Back to the Fire

Chapter 1: A bit of a hissy fit

My eyes flash open. My body's already shot with adrenaline, sending tremors of anticipation down my spine. My muscles are already wound into a crouch. My feral springs awake.

Cold. Dark. Quiet. No prey. No voices. No heartbeat. No life.

I am on the floor, the cold tile floor, moisture seeping into the leather and furs of my clothes, probably not helping the rot and mildew that had already started to collect on the poorly dried hides. Fuck that. I ripple to a crouch despite the pull of pain near my hip, senses already flaring out to scent my surroundings, scanning for danger.

My claws slide out of my nailbeds with a sting of pain I brush away like a papercut, the red pearls of blood drank back into the skin as it knits itself back together. I feel a rumble of satisfaction as the two-inch, razor-sharp bone digs a divot into the porcelain underneath me. 

It is dark, the air full of damp and stagnant cold, as I draw bursts of shallow breath in through my nose and down over my tounge. Blood. Metal. Antiseptic. Human pain. Human fear. It's oddly reassuring to the hunter snarling inside me, bringing awareness to the ache in my belly. The need to hunt. To run. To pounce on something small and soft and tear the nutrients out from it to feed myself.

My pupils slit to adjust to the dark, making out the shape of a metal doorframe, tastes of the outside world drifting in from the tiny cracks between the frame and the door, accented by the tang of rust somewhere deep in the metal. My feral bristles.

The feeling of being trapped. Trembling in a nest of furs. Impotent fury from the crippling hold on throat. Try to shred father's face, to no avail. Sinking teeth into brother's shoulder. Rush of pride. Then seize of pain as bigger, sharper, stronger claws rake clean through spine.

An outraged snarl tears through me, my hair darkening and curling slightly in front of my face, claws trembling, pupils slitting further. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I will not be caged. I will not be trapped, ever. No way. Someone is going to die for this.

I lunge up, claws bouncing off the oiled steel of the door, the metal shrieking in protest as I pummel my fury into the metal. The extended bone of my fingertips jostles inside my flesh as my claws catch on imperfections in the door, tearing, twinging at my nerves. My fingers spasm and the bones push out further, scrabbling wildly, taking every bit of feedback as bait to fan my fury higher and higher.

How fucking dare they?! How fucking dare they try to underestimate me?

A howl builds in my throat, bloodcurdling, my vocal cords stinging from the lowness of it, rising like a rocket in pitch and volume to a needle sharp G-sharp. Seven octaves above middle C. It rattles the door more than my attack.

I barely feel it.

I can't even see anything but a wall of white rage as I throw my hip against the door, haul myself up an inch by a tiny flaw I've managed to create, thrusting my weight back down into my claws. Slam my knee against a bolt. Snarl. Slash diagonally, angling for invisible eyes and organs. Throw my shoulder at the top panel. My toe-claws even screech against the surface, somehow out of my boots and pierced through the hides of my 'socks'.

I only pause as a pungent odour punches my nasal cavities. Acrid. Cloying. Bitter, with a hint of sweetness. My mouth starts to water as my feral lets out another inhuman snarl through the door, my fit of rage becoming more reactive, more uncontrollable inside me. Fear. It only makes me go more uncontrollably batshit.

So they are afraid of what they've tried to lock up. It goes to my head. This shit's better than drugs.

I cackle, the sound tinged with a bark, almost a squeal of glee. The words pour out of me without thinking as I inhale more of that pheromonal crack, my instincts buzzing like a cheetah on  a sugar high, bouncing around the wall of its containment. My senses scream into overdrive, the sensitivity maddening as the world outside comes into focus.

"Oho-ho! I can heeeearrr you, Nazi fuckers!" I croon, my voice both frantic and syrupy, Canadian accent thick and almost disguised behind the snarling effect my feral lends it . "You squirming little fleshy blood-balloons, you're fit for a head popping! You have fucked up and when I tear this door off, I am going to put my claws through your eyes and tear your fucking septums out! I am gonna eat your eyes and your livers and make a necklace out of your kneecaps once I suck that nice marrow clean from 'em!"

I can feel the buzz of their heart rate increase in the back of my mouth, like I'm already tearing them asunder. I don't even have the state of mind to realise that probably isn't helping. But when the high is that good, I can't even help myself from wanting more.

"I'm gonna wear your skin as a blanket and pop your teeth like popcorn and burn your dicks over the ashes of this place! Ya hear me?!" Those last couple of words croon off into another maddened howl, which itself dissolves into more cackling.

I hear a flurry of quiet whispers, butterfly wings against my eardrums, but I have no thought to process them as my feral winds itself up into further frenzy. I hear a patter of feet, more heartbeats coming closer to the other side of the door as it creaks ominously, gaining another dent from my ribs.

A hatch near my belly is flung to the side with a grate of unoiled metal, and something digs into my abs. My feral wastes no time before trying to shred the metal intrusion. My claws bounce off the shiny barrel, hooking as far out as they can, trying to catch into flesh or clothing, like a cat batting under a doorway in the hopes of grappling a helpless budgie. I am so deep in my excitement at receiving something to maul, I hardly notice it's the barrel of a gun.

Well, not until a red-tipped dart sinks through the mangled hide of a moth-eaten, blood-caked hare skin and into my skin, anyway.

I just grin, clawing faster, more, desperate to find some poor goon's face to sic.

"Oh, y'wannafuckingrattlemycage, bitch?!"

I roar, my claws puncturing through what I can only guess is a hand. Fuckyesfuckyesfuckyes. Food! My feral croons, as I try to reel the bastard with the tranq gun closer, ignoring the medley of other darts joining the first. A second barrel is shoved through, the tinge of gunpowder in the air my only warning before a bullet joins the existing pain of old scars in my hip. And another in my V-line. One manages to sink into my ribcage. Oh well. My healing factor can handle it. It always will.

The scent of my own blood adds to the cocktail, only increasing the confinement of the stir-crazy whirlwind in my head.

I feel resistance as a gloved hand scrabbles with me, trying to pull me off, even as I manage to get through part of the uniform, into what might be a rib, just as an enormous force pulls the guy off. Fucking shame. 

The guns clatter to the ground outside the door of my cell. There's a jangle of metal and then the hatch is slammed shut on my still scrabbling wrist. Once. Twice. Thrice, in quick succession.

 I feel something in my arm snap, with a lance of pain. I yelp as I snatch my hand back, pressing it to my chest, the throbbing sending a deeper snarl of injustice through me. Now a creeping cold sensation in my stomach joins the pains in my body.

I glance down with a semi-lucid grimace, looking at the forest of darts that bristle from my abdomen. I growl with displeasure, clawing them off with my free hand, ignoring the storm of injury jostling - and even snapping off one of the metal tips - inside my flesh gains me.

Tranquilisers. Fuck them. Fuck their clever little monkey hands for having an answer for nature's favourite predator. I withdraw with a pissy snarl, my rage still close to boiling over again.

2-0, HYDRA. I'll fucking pay you back.

Oh, well. They still have to wait me out until I give in.

I hunch back onto my haunches, cradling my injured hand as I start up a low growl. I puff up against the wall for stability, gaining nearly another inch and a half, as I stare into the soul of the door. I growl softly, baring my teeth, my lips peeling back up to above the gum line of my elongated, inhumanly sharp canines, drool sliding from the back of my mouth, down the sides of my mouth. The sound is god-awful, rattling the tile on the floor, like a diesel engine starting, a low, constant, apocalyptic rumble, ebbing and flowing like the tide, but stoked with my rage.

Oh, I'll fucking dare them to try me before I'm out. I fucking do.