, she did too…” Logan brought up and Barnes scoffed as he limped forward.

“She never wanted me,” Barnes said thinking of the tigress he’d once been in love with. “Do you know why she stopped seeing me? It wasn’t the fame or money. Hell, I have money.” Barnes was forced to open the door with the keycard. “Once she found out the truth about me? That was it. She didn’t mind being with a Noble Hare… she minded being with me being a mixed breed.” Barnes voice trailed off, looking to the side as if recalling the horrible moment.

The moment she had found out. The day he had told her the truth. Baring his heart and soul to her, a predator, and hoping she might accept and return his love. A tigress loving some mixed breed? She hadn’t. Back then? Everyone thought it had been her boyfriend that scarred Barnes’s face beyond recognition. It hadn’t been.

She had.

Lashing out in anger and betrayal, she had clawed Barnes’s face. It wasn’t the claws or the blood that Barnes remembered. It was the look on her face. That of a wild animal attacking him. Feral eyes, fangs bared, claws jutting out of her fingers.

How had he ever thought she’d been beautiful? Barnes couldn’t recall as the shot was fired out.

The older hare pushed Logan out of the way with the last of his strength as the front of his vest spurted with blood.

A gunshot fired. Then again.

Once, twice, three times and Logan held Barnes’s body up in front of him like a shield before letting go of the hare rabbit mix and jumping to the side. One of the large black servers that jutted up out of the floor and to the ceiling provided cover as Logan pulled out the gun he’d gotten back from Ginger. Keeping the pistol up, Logan tried to figure out who the fuck that was.

The room was wide and long like a trailer with everything removed inside. It was lined with rows of black servers and computers on the side wall. The only light provided blinked from the screens and a single red light that spun to the side. An emergency light that lit up when the sprinkler systems were activated.

The fire department would be here in the hour. Only to add more fuel to these flames. More civilians getting involved in gang politics.

“Lovely,” Logan cursed as he checked how much ammo he had left. Only five shots. “I’m officer Logan! I work for the police department! Announce yourself or I will fire!”

Logan knew they were there but hadn’t seen them. He couldn’t tell if it was a drugged-up gang member or another hare guard. Not until they spoke.

“Logan.” Bosch said from within the room, typing on the keyboard with one hand and holding up the smoking gun with the other. “So good of you to join me.”

“B-Bosch?” Logan called out, uncertain if he should stand up or not from where he was hiding. “Why did you kill him? He should’ve been arrested for his crimes! Brought to trial. We could’ve gotten him to turn himself in and…”

“And have the world hear about this?” Bosch said back. He tsked, shaking his head. The jaguar still working on the central computer. “I expected better from you Logan. You know someone like Barnes would’ve spent the rest of his dying days locked in a cage, preaching to anyone who would listen all about his… hate. He’d have nothing left after this. Even exposed, people would gravitate towards him. They would see him as some sort of sick messiah shepherding them to a new dawn. A dawn without half the population in it… like me.”

Logan swallowed, unsure what to do. Should he stand up and join Bosch as a friend, his partner? Should he call him boss or sir and stand behind him waiting for further orders? Doing as he was told. Or should he…

“He isn’t the first, or the last. I just didn’t realize it’d gotten this bad until today.” Bosch pushed enter on the keyboard and the entire system was wiped clean. The video feed was cut off and the room grew dark. Logan knew Bosch’s eyes were glowing as he looked towards Logan. “It took a lot of ass kissing for that speciest prick to let me in here. I needed access to the system and he wasn’t about to give it to me until I earned his trust… The real question isn’t this or that… it’s you, Logan. Where do you fit in? Whose side are you on…? Who do you trust?”

Logan licked his suddenly dry lips.

“I just want to save people. That’s all I’ve wanted to do after… well, you know. You know everything about me Bosch. I can only imagine how many times you did a background check on me.” Logan tried to laugh, to keep his voice from shaking. He couldn’t help it.

It was just like Barnes had said, Logan was afraid of the predator in the room. The dark room. He couldn’t see a thing and with the system turned off, there was an uncomfortable silence in the room. All Logan could hear was his heavy breathing.

“I killed Ginger.” Logan suddenly said. “She was working with Barnes from the start. Or did you know that too?”

“That… that was a surprise. I knew she was gone. But this?” Bosch tapped a finger, thinking about it. “Well, congratulations are in order Logan.”

“Congratulations?” Logan was confused as he tried to look around the corner. Bosch’s dark fur blended so naturally in that he couldn’t even see where the jaguar was. He knew Bosch closed his eyes when he was in a room like this. Hiding his presence from others.

Bosch was a skilled assassin and Logan might be his next target…

“And you did! Congratulations are in order, Logan. You saved people. You caught the bad guy and the information that would’ve leaked to the press has been deleted. Oh, sure, Zhong’s gang is raiding the place now hopped up on Primal…” The jaguar trailed off. Logan made sure to listen for any sound he might be moving.

Bosch didn’t. At least, Logan thought he was still standing exactly where he had been.

“You knew…?” Logan swallowed. “You knew what Barnes was planning?”

“Logan.” Bosch said and the human couldn’t help but jump as the voice was closer than it had been before. Logan hadn’t even heard Bosch closing the distance between them. The feline stalking towards him. “Logan, turn your light on. You stink…” Bosch said the words and Logan realized the jaguar could smell his fear.

“R-right,” Logan felt younger than he was. Like he was back in training, working for Bosch. He pulled out the pocket light and turned it on.

“Lower the gun,” Bosch ordered, and Logan did. Be it pavlovian response or something else, Logan couldn’t say as he holstered his gun. “Now, come on.” Logan did. Following the jaguars orders, even now, as if he were part of his unit. His squad. A team…

The human stepped out to see Bosch looking over the machinery. Logan wasn’t familiar with it. He assumed it was some sort of broadcasting equipment set up in here. Connected to the main stage that Barnes had planned to use to announce things from. It would record and broadcast everything from this room. There were other machines set up and Logan didn’t have a clue what they could be used for.

“Storage.” Bosch said, looking the files over as he went through the side computer in front of him. Moving from the central one to the side. Picking through every file one by one. Countless files were here, and the jaguar tail flicked, trying to make up his mind what to do with them. “It took a while to earn Barnes’s trust… needed his master key, as it were, to access the more restrictive files. Would’ve taken care of him sooner if I had access earlier. It looks like he’s been doing this for a long, long time Logan.” The jaguar stepped aside, and Logan hesitated before stepping over, joining Bosch at the computer.

Logan could feel the jaguar lean closer. Feel Bosch’s presence next to him as the feline looked over his shoulder. Pointing with a clawed finger, Bosch told Logan to open the file. Logan did. It was a video file, and it began to play.

Even Logan looked away from it.

It was a video of a lion mauling someone. There was so much blood and gore. Logan couldn’t even make out what the other person had been. A sheep, maybe? It was impossible to tell. There was so much red. Red dripping down the camera’s lens as Bosch forced Logan to watch the video.

Logan feared it was exactly what Barnes had been planning to do to Alan. To lock the human in a cage and unleashed a drugged-up predator on him while recording the show for the dark web to see.

“Interesting,” Bosch noted, and Logan dared to look over at him. “The lion looks familiar, doesn’t he?” The jaguar asked, clearly already knowing. “Like a certain lion you know? Or maybe, it’s his brother… the one he’s been searching for.”

“Jerome…” Logan eyes widened. “Barnes. He…? The wolves weren’t the one to kill Jerome. It was… Barnes?”

“See. We had a deal. Those predators out there that needed to be… taken care of? Were sent here. To this Menagerie. A rather amusing name, really. They would hunt them. The predators. Big game hunting they called it. Dose the predators up, strip them naked and let them loose in the conservation behind the building. In the land The Noble Hare colony owns. Then they’d set out to track them down and shoot them. Big game hunting they called it. The herbivores would boast about the kill over the finest brandies and wines… stringing up, mounting, or stuffing the very person they had hunted and killed like a wild animal.”

“I…” Logan was at a loss for words as Bosch dumped this information over him. Not letting him process or sort any of it out before giving him more.

“The Brotherhood? The old sect in the city? Before the wolves tore it down, those sick fucks would buy the pieces. The fur? The taxidermy heads and suits? They’d spend a small fortune for them! Funding The Noble Hare colony in the process. Speciests like them? Tend to flock together. Like birds of a feather,” Bosch, the feline, chuffed at the thought as if amused by the idea.

“You’ve… known about all this. For how long? W-what is the reason for it?” Logan demanded to know, getting angrier as he spoke as he turned on the jaguar. “How does this help anyone!”

Bosch looked down on him before back at the screen as he closed the video down.

“Everything we do, Logan, is for peace. It must be pretty fucked up looking from someone on the outside looking in... Peace doesn’t just happen. It’s won. Others suffer and die so the majority can live fat and happy lives off the dead. The masses are blissfully, willfully ignorant to the rest of the world’s suffering. Even now. Do you know what’s happening overseas? In the middle east? China? Russia? No. Because if you did? You couldn’t sleep at night… That’s life, Logan. No point in sugar coating it. Be it the cheap produce you can buy in the store or the minerals we mine and, frankly, steal from other countries to ship here for the newest phones. It’s all the same, in the end… others die so the rest can live fat off their bodies. Like a predator in the wild, hunting and eating meat the nourish itself and young… others die so we can live happier lives.” Bosch licked over one fang as he began typing on the console.

Logan noticed how the files weren’t being deleted. The jaguar had connected a USB stick into the side of the tower and was transferring the files onto it.

“Never know when this kind of thing can come in handy, Logan. Do you have any idea how many big names are on this list? Politicians? Celebrities? All this information… worth a fortune, in the right hands.” Bosch chuckled with a growing smile on his face, his eyes dancing with joy as he watched the files being transferred over. “Blackmail material. Taught you all about that, didn’t I?”

“Right…” Logan looked back at where he’d left Barnes’s body. If Bosch had wanted to, he could’ve shot Logan first then Barnes… now? Now Logan wasn’t even sure what to believe.

Barnes had tried to push Logan out of the way. His fear instinct wasn’t used to save the hare, but Logan. Or did Bosch miss on purpose? He didn’t know. There was so much going on, it was overwhelming, and Logan was desperately trying to piece it apart to make sense of the whole.

“Done.” Bosch said several minutes of silence later. He’d opened up several files while waiting, searching through things, and deleting others. Grabbing the USB from the PC, he pocketed it. “Come along, Logan. We should get going.”

“Jerome.” Logan suddenly said, making the jaguar pause. “Sloan’s brother Jerome was trying to broker a peace between The Pride and The Pack. Did you… was he…?” Logan had to know, to ask. He needed the truth to make a final decision about this.

“Jerome was a good man. It was a pity he had to be used like that.” Bosch said with an empty tone as he looked down at the USB stick before pocketing it safely away. “One of the few predators out there that wasn’t a piece of shit,” Bosch chuffed softly with a shake of his head.

“Why?” Logan asked, even if he could figure it out. He needed Bosch to say it. To say the words from his own lips to know if he could trust him or not.

“You know why… but that’s not what you are after.” Bosch gave him a look before, sighing, shook his head. “Logan. If The Pride and The Pack became all buddy buddy friends with each other? Where would that leave the rest of the city. The people. Them getting along? Hurt others. Getting the two to focus their attention on each other? That was easy. Jerome made the perfect bait to use to get The Pride off their lazy asses and do something. Their gang war saved lives… as harsh as that is for you to hear, it’s the truth.”

“What about the others?” Logan asked as he followed after Bosch. The jaguar paused, if only for a second. His step freezing and his tail flicking to the side before he continued towards the back entrance he had come through.

“Honestly? Barnes was further gone than I had suspected him to be. I never thought he would sacrifice half the building to get his point across. Or the officials in the others room. Wanting to watch the city burn after…” Bosch stopped to look back at the hare, lying there bleeding on the ground. One fang flashed, a low growl building in the jaguar’s chest. “He couldn’t just wait. Ruined everything. All my plans? The script I wrote out? Ruined! Everything I worked for… Costed us millions of tax payer dollars, countless hours, and for what? What does he have to show for it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We stopped him. We saved lives and gained nothing for it. Disgusting… This is why you need to trust me, Logan. At least I show results in the end.”

“Right…” Logan followed Bosch out the side door and into the next room. The jaguar seemed to know where he was going as if tracing the entire blueprint of the building out and knowing which rooms were safe to enter and which weren’t.

It was an office. There was a half-circled desk with a PC on it to his left, filing cabinets to the right and numerous ugly indoor plants around the room. The carpet was old and there was an unmistakable coffee stain on it as the two walked further into the room.

Then Logan stopped. Bosch took two more steps forward before stopping as well. He didn’t say anything, as if waiting for Logan to do it first.

Logan had to know, he had to ask. This one last, final thing of his mentor, his friend, his lover, and partner… Despite everything they had been through. Barnes never lied to him. Logan and Barnes understood each other, and he’d never lie. Not about this kind of thing. The hare had seen what predators were capable of, just like Logan had and…

Barnes wouldn’t have fabricated the evidence. Not when he had the proof to show Logan.

“Bosch.” Logan said his name and the jaguar glanced back at him. “You said I should trust you. With… with everything. That the script you write out? For others to follow? The actors in your play… that I should just follow your orders and trust you, no matter what happens…”

“Correct.” Bosch said in a flat tone, watching the human carefully with cat like eyes.

“Then, tell me. Are you… did you…” Logan swallowed heavily before looking up at him, into his eyes. Those eyes. “Did you recruit Mikhail…? Did you kill him? And were you ever going to tell me?”

Bosch looked at Logan for a long moment before sighing. He clicked the lock on the door and turned back to face him.

“You always were far too inquisitive… Logan.” And the two drew their weapons on each other. “A real pity,” the jaguar face turned blank and empty. “You were the only one to last this long with me. I was hoping you’d see it with me, until the end.”

Then one of them, pulled the trigger.