Animal

.:25:.

I woke up with a sick feeling to my stomach. I was hot, in the literal meaning of the word. I could feel my shirt and pants sticking to my skin, and whatever wasn't covered from my clothes were slick with it.

Bitter bile rose in the back of my throat and my burning eyes snapped open. I looked around, not taking time to get a sense of my surroundings. I found a bucket placed right next to me and my hands reached out to clamp around it. My head lowered and I vomited into the bucket. It burned coming up, and the weirdest thing about it is I don't remember eating in the past few hours.

I gagged at the smell, only causing another wave of nausea to slam against me and pressing against my stomach. Again, I threw up heavily into the bucket, gasping between it to breath.

When I pulled back and wiped my mouth, my eyes opened to reveal a heavy color of red mixed in with the contents. Did I just vomit up blood?

This couldn't be good.

"Let me throw that out." I snatched my head to the direction in which the voice came from and saw Silo with his hand reached out.

It took a second for my brain to process his words, but when they did I slowly moved my eyes from him and took a look around me. I was in what looked like a barn, only one of those for horse riding. I was sitting in a ground of sand, and the ceiling stretched upwards. On my right, a large opening revealed the forest and a trail that probably led from the forest. There were many weapons lining the walls, along with targets propped up under them in unsorted stacks.

"McKenzie." I looked back at Silo, and everything came back to me. Every single thing, from where he greeted me in the forest, to where he shot me with a fucking tranquilizer dart.

"You have some fucking nerve," I whispered, nearly cringing when I heard my voice. It was raspy, sounding as though I hadn't spoken in years. "You ... Motherfucker ... Any trust I had decided to put into you is gone." I was shaking a little, either out of the heavy weakness I was feeling, or, even possibly, rage.

Something flashed in his yellow-green eyes, but disappeared just as quickly. "I apologize for doing that to you, I really am, but I —"

"If you even," I cut off, putting my hand up and closing my eyes, counting to ten and taking a breath in, "try to tell me you had no choice, or that it was necessary, I promise you right now that you'll regret it."

Risky? Hell yes, but I was officially done at this point. Being pushed around was irking enough, but being shot with a tranquilizer really put the ball in the game.

And in all honesty, I wanted Shark's opinion on this whole fucking screwed up situation. Unfortunately, it seems that despite my awakening, she was still unconscious herself.

He let out a sigh. He was crouched in front of me, still wearing the shorts and shirt from earlier, but looking more exhausted.

"Listen," he murmured, running his hands up and down his face, "you were hysterical. I needed you to calm down, okay?"

"I was hysterical because you told me I was going on a suicide mission!"

He gave me a look. "It's not a suicide mission, McKenzie. We have every intention on getting you out of there alive."

"Alright." I sat up and leaned towards him, narrowing my eyes and clenching my jaw. "You want to send me in there? You want me to bait these people without any sort of training or knowledge of what's going on?" I stretched my arms out on either side of me, eyes not leaving his. "Fine. But I want you to look me in the eye and swear on your life that you can promise to get me out of there alive."