AN: The plot is slowly coming together! I'm super excited for chapters 5 and 6. There will be bunches of cuteness between Owen and Claire, so be ready!
Claire had only been to the velociraptor paddock twice before. The first time was to assess Owen when he first started working at Jurassic World, and the second was to cuss out Hoskins two nights ago.
Owen, however, had spent most of his time in the park at this paddock, working with the raptors and earning their trust. The closer they got to the paddock, the more visibly relaxed he got. Claire realized that he thought of this place as home, and she now understood why he had been so mad when Hoskins wanted to use the raptors to hunt the Indominus. It was like making Zach and Gray kill grizzly bear cubs in front of the mama bear: dangerous, and would probably result in their death.
"Why'd you start working here?" Owen asked. He was driving one-handed; the other was tapping out a rhythm on her thigh.
Claire shrugged her shoulders. "I started off as a control supervisor and worked my way up. It was never about the dinosaurs for me. I wanted to see how far I could go, how high up I could get. Until the other day, that is."
Seeing that brachiosaurus die had flipped a switch inside of her. She finally understood why Jurassic World existed; not to make money and be a successful theme park, but to make humans realize how very small they were. She realized that dinosaurs weren't just assets. They were actual living creatures that could feel pain.
Maybe that was why she had gotten so attached to Zach and Gray when they visited. If an animal could bring down something as huge as a brachiosaur, then what chance did two teenage boys have? Claire had never imagined herself settling down, getting married, having kids. But now…with the right person (she glanced at Owen sitting beside her), maybe someday she would. If she survived the next few days, anyways.
It was all about survival.
…
Owen didn't push her for more details on her past, for which Claire was grateful. Go back far enough, and the details get nasty. Maybe she trusted Owen with her life, but she wasn't ready to reveal the more…uncomfortable details about her past to him yet.
"What about you? Why did you start working here?" she asked. Owen moved his hand from her thigh to entwine it with hers. The roughness of his skin against her fingers gave her chill bumps all over, something Owen caught notice of right away. He began slowly stroking her hand with his thumb, relaxing her almost to the point of sleep. Claire hadn't realized how exhausted she was, or how hungry.
"I was deployed a few times when I was with the Navy," Owen began, "I saved a few guys and was promoted up a few ranks; eventually the Navy said they liked my 'leadership traits'. Then InGen showed up looking for recruits, and my name was on the top of the list. A few years later, here I am."
Claire opened up a bag of almonds while he talked, to calm her rumbling stomach. She tossed a few to Owen, who caught them in his mouth without missing a beat.
They pulled up to the velociraptor paddock and turned off the car. Owen looked around outside. "Weird to see this place abandoned."
Claire agreed with him. Something about the emptiness of the park made her feel eerie, like something was over her shoulder that she couldn't see. A branch snapped in the woods behind them, causing Claire to scream in shock and a flock of birds to fly out of the treetops screeching. Owen put a finger to his lips, signaling her to be quiet.
"Sorry," Claire said quietly. The uneasy feeling hadn't worn off with the shock of the birds; it had only grown stronger. "Something's out there." She gripped Owen's arm, searching for some reassurance.
Owen slung his gun across his shoulder. "I know."
Claire grimaced. Not the reassurance she was looking for, but perhaps the truth she needed to hear.
The velociraptor paddock was huge. There were little paths running in between the trees, probably used for training exercises. The observation bridge towered over their heads, making the clearing behind the cages look a lot bigger than it actually was.
"It's beautiful in here," Claire said. How had she never noticed how green the trees were, or how the flowering plants made the entire area smell like honey? She'd driven by it hundreds of times, but had never stopped to actually look at the place.
They started down one of the bigger paths that looked like it went straight into the woods to the border fence at the far end of the paddock. Several times Owen pulled her behind trees if he heard any type of movement in the woods. Once he prevented her from stepping right into a patch of vivid-green poison oak.
There was no sign of Blue, but there were several tame herbivores milling around in the undergrowth. Claire recognized a triceratops from the Kid's World area, still wearing a saddle and harness.
Owen stopped in a small clearing and looked around. There were four huge trees in the middle of the clearing, each with long scratch marks down the trunk. Owen stopped in front of the tree with the deepest marks on it and ran his fingers across them.
"When I work with Blue," he said, pulling something white out of his pocket, "I use different tactics to get her to obey me."
"Because she's the beta?"
He nodded and held up the white thing in his hand. "This makes a clicking noise that she's trained to recognize. It means I need her attention."
"I thought you whistled for her attention," said Claire.
Owen grinned and whistled, sharp and loud. "Either one works. If she was closer, I'd use this." He held up the clicker. "If she's anywhere in this paddock, she should respond to that whistle. This clearing is designed to project sound."
They waited for a moment, listening intently. Claire heard something coming through the trees, much too loud to be a velociraptor.
An ankylosaurus (which Claire only recognized because of its clubbed tail) came lumbering into the clearing at top speed, which wasn't very fast because its legs were so short. Owen cocked his gun and ran in front of Claire. She instinctively gripped his shoulders, but stood her ground.
"What are you running from?" Owen muttered to the ankylosaurus. He looked into the forest, but the leaves in the treetops were too thick to see anything taller than a raptor. "It isn't Blue. She'd come straight to me."
"It can camouflage," whispered Claire, whose hands were now shaking.
Owen cursed and yanked her forward, away from the ankylosaurus and whatever was following it. They heard a deep roar, and the unmistakable sound of trees being knocked down as something huge pursued them.
"That's not a T-Rex," shouted Claire. She hurdled over a tree stump. "Where are we going?"
"There's a pit," yelled Owen, who was looking behind him for any sign of the Indominus, yet still running through the woods without hitting any trees. Claire had a sudden vision of Lowery trying a stunt like that, and giggled silently at the thought of him smashing straight into a tree.
"It's here in case someone gets trapped out here and the raptors are angry. They can jump into the pit and close the door over themselves. It should be strong enough to protect us…" he trailed off.
Claire heard a loud cracking noise and jumped out of the way as a tree fell right into her path.
"It's right on top of us!" she screamed.
Owen muttered something she couldn't hear.
Claire could see the Indominus Rex in her peripheral vision, huge and scaly with spikes covering its whole back. Its teeth were bloody, like it had eaten recently. It was chasing them, but it seemed to be holding back, like it wasn't going in for the kill.
That makes no sense, thought Claire. The other one killed because it wanted to. This one is hunting us, yet it isn't coming at us with its full strength…why?
The Project K file flashed into her mind and if she wasn't running for her life, she would've yanked the thing out of her bag to read it.
"Owen!" she yelled. "I don't think this thing wants to kill us."
Owen's eyes narrowed and he slowed down for a fraction of a second to process what Claire had said.
That was his undoing, because in second that he wasn't running as fast as he could, the Indominus shot out one of its jet-black forearms and slashed at Owen with its claws, slicing diagonally across his body. Owen looked down in shock, groaned, and slipped to the ground, blood streaming all over the place.
Claire screamed Owen's name so loudly that unassuming pachys in the Gyrosphere unit looked up from their grazing, wondering what kind of bird an 'Owen' was.
The Indominus cocked its head at Owen, like it was deciding what to do next. Claire was frozen. She had seen the first Indominus rip through people without hesitation, and knew that this one could do the same. They used their teeth as their primary weapon- not their claws. But the Indominus had used its longer forearms to wound Owen, to weaken him.
Claire heard a weird howl, like something out of a horror movie, and the ankylosaurus that had ran across the clearing earlier came waddling out of the woods, gnashing its teeth at the Indominus. Claire unfroze and ran to Owen and stood over him, throwing out her arms in a gesture of protection. The smell of the Indominus's breath -rotting animal flesh and blood- was almost enough to make her throw up. The Indominus was looking with its beady little eyes at the ankylosaurus. Should it kill the humans, or should it kill the little thing that was annoying it?
The ankylosaurus slammed its tail into the powerful hind legs of the Indominus, and that seemed to make up its mind. It turned and the ankylosaurus tried to run away, still swinging its tail madly, taking out trees and various plant life.
Claire didn't watch to see the outcome of that particular battle. Instead, she turned to Owen, whose eyes were fluttering rapidly. She heaved him up and he leaned heavily on her, muttering an endless stream of words that she was too scared to understand.
"Come on," she said, and they attempted to make their way through the woods. Owen's legs were trembling too much for them to make much progress, but Claire couldn't feel the ground shaking- the Indominus wasn't following them.
Claire didn't even stop to ponder why it hadn't taken them out when it could kill them so easily, though she did think it was odd. It wasn't natural predator behavior.
"The pit," Owen groaned. "It's beyond the stream."
Claire looked up and saw a wide but shallow river flowing slowly through the trees in front of them. Just past the stream was a large steel trapdoor, almost unnoticeable because of the leaves that were strewn across it.
"Go through the river," Owen said. His face was now devoid of all color as the blood seeped out bright red from his wound. "It'll confuse it. Get rid of our scent."
Claire led him carefully across the slippery stones that made up the riverbed. She looked back into the woods so frequently that it looked like she had a neck twitch, but the Indominus didn't come back.
Eventually they crossed the river. Claire now shivered from the cold water; the sun was beginning to set, and the air got cooler with every step they took. Owen pressed his thumb against the fingerprint recognition pad on the trapdoor, and it slid open, revealing a staircase descending into darkness.
Claire relaxed for just a moment before feeling Owen slump unconscious against her, the front of his shirt and pants now completely red with blood.
AN: Gah. Action scenes! I know that the behavior is a little weird for the Indominus, but never fear! I have a plan. A wonderfully awful plan. (Insert evil laugh here). Thank you so much for your feedback, and for reading my little story!
Review!