Claire Dearing's life has not always been perfect, but every piece of the world she claims for hers has always been organized.
When she was so little even she can't remember, her sister tells her she would split their shared room in a half declaring "this side is yours Karen, and this is mine." and never would she ever let Karen's things cross the invisible line. Always keeping her own toys on her side, dolls all in a row, stuffed animals all in the toy box, and the bed always made. As she'd gotten older, and with the divorce, her own room in both homes had stayed meticulously cleaned. Her most special childhood toys were shelved in her room in mother's home, dusted offer. Her father's was strictly filled with necessities- a small bed to match the small room, a well-organized desk, and a large dry erase board to match the one at her mother's.
Then she met Todd in college and he was everything. Just as orderly as her, a technical genius, and with big dream and plan. Even after their first child, Zachary, in their tiny apartment in the city, organization was key. Diapers went here, bottle went there, no bright flashing TV shows, all the toys were put way every night, no exceptions, and laundry was done on Sundays.
The business world is Claire's second home, where order was expected and nothing less was accepted. She excelled quickly, and when Masrani Global Corporation offered her The Job of all jobs as Assets and Operations Manager of Jurassic World, well, their apartment was packed within the week. All boxed packed, of course, according firstly to their room in the house, then necessity upon unpacking in their new home, and all were labeled properly.
They told her it happened instantly. That the man hit the driver's side directly and Todd wouldn't have felt a thing. She was seven weeks pregnant and she had plans to tell him. He'd had a wedding ring in his pocket, and he was planning to propose.
After the funeral she moves to Isla Nublar with Zach, into one of the on-site houses reserved for full time employees. Zach hates dinosaur for taking away his daddy, and he hates that mommy doesn't smile anymore, and he hates that their new house cleans itself every time he leaves, so he can't do it with Mommy and Daddy like they used too.
Claire goes into labor only a month before the park is meant to open, and has the baby right there on the island because the ferry boats had poor scheduling and terrible responses time. She names him Greyson, Grey for short, because it's what Todd had tried to convince her to name Zach, and she'd says "no, no, no, and no again." Now she couldn't think of a better name for a perfect little boy.
Claire tried harder after the park opened to keep everything balanced. Zach was too angry from too much change all at once in his very short life, and Claire refuses to leave him with anyone at first, so while Grey stayed with the nanny, Zach learns how dinosaurs are made.
Home life was never the same as before. The maids came every day and cleaned, so of course their home was never a mess. But it's never truly organized again. There was too much to do at work to organized everything at home so the whiteboard become a drawing board and toys didn't stay in their bins, and desks for homework didn't stay organized. Claire learned to adapt.
If you asked Zach and Grey, they'd have tell you they run the park just as much as their mom. They followed her on lots of business around the park and talked with lots of important people, and told them they just had to give mommy money or else they can't live with the dinosaurs anymore. They also had to tell the scientists which dinosaurs are the coolest, because adults just don't know these kinds of things. They get to see every new dinosaur before any other kids and it's the best.
What the boys don't know is just how big a part they play in how many safety precautions Claire orders into place, because sometimes all she can think about is the first test run of Jurassic Park twenty years ago. Or about how the ferry couldn't get to the island during Grey's birth for no more reason then a scheduling error. Or all the other horrible things that can go wrong when you live on an island full of what Zach was once grounded for calling "fucking dinosaurs!" Jurassic World is truly the safest place on Earth, or God so help whichever dinosaur escapes first.
By the time the boys were old enough to wander the island on their own Claire has regained as much order as she ever will. Rules are followed, but there were so few of them anymore that weren't just common sense, the boys would actually have to try if they wanted to break one. But they don't, their mother is awesome, but God so help them if they ever disturbed her order.
Owen Grady is the first man Claire had found remotely interesting in years. He has this perfect mix of the chaos and order Claire finds has become her life, what with the way he trained velociraptors to obey him, but uses commands like "don't give me that shit!" She asks him out, to a restaurant on the island for the sake of simplicity, and he shows up in board shorts. It's one of the fancier restaurants on the island, and Claire's head almost burst from holding back laughter as she watches him talk with the very confused host about how he knows where he, is he lives on this island thank you very- oh, there's Claire, thanks Pal.
Zach and Grey love Owen. They already knew him, of course, but finding out he was dating their mom had only furthered their idolization of him. He teaches them (and her) to more appreciate the dinosaurs, to remember that while you can ride the back of a docile baby triceratops, you can never trust a velociraptor. They're animals, but they're smart, remember that kids. Remember that Claire.
The day of The Incident is sneaky and unassuming. It's the middle of December, and Christmas is next week in fact.
Claire stumbles out of bed at 5:30a.m. like she does every morning, and Owen grumbles about the cold air as he hugs her half of the blanket to himself. She walks through the dark onto the bathroom to start her shower.
She emerges from the bathroom just after six, to find Owen sitting up, squinting tiredly at the news on the flat screen.
"Morning," he says, smiling.
"Good morning, Owen," she leans down to kiss him. "Did you see the weather yet?"
"Yeah, it should be clear all day. You done in the bathroom?"
"Yeah" she says, pulling a white pencil skirt out of her dresser, trying to decide which shirt to wear with it. "Hey wait! Get me my straightener!" she shouts at Owen through the door.
Claire sits down at her vanity mirror once she's dressed- having chosen a light white top with a purple tank top underneath- And starts mentally going over her plans for the day as her hair straightener heats up. She had the the meeting with the Verizon Wireless people at ten o'clock, and she's going to have to win them over, because without their money, the Indominus will easily become more problematic than the board thinks she's worth. She was already so problematic- well she was smart, and so very underestimated. That was why she had a meeting with Mr. Masrani after that, he wanted to see all the problems for himself.
She'd probably be done with him around one o'clock, maybe she could meet with Owen at his bungalow for one of their little lunch dates. Hmm, better not mention it, she'll surprise him if she can make it. The rest of the day she could probably spend quietly in the control room helping her assistant Zara with her wedding plans, unless something came up, because the poor woman was swamped with all the planning, and she been begging for Claire's help for the longest time.
Claire finishes her hair and makeup before Owen's out of the shower- she can hear him singing loudly, and she knows he's doing in on purpose as he sings "She came from planet Claire! I know she came from there!" He's pretty on key though, as far as she can tell.
She rolls her eyes anyway, knocking on the door and shouting "Hurry up it's your turn for breakfast!"
Seven O'clock finds Claire stepping over the toy's on Grey's bedroom floor on a trek to his bed.
"Time to get up Grey," she says softly, shaking his shoulder gently.
"No it's not." He whines pulling the covers up. "It's Christmas vacation, not tutors Mom…"
"I know it's your vacation, but if you're not up now you'll turn your whole schedule around, and I'm not having that." she says giving him one more shake before leaving, not at all worried about him falling asleep, once Grey's awake he's awake. It's Zach that makes it difficult.
She starts by turning on the lights. He's lying on his back and the light shocks him awake before he rolls over with a furious groan of "NOOOOO…"
"Yeeeeesss." Claire mocks. He pulls the cover over his head, and she walks over, wrestling the covers off him and off the bed, throwing them across the floor.
"Mom go away." He warns, burying his head under his arms and his pillow.
"Get up Zachary," she can't reason with him like this and she isn't going to try. He doesn't move, and gives no response besides another groan of irritation.
He's awake, and she just doesn't understand why he doesn't get up. He's like his father that way, Todd got up every morning at the last possible second too. At least he'd always had it planned out, Zach has no intentions of getting up before noon.
"Fine. Five more minutes." She concedes, taking the alarm clock he never uses off his bedside table, setting it for five minutes from now, and hiding it in the pilled of shoes in the closet. She turns the light out as she leaves, wishing he were still small enough to drag out of bed herself. It was so much quicker. Oh well, failing the alarm clock in the closet method, there was always Owen and glass of ice water.
Grey joins his mom and Owen down stairs first, sitting with his mom at the dining table as Owen scrambles up enough eggs for the family. Grey has the little box of wax the orthodontist on the mainland gave him to apply to his braces if they were irritating him, and he's got his finger in his mouth, clearly applying an ample amount.
"Are they still bothering you?" Claire asks, sipping in her coffee.
"Yeah, in this one spot in the back."
He says.
"You know if you just don't put the wax in for a about a week your mouth will toughen up and it'll stop bothering you." Owen say, setting some bacon in a pan.
Grey gives him a "no, I don't think so," sort of expression when Zach walks in, the only one still in his Pajamas.
"Aw, and I was so looking forward to getting the ice water." Owen jokes.
Claire says to Grey, "It'll all be worth it in a couple of years, when your teeth are straight."
During breakfast Zach brightens up and he and Grey start talking about what they're plans for the day.
"We should go on in the gyrospheres today. Mr. Wu told me there's a bunch of new baby Triceratops."
"Sure, that sounds fun." Zach agrees too quickly for Claire's liking.
"One of the gates is down, and I know it." Claire says to Zach. "If I find out you took the gyrosphere off road I will ground you-" she turns to Grey "- both of you."
"Okay, I didn't even know about the gates Mom," Zach turns a little defensive "I was just gonna go hang out with Grey, that's all." It's no good, Claire can tell he'd already known. She lets it slide anyway, she'll catch him at it later, and argue with him then.
Claire and Owen leave the boys in the living room at half past eight.
"So I should be back by eight-ish by the way." Claire tells Owen as they descend the steps to their cars "Call me if the boys want to start dinner before then."
"Will do, love you." He says, pulling her in for a kiss on the cheek.
"Love you too." She smiles, before heading to her car.
"-but consumers want them bigger, louder- more teeth." Claire's says to "Hal, Jim, and Erica" of Verizon Wireless as she and Zara walk them through the labs. "The good news- our advances in gene splicing have opened up a whole new frontier. We've learned more from genetics in the past decade than a century of digging up bones. So when you say you want to sponsor an attraction, what do you have in mind?"
"We wanna be thrilled" Says one.
"Don't we all?" Claire asks in response. "The Indominus Rex, or Lilith, is our first genetically modified dinosaur."
"You've named it, Ms. Dearing?" Ask one of the representatives.
"Oh, no. My son Grey did. Lilith means "night monster", He thought it was fitting." Then she smirks "Let me show you why..."
Verizon's people love Claire's speech and after sealing the deal with them on the endorsement of Lilith, she's called to meet Mr. Masrani on top of the Control Room, where she learns that Invisible Fences are proving useless for the second time this month when another Pachy was found roaming outside her zone.
Claire asks Zara to monitor things from the control room and call her if anything needs her attention as she heads to the roof where Mr. Masrani awaits in his helicopter. When he ask how the park is doing she automatically tell him statistics, still in business mode from the meeting with Hal Jim and Erica, before he clarifies "No, no, no- how is it doing, are the guests having fun? Are the animals enjoying life?"
"Right, well guest satisfaction is steady in the low nineties- Zach and Grey are still enjoying everything anyway, which has to mean something considering dinosaurs are literally an everyday thing for them. And I'd say the animals are okay, a few have managed to roam outside their zones, so maybe they're a bit bored with their given space, but nothing that can't be fix."
"Ah, good, good. Now..." Masrani trails off, turning to lift the helicopters from the landing pad, "show me my new dinosaur…"
Halfway to the Indominus enclosure Masrani notices Claire in the back seat. "You look tense Claire," he jokes.
"Ha ha… maybe you just, focus on the controls…" she grimaces, still very tense.
"You know the key to a happy life is to accept you are never actually in control."
"Oh believe me, I now. I raises to boys and theme park, that doesn't mean- Bird!"
Once at Lilith's enclosure Claire begins to explain the unforeseen problems they've been having in her regard, how she was bigger than expected (Masrani take this as a good sign), how she could anticipate where the food was coming from, and from that how a worker nearly lost an arm.
"So she's intelligent then?" Mr. Masrani notes.
"She really is." Claire confirms nodding her head, worried.
"And that?" He points to the crack in the viewing glass.
"She tried to break the glass..."
After they watch Lilith for a moment, as she paces her enclosure, watching them right back, Mr. Masrani requests that the paddock be looked over.
"There's an American Navy man here, part of a research program one of my companies is running- Owen Grady."
"I know Owen. Actually. He's, uh, he's my boyfriend." She does not blush. Nope.
"Oh, good. See that he inspects the paddock then, maybe he'll see something we can't. His animals often try to escape. They're smart, he has to be smarter."
"He only thinks he's smarter." she jokes, snorting to herself. She hope he never learns she said that. "But sure, I'll go get him as soon as he goes on break, he doesn't like interruptions when he's with his raptors."
Claire drives over to The Bungalow, once Mr. Masrani flies them back to the main park, where she knows Owen likes to spend his afternoons, so she can give him a ride up to Lilith's enclosure.
"Hey babe!" Owen greets her from his spot in front of a motorcycle he's clearly failing to fix up. "What's up?"
Claire drags one of the lawn chairs over to sit by him while he works. "Mr. Masrani wants you to come look over the Indominus Rex paddock, to make sure everything's secure."
"Isn't that the thing you cooked up in the lab?"
"Corporate thought it would up the "wow" factor." Claire shrugs, knowing where this is going.
"They're Dinosaurs. Wow enough." Owen says flatly.
"Not according to the focus groups... the Indominus Rex makes us relevant again."
"Indominus Rex." Owen says in a ridiculous voice before laughing.
"We needed something scary and easy to pronounce!" she exclaimed defensively. "You should hear a four year old try to say archeonithominus."
"You should hear you try to say."
"You should hear you try to say it." she does a deliberately horrible imitation on him. "But you'll come right?"
"Sure, when?" He take a drink of Coca-Cola and passes the bottle to her.
"Thanks, and today. The attraction opens in three weeks, so we need time to fix anything."
"The attraction? C'mon Claire we've been over this, they're animals. They're living-."
"No, I know, you know what I mean." She stops him.
"And do you know what they're thinking?" he grins. "They're thing "I gotta hunt, I gotta eat, I gotta..." he make a gesture with his hand, smiling like an idiot up at her. She rolls her eyes.
He leans over to her, resting his arms on the arm of her chair, his face inches from hers "bet you can relate to at least one-"
"Nope!" She stand abruptly. "No, we are both on the clock. I'll be in the car, Mr. Grady." And she walks away.
"Aw, c'mon Claire-Bear! I was kidding!"
"Go change your shirt!" She says before slamming the car door.
"So have you talked with the boys at all today?" Claire asks on the way.
"No, want me to call 'em?"
"Hm, no. It's not a big deal if they went out, it's just they just know the island well, and Zach's been getting into a lot of trouble lately, and he's been dragging Grey into too, I just..."
"Aw, now that last time was funny, wandering around the gyrosphere valley on foot. And no one had a clue what to do." Owen laughs.
"Actually I was thinking of the last time we caught them in the original park..."
"Ah, they're fine, Claire." Owen reassures her.
"Yeah..." then she brightens "Oh, speaking of the old park, you will not believe what Lowery from the Control Room is wearing." She says, changing the subject.
"Khakis." Says Owen in all seriousness.
"No... He's wearing, I kid you not, an original Jurassic Park T-shirt."
Owen turns to her, ""Original' original? As in twenty years ago Original?"
"Yup." she pops the "p".
"But people died! Seriously?"
"Yeah, see, that's what I said!"
When they get to the paddock, Owen further berates the corporate system for their stupidity in raising a wild animal in isolated captivity, and Claire agrees, telling him there was a sister but Lilith ate her, and that there wasn't much they could do until the Indominus attraction made enough money to fund the birth of another one.
"It'll be too late by then- it's probably too late now." He says. "So where is she?"
"I don't know…" Claire goes over to the control pad, but none of the cameras can find her.
"That doesn't make any sense, these doors haven't been opened for weeks." The security guard says, looking over the screens as well.
"Uh, Claire… Have those marks always been there?" she turns to find Owen point out to the enclosure where claw marks have been left all over the wall.
"You think she… Oh God…" she collected herself quickly, and heads for the door. "She has an implant in her back. I can track it for the Control Room."
Outside Claire finds the workers still merrily working away on making the walls higher, and she stops. "Have-" her voice breaks with nerves. "Have any of you seen anything, uh, weird since I was here this morning?!" she shouts over to them.
Several of them shake their heads or give shouts of "no" and "not really" and she turns tail and runs back inside. Lilith's still in there then, somehow.
The viewing room is empty of anyone and a scream of terror escapes her when she see Owen down in the enclosure with two others. They're looking over the claw marks on the wall, all their back turned to any threat.
She rushes to the control panel where there's supposed to be a speaker system for communicating with the enclosure, but stops. If she uses the speakers, that might startle the dinosaur. Hoping his phones on vibrate, she pulls out her phone and dials his number. She watches with her stomach in a knot as he picks up, back still turned.
"Did you find her?" He ask.
"She's still in there Owen." Claire says. Her voice is warbling and she's really about to be sick "Get out of there, she's still in there!"
"Go!" She hears him shout to the others before they're running toward the door.
She watches the Indominus spring forward from its hiding place. She watched it eat a man- she can't look away, she tries but she watches as the other man- the security guard whose name she doesn't even know- open the gate.
Why would you do that!? She cries in her head. You're going to let it out!
She watches Owen b-line for the gate and she thinks No no no no no as Lilith follows. There's probably screaming. People are probably dead. Owen's probably dead. Everything's quiet. Claire should call the Control Room. She should move. She shou-
Her phone buzzes in her hand and she drops it with a squeak, picking it up when she sees Owen's face on the caller ID.
"Claire are you okay!? Where are you?!"
"I'm in the viewing room- I'm- Where are you? Are you okay?"
She finds him outside covered in gasoline, and shaking as bad as she is, and hugs him tight, afraid to let go, and only doesn't when he reminds her they have to warn the park. They tell the works that haven't fled too far to head the opposite direction as the Indominus before they get in the car, and drive toward the Control Room.
She calls the Control Room from the car and blurts out "We have an Asset out for containment. Put ACU on alert. This is not a drill." the second someone picks up.
"Claire- what?!" It's Lowery.
"Lilith- the Indominus Rex- she's out of her cage. Get Asset Containment out there immediately, Owen and I are on our way… Okay?!"
"Yeah, okay-" she hangs up, unable to handle driving and yelling at the same time.
"Call Zach and Grey, tell them to get to the Control Room, tell them to find Zara and wait there."
Owen's phone rings for too long before Zach answers. "Hey Zach, where are you and Grey,"
"We're, uh, up in the valley, in the hamster balls."
"Alright, well I need you to get to the Control Room right now and find Zara. Your mom wants the three of you to wait for us there, okay?"
"Why? Has something happened?"
"... Yeah one of the larger carnivores escaped, the ACU should be after it by now, but your mom and I want you off in a safe place alright."
"Oh, okay we'll… be there in a minute."
"Good. Bye Zach."
"Bye."
They get to the control room to find everyone quiet, and Claire takes command immediately.
"Everyone remain... calm." Claire says, pulling everyone out of their stupor. "Someone start the evacuation procedures, get everyone to the resort on Isla Sorna immediately. Some else get me feed on the Asset Containments."
"Wait- hang up that phone please!" Mr. Masrani stop Vivian, who's in the middle of ordering the evacuation. "Let Asset containment capture it quietly. The very existence of this park is predicated on our ability to handle incidents like this. It was an eventuality.
Claire turns on him, shocked at what she's hearing. "Yes it was. And that's why we have as many evacuation procedures in place as we do. It's already killed people Simon. This is not some Pachy roaming outside her zone, not some juvenile triceratops you can tranquilize the second she gets too rowdy. The Indominus Rex has too many teeth for that.
"If word gets out, whether it's captured before more people die or not, that we did nothing for the safety of those people while it was still on the loose, we're going to drowned in lawsuits. It was an eventuality, and those people know it, the whole world knows it. But if no one else dies, if no one find out we left them in danger, our lawyers can talk this into a simple "animals escape for the zoo all the time" incident. And if you're really so concerned, there's footage of a security guard opening the paddock gate, letting the Indominus out, too pin the blame on. But you will not-" she's in his face now "- will not, endanger the lives of anyone because you want to keep something this loud quiet. Order the evacuation. Now."
He watches her for a second, then turns to Vivian, and nods. "Order the evacuation."
"Zara," Claire calls her assistant, while the Control Room goes about the evacuation and Assets Containment procedures. "Zara take Zac- Zara where are my kids? Are they not here yet?" she stops when Zara approaches her alone.
"No, I haven't seen them." Zara shakes her head. "Why?"
"I'm gonna call them, when they come, I want you to take them down to the docks, and go through the evacuation with them."
She tries Zach first, and he doesn't answer, and when she calls Grey and he doesn't answer, she knows something's wrong.
"Hold on," she tells her assistant, turning to Lowery "My kids were in the hamster balls earlier, are there any still in the valley?"
"No there's not, there all accounted for. No, wait where's number seven?" he mutters, searching the map.
"They took it off road. Damn it, I knew it!" she turns to Vivian, and after being told that no team is available to search for her children, she storms away, pulling Owen away for where he's been yelling at Masrani.
"They're going after her with non-lethals Claire! Do you believe this?!" He shouts.
"Nothing we can do about that now, we have to find the boys. They took the hamster ball into a restricted zone and it's not responding."
"Claire." Zara calls, following her and Owen out the door, "Do you want me to wait here then?"
Claire can see it all over Zara's face. Zara has never liked the dinosaurs, and has always been quite wary of the carnivorous one. You couldn't even get her to walk past paddock nine on a good day. She wants off the island so Claire tell her to join the evacuation, and that she'll call her once everything's handled.
Claire keeps calling and her children keep not answering even and she and Owen make it through the valley, passed the dying Apatosaurus. Those were her favorite. They were her favorite because they were Zach's favorite. The first dinosaurs Zach had ever like, back when he was still them for Todd's death.
He and Grey had come with her on the ferry boat- their very first ferry ride- to check on the nurseries on Isla Sorna. Grey had been running around the outdoor enclosure while a worker was showing Claire around the operations on the pen. Zach had been pouty the entire time, his little arms crossed as he stood stubbornly by his mom, glaring at all the baby Apatosaurus lumbering around.
It wasn't until the worker had given Grey some food pellets, and Zach, jealous his brother was having more fun them him, had insisted on feeding the Apatosaurus too, that he finally started enjoying himself. He'd giggled with Grey as they babies fed right from their hands leaving foaming saliva dripping all over their palms.
She remembers Zach looking up as her and saying "I think I like these dinosaurs mommy." And he'd smiled about dinosaurs.
"She's killing for sport." Owen mutters as they enter the forest, not stopping for the gruesome scene laid out before.
"She- She'll kill my babies- Owen we have to find them!"
"We will Claire." he takes her hand. "We'll find them, and we'll get off the Island, and when everything goes back to normal you can ground them till the end of the century- they'll be fine."
"Fine. Yup. Juuust fine. Okay." she tells herself, squeezing Owen's hand as he drives them farther into Zone Five.
Claire lets go of Owen's hand when the find the ruins of Gyrosphere Seven. She's out of the car and in the mud holding Zach phone in an instant.
"No- nonono-"
"Hey. They made it out." Owen stops her, pointing at two sets of very human tracks running off in one direction. She runs back to the car then, popping open the trunk and digging around.
"What are you doing?" Owen follows her. "We gotta go."
"I know, but this isn't the first time I've been dragged into a jungle hike because of them. The first time I did it in heels. It wasn't so great, so I stashes a pair running shoes in my trunk." She pulls out a rather new looking pair of purple and white Nikes, and puts them on quick as she can, before she's ushering Owen in the direction if her children.
They follow the trail to a waterfall- and God they jumped from a waterfall! -And farther and horribly father into the jungle until they finally reach a garage attaches to the ruins of the original innovation center.
"Mom!" comes Grey's voice, the young boy running out from behind one of the old cars, followed by his brother.
"Boys!" she runs into the garage, pulling Grey into her arms, "Oh, where have you been? What happened? Why didn't you come back?!"
Owen's right behind her, pulling Zach into his own hug, "Thank God," he says, not as loud as their mom. "We were so worried about you."
"What were you two thinking?!" Claire's says, pulling away to inspect Grey, he's covered in cuts and bruises, but he seems okay. "Oh, I don't care, I don't care, I love both-"
A roar not far enough away for comfort shatters their reunion, and they're all running through the innovation center, the Indominus hot of their tails before they've realized what's happening. They're back out in the jungle and running in the direction of the aviary when Claire realizes the Indominus is too.
"Lowery!" she shouts when he finally answers. "We found her! South of the gyrosphere valley between the old park and the aviary. She's headed that way and there's no guarantee she can't break the dome, I need you to start gassing the birds!"
"Wait are you following the dinosaur?!" He asks unbelievingly,
"Yeah, me and Owen and the kids. Get ACU out here immediately too. Why haven't they gotten her yet?"
"Well, Hamada and his team didn't make it, Claire- yeah, Claire found her kids hang on-" she hears him say to someone"-and anyway, ACU is airborne now Claire... they took the Helicopter-"
"Who's flying it?! You know what no, just get start gassing the birds, if there's any still awake when Lilith gets there they'll get out and the park will get shut down. I gotta go."
Claire and her family run and run across the jungle full of modern animals and dinosaurs alike disturbing the oblivious fauna as the pass in a hurry, before they finally reach a cliff with a full view of the aviary. The Indominus is already there, being chased down by a helicopter Claire's afraid is being flown by Mr. Masrani, shooting at it.
The Indominus is completely undeterred by the pulled- completely unaffected! She runs head on into the aviary's reinforced glass wall, breaking right through like it was a bit of wet cardboard. Everyone holds their breath, waiting for any number of things to fly out. The helicopter hovers unsteadily in the air.
Nothing does happen, and after and minute of watching the helicopter circle the aviary, waiting for the Indominus to emerge, it flies over to their little cliff and land very terribly. Yup definitely Mr. Masrani.
Owen's just getting into the helicopter behind Claire and the kids when the Indominus re-emerges, a bloody carcass of a dimorphodon between her jaws. She whips her head from side to side, her so many teeth sinking deeper into the bird before letting it drop to the ground and letting out a terrible roar. She runs back into the jungle headed who knew where.
"Mom, is that smoke the sleeping gas?" Zach asks point to the cloud of mist puffing out of the hole in the aviary.
"It did even phase her…" Masrani says, awestruck.
"The pterosaurs are going to wake us soon aren't they?" Grey ask, leaning into his mother's side as the helicopter starts to lift off the ground.
"Don't worry young man, they won't wake up for hours yet, we'll have a barricade up by then," Mr. Masrani says.
"What are you even doing out here?" Claire asks. "What happened with Hamada?"
"She clawed out her tracker, used it to set up an ambush and managed to take out the entire squadron." Masrani answers solemnly.
Masrani flies them all back the Control Room where they find Hoskins and his team, of all people, waiting there with a grin as wide as a mile spread on his face. The second he sees Masrani he starts spouting ideas about using Owen's Velociraptors to hunt down the Indominus.
"You can't let the Velociraptors out, are you stupid?!" Zach says, giving Hoskins a look of utmost condescension.
"Zachery! Don't speak to people like that!" Claire snaps.
"No, he's right." Owen says, stepping up to Hoskins and Masrani. "Listen to me Masrani, you can't let them out. It's not safe, no matter how trained we think they are, they can still turn on any one at any moment. Just today they almost attacked me."
"What? When that intern fell in the cage? They listened to you without question!" Hoskins says.
"Are you stupid? I came between them and their prey, if I didn't make in under that gate door, I would have been dinner!" he turns back to Masrani. "Don't let them out. Just don't."
Masrani hesitates, and turns to the men and women of the Control Room "Is the island fully evaluated yet?"
"Almost, they're filling up the last ferries now." Vivian answers.
"Would it be possible to convince you to lead the raptors on this mission once the island was fully evacuated, Mr. Grady?"
"NO!" Owen shouts, exasperated, seeing that he's fighting with brick walls. "God! Okay, I will let you let the raptors out, and I will led them to the best of my ability, until they turn traitor. And when they turn traitor and kill someone, that's on you Masrani."
And he marches through the hall and right out front door, Claire and the boys following right behind.
"You guys need to go. I don't want you on the island with Raptors and genetic monsters and pterosaurs on the loose."
"I thought Mr. Masrani said the pterosaurs wouldn't get out." Grey says.
"I don't want to risk it."
"I'll take them to the docks, and meet you at the raptor cage." offers Claire.
"What? No, I'm not leaving you guys!" says Zach shakes his head.
"Absolutely not. You were supposed to be gone this this afternoon. In fact, let's go now, get in the car."
"I'll drives, I gotta get out of here for a little while," offers Owen, steering Zach to the car by his shoulders, while Claire takes Grey's hand.
The drive to the ferries is silent, as Zach pointedly ignores the two adults in the front, and Grey is too busy watching the sky for possible pterosaurs.
"Zach why are you mad about this? What is so wrong about getting you off the island?"
"He's not mad, he's just afraid you'll get killed." Grey answers, still staring out the window.
"Shut up Grey." Zach snaps.
Claire turns around in her seat to look as Zach. "We are not going to die Zach. I'll be in the Control Room, it's the safest place on the island, and Owen knows how to handle his dinosaurs."
"You don't know that! Owen said he almost got eaten today and that monster almost killed us! And- and Dad only died in a car accident! You don't know you won't die! We could die on the way to the docks!" and semblance of composure gone as Zach starts crying. "I don't want you to die too!"
Claire make Owen pull over, and she in the back seat in less than a second, holding Zach tight.
"We're not going to die, I promise."
"Then why- why can't we just stay with you?" He asks through his sobbing. Then Grey's crying too, and Claire reaches over Zach to grab his hand, Owen, turning in his seat to grab Greys other hand.
"Because it's still dangerous, scoot over," she sits down in the back seat with him,
"It's all going to be okay," Owen says too. "We'll take down the Indominus and we'll probably spent Christmas on Isla Sorna and be home again by New Years. It's okay Grey."
They get to the docks and find the entire thing devoid of any ferryboats.
"Really?!" Claire shouts at nothing. "I mean seriously!? Again!?"
"We have time to wait, one has to come back and pick up the rest of the employees eventually right?" Owen suggests.
"You can just hide us in the control room, you said it was safe." Grey says, sitting next to his brother as his mom paces in front of him.
"No," is the only small answer she gives, before turning out to watch the darkening horizon as the sun goes down, no ferry boat in sight.
Owen phone goes off "What do you want Hoskins?"
"Your pals up here in Control tell me the ferry boats are all gone." He sounds like he's smiling.
"Yeah I know all the ferries are gone, I'm down here, I can see there's no boats, but my kids are still on the island, so-"
"Well everyone in security's getting real antsy Owen, are you gonna head back up here soon or what?"
"Not really! I'm gonna stay here and wait for next one to come back you dick!
"Aw, your kids and your wife'll be fine down there until the boats come Owen. It's so far south nothing could get there before the boats. So you need to head back up here."
"What! No-"
"Listen, Masrani's given me full authority over this, and I want it done soon, so get up here within the next forty-five minutes or were starting without you. You really shouldn't have left in the first place."
"Hoskins you son of bitch- Shit!" Hoskins had already hung up on him.
"What?! What happened?" Claire's already stopped her pacing.
"Hoskins is getting impatient and apparently Masrani's given them full authority because they're staring in forty-five minutes with or without me there. Fuck!" He shouts, kicking one of the dock post. "Claire if I'm not up there there's no one to control the velociraptors. I gotta go now."
In the end the boys go back up with the adults, and because Hoskins isn't giving Owen any time to drop Claire and the kids off at the Control Room before he's going to release the raptors without him, he drives straight to the raptor's enclosure. The second they pull up, Owen jumps out, Claire, Zach and Grey right behind him, and punches Hoskins square in the jaw.
"That's for making me bring my family back up here!"
The adults stand there for a minute, arguing about the morality of releasing the raptor pack, before Owen leave to find said velociraptors. Barry shows Claire to a worker's van that's not being used, with reinforced walls for her and the kids to use. They watch from a tablet as the raptors are finally released, and Owen leads them through the jungle on his motorcycle. They watch in silent concentration as Owen declares to the men trailing them that the pack picked us the Indominus sent. They watch as they find the Indominus and Claire shuts the window separating the front seat from the back, ignoring the boy's protests.
"No! You are not watching this." she says, too scared to stop watching herself.
She watches alone, unsurprised, as it all goes wrong. As once again the love of her life's life is threatened and as men continue fire useless bullet- and- and a fucking bazooka didn't even faze her!
"God what did we create?!" Claire says in horror.
"Watch your six, raptors got a new alpha!" she hears Owen warn the men through the tablet.
Lilith has the raptors chasing InGen forces all over the jungle. People are dying again, and Claire can only think to say "boys make sure those back doors are locked!"
"They are!" Grey shouts back, and when Zach open the little window again, her attention is already back on watching Owen.
In all the chaos on her screen, Claire barely registers that the first raptor killed wasn't attacking Owen. It wouldn't have matter, because Charlie could have killed Owen. Blue tries to kill Barry, and of course Owen has to make her chase him.
"Is everyone dead?" Grey's worried voice startles her.
"No, no, not everyone. Owen was just right, the raptors were a bad idea."
"Are they coming this way?" Zach asks looking at the tablet in his mom's hand.
"I don't think so- AHH!"
A bloody hand slams into her window and a man tells her to "Get out of here! Go!" and still screaming- the boys retreating into the back- Claire slams on the gas and goes.
At one point a raptor that Claire registers in the back of her head is Echo, slams her head literally threw the window. Zach and Grey start screaming after Echo gets her head of the window and starts chasing them, there's a lot of noise from back there, and the boys are shouting at each other and Claire's too afraid to see what they've done.
"Mom did you see that!?" shouts Zach.
"We took out a raptor!" Grey clarifies almost joyfully.
"Oh my God! Are those doors open!? Close the-"
"Owen! Hey! You're alive!" she hear them shouting before she hears his motorcycle rushing up beside the van. He tells her they've got to get inside somewhere, and pulls ahead to lead her through the jungle.
When they pull into Main Street, the park is eerily abandons with not but the overhead speaker still running her advertisements. They run through the Innovation Center, and through the evacuated Laboratories. Then two raptors- Echo and Delta- appear out of seemingly nowhere, sending Claire's and the other right back the way they came from.
They find themselves trapped by the raptors as soon as they make it outside again. Claire holds both the boys hands as they watch Owen approach Blue, and slow as he can he remove the camera strapped to her head.
Then the ground starts to shake, and they hear Lilith growl, deep in her throat, as she rounded a corn and, fuck, how long has she been here? How many people has she killed- she sees them and she approaches, close, so close. Too close. Claire take a step back, dragging her boys with her, wishing she had a third arm to drag Owen with her too. Blue jumps Lilith first, getting herself thrown by the Indominus' tail. Owen whistle, a command to his raptor, and Delta and Echo follow in Blue stead. With the Indominus distracted Claire pulls Zach and Grey out of the way, calling for Owen to follow because That gun isn't doing anything dammit!
They're hiding under a kiosk, holding their breath as Lilith stomps by, one horribly heavy footstep at a time. They've lost another raptor, Delta, but they don't know it just yet, when Owen turns to Claire over the heads off their children, looks her dead in the eyes and whispers "Claire if we make it through this I wanna get married."
"What?!" Claire and her sons all say at once.
"I don't know." He seems as shocked as the rest. "It's just, it's been a long day, and I really wanna marry you Claire."
Her brow knits in confusions and her mouth opens, clearly she trying to form a response, "O- okay." She finally says nodding, accepting the stranger's proposal of her life.
The Indominus roars loud, the sound of her fight with Echo and Blue still right outside.
"We need more teeth," say Grey from his spot between Zach and Owen.
And it clicks in Claire's head exactly what he means, of course she does, Grey's always counted the dinosaur's teeth, everyone's always counting the dinosaur's teeth. Everyone always wants more teeth. Velociraptors had twenty-eight teeth each. The Indominus had almost eighty. Claire knows how to get more teeth.
She rushes for the emergency box mounted on the kiosk wall and pulls out the flare, turning to Owen and her sons she fall back to the ground and pulls Zach and Grey into a hug. "Okay, so. I'll be right back. Right back. I love you so much."
She nods shakily as she says it, before hopping the counter and running full speed past the Indominus, who's started battling the raptors again. She forces herself to ignoring the protests of the boys, all three of them, because someone has to do this, and she knows she can. She know she doesn't want to risk anyone else's life. She can do this.
Paddock nine. The Tyrannosaurus Rex Enclosure. Their resident T-rex had ever been the star attraction, having been on the Island for twenty years, she was an amazing fighter, and even Claire was regretful- and this was entirely Owen's doing- when she thought of her caged after so long in freedom. Well she'd get to taste that freedom again tonight, for however long it lasted.
Claire lights the fuse on the flare after dialing the control room on her phone- the screen's crack at some point in the day she notes, strangely saddened.
"Lowery." she says before he can speak "I need you to open paddock nine."
"What are you Crazy-?"
"Claire what are you doing?!" Masrani's voice interrupts Lowery.
"We need more teeth!" she screams, because it so obvious to her, why don't they see? "Just do what I say!"
There's no answer over the phone, but the paddock door opens. Slowly, so slowly it opens, and Claire hears the T-Rex, and Claire sees all the teeth- not enough teeth, still she needs more teeth.
Claire Dearing has never been the athletic sort, but she's always been the determined sort. This day has been long, and fast and it's tested her limits. This day is not going to win, and as the T-rex, the Queen to end all Kings, chases her through the ruins of her life's work and her home, she knows she can do this.
The Indominus is a true masterpiece of genetic modification. The Tyrannosaurs is Nature's greatest masterpiece. The Mosasaurus, however, has always been Grey's favorite masterpieces, for she has so very many teeth.
They do end up spending Christmas on Isla Sorna. There is no tree and there are no real presents, but Claire and Owen sneak out Christmas Eve and buy what they can from the gift shop. Mostly it's candy, but she does buy Zach and Grey a T-Rex and Mosasaurus plushie toy respectively (and an Apatosaurus for herself but no one needs to know that), pretending in the morning that it had to be Santa, because all of their presents had been left in their house on Nublar. Owen even pretends to be shocked when he "remembers" the puppy he'd gotten them, that must be starving by now. Neither of the boys buy it, but it gets a laugh
They'll have Real Christmas when Nublar is all cleaned up, and habitable again. They'll sit around the tree that's wilted from weeks of abandonment and open presents coated in dust. There will actually be a lot more then there were before they left, because the Jurassic World website features live footage of the park, and apparently millions of people around the world had been watching as Claire risked her life luring the T-Rex into the fight. There will be Thank You letters attached to many of them, from families who had been evacuated for the Island.
Owen will have smuggled a puppy onto the island and into a box, and say "I told you I got you a dog, good thing she's a tough one."
Claire will count the teeth and think that yeah, she'll be a tough one.