2: The Confrontation

I woke painfully in a small white room, completely bare except for the small, hard cot I was sitting on. There was a heavy steel door with no handle on my side, but with a small slidey-thing that let me talk to someone one the other side. As I was surveying the room, the door slid slowly open and this huge wolf walked in. he was a younger looking guy, mid-twenties maybe, tall, dark-furred, yellow-eyed, and very very muscular. He struck quite the intimidating figure.

            “Alice Lotus,” He growled, “Do you know why you’ve been brought here?” He was obviously not the same beast that clapped the chloroform rag on my muzzle, judging by the timbre of his voice.

            “If I knew, I wouldn’t be sitting here waiting on you to tell me, Wolf-boy,” I replied snarkily.

            “Miss Lotus, you have been brought here at my master’s request, I am to bring you to him presently,” he replied, ignoring my sarcasm, grabbing both of my wrists securely in one of his massive paws.

            “My, what big hands you have, Granny!” I said to the wolf. He merely grunted at me, pushing a blindfold over my eyes. “Hey! I can’t see!”

            “That, Miss Lotus, is the point,” he said, sighing, as if weary of my teenage idiocy. He pulled me out the door by my trapped paws. After what felt like hours later, Wolfie removed my blindfold, and I was assaulted by the harsh brightness of the fluorescent lights that bleached the already painfully white walls.

            “So,” said a deep, gravelly voice, “You are the infamous cat, Alice Lotus,” The speaker was a dark brown grizzly with a silvering snout.

            “I am she,” I replied warily, “Why have you and your goons brought me here? I have, to my knowledge, done nothing wrong. Yet,” I said.

            “Is that a threat Miss Alice?” he asked, the threat in his words just as blatant as in mine.

            “That depends on how long I am held here, sir,” I replied calmly, unfazed by his controlling demeanor.

            “Why, Alice, may I call you Alice? You are my guest, you are not being held here. I’m sorry for the confusion, did my friends treat you harshly, my dear?” he asked with mock sincerity.

            “Chasing me around my city, attacking me, chloroform, blindfolding me…” I looked at Wolf-breath, “Does that cover everything?” he shrugged noncommittally.

            “Oh my!” exclaimed the grizzly, “I explicitly told them to be kind to my lovely guest!” I rolled my eyes, lovely guest my fluffy gray tail, I was a prisoner and we both knew it. He must have seen my skepticism, because he then clasps his huge paws together and said, “Now down to business,”

            “Business?” I asked.

            “Yes! I’ve brought you here to my humble home because you are going to keep me in power and you are going to make my family the most powerful Clan in the Underground,”

            “Uhh, what?” I asked. Really witty comeback, no?

            “I said, you are going to-“

            “I heard what you said, I meant, what do you mean, Bear?” I clarified using his Furname.

            “Alice, you are going to use your unique abilities to defeat my enemies, and then you will pass on your unique abilities to my son’s children, making mine the most powerful Clan,” he said. At this statement I did a wonderful fish impression.

            “Are you kidding me?” I exclaimed, “Don’t I get a choice in any of this? I am, sixteen! I am way too young to be “passing” anything along to anyone’s children!

            “I do not believe that you will bear his children until after your wedding-“

            “Wedding?!” I exclaimed

            “Yes, after you and I use your abilities to squelch those who would take my place of power from me,” he said, as if this were an everyday conversation.

             “I don’t even know what you are talking about!” I yelled, “How do you expect me to do any of this when I don’t even know what ‘abilities’ you are talking about! And I am not marrying your son!”

            “You won’t?” he asked, warningly.

            “ I won’t,” I replied.

            “We shall see,” he growled, “Aiden! Take our guest back to her room,” the burly wolf, whose name I now knew was Aiden, grabbed my wrists again, and then blindfolded me.