Rat Trap

Always on the alert though he was, Gal hadn't spotted Cade, or he would've run. The weasel was just getting used to his enhanced senses as well, so didn't recognize the scent or consider that it was following him. It all happened too fast. He couldn't dodge a bullet he didn't know was even aimed. One minute he was walking and the next-

Against a wall. Hands on him. Not again. His tail lashed out at the attacker. Their face wasn't registering. No chains yet - legs free. He kicked out with all his strength. Couldn't speak except for a weasel-like snarling noise. Someone holding him - no silver yet. And he trembled.

Fighting viciously even as he shifted. Eyes wide but mostly unseeing. The scent of terror polluting the air. Shaking, whimpering, clearly in pain. And - was he hallucinating too? The strain of shifting was clearing his vision - or breaking him.

"C-c-Cade?? Dead?!"

Five minutes could be eternity, until it was done. Briefly too weak to fight but squirming wildly still.

He wasn't going to run. Still shaking in pain, exhausted from the shift, only slightly less panicked now that the hands were off him. The weasel hissed back to answer the snarl, hunched forward to look even shorter than he was, spiked arms at a level with the vampire's stomach.

Blinking, Galvão tried to clear his head. This wasn't Cade. Cade was dead. He didn't have fangs. But Gal's brain was stalling and whoever this person was hallucination or attacker, he was not going to be chained again.

His back was against the wall, nowhere to go but forward. No options. No way out. No. No! With an animal hiss, Gal lunged at the fake Cade, lashing out with no real target, intending to stab him into oblivion. His tail whipped around with no real control, a jolt of terror if it hit the other.

Gal was strong but nowhere near the vampire's level, small and light and easy to throw down. He hit the ground hard, and immediately started squirming and wriggling away. The weasel was flexible, a very bendy rodent.

There was dirt, hard on his back. Pressure and a body and fangs twisting the appearance of his dead friend's face. His heartbeat too loud, pulsing. Their fear, his own, overwhelming. He was holding nothing back, stabbing upward with the diamond sharp stakes that were his hands, biting back at his attacker.

He had to escape. Get away. Fight. Destroy this person cloaked in memory. Feed on the terror. Didn't know how to fight, but instinct wanted to run away, to stay and eat, to rip the attacker apart just to be safe.

As soon as Cade backed off, the wriggling weasel managed to get his feet back under him enough to bolt for escape. Unfortunately for him, the vampire was still blocking the exit, and he just ran headfirst into a wall. Gal squeaked a bit from shock, the pain helping to jolt him, still terrified, but not quite so panicked that his mind was shut down.

At least the vampire's magic-induced fear had vanished quickly, and the weasel no longer felt his instinctive urge to feed on it. The vampire's flesh didn't smell too appealing either, the sight of blood was both concerning because he'd never actually killed anyone before and making him squeamish. Oddly enough, that uneasy feeling was calming him down enough to hear what Cade was saying, though he was nowhere near settled enough to shift back, even if he was willing to risk doing so in front of his apparently not dead and deranged ex.

Gal just stayed backed up against the wall, sharp spikes still aimed at the vampire's chest. He might not want to be a murderer, but he was cornered, if Cade attacked him again he had no problem with stabbing the hell out of him. Sure he might feel guilty after, but the guy was supposed to be dead anyway, anything of regret the wereweasel might have felt for his part in that had been obliterated by the torture he'd been put through after.

For the moment, he couldn't really respond. He refused to let the dead man hear him squeaking like a rodent. His eyes darted looking for an escape, and his tail was kept close to him now, not wanting to provoke the other more.