“What do you want, you big lug?” Mena demanded as Ashlan’s brother loomed over her. She stomped towards him. “I just lost my boyfriend and I’m all out of people to tie up.”

Leo merely chuckled. “It’s about that, pipsqueak. And besides, you’d need a whole mile of rope to bound this mighty lion down.”

Mena stopped dead in her tracks. “What the huh?” she said softly. “Why do you want to talk about Tal?”

Leo kneeled on her level, his knee cap up to her belly button. “Do you want revenge on that phantom? Do you want to give Death a black eye?”

Mena was silent, her mind weighing whether she wanted vengeance on Janus or not. She nodded at last. “I’ve run out of tears to cry since last night and…I do.”

“Well,” Leo said, making a big muscle. “So do I. She nearly got my baby sister expelled and my family sued. How can a future king of the jungle sit still and let skullface run amok. I’m gonna send her to an early grave.”

May looked uneasily at both Mena and Leo. She held her big hands to her chest nervously, and walked over to them. “I dunno know about this guys. Kill Death? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

Mena turned her head to May, “I don’t want to kill her. Just get even”--her eyes narrowed in hostile slits—“Besides, Janus is already dead to me…and I’m not making puns here either.”

“So,” Leo said, looking at Mena and May. “Are you in, skinny-minny?”

Mena nodded without a second thought. After what Janus had done, there was no other choice.

Leo lifted his fist, the size of a large ham and fist-bumped Mena. He surveyed May. “What about you, meatgirl?”

May seemed less certain. She began to sweat nervously and give off a profuse stink.

The dark and tanned Leo winked at her and said, “Your name was May, wasn’t it?”

“You remembered my… name?” May blubbered, pushing her round fingers together.

“We danced together at homecoming,” Leo remarked, and he sniffed her aroma. “How could I forget someone who smells like a glazed honey ham when they sweat?”

“I had no idea that a boy actually liked it when I sweat…” May said with a timid smile.

Leo took in another inhale of her aroma. “Please May, surely someone like you is as noble as your stench and would help a poor beast man out.”

“No sweat,” May said, and she quickly realized her mistake. “Actually, yes sweat.”

“Great,” Leo said, missing out on her entendre. “Let’s head over to my manor now, and we can get some grub.”

As the trio departed for the Lion’s Den, Mena felt excited again. She didn’t give a hoot about the sage or finding the temple. Now she could make Janus feel the same pain that she did.

As the trio passed manor upon manor, Mena wondered which of the houses was Ashlan’s.

She saw tall treehouses for sophisticated apes, giant grass hills for posh prairie dogs, but at last, they arrived at an enormous castle of polished rocks and glass windows. Everything was carved so neatly with moldings for each of the balconies in the shape of lion heads. Two enormous statues of maned lions stood proudly at a gate of black ivory.

Mena was silent, but in her head, she was in awe. Ashlan did live in a literal lion’s den.

Leo casually slid open the gates and led them on a pathway through a neatly manicured lawn. As they walked by Mena noticed some peculiarly shrubby neatly clipped to perfection. It resembled a lion pouncing on his natural prey—a gazelle. For once, Mena was picqued into speaking, “Interesting bush... but, do your neighbor’s mind?”

Leo chuckled boastfully. “Yes, the heads of the Giselle family protest about my father’s plants at the committee meetings at any chance they get. But they don’t realize, its merely my Pops' throwback to the good old days.”

“He seems like a real traditionalist,” Mena remarked, slightly bemused.

The trio reached the guilded door, and upon knocking, a familiar and wide face answered the door. The seven foot tall Toyah O’Ryan smiled with rosy dimpled cheeks at her guests. She wore a frilly pink apron that read, “Best cook in the kitchen, and I ain’t lion…Never mind, I am!” in fancy cursive.”

“Leo, Mena and that meaty morsel girl that Leo was telling me about,” Ashlan’s mother said.

May fanned herself. “You told your mom about me, Leo? I’m so flattered.”

“You’re just in time,” she said, "we were just about to have linner.”

“Linner?” Mena asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Lunch and dinner!” Toyah O’Ryan exclaimed, and she called to the staircase behind her. “Oh Ashy?! Your friends are here!”

With a yawn, the lioness appeared before them at the top of the stairs. Blearly eyed, Ashlan sported a full-body lion onsie and a pair of lion maned slippers. Her eyes opened wide upon everyone (and especially Mena) seeing her in such a sleepy state.

Leo chuckled. “Every since she got suspended, my baby sis is taking it easy and sleeping til four in the afternoon.”

“I am not,” Ashlan snarled. “I’m just…taking a cat nap!”

Ashlan looked kinda cute in a onsie, Mena thought, and she shook her head in disbelief. She couldn’t believe she was thinking those thoughts right after Tal’s passing.

A loud ding went off from kitchen and Toyah squealed happily. “The food's done! Let’s eat!”

***

The O’Ryan’s dined in a hallway with raised ceilings and elegant décor. A clothed table stretched the full length of the hallway and was rife with glistening silverware and golden platters. Both sides of the room were lined with lion statuettes carved in stone. Mena soon learned these weren’t merely decorative and aesthetically fitting, they were much more primitive ancestors of the O’Ryan’s. Ashlan, Mena, Leo and May all sat together on the left side of the table, while Toyah and Mr. O’Ryan sat on the right.

“You’ll love this new recipe!” Toyah said, clapping her large paws together as her husband eyed her suspiciously. There was an insatiable gleam in Leo’s eyes, and judging by the roar of his belly, he was going to get first dibs on whatever it was. As she lifted the dome off the platter, revealing an enormous rib eye steak, Leo was lovestruck. “Hubba hubba!” he growled. “Gimme some grubba.”

He went to pounce on it, but upon smelling it, his nose wrinkled with displeasure. “Why does this smell like spinach?” he demanded.

Toyah beamed proudly. “It’s plant based meat. Our neighbor the Giselles suggested it to me!”

Leo’s eyes watered and he howled like a jungle beast. “NOOOOOOOOOO!”

May immediately put her hand on Leo’s back to comfort him.

Leo stopped howling and sniffed her. “I’d rather have you for dinner,” the muscular, teenage meathead said, licking his lips.

May blushed. “Save me for dessert big boy.”

As Toyah cut everyone slices of the artificial rib, Ashlan turned to Mena. “So how was the play?” Ashlan said. “I assume even without my thespianonic wit, you still brought the house down if you’re here!”

Mena did not respond immediately, but unlike some of the others, she didn’t wish to lash out at Ashlan either. “I’ll tell you somewhere private…” she said at last.

Ashlan nodded. “We can go to my room after dinner!”

“I’d like that,” Mena said softly.

“After thanking Toyah for the ‘plant based protein’ Ashlan lead Mena up to her room. “I hope you don’t mind the mess,” Ashlan said, “I’ve been a mess lately and I don’t keep it as tidy as my dorm."

Climbing the stairs, Ashlan took Mena to a room at the end of the upstairs hallway. Mena’s heart danced, excited to finally see the bedroom of one of her schoolmates. Upon entering, she was hardly disappointed. The rock walls were lined with framed, grade A report cards from Ashlan’s time in Animantry School, and beside them were signed posters of the critically acclaimed, all-lion play of Roarington. Her bed was a full zebra pelt (not a real one, Mena hoped) and it overlooked a balcony over the front yard. Most curiously, there was a familiar magazine of two lion girls in bikinis splashing each other at the beach, lying on bed. “Sexy Beast monthly?” Mena asked. “Now where have I seen that before? And more importantly, why do you have that in your room?”

Ashlan gasped, giggled nervously, and quickly stashed it in between her comforter. “Like I said, I’m a mess, please don’t tell my mom.”

“I won’t,” Mena said, “But er…why do you have it?”

“Why doesn’t Miss Romance Novel know why I have it?” Ashlan teased

“Hey,” Mena snapped. “I may be the love master, but I don’t know everything.”

“You’ll understand when you’re my age,” Ashlan said wryly.

“But aren’t you only one year older than me?” Mena said, wide eyed.

“Exactly,” Ashlan winked.

The two were silent, and then, Mena, without warning, threw herself into Ashlan’s arms. “Oh Sunny,” she cried. “I’ve been keeping so much of my feelings from everyone!” and she proceeded to tell Ashlan everything that happened at the play.

“I can’t believe that bones would do that,” Ashlan remarked upon hearing Mena’s sordid tale.

“And the worst part is,” Mena said, “I don’t know why she did all of this to us.”

Mena sat down on the bed, beside her first roommate. “You know, Sunny. Whenever I was uncertain about death, I’d always talk to Janus. She helped me come to terms with it when my mother murdered Deidre last semester…”

Ashlan silently observed her friend’s tears as they trickled down her face.

“Janus would always tell me to not be afraid…that death isn’t the end,” Mena sniffed. “And I didn’t know what that meant, but the way she said it so gleefully, gave me hope that somewhere there is a great beyond where Deidre…and Tal are now.”

Ashlan placed a consoling paw on Mena’s trembling shoulder, and it did not annoy Mena like the others had done before. Mena shook her head. “But now, I’m so uncertain about everything. She took Tal away from me in such a brutal way”—Mena sobbed and buried her face in her hands—“Why would she do that to me!”

“I always thought Janus had maggots in her brain,” Ashlan remarked snidely, “But perhaps, she can explain herself to you. Do you know where she is?”

Mena stood up and approached the window. The scenery and the suburbs were darkening outside in the evening time. “We don’t even know if she is still in the mind jungles…”

Suddenly, Mena squeaked. Janus was standing at the far end of the street, her pink eyes glowing in the dark. She trudged into the woods at the end of the cul-de-sac. “Ashlan…Hold my retainer…I just saw her…”

“Where is she?” Ashlan asked.

“She’s heading into the woods. She is here.”

Mena looked directly into Ashlan’s emeralds eyes. “Quick, let’s go after her. I need this closure. For both Tal…and myself.”