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Paper Shredder — Description
Diana Frost sat across form her, her head wrapped in its scarf deep and purple as the setting sun. Idlily she massaged the fur where the handcuffs had bitten into her, there was something about the bunny that caused Judy’s nerves to bristle.
Maybe it was the way she held herself, rigid and formal, like a high lady that had just been summoned to court, rather than a chief suspect of a now active case. Or maybe it was the way Diana lightly folded her arms and gave her a piercing stare, like she was looking right through her, to her very soul. Judy did not like that prospect.

It was the eyes, Diana Frost’s eyes were a purple like her own, though much lighter bordering on violet. She kept them rimmed with a dark eye liner of a deep indigo, that, coupled with her half-asleep lids, gave her a menacing aura.

Yes, it was the eyes, Judy decided, it was not so much that her gaze was that of malevolence, it was the lack of feelings that resided behind them.

Diana Frost, for all her beauty, had dead eyes.

Eyes that now fixated on her, cold, and hungry. “Officer Hopps.” She spoke with an air of detachment. “I can only guess as to why you have brought me here at this hour.”

The Hour was indeed late, later than Judy had intended, but it had taken Nick and several other that long just to find her, and if the report was true, she had not come easily.

Swallowing to moisten her throat, “Ms. Frost,” She began, “I called you here regarding a case, one that has recently come to my attention. Do you recognize this person?”

She slid a photo across the table.

Diana gave it the briefest glace. “She is known to me.” Was all she said. “The legless one.”

“Are you also aware that she went missing several hours ago?” Judy snapped, with a touch more anger than she had intended. She wished Nick were here, but he was working the field, desperately trying to find any leads they may have overlooked.

He was better suited out there, than in an office, yet she cursed him all the same.

‘What if it were you missing out there?’ He had chide her when he had told her he was going to ask around in some of the shadier areas, areas bunnies shouldn’t tread.

I can’t dwell on that now. Not now.

Her eyes fixed on those cold orbs of Diana Frost’s eyes. It took her a second to register, as though she were just hearing the question, and she had to think it over, before she replied with drawn out curtesy ‘No.’

Judy was about to retort.

“But I suspected this would happen.”

And for the briefest of instants something that may have been sorrow flashed across those cold eyes, and then it was gone, buried behind a mask of ice.

Patiently, Judy waited, her training had taught her that silence often drew more out a suspect than any badgering ever would. The silence stretched for a long time, long enough that she felt she was about to break herself, then Diana spoke.

Her voice, so soft, that is was barely a whisper.

“You don’t know what – who, you are dealing with.” Her eyes raised to meet hers again, and this time, they were rimed with a sheen at the corners. “Just let it go. This will end tonight, one way, or another.”

Judy opened her mouth to protest, but Diana stopped her with a gesture.

Reaching back Diana pulled her long ears over her shoulder and stroked them, the dark chocolate fur was cleaned immaculately, and even had a fait luster that would be the envy of any rabbit.

“They are beautiful, aren’t they?” Diana was not looking at her, or at anyone it seemed, her gaze was distant. “Beautiful, and false.”

Tugging at the wrap that she kept over her head, she undid the pins, letting the fabric slacken, and with a lazy shake of her head, pulled the ears away, setting them on the table between them.

With the slow grace of well practiced hands she peeled back the cloth, layer after layer, and let it drop onto her lap.

Judy’s breath caught in her throat.

Where ears had once been, now only ragged stumps remained. The fur was matted and what was left stuck out at odd angles, the tufts were no more than ribbons crowning her head.

Diana smiled at her, a hollow thing, with no love behind it, or hate, or anything else she thought, a hollow smile, that matched her hollow eyes.

Eyes that now held hers.

She wanted to ask, part of her didn’t want to know, while another screamed it may be the key to breaking the case. But she couldn’t. It was there, something in that face that told her what she feared the most. ‘This could have been you, it may yet, you know the cost of dabbling with predators.’

A memory of claws digging into her back flashed fresh as the day it had happened. And wordlessly, Diana’s voice echoed in her mind. ‘Some of us were not so lucky.’

C.S. Notes: Meet Diana Frost, an earless rabbit who plays a part in the controversial case of Amenii Oakwoods, and how she lost her legs.