Young Writers Society

A/N: @Shady, Patrick is probably still suuuper hormonal here. Just... bear with him xD

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As Patrick thundered once more down the long, lonely corridor that led all the way to Aurora's ladder, the question of whether he'd locked the door sprang to the front of his mind. He'd been so panicked... And had he helped Aurora to figure out a way to lock it herself with her enormous paws yet? From the moment the door came clearly into view, he knew it was ajar.

His stomach dropped at the thought of what MacLean could be doing to Aurora. Would she be poking and prodding with Neuromax's many specialised monitors of brain activity, shoving tubes up her nose in order to pick up the signal? Or maybe she'd be interrogating her, getting her to admit that Patrick and all the animals had agreed to keep her nature quiet, landing all her friends in trouble?

Patrick let his gut feel the anger now, twisting his memories of the unassuming, nervous MacLean grotesquely into images of her cackling at how easy Patrick had been to dupe.

When he finally reached the door, he threw it open, barely even noticing as it swung around and clattered against the hastily plastered wall. MacLean was standing at the bottom of the ladder, gripping its sides with white knuckles. Her neck was craned all the way back so that her head was facing straight at the ceiling.

She whipped her entire body around to face Patrick, then, seeing him, her shoulders slumped and she looked down at the ground.

"Oh, thank Christ," she whispered. She raised her eyes to lock onto Patrick's. "I thought you were Neuromax."

Patrick folded his arms, squeezing his fingernails with adrenaline soaked fury into the crooks of his elbows. His phone started to ring, but he ignored it and glared at MacLean with the coldest, strongest stare he could. "Do not, for the love of God, try to play innocent with me. You have endangered the lives of these animals. They are as much my family as my own child and grandchildren. Get out, now."

The sound that escaped from MacLean’s lungs could only be described as a desperate screech. "Mr McAfferty, please, you and Aurora, you both have to believe me! I have no idea how they found out! I have no idea what they're going to do to Aurora, but I promise you I never meant for it to happen. I was just going up to beg Aurora to believe me."

Patrick stared at her. He said nothing - didn't have the slightest clue what to say. He thrust his hands to his sides, curling them up in tight fists. "I want to believe you so badly."

She opened her mouth to say something but just at that moment there was a panicked shout in the corridor behind Patrick. Patrick whirled around just in time to duck as a young parrot barrelled through the air, passing right through the space where his head would have been. He turned back around to see the parrot landing haphazardly on the edge of the little stripy rug around the bottom of the ladder.

"Patrick Patrick Patrick!" he blurted, "Treego - he called you. But I came to get you because you didn't pick up. Help us, please!"

The anger faded away from Patrick for a moment as he knelt calmly down in front of the bright red parrot. He got the feeling had the parrot be a human his cheeks would have been just as red.

"Hi, buddy," he said, his voice quiet, and hopefully soothing. "Your name's Phoenix, right? What's the matter?"

Patrick forced himself not to look up at MacLean as the parrot let his breathing settle and say, "Treego said because I was fastest I was to come get you. It's the inspectors, Patrick, they're taking us away!"

Patrick's eyebrows shot up, and he nearly fell backwards. But he took a few deep breaths and carefully stayed balanced, one knee up and one knee down. "What do you mean, taking you away. Everyone? Treego?"

Phoenix shook his head, his feathers a blur of red and dark orange. "No, I mean, sorry. I'm not sure. Not everyone. But they took Chip!"

His dark brown chest began to tremble again as his breathing got faster and more rugged.

"Phoenix, okay, listen to me." Patrick carefully put a couple of fingers on the bird's shoulder. "I'm going to fix this, okay? Might not be today, but we'll get them back."

Phoenix nodded, his beady yellow eyes glazed. "Shall I go tell Treego you're coming?"

Patrick got shakily to his feat, Phoenix following him up by hovering warily in the air. Patrick looked him in the eye. "It's going to take me a while, I think, but I'm on my way."

Phoenix nodded once, curtly, then whizzed out the door and back down the corridor.

Patrick glanced at MacLean. His shoulders were slumped and his arms hung loosely at his sides. There was no energy in his bones anymore, never mind anger.

"I can't run down there again," he muttered, turning away from her. "You win."

"This isn't winning for me!" she cried. "And where are you going?"

Patrick paused on his way to the door, slowly looking over his shoulder. "Weren't you listening? I'm going to go help my friends."

"But you said-"

"No matter how long it takes," Patrick added. His arms were trembling, his thighs screaming their anger at what he was putting them through. There was a twinge in his back, which, from its position, was probably more because of the way he'd crouched down to speak to Phoenix than all the running.

MacLean brushed past and turned round to face him on the other side of the door. "Let me go first. I can get to Haldane, convince her not to go through with this. Spin some nonsense about how we'll get a better sense of the animals' abilities when they're comfortable in their homes."

Patrick stared at her, his brain groggily trying to work out if she could possibly be telling the truth. Eventually, he just muttered, "I can't stop you."

MacLean nodded and ran away down the corridor. Patrick took another step, then another, dreading what would be awaiting him at the end of this ordeal.