Redhawk Caldera Warp 1.9.

Just a cameo because I like to always add to my characters' personal drama!

Alyx slipped in and out of sleep while her body fought tooth and nail through the aftermath of the cougar's attack. Although it hadn't hit anything major, she'd lost a fair amount of blood and the soft tissue of her neck was shredded and raw. Her immune system had kicked into overdrive and she'd developed a fever overnight—luckily, the howling gale and plummeting temperatures would help with that. She was far from out of the woods, but she came to now and again, and so long as the fever didn't get too high, she would live.

Her dreams were bizarre and filled with terrifying imagery. Usually she was driven awake by something jarring happening in them. Today, it was the feeling of her lungs filling as a huge cat held her head underwater. She woke silently, with not even a gasp, and cracked her eyes open. Fire rushed through her veins, and she couldn't have moved even if she wanted to. The pain made sure of that.

The first thing she saw was a creamy brown coat that was so similar to the cougar's, it made her heart rate accelerate until she felt like she was suffocating and it was thrumming painfully in her torn throat. Recognition followed slowly, and then something cold and venomous.

How sweet for Bronco and Meerkat to be cuddling while I'm left alone, like always, she thought sourly. Once more, Alyx began projecting every bad emotion she'd ever had onto Meerkat, as she had since having her wish to go to Rusalka denied. She should have felt bad for blaming Meerkat for everything that had gone wrong for her recently, but she didn't. Meerkat had left and yet here she was, enjoying every comfort here that should have been Alyx's, and they were all lucky that she was too weak to say or do anything about it. Towma might've thrown her from Redhawk Caldera herself if she could tell them all how she felt.

She closed her eyes queasily and drifted back into another uneasy sleep, one where she dreamt of bashing Meerkat's face repeatedly against the same tree she'd been pinned to.