"Claire!"
In the time Claire Dearing knew Owen Grady, she'd heard him sound surprised, annoyed, happy, lazy, bored, tired, irritated, furious, cocky, delighted, excited, mad, and probably a lot of other things. But she had never, ever heard him sound this terrified.
In other circumstances, she'd probably take her sweet time to give it some proper thinking, but his warning came a second too late, and then something – a truck, by Claire's rough estimation – threw her forward and against the picnic table, her ribs connecting with its edge as she lost her footing, failing to catch her balance and soften the impact. There was a crack, and Claire hoped against all hope it was the old wood, easily breakable after years and years of being exposed to the elements, and not her ribs, although with the sharp pain that shot through her body she didn't dare to be too optimistic about it for the time being.
She whirled around and found a raptor's snout not three feet away from her face, realizing with a jolt of surprise that she wasn't, in fact, all that surprised. Not really. The animal was close enough for Claire to see two neat rows of razor–sharp teeth, and then her imagination helpfully supplied her with the images of what these teeth could do to her before she could so much as blink.
As if to prove her right, Blue – it had to be her, as far as Claire was aware - opened her mouth wider and emitted a high-pitched chirp, almost deafening from this close.
Owen leaped down from the porch in half a second flat, his feet firm on the ground, his posture half-crouching, defensive.
"Blue!" He barked, instantly claiming the raptor's attention, making her shift her gaze from Claire to him as she tilted her head first to one side and then to another. "Stand down."
His voice was firm and sharp, authoritative. They were on his ground – as far as the laws of the wild went, at least. Blue took a step back, then another, but her body was leaning forward, claws outstretched dangerously, threateningly. She didn't retread – she was regrouping, reconsidering the options now that there were two of them.
Owen inched closer to Claire, moving slowly and cautiously, his eyes fixed on Blue, until he was standing between them, shielding her from the dinosaur.
"Claire?" He called out without looking back.
"I'm okay."
Was she? Were they? There was an angry, possibly hungry and most definitely unhappy raptor baring her teeth at them, and, all things considered, it didn't bode well for either one of them. In front of her, Owen stood stiff and still as a statue, his shoulders more tense than she could've imagined possible. She'd seen him do it before, but not exactly. The circumstances were different, everything was different, and a terrible thought entered her mind – if Blue decided to attack, he'd be the first one to take the hit.
She inhaled deeply and then let it out slowly, listening for the scratchy shift of her bones, but even though her body protested against the unnecessary expansion of her lungs, her ribs weren't cracked or broken, and she had never been more relieved about anything in her life. Well, except that time when a crazy hybrid didn't eat them, but it was ancient history now that something else wanted to do it.
"It's okay. It's going to be okay," Owen said in a steady, assured voice, although it was hard to tell who he was taking to, exactly – Claire, Blue, or himself.
Not that he knew it himself.
He didn't even really know how worried, how terrified out of his fucking mind he was thinking that Blue didn't make it on her own. Raptors were by no means fragile, and millions of years of their existence on Earth proved it just fine, but she'd never lived in the wild, she'd never been on her own, never had to fend for herself, and even though she was vicious by nature, it didn't mean she was safe. He'd learned it the hard way – no one was ever safe on this island.
She looked good, too. Healthy. In any other situation, he'd be beyond happy, he'd be freaking ecstatic about finally – finally! – knowing that Blue was okay, that whatever happened to this place in the future, she'd be able to survive. Hell, he was proud, and not only that, but he could finally feel the weight of anxiety lift off his shoulders – the one he didn't even know he was carrying all this time, ever since they'd left the island months ago. He'd seen her hatch, he'd watched her grow up. One didn't just get over something like that. Whatever everyone said, it mattered.
But she was a dinosaur, a Velociraptor, of all things. Owen loved her, but he didn't trust her, not completely, even on the best of days, and today definitely wasn't one of them. He was quite certain she recognized him, but whether she was going to listen to him or not was another story.
And then there was Claire, and as happy as he was to find Blue, right now his one and only priority was to make sure that Claire was safe. The image of her being tossed aside was fresh and vivid in his mind, and it was making his stomach roll and coil with fear. He had his 9mm strapped to his belt, but his tranq rifle was at the resort – he didn't think to bring it with him seeing as how he just needed to whisk Claire away for a while; he didn't plan on staying at bungalow overnight. And he was not going to shoot Blue with a gun, not unless he absolutely had to, and he hoped it wouldn't come down to it.
Blue chirped and craned her neck toward him, trying to peek over his shoulder.
"Hey!" Owen stood a little taller before her, his arm still raised, his eyes glued to her. "Cut it off!" She hissed at him. "Cut. It. Off. Now!"
They needed to get out of here.
"Claire?" He called again, summoning all the willpower in the world to not turn around and look at her, make sure she was fine. "Did she hurt you?"
"No," Claire replied.
Partially blocked from her by Owen, Blue kept sniffing the air and letting out short chitters and low growls, and Claire wished she knew what they meant. Her fingers closed around the edge on the picnic table, entirely ignoring the way it was digging rather painfully into her hips. She wanted to reach for him, grab a fistful of his shirt, pull him away from the teeth. But it didn't seem like a good idea, so instead she stood there, paralyzed, barely breathing, hoping to wake up before something really bad happened to either one of them.
"Okay." Owen shifted his weight from one foot to another ever so slightly. The plan was only half-formed in his head, but they seemed to be out of options. "Go to the bike. Slowly. No sudden movements. Stay calm."
The skin on his neck prickled with the questions forming in her head and rolling on the tip of her tongue, but even though he could count the number of times she actually listened to him on the fingers of one hand, he knew she'd do exactly as told and save everything else for later, for better or for worse. And if he made the wrong decision, they'd both be shredded into spaghetti.
He heard the rustling of the grass under her feet as she moved, caught the slight motion out of the corner of his eye, and made his own cautious step back, and then another. Blue hissed and snapped her jaws at him.
"Knock it off, Blue!" He stopped, his voice loud enough to at the very least match the raptor's aggression. She kept moving after him though, crouching and straightening up, growling, probably thinking it was a game. The one she probably imagined ending with him being her lunch.
Just a few more feet…
"We'll have to move fast," he warned Claire.
"Owen…" He voice was small and scared and miserable, and, God, he so wished her could fix this whole situation with a snap of his fingers.
"Do you trust me?"
She swallowed, hard, her mind racing a mile per hour. "Do I have a choice?"
No. No, she did not.
And then they were racing through the jungle, faster than anyone in their right mind should, considering winding muddy roads, with a dinosaur following suit. The roar of the engine when he started the bike confused Blue long enough to give them a head start, but he knew she couldn't be able to resist the chase, and, much to his relief, she didn't, even though it meant he had to break the rules of common sense and risk wrapping the bike around some tree or the other in his attempt to move faster than her. And it was only then that Owen realized he couldn't remember if he left the door to the raptors' cage open or closed the last time he went there.
Shit, shit, shit!
In the side mirrors, he could see Blue keeping up with them with more ease than he'd expected, and he pushed the bike forward, gripping the handlebars so tight he thought his skin was going to grow into them any moment.
The trees opened up, spewing them into the clearing before the paddock.
And the door was open, thank God.
Owen aimed straight for it, ducking low and hoping Claire did the same. A few more seconds, and they were inside, and so was Blue, chittering with what he hoped was excitement and not blood thirst. He'd have to think about it later.
He span the bike around the moment the animal entered the cage.
"Off! Out!" He barked, and without having to be asked twice, Claire let go of him and scrambled off the motorcycle and out the first gate. "Close the door. The red button." Owen told her keeping his eyes on Blue who kept on circling him. "Claire, NOW!"
The moment he heard the wheels turn as the mechanism came to life, he revved again, spraying Blue with handfuls of gravel and dust to keep her back, blinding her for a precious moment he needed to save his own skin. And then he was out of the cage, missing the rapidly closing metal gate by half an inch, and then out the next one, with Claire on his heels as she ran out and activated the second lock. He skidded to an abrupt half and all but tumbled off the bike, leaving it on the ground.
He was beside her in a heartbeat, his hand on his face.
"Claire, look at me." His voice broke. He was out of breath, and when he tried to talk, the words came out raspy and cut in half. "Look at me," he repeated, and then her hand closed around his wrist, her eyes huge and frantic, her breath also short and shallow. "Are you okay?" She nodded after a brief moment of hesitation, as if it was taking her brain some time to figure out what he was saying. "Are you hurt?"
"No," she shook her head.
"Good." He pulled her close, holding her so tight he feared he might crush her bones, but unable to let go. "Good," he breathed out when Claire wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest, shaking but alive and in one piece, and it was all that mattered for the time being. "You did good. You did great."
"If no dinosaur attacked me ever again, it'd still be too soon."
He pressed his lips to her hair, then rested his chin on the top of her head, trying to take one deliberately slow breath after another, his heart beating so fast it might as well be trying to break out of his chest. Behind them, Blue chirped and hissed, and he would take care of her soon, but right now, he just needed to know it was over.
Apparently, not having to run for their lives for two days straight was too much to ask for.
"You know, it still was a step up from our first date," Owen murmured when her breath started to even out and her grasp on him grew less desperate.
"You can't seriously call this our second date," Claire snorted, incredulous.
"'Course I can. I got whacked on a head, we took a ride through the park – and you liked it; there was wine, albeit a very bad one; we had sex, and that was good." He paused. "Sounds like a date to me."
"And what does your getting whacked on a head have to do with anything?"
Owen shrugged. "It was a cool dramatic element."
Claire stepped back just enough to be able to have a better look at Blue who was watching them without blinking, her claws hooked around the metal bars of the cage. Claire's hand found his, interlacing their fingers together.
"Because a dinner and a movie is just too mainstream with you," she sighed, but there was a smile in her voice – the one she struggled to keep from slipping, but only barely.
Blue, on the other hand, bared her teeth and narrowed her eyes, clearly not finding her incarceration amusing, and even though Owen kept telling himself it was for the best, it still pained him to see her look so trapped, so obviously unhappy. She snapped her teeth at him, and he couldn't help but wonder if she'd turn on him had the history repeated itself and she had another Alpha to follow.
"I guess I'll have to introduce you properly later." He tore his eyes away from Blue and turned to Claire. His hand pushed her hair from her face, his lips grazing her forehead for a moment. "Come on, we need to get Barry and a couple of handlers over here."
xoox
It took her another hour and a half to get back to the resort. Despite the fact that it unnerved Claire to be around Blue, especially after being thrown around by her like a rag doll, she still didn't have it in her to ask Owen to leave his newly found raptor behind and drive her back, choosing to keep her distance while they waited for the cavalry to show up.
In her cage, Blue paced restlessly in front of the door, looking as cheated and insulted as a dinosaur could. Granted, there was a chance Claire was reading too much into it, her experience in actually dealing with those animals was practically nonexistent. But, unlike before, she would never assume they were dumb and single-minded ever again, and even behind two doors, the raptor looked very dangerous and very pissed, and she knew that, given a chance, she wouldn't think twice before ripping their throats out.
Owen, on the other hand, was gleeful and seemingly oblivious to the dirty looks he was getting, either because he was happy beyond imaginable – which Claire could understand, sort of - or because he was used to them enough to dismiss the animal's foul mood. Claire only hoped he knew better than to allow his arm to be chewed off or something.
When Barry arrived with the handlers and the vets, she commandeered one of their cars because, contrary to popular belief, this place was not running itself, and she actually had things to do.
(Things that didn't involve being incinerated by the dinosaur's stare, thank you very much.)
"That's not what it looked like this morning," Owen reminded her diplomatically, and arched an eyebrow when her cheeks flushed red because, of course, he was right, and had they not run out of hot water, that shower would've lasted much longer.
She pulled the door open, then paused and turned around. "Be careful, okay?" It felt like they had already exceeded their quota on careless today.
"Scout's honor," Owen promised, and then, with one hand on the door and the other on the roof, he leaned in and pecked her on the lips, retreating quickly afterwards, before she had time to react, on, "You can kill me later."
Claire slid into the car and took off without looking back to check who might have seen it – with her luck, everyone - unsure of whether she'd kill him or jump him the next time she saw him. Right now, both options seemed equally appealing. It was unprofessional, and unacceptable, and definitely frowned upon in a corporate environment, but she'd lie to herself, big time, if she said she didn't want him to do it, corporate etiquette be damned.
The first thing that she saw in her suite when she walked in was two controllers from Owen's Xbox hooked to her entertainment system lying on the coffee table. And for a while, she just stood there and gawked at them, trying to piece together what she was seeing and failing because, try as she might, she couldn't remember how it happened, and yet now it was somehow was the most natural thing in her entire penthouse. And if she gave herself time and some thinking room, she'd probably scare herself into something ridiculous all over again.
"You overthink everything," Owen told her once, months ago, while they were eating Chinese takeaway sitting cross-legged on the floor in her living room and trading food – her shrimps for his eggplant, his tofu for her mushrooms – with Rear Window playing on TV.
It wasn't entirely untrue, except she called it thinking ahead. It was what got her where she was now, and, being a woman who clawed her way up the career ladder without any benefits or shortcuts, she was not going to apologize for it or admit she should've done something differently.
Except that one time when she basically washed her relationship with Owen down the drain before it even had a chance to develop into something because she mapped it all out in her mind, from the beginning till the end, certain that it had nowhere else to go but the way she saw it in her head.
So she left the controllers where they were and opted for a hot shower instead, standing under the scalding sprays of water until she could no longer feel the breath of the T-Rex-I-Rex-Raptor on her skin; until she talked herself into not being mortified by what the future might bring anymore.
She spent half of the day in the Control Room, watching the feed from the raptors' paddock with Lowery, chewing absently on the Cheetos he'd fished from the vending machine in the hall, and the other – poring over the budget report in her office, thinking she actually preferred the raptors.
It was almost 9 in the evening and she was on the phone with Masrani headquarters, going through the same figures and numbers all over again, when someone knocked on the door of her suite.
"No, of course I understand that," she said , pulling it open and waving Owen in. "But it's not the point. We're staying within the limits, and the prognosis is good… Yes, we've discussed this already… Yes, I remember that." She rubbed her forehead, pacing back and forth and wishing she could throw the phone out the window, go into her bedroom and scream into a pillow for about an hour. "It was necessary, and—Yes, of course." Owen's eyebrows crept all the way up his forehead when their eyes met briefly, but Claire simply shook her head.
He plopped down on the couch, but then reconsidered and moved to the bookshelf running along one of the walls to peer at the framed pictures scattered here and there, feeling his lips stretch into a smile on the will of their own.
The first time he stepped into her suite, it felt like walking into a closet and ending up in Narnia. Claire's must have been the only room matching the living arrangement of Simon Masrani himself, or so Owen assumed, never having seen the latter. It occupied the entire floor of the hotel, had a generous living room that was quite possibly bigger than a piece of land claimed by his bungalow, a spacious bedroom, and a bathroom with what he'd been calling a mini-pool, absolutely refusing to refer to it as a bathtub. Hell, they could probably relocate the Mosasaurus there and she'd be completely comfortable. (Claire rolled her eyes when he voiced that idea, pointing out that she would not have a dinosaur living in her bathroom, whatever the circumstances.)
Although the most impressive thing about her residence was a panoramic view of the park from the balcony that could house a golf course, had she desired to have one of her own. He could see all the way across the island. Almost. Certainly all the way to the raptors' paddock, hidden in the lush greenery. It was like she had her own Disneyland. No, scratch that – it was like she lived in Disneyland!
Owen had been to her office a number of times before the incident, as well as after. It was spacious, professional, and entirely impersonal. Her living quarters, much to his delight, were an entirely different story. There were books, much like in her condo in California, even though he doubted her schedule allowed her enough time for reading, and small knick-knacks that added a touch of Claire here and there.
And there were pictures.
Like the one of her and Gray on Gray's 4th birthday, if the bright purple 4 on his party hat was any indication, both of them smiling so bright it almost hurt to look directly at their faces. Or the one of her and Zach with Zach, dressed in his Little League uniform, teaching her how to hold a baseball bat. (She'd told him already they were both taken shortly before she'd moved to the island.) And the one of her and Karen, from maybe 10 years ago, goofing around. Claire's hair was longer then, falling on her shoulders and down her back in rich wavy waterfall, and his fingers itched to run through the entire length of it, feeling its silky touch to his skin. He had never seen her so luminous, and if he hadn't already been falling hard, this whole new side of Claire Dearing he never got to see before would be his undoing.
Owen leaned against the armrest of the couch, his eyes siding from one frame to another.
"Sorry about that," Claire came over to him and dropped her phone on the cushions with a frustrated sigh. "What?" She asked, catching him study her pensively, his head tilted slightly.
"I wish you'd smile like that more often," Owen replied, pointing to the picture of her and Gray.
Claire followed his gaze, her features relaxing. "But me chocolate cake and I will." Which earned her a heartfelt laugh. "How did everything go today?"
He grimaced a little. "Blue's a little unhappy about having her freedom privileges revoked, and she's determined to make us all a little less happy, too."
"But she's… okay, right?"
Owen placed his hands on her waist, drawing her closer, claiming her undivided attention. "She is." He nodded, searching her face. "Are you?"
Claire sighed, then pulled her shirt up a little bit, exposing a stripe of pale skin of her stomach and a ugly-looking red bruise under her ribs that she knew would soon turn all colors of the rainbow. Granted, it was a small price to pay for not being eaten, or having a broken rib, but it still hardly was the highlight of her day.
"Oh, shit, Claire…"
"It's just a bruise," she started to pull her shirt back down, but he didn't let her. Instead, he tugged her closer to him and brushed his lips to the reddened spot, careful not to press too much, his breath tickling her skin and making her shiver. "She scared me," Claire admitted if a little unwillingly.
"She wouldn't've hurt you." Owen muttered against her skin before looking up again. "I'd die before I let anything happen to you." Deep in his eyes, she could see the storm brewing, and when he looked at her like that, it felt like he was looking straight into her soul.
Claire racked her fingers through her hair, slightly wet after the shower. "Don't. I like you the way you are."
He ran his hands along the waistband of her pants. "Do you need to forget about anything tonight? Or maybe make some new memories?"
Without another word, she cupped his face in her palms, her lips crushing against his…
xoox
"You're wonderful, Claire," Owen whispered later, kissing his way up her back. "Do you have any idea how wonderful you are?"
"Hey, it tickles," she giggled sleepily, trying to squirm away from him, but not really, and sound of her voice, so soft and relaxed it sounded almost like a purr, had his stomach in knots for all the right reasons.
"Why haven't we been doing this all along?" He asked, dropping the last one of her shoulder before finding her lips again and gathering her up in his arms until she was half-sprawled across his chest.
"You know why," Claire whispered against his mouth before tucking her head under his chin, melting into his body.
It wasn't the right time, he could all but hear her think, and even unspoken, the words sounded sour and wrong in his mind. Like they were tricked and cheated out of something they could've had from the start. He still couldn't believe it took a psychotic and homicidal hybrid that slaughtered half of the island and traumatized the other, and months of being suspended between here and there for them to finally figure everything out. And it wasn't that what they had now wasn't worth the wait, but a part of him wished they took an easier shortcut early on.
Owen had long found out that it wasn't about his board shorts, per se ("I'm not that shallow, Grady"), so much as about the fact that they made Claire think he didn't care about their date, which couldn't possibly be farther from the truth seeing as how it took him 5 months to muster up enough courage to ask her out. Whereas her cocktail dress, designer shoes, and itinerary, of all things, sort of proved that she was miles out of his league - which made it easier for him to assume that she was a stuck-up snob than to admit that his confidence went out the window the moment she said yes to his date proposal instead of laughing him in the face.
They'd discussed it once in detail over the beers, laughing at the absurdity of the whole situation (mostly because it was late and they were both a little drunk), and he spent most of the time staring at her lips and wondering what it would be like to just lean over and kiss her, wondering if she'd try to run away if he did. But then the moment was gone, and so was Claire – first to bed because it was almost 3 in the morning, and then to Wisconsin - and the next thing he knew he was packing his stuff and knocking on Barry's door to ask if it was okay if he took over his couch for a few days.
The truth was, they had nothing but time, but they never used it wisely.
"We're… something," Owen breathed out, his fingers tracing lazy patters on her back, making her shiver involuntarily whenever he touched a particularly sensitive spot. He could probably spend the rest of his life holding her like this, and it still wouldn't be long enough.
"A work in progress," she agreed, brushing her lips to his skin, smiling when his breath caught in his throat. "Owen?"
"Mm?"
"I meant what I said earlier. No more risky stuff."
"No swimming with the sharks. Noted."
She slapped him lightly on the arm. "I'm serious."
"Why would I joke about the sharks?"
She huffed, choosing not to respond to that, allowing her eyes to flutter closed at last and her mind to slip away. A work in progress was a major understatement.
xoox
A week later, Owen was on the catwalk working with Blue while she was doing her best to ignore him and yet somehow get the treats when they heard the sound of approaching car. Instantly, she was distracted, listening to the rustling of the tires on the gravel and then the door being opened and slammed shut, and Owen glowered at her from above.
She kept on giving him hell ever since they'd found her, determined to test his nerves and patience like never before, and working with either one of them never was a picnic in the park to begin with. He wondered how much she understood about being sedated to have a tracker put under her skin, and how much she blamed him for it. If anything, he wasn't naïve enough to assume it slipped her attention. Just how much trouble was he in for all of this?
There were the footsteps on the stairs leading up to where he stood, and he thought it was Barry coming to listen to him snarl about the countless hours spent here in the scorching sun and complete and utter lack of progress to show for it, but when he turned, he found himself face to face with Claire climbing the last few steps to the catwalk. She was wearing dress pants today, as opposed to shorts and slacks he was getting used to, and the high-heeled pumps that made him worried for a moment or two she'd teeter and topple over the railing in two seconds flat. She looked professional, like Claire Dearing, and it unnerved him for the reasons he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Which didn't make him any less glad to see her.
"Hey," Owen shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand, watching Claire approach, her eyes darting from him to Blue below them and back to him. "What are you doing here?"
"Thought I'd stop by, see what you guys are up to." She looped her hair around her ears, squinting a little in the sunlight, and stopped beside him.
Blue let out a displeased growl, her eyes two narrow slits boring into Claire.
Owen leaned on the railing. "Well, we're not exactly on speaking terms right now. Right, Blue?" He sighed. Then he lifted his hand up and pressed his clicker once, "Blue!"
She didn't so much as turn to him. Instead, she made a restless circle around the clearing under the catwalk, sniffing the air and swinging her tail from side to side, more alert than minutes before but not at all focused.
"Did she really forget everything you've taught her?" Claire asked.
"Oh, she remembers everything alright. She's just giving me the attitude."
As if to prove him right, Blue lowered into a crouch, then snapped her teeth at them with a short bark, her eyes burning into Claire.
"Stop that," Owen ordered automatically, pointing an accusatory finger at her.
"She really doesn't like me, does she?"
He let out a short laughter, his hand running through his hair. "It's not that." He looked at Claire with the mischievous grin that bordered on downright smug. "She can smell me on you, and she's… well, she feels threatened."
She blinked. "Why? Shouldn't it give me extra points or something?"
"It doesn't work that way. She's been her own Alpha for months, and now not only I took that away, but you're kind of replacing her as a Beta." He stole a sideways glance at her. "You can't really blame Blue for being a little jealous. I know I can't."
Claire scoffed. "Great, that's just great. I have my own dinosaur with a special grudge."
Beside her, Owen chuckled and placed his hand on top of hers, squeezing it a little. She insisted they kept it low-key in public, and he wasn't going to argue if that was what she wanted – he didn't mind catching up on being entirely unprofessional when they were alone.
"Look, if I get out of here earlier, what do you think if we—"
"They're thinking about reopening," Claire interrupted him, as if she needed to spit it out before she changed her mind, her eyes still cast down on the dinosaur pacing in agitation in front of her, not quite daring to look at him.
She felt him go rigid beside her. It was like the air around them changed, suddenly charged with tension rolling off Owen in thick waves. She never would have imagined it could be this palpable.
"You're joking, right?"
She bit her lip, took a slow breath and willed herself to keep on going, no matter what. "They want me to start talking to investors again, and we don't need investors for what we're doing now."
"But they didn't say it, did they? About the reopening. They didn't spell it out."
There was so much desperate hope in his voice it splintered her heart.
"They didn't need to." She turned to him at last and slipped her hand from under his, taking a small step back, but the catwalk was too narrow, the stairs too close, making her freeze where she was.
Owen's jaw was set now, his eyes narrowed slightly, his face dark and stormy. He was mad, or would be before she knew it.
"Are they going to start making hybrids again, too?" His voice was hard and full of accusation as if she personally chose to make this decision the first time around and now went for it again.
"No, I don't think so. Not right away at least. They're not that stupid." Or so she hoped, at least.
"But they're going need new attract—" He cut off, exhaling sharply as if the realization hit him like a sucker-punch. "Are they going to make Blue an attraction?"
Claire looked away from him, allowing the silence between them to grown heavy and thick. "They might."
It was his turn to take a step back, his shoulders squaring as if he was going to defend his last remaining raptor with his body if it came down to it, and Claire was fairly certain that he probably would, if it ever came down to it.
"No." Just like that.
"Look, I'm not saying it's a done deal…"
"But you think it's going to be," he pressed on.
"Maybe. Eventually." God, she wished she had a better answer than that.
"And you're just going to let it happen?"
He sounded disbelieving and hurt, and the unfairness of his angers directed at her made her own frustration go through the roof.
"What do you want me to do, Owen?"
"Tell them to fuck off, for starters."
"Sure, and the next thing I know I'm fired and someone else is teaching those animals to jump through the fire hoops. Is this what you suggest I do?"
"So, you plan to watch it happen from the sidelines?"
"It's not my park!" She retorted, folding her arms on her chest. "I don't make decisions here."
"That's a nice excuse." He let out a bark of a laughter, humorless and bitter. "Is this why you didn't want me here, Claire? Because you knew it would all come down to reopening this place again?"
The question, uncalled for and undeserved, took her aback. "I didn't want you here because I felt so guilty for everything that happened between us I couldn't look you in the eye." She tipped her chin up. "But I never lied to you, Owen, and I never kept any deep dark secrets from you. Why do you think I'm here telling you this now before they announced it on the national television?"
"Because we're sleeping together?"
Owen turned away from her when Claire flinched as if he slapped her, focusing his gaze on Blue again. As if sensing that something wasn't right, she stopped pacing and was simply looking up now, her claws twitching slightly, and for a moment, he wished he could set her loose on whoever planned to turn her into a circus monkey.
"This is not fair," Claire shook her head, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She didn't think he'd turn it into something personal, and it hurt more than she was willing to admit. "What do you think is going to happen to this place if someone decides that it's a liability?"
He whirled around. "Can you stop being a wheel in that corporate machine for 5 goddamn minutes and think of what's best for them?" He pointed at Blue, glaring daggers at her.
"What do you think I'm trying to do?"
Owen pursed his lips. "I think you should go. I'm trying to work here, and you're keeping Blue distracted."
Without another word, Claire turned around and walked away, her heels clacking on the metal grating of the deck.
To be continued...
Author't note: First of all, thanks for the comments and faves and everything! You folks are amazing!
Second of all, I'd like to apologize for this entire chapter *hides forever behind the couch* I have no idea how it happened and I'm not proud of it. Especially the first part because I suck at writing action sequences. I'll try to make the next one better (or at least try)!
As always, comments are more than welcome :)) Only about 1000 days left till JW2, yay!
