Chapter 1

-March-

A hand encompassed mine as I hunched over in the hard plastic chair, not looking at the coffin in front of me. You'd think that there would be more comfortable chairs at a funeral, but nope. I guess sitting on a hard chair for thirty minutes was a small price to pay. As if I hadn't paid enough.

My uncle rubbed circles on the back of my hand as I sniffed and tried to take deep breaths to keep from crying. My mom's younger brother and my surrogate father/brother. He was more like the cool cousin than anything. He'd arrived this morning from Isla Nublar. I'd been alone in the hospital for four days—a very long four days.

We'd been coming home from a movie, a stupid movie that we'd both hated. I couldn't remember what happened after a car clipped our tail end, other than rain falling on my face. Or was it glass? It was hard to tell the difference.

I didn't look up as the priest or whoever he was said the last words of his speech, or was it a prayer? Even as it was lowered I didn't look up at the coffin. Even as my uncle gently pulled me up to be the first one to drop dirt in there. I glanced away as I threw a pile of dirt at the whole, and waited for him to throw his.

If I looked I was going to start crying. And out of all the people here, I only knew my uncle, Owen. The rest were coworkers or college friends of my mom. As far as I knew, Owen was my last family member.

"C'mon, kid," he murmured, putting an arm around my shoulder and steering me away from the funeral and towards his rental car. He'd arrived in the same clothes he was wearing—a dark pair of jeans, a dark gray shirt, and work boots. I'd never known him to own a suit.

He pulled the car up in front of my house; everything had already been explained to me by a social worker. I was going to be moving to Isla Nublar to live with my uncle, or I would be placed in the foster care system until I was eighteen. Needless to say I picked Owen.

I slowly trudged up the steps to the house. We were going to be staying the night and then board a plane to Costa Rica the following morning. Most of my stuff would be shipped to either a storage locker or me. Anything I didn't pack was to be donated or sold. We had until the morning to pack it all. And I wasn't looking forward to it.

Owen opened the front door and I paused at the entry, digging my nails into my palms. He flipped the lights on and I bit my lip, following him in.

Everything was exactly where we'd left it before the movie. The DVD's were still stacked on the coffee table; an open bag of chips was lying on the counter; a half-empty glass of water sat on the kitchen table; shoes were strewn across the entryway; jackets slung over the back of the couch. It smelled like my mom's perfume, sweet and barely noticeable. I swallowed hard.

I took small steps towards the stairs, hearing Owen go to the garage to get boxes. I stopped at my bedroom; the door was still open. My bed was unmade, my stuffed velociraptor sitting next to my pillow. My diploma was sitting on my desk from my early-graduation. A tote bag of books sat next to my bookshelf, not yet added to my collection. My camera and tripod sat next to my computer, waiting for a video to be edited. Pictures of my mom and I, my mom and Owen, or me and Owen sat on shelves above my desk.

I sat down on my bed and brought my knees up to my chest, pressing the stuffed raptor into a hug. It had been a gift when I was 9, a year after my dad had left, from Owen. He'd just started working on Isla Nublar and hadn't been able to visit as much. I'd been down in the dumps for a while, so when he showed up with the stuffed animal, I was overjoyed. Even though I was almost an adult, I still slept with it.

I glanced around my room, mentally taking inventory of what to take with me. It was the beginning of summer, and I was going to be living in a summery place year round, so I wouldn't need my winter clothes. Everything else I would take.

My books were definitely coming with me. They'd be shipped to wherever I was staying and I'd just have to find a way to have them all set up. Maybe Owen could help me build shelves. My camera gear would be coming as well, and so would most of my bookish items. I'd probably need my exploration gear, as I called it, for wandering around the park.

I'd have my diploma and other non-essential certifications put into storage, along with stuffed animals and things I wouldn't need or have space for but were still sentimental.

The pictures were coming with me immediately. A few changes of clothes, my important identifications, my raptor, and my computer were all coming with me immediately. Maybe a couple knickknacks, but that was all.

I slid off the bed and started moving things into a keep pile or a get-rid-of pile. Owen wordlessly came in and started packing up stuff at my pointing. I wasn't ready to talk, and I'm not sure if he was either.

I had to remind myself that he lost someone too. I lost a mother, but he lost his older sister. He'd always been close or a phone call away, and it must have been tough on him to lose her. Maybe not tougher than me, but probably equal.

We got my room packed up in a couple hours and I moved on to my mom's room. I stood at the door taking deep breaths and Owen laid a hand on my shoulder.

"You don't have to do this now," he offered. "I can box it up to go to storage. You can look through it when you're ready." I took a shaky breath and nodded, turning around and wrapping my arms around his abdomen. Tears leaked out of my eyes and he rubbed circles on my shoulder to comfort me.

I woke up on the couch, a blanket thrown over me and my raptor hanging halfway off. It was dark outside but a lamp provided light. Boxes were around us, labeled with things such as 'Movies-Donate' or 'China-Sell'. I'd told Owen what I wanted to keep and he'd done the rest.

I heard him moving around in the kitchen and I slowly stood up, tucking my raptor under my arm, and walked into the kitchen. The cabinets were bare and boxes littered the floors. A bag of takeout was sitting on the table with paper plates next to it. Owen was situated there, talking on his phone.

"Yeah, I'll be back tonight. No, I'm not coming in. Yes, I'll be working tomorrow." He glanced up at me. "I gotta go. Yeah, bye."

I sank into a chair next to him and glanced in the bag. Boxes of noodles peaked up at me and I dug one out, taking a plastic fork from the pile. Plain butter noodles in a plastic container, the first real food I've eaten in days.

The next hour passes in a blur. I don't really pay attention to the conversation Owen and I have, or the rest of the packing that we do. Finally, though, we're in a car on the way to the airport, my bags tossed in the backseat.

"I think you'll like living there," Owen said. "I realize you've only been there a few times for vacation, but it's not a bad place to live." I stare out the window and nod, not replying but simply reaching out and clutching onto his hand for comfort.

Everything passes quickly, and soon I'm sitting in first class on a small plane bound for Costa Rica. I manage to say awake through the flight, but when I sit down on the padded bench on the ferry taking the small group of people to the island, I'm suddenly exhausted. I drop my head onto Owen's shoulder and lean against him. He's messing around on a tablet, most likely for work.

He rarely took vacation days because of how important his job was. For him to come and get me was a big deal and I could probably imagine the number of messages he was getting about the velociraptors.

A small smile, the first one in days, flitted across my face at the mention of the raptors. They'd been my favorite dinosaurs since Owen had brought me the stuffed animal and told me that he worked with them. When I'd finally seen them in real life at the age of 13, I was enamored. My mother would have preferred I liked triceratops, but it didn't matter.

Blue, Charlie, Delta, and Echo. The raptors. Owen's girls. They were dangerous, very dangerous. But they hadn't been as mean as when I had walked up to the gate. I don't doubt that they would have eaten me had I walked in, but they weren't as mean when I had been up close and personal. I was excited to see them—they always seemed to remember me.

I fell asleep not thinking about my mom, but instead thinking about the raptors.

I awoke being set in the passenger seat of a car—a Jeep. Owen was reaching across to buckle me in and I hummed in fatigue, causing him to chuckle slightly. As he walked around to the driver's side, I blinked rapidly to try and wake myself up fully.

It was about seven in the evening, and the sun was approaching the horizon. It wouldn't set for another hour or so, but it was getting lower and casting a soft glow on the island. We were driving on higher ground than the main park was, and I could see the crowds of people.

There weren't as many as in tourist season, but there were still a fair number. I knew that the park was gearing up for summer soon when the visitors would double, maybe even triple, in attendance.

"We've set you up with some stuff to help with living here," Owen said. "I've been thinking you might want to do more around here than just lounge, so if you want, I can set up an interview with Ms. Dearing. Maybe get you an internship or apprenticeship, if you wanted."

I started out the window for a few moments. "Yeah, that'd be great."

Owen nodded. "Even if you didn't want a job like that, we're still setting you up with a couple perks. Can't have you living on the island with the potential of getting stranded on your own."

The corner of my mouth quirked up into a small smile before falling again. I looked out the window again and got a glimpse of the mosasaurus jumping out of the water for feeding time before disappearing again.

"Kara, I know this is going to be hard," Owen began, sighing. "It'll be hard for both of us. But I want you to know that I'm here. Whenever you need me, I'm right here. To talk or to just goof around."

I nodded. The ride was silent until we pulled up to a strange structure. It looked like a bungalow and a trailer combined. There was a porch and picnic benches and a motorcycle parked next to a pile of tools. A very familiar setting.

"I moved my stuff out of the second bedroom so you have a place for yourself. Barry and I were gonna start building on an addition because it'll be cramped for a while," Owen told me as he grabbed my duffel. I shouldered my backpack and followed him up the steps.

The room he led me to was half as big as mine at home. Half of the room was taken up by a twin bed and dresser pushed up against the wall while the other half had bookshelves lining the wall. I was surprised to see them there.

"I know you like books," Owen said, scratching the back of his neck. "So I figured because I didn't need bookshelves you could have them."

I smiled, turning to give him a hug. "Thanks."

"I'll let you get settled," he replied. "I'll come get you for dinner." Owen left the room and shut the door, which made the space bigger.

I opened the window above the bed and was greeted with a view of water and then mountains of jungle. It was beautiful.

"Things will get better, K," I murmured to myself. Life was about to get a whole lot more interesting.

I promise next chapter will be a lot more fun. This was honestly just a filler/introduction to kind of tell why Kara is going to be at Jurassic World.

Also, make sure to note the time changes/months at the top of the chapters. It's March right now and the events of the movie take place in December, but I won't make a whole novel out of those months. Just a few chapters.

I do hope you enjoy this story. I'm very excited to be writing it :)