Bloodead

Chapter 3 - Madness

Author's Note: The Batch try to make sense of what's happening. :)

~ Amina Gila

Consciousness fades back in slowly. Ridiculously slowly. When Crosshair finally pulls his eyes open, it's to realize that he's in the Marauder. Home. It smells like home, and it sounds familiar, too. Hunter is curled up next to him, still unconscious. He doesn't look much better than he did earlier.

Wrecker is hovering nearby, watching, on the verge of drawing his weapon at a moment's notice. It must've been a while, because he can't smell the blood on him anymore.

Crosshair's hunger is still there, and a faint growl rises up in his throat when he makes out the faint heartbeat he didn't know he could hear. Hunter could, because his senses were... different.

The kid is here, too, and she perks up a little when she sees him stirring. "Crosshair?"

He wants to bite her, too. She's kind of adorable.

...

Why does his brain think this is normal?

"Tech," Wrecker calls, "They're up."

Crosshair glances past him, pushing himself into a sitting position – they've taken his blaster and rifle. That's the next thing he realizes. And Hunter's cuffs have been removed somewhere between then and now. Crosshair is technically a prisoner now, and he doesn't much care for that thought.

They took him. Captured him. They're his brothers, and anger rises up inside him, along with the burning return of his hunger.

They left him, and he had to hurt them. They made him do it even if he didn't want to. And then, they hurt him.

A growl rises up inside him when Tech approaches them from the cockpit. Echo comes out, too, hovering a distance behind. Tech is closest, though he wisely hovers back.

"Had you not bitten us," Tech says in a tone highly implying he's still extremely sore about that, probably in multiple ways, "I would not have believed you about craving blood."

Crosshair's eyes dart past him to Wrecker, remembering what it was like to bite him, to feed from him, and he hates himself a little for instinctively licking his lips. "Good for you," he grumbles, starting to push himself up, somewhat contemplating jumping Tech. He's the closest, and Crosshair is admittedly very annoyed at him. It... felt better after he bit Hunter. Somewhat. Hunter is still close, but the pull to him still isn't as strong as the others.

He freezes when the others instantly reach for their weapons, dropping himself back to the floor with a frustrated huff. They're close and he knows what he needs even if they'll undoubtedly stop him.

"When, precisely, did this begin?" Tech queries.

He struggles to remember back to the precise moment, but he can't, not exactly. All he remembers is the burning pain and... light. "That would have been when you blew up the engine in my face."

Omega twitches, looking wide-eyed up at Echo. Tech's expression is tight and angry, as is Echo's. Wrecker just looks hurt.

"You were trying to kill us," Wrecker snaps back, somehow looking dejected. Crosshair hates how that makes him feel.

It was a little easier when Hunter was here, because Crosshair had someone to aim his rage at. Before, he could chalk it up to them blindly following their leader in his stupidity, but that's not true when Hunter's unconscious beside him, though his heart rate is picking up slightly and Crosshair can sort of feel the slow rising of his thought patterns as he returns to consciousness. Are his senses weird from feeding on Hunter? That doesn't seem possible, but he wouldn't know.