Here is like a rose. As promised. enjoy
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Prologue:
With a heavy sigh, the dark brunette sat in her office, staring at the walls in silence.
Two weeks… It had been two weeks since the funeral… Nick, Connor, Abby, Jenny, and Lester had all moved on in their own ways…
But she hadn't. She knew she should have by now, even with her silly schoolgirl crush on the tracker of the team. As she drummed a pen on the desk, she thought about the reason she couldn't let go of Stephen Hart. Especially since she had a boyfriend… abusive bastard he was. She had been thinking of taking Stephen up on a offer he had made when she had come into the ARC early to try and cover up so bruises and a black eye before everyone else got there, and Stephen was there for some reason and he caught her trying to put make up on her eye.
"Raylen?" the voice of the tracker frightened her as she dropped her sponge for foundation, and spun to face him.
"Stephen."
His blue eyes stared at the black eye. Her body was locked in place. It was a long moment before either of them spoke. For her it felt like an eternity that her dark forest eyes stared into his light ocean ones, and they back. And then… he spoke first.
"What happened?" he asked, stepping closer to her and reaching a hand to the bruised flesh.
The brunette cringed away, but did not answer, her eyes on the floor.
"Raylen." His voice was firm, but gentle.
"Me and my boyfriend had a row." Her voice was timid and soft.
"And he hit you," he stated it bluntly as a statement, not a question.
She nodded silently, several thoughts running through in a wash of panic. Would he tell everyone? What would Connor and Abby do or think when they heard? Especially Abby, whose childhood, was the similar?
He sighed, then grabbed the sponge and then covered it lightly with foundation. "Close your eyes." She did so obediently, and felt the sponge wipe over her eyelid as he gently covered up the blackened bruised flesh around her eye.
Rayen didn't dare speak or move. The fact that Stephen was tending her black eye had her reeling in schoolgirl mode.
He found the finger shaped bruises on her arms, and covered them with the makeup as well.
"Raylen," his voice had taken a tone she had never heard before. "If you want to get away from him, give me a call. I'll come get you, help you get a restraining order on him, and I'll give you a place to stay."
Raylen stared at Stephen. He just offered to help her…
In the midst of her mental flashback, Raylen had managed to walk down to the car garage to her little car.
The day of the mammoth fiasco, the predator attack on Lester, the van bomb that Connor and Nick managed to de-wire, and then Leek's bunker, she had started to ask Stephen for help moving out of the house and getting the restraining order on William… and then the ADD went off. He had to grab stuff… and showed up after the mammoth was contained with HER… Helen Cutter, Nick's ex-wife. And the shattering of Raylen's world slowly began. When they returned to the ARC, she tried to ask again, but then he got into an argument with Nick over Helen… and walked out with a dozy of a bruise on his cheekbone. The last time Raylen had seen Stephen ALIVE was when he was standing in a room in the midst of predators from all over time, sacrificing himself to keep the creatures from getting out of the bunker.
No… I need to forget, she told herself, putting the keys in the ignition, and then backing out of her space and then leaving the ARC.
Her hands gripped the wheel as she was plagued by another memory of the blue eyed tracker.
Raylen was clinging to the edge of the cottage as the young—yet still fiercely aggressive—gorgonopsid tried to bite of her legs. Her hands took turns trying to grip a solid shingle so her swinging legs could get out of bite range.
So far, several shingles had hit the creature in the face.
"HELP!" she screamed as another shingle went flying towards the gorgonopsid's head.
"HANG ON!" Connor said from above her on the peak of the roof.
"I'M ALREADY DOING THAT CONNOR!" she snapped at him as she tried another shingle and it disappointed her.
There were then two roars; the roar of the creature, and the roar of an engine, then the gorgonopsid was t-boned by one of the trucks, then Stephen got out and put a few tranqs in the creature to make sure it stayed out. Then he looked up at Raylen who was quickly losing her grip on the roof.
He dropped the gun and ran to stand under her waving legs.
"Raylen!" he yelled and the struggling young woman glanced over her shoulder as her body slipped more. "Let go; I'll catch you!"
"What if you miss?" she yelled back, fear of falling and getting hurt high on her list of reasons NOT to let go.
"I won't I promise! On three!"
Abby and Cutter showed up then, both with equally terrified expressions. Jenny came around another corner and covered her mouth in horror as Connor watched as finger by finger she lost her gripping.
"I don't have til—" she fell screaming as her last finger slipped. "THREE!"
Connor slid down and tried to catch her hand as she plummeted towards the earth. Abby and Nick both yelled while Jenny looked away. Raylen's eyes squeezed shut…
And then she hit something soft and warm.
"You ok Raylen? His voice was muted and gentle, and she felt as if she didn't just fall off a roof.
"I am now," she whispered, half in la-la-love-land, then— "That I am not dangling above the jaws of a hungry gorgonopsid!" she quickly added to avoid getting weird looks and totally changing her friendship with Stephen.
Her phone's ringer drew her out of the memory. She flicked it open and put it to her ear, then spoke.
"I had to fill out some paperwork. I'm on the way home right now, William."
"You better be," the voice of her probably drunk boyfriend growled then hang up.
With a sigh, she closed the phone. Then she tossed it aside as she stopped at a red light.
Another memory weaseled its way into her mind's eyes. But this time… it didn't seem like it was really her own, more of her version of someone else's memory.
Raylen was walking out with the team, a map in her hands. She had called William and said she'd be late getting home because something came up at work. He seemed to be in a good mood, so she wasn't even on guard…
That is, until she ran into Stephen's back.
"Stephen what the hell—"
"Raylen Marie," it was the voice of her boyfriend that cut her off, dripping in anger and probably scotch. And Raylen swallowed.
"William…" she whispered, her fingers releasing the map.
Stephen's hands balled in to fists. The others stared at him in confusion as the other man spoke again.
"You are to come home now."
Raylen slowly stepped out from behind Stephen. "I have to work."
"There are five other people on your team. They can handle it," William snarled at her, and she visibly flinched at the harsh words.
"They need my help."
"What are they doing that they need five people and a useless little thing like you?"
Raylen's body shook under the blow. Connor stepped over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as Cutter stepped forward.
"How dare you call her useless? Do you know how hard she works?" the Scotsman snarled, his blue eyes glaring holes into William.
Jenny stepped up beside him. "You obviously have never tried to get to know her. Raylen is the hardest working person we have on this team. And I think now I know why she practically works herself to the bone! Because you keep slamming her confidence into the dirt!"
Abby wrapped another arm around Raylen as William spoke again.
"Humph. As if you lot are any different. She seems to always be after work to do the paperwork. Do you all just shove it on top of her own? Because she is so hardworking?"
Connor couldn't hold it as Raylen started sobbing. "You shut it you bastard! You don't deserve someone as good as Ray! She's smart she's fun and she's probably one of the bravest people I know! But that fact that you can reduce one of my best friends to tears by calling them names and degrading them is sickening! Did your parents not love you or something?!"
Abby was rubbing her shoulders as Raylen desperately wiped her tears.
"If she had a spine she wouldn't be crying would she, dog-boy."
As Raylen wiped, her foundation was wiped away, and a healing black eye was revealed, causing Abby to get very, VERY ANGRY.
"You MONSTER!" she screamed at the man who had a smug look on his face. "How dare you lay a hand in anger on her! You have no right to beat her like a dog! You are the one that should be beaten you vile creature!"
Stephen finally held up a hand and advanced on the man. "You're William?"
"Yea, what's it to ya?"
"If I EVER see you around Raylen, or if I see her with a bruise and she mentions you, I want you to keep in mind that I am a very good shot with a rifle, and in my line of work, they never find Your BODY. Am I understood you little worm?"
William stood in shock as Raylen's head shot up and stared at Stephen in surprise.
"And the same goes for the rest of us. And we all know people, who KILL people," Jenny stated sharply.
Raylen didn't get to see the rest of the twisted memory as her handheld ADD went off, followed by her phone. So she pulled over and answered the phone, then started fiddling with the ADD to get the coordinates.
"Raylen here," she stated as the coordinates finally came in. "Talk Connor."
"The anomaly is in Jubilee Gardens on… Belvedere Road."
She looked up. "I'm about to pass that road. I'll head there and check it out. I'll meet everyone there."
"Alright."
They both hung up, and she looked at the phone. She debated calling William, but figured she could go check out the anomaly, then head home once everyone was there. She could blame traffic.
So she pulled back into the road and drove towards the park.
With the handheld in hand and her tranquilizer pistol in the other, she cautiously followed the beeping of her ADD to the anomaly.
"Alright, bingo," she sighed, then backed away so she could safely call Connor to give them directions.
Just as she pulled her phone out… there was a growl. Loud and menacing.
Slowly, as if in slow motion, she turned to come face to face with a smilodon. Her breathing hitched as it stared at her, a little bit of saliva dripping down its jaw.
She didn't think twice. She spun and ran…. heading straight for the anomaly, with the smilodon on her trail like dogs after the postman.
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