I Am the Animal (REWRITE)

Two

When I came to, my back was sore and I felt drool dripping from the corner of my mouth. I was covered with an unfamiliar plaid blanket, and I was sitting... in the seat of a car? It wasn't even moving; it was parked outside of a Wesco. I lifted my head, and made a noise that sounded more like an animal than me. I felt like I had a raging hangover; I wondered if I had gotten drunk before I passed out, but I couldn't remember exactly what had happened. 

It was dimly lit in the truck; it was still dark outside. Faintly, I could see a moth fluttering against the window, highlighted by the headlights of passing cars. I scowled at it, brushing a clump of hair out of my face. 

"You're awake," a deep, melodic voice said from my left. I blinked sleepily, and I sat up straighter, trying to remember what had happened. 

With a jolt, it all came back to me; Devin's cabin, Raven, his weird sunglasses and attractiveness that momentarily choked me up, the wolves...

 I sat up faster than a bullet and jerked my head to stare at Raven, who was sitting cross legged in the driver's seat. The shadow from the light made his cheekbones look razor sharp. His back was leaning against the car door and he had a plastic bowl of pasta salad in his lap. He was barefoot, wearing a pair of jeans with holes in the knees and little rips in random spots in the denim. He seemed to have shed his thick jacket, revealing his black Green Day shirt. The Ray Banz he'd been wearing before I blacked out were resting on his head.

I gasped suddenly, realizing that I had horrible morning breath -I could taste it- and I knew that the bun I'd had in my hair had drooped and halfway fallen out, reducing my blue locks to mess at the back of my head. My clothes were rumpled, and I was sure that my eyes were red or smeared with mascara. "W-wha-wh-" I couldn't form a coherent sentence. Raven cocked an eyebrow, looking amused. Without a word, he opened the center console, and pulled out something that looked like a hamburger wrapped in paper. 

"Here. You've gotta be hungry," he commented. As if on cue, my stomach decided to imitate the sounds of a dying whale. I blushed, feeling disoriented, but accepted the hamburger nonetheless. 

I carefully unwrapped the burger, noticing that it was still slightly warm. He must have gotten it recently. I blinked at the sandwich before taking a huge chunk out of it, chewing and swallowing. I felt like I hadn't eaten in weeks. Aware of Raven's eyes on me, I swallowed hard, gave a little cough, and said, "'Bout how long have I been out?" 

"Only a few hours," he answered, putting down his plastic fork and ran a hand through his blonde curls. He sat back against the car door, huffing out a breath. I gave a halfhearted 'oh,' but my unspoken question hovered in the air between us, but I made no move to ask it and he made no move to answer it: What the heck had even happened? 

Oh my gosh, it was so awkward in that truck that I wanted to curl up under the seat and die. Neither of us was talking, and the only thing you could hear was 5 Seconds of Summer's She's Kinda Hot blasting through the speakers and the sound of us chewing our food. Occasionally he would reach down into the cup holder, picking up a can of Coca-Cola and taking a few swigs before putting it back, and the only thing I could think was that female-dog didn't even get me a Mellow Yellow. 

About ten minutes later, Raven cleared his throat and said, "Uh, so I guess you must be wondering what happened." He wasn't even asking me; he knew. 

I gave him the ya think, dingdong? look. He sighed dejectedly and swung his legs so that he was sitting with his back against the seat like a normal person, but after what happened a few hours ago, I was beginning to think that Raven wasn't really much of a normal person. He reached forward and turned the key the rest of the way in the ignition, causing the old motor to roar. I watched as he attempted to pull his scuffed-up black combat boots onto his bare feet. 

"Look, all you need to know is that your brother got mixed up with the wrong... people," he told me. Having successfully pulled on his shoes, he sat back in his seat, buckling his seat belt and pulling back the stick-shift, glancing behind him out the back window as he pulled the truck out. I noticed how he hesitated on the word 'people,' and decided to indirectly comment on it. 

"Well, if I remember correctly, it wasn't people who attacked us," I clipped. 

Raven glanced at me uneasily. We were pulled out of the gas station parking lot now, and driving down a dirt road with tall pine trees on each side of the gravel. "You know, I really wish you were wrong, Laurel," was all he said before we descended into a no longer awkward, but tense, silence.