Animalia // Barnes

Chapter Fifteen: Anger

~MEL~

I stand above the guards dead body, a drop of his thick blood dribbling down my neck and staining the collar of my shirt. His face is forever frozen in fear, a hanging fold of bloody skin hanging from his neck.  dilated pupils scan his body, a crazed feeling overrunning my systems. "No!" Melony yelled into my earpiece. "Those were not a part of your orders! Get out of there now!" I grimace at the volume, spitting out the blood and ripping out the earpiece. I want to rip his strangled corpse to pieces.

I destroy the cells on instinct and my eyes clear, making me fully aware of the scene before me. The innocent man I killed. The crowd around us. Bucky with his sniper aimed for my head. The overwhelming urge to throw up. The horrible taste and smell of coppery blood. My eyes widen and I take off down the street, to the van that will be waiting for us. Bucky. Me. Agent Surdens.

I rip open the van's sliding door, jumping in. Two agents aim their guns at the spot right between my eyes. Raising both hands quickly, I close my eyes. I've been trained relentlessly to make sure this would never happen. My animal instincts are too strong for my human ones. This is probably the end of my miserable existence.

Bucky barrels into the van, a shower of bullets hitting the van door. He rips off his mask, the hard material clattering as it hits the ground. The guards look to him, waiting for orders. "Lower the guns." He barks, turning to me. Staring intently into my eyes, he raises his callused hand. Gently touching the side of my face, Bucky looks at me apologetically.

Right before he brings his metal hand down on my neck, sending a searing pain across my neck and causing me to black out.

I stand in a white-tiled shower, droplets of hot water pelting down on my scarred back. The soothing liquid relaxes my sore muscles, making me feel less on edge. I can't remember the last time I had a warm shower. All the water was cold at HYDRA, making showers in the winter agonising.

I scrub my head roughly with some scented shampoo, bits of dried blood and dirt swirling down the drain. When I'm finished, I step out of the steamy shower and notice a older mirror in the corner of the room. I walk up to it and wipe off a layer precipitation covering my reflection. Propping it up, I take a look at myself.

My arms and legs are becoming scrawny, the muscle slowly being eaten away, revealing the sharp lines of my bones. The gaunt features of my face take away from any happiness that was once there and dark circles under my eyes accompany the hopelessness within my pupils. I turn, revealing the jagged scars all across my back from my training. I take a deep, shuddering breath, trying to smother the flaming pain that may swallow me whole.

Someone knocks quietly on the door. "Are you okay?" Hope asks me through the door. "Yeah, fine." I respond, moving the mirror back to its original position and wrapping a towel around my body. "Um, well, there are some clothes just outside the door. I don't actually know your size, so I guessed." I patter over to the door, cracking it open a few inches. "Thanks." I say, flashing her a weak smile. She returns the grin, leaving me alone.

***

I walk into the guest bedroom towards a window with a daybed underneath of  it. Sitting down, I wrap my hair around a brown towel to dry it. The garden takes up the majority of the view, all of the hedges perfectly trimmed and the flowers blooming. The sight brings a smile to my lips, but I quickly disappears. I need to get out of here. Every moment I waste is another moment that Bucky and the team get further from my grasp.

I need a plan to get them out of the base. If they stay there any longer, I might lose one of them. Melony could have killed them by now, or made them kill each other. I stand and walk over to the door, opening it to reveal Hope. We have a short stare-off until I attempt to sidestep her, but she mirrors my actions. "Get out of my way."

"No."

"Get out of my way or I'll have to knock you out."

"I'm not letting you leave so you can do something reckless and stupid. You need to think this through."

"I've done enough thinking. They're going to die if I don't leave now." I make another attempt at sidestepping her, but once again, Hope mirrors my actions.

"What makes you think that they're going to be any better off if you leave now? You need to calm down."

I let out a frustrated cry. "I am so sick of being told what to do! Follow me, stay here, do this, don't do that. I am leaving now."

Hope grabs my shoulders, running and pushing me against the wall. "You can't leave. I know what it feels like to feel useless. My mother died and I couldn't do a thing about it! We need to think this through."

"You have no idea what it feels like to feel useless." I spit. "My whole family is dead, my soul has been stripped from my body, endured relentless training, robbed of my memories and lied to by people I thought I could trust. So don't you dare preach to me about uselessness, because I don't care if I have to die to save the little beam of light left in my life. If they die, I will not only kill every single foot soldier and commander in that goddamned base, but I will kill the bitch that wouldn't let me leave to save them."

Hope frowns, releasing me. "At least take Scott and I with you. We can help." She says. I bite my lip. "Fine. But I make the plan." Hope smirks slightly.

"I'm the one that makes the plans around here."