Eight hours.
It had been eight hours since anyone saw Claire. Owen could barely contain his rage when he found the others and learned what happened. He had arrived with Maisie at the camp less than an hour after the attack and had done his best to fight against the hybrids. One of them had been impaled on a tree when it was pushed off a cliff. Another one had been shot in the jaw, one of its only weak points, but the third one had been particularly tricky to kill. It took them the better part of seven hours to track it down, to shoot it, its armor making it almost unbeatable and to not let it escape once it realized it could not win.
In the end, Owen was exhausted, he was covered in mud, blood and sweat and he was pissed beyond measure. The tail of the hybrid had thrown him into a tree, resulting in a cut along his left shoulder, but it was nothing a couple of stitches wouldn't fix. He patiently sat among the debris of the camp while someone sewed him up and wrapped his shoulder in gauze. As soon as it was over, he made his way towards the place where Zia, Maisie and Franklin were sitting and cleaning each other up after all the chase, Franklin having a nasty gash on his forehead.
Owen was about to punch Zia when she told him she had abandoned Claire.
But he realized that, despite the fact that she wasn't a kid, she didn't have any other choice. She had told him the story, had even shown him the place on their way back, the slope where Claire had disappeared. So instead of hitting her, he yelled at her and walked away.
Owen was torn between going after Claire and staying behind to keep an eye on Maisie. He refused to bring her along and put her in even more danger. He knew she'd be safe at camp, despite the fact that not much remained. After a good five minutes of pacing back and forth, he asked Franklin and Zia (despite the fact that he was still mad at her) if they could keep an eye on Maisie while he was gone. He promised Maisie he'd be back soon and she made him promise he'd bring Claire back in one piece. Of course he'd bring Claire back in one piece.
It was raining by the time he set off in his car to the top of the slope where Claire had last been seen. He walked it down, slowly enough so he wouldn't break his ankle or fall on his face, his rifle slung over his shoulder. He had a handgun strapped to his thigh and a few tranqs in the inside of his boots. He also carried a few knifes, just in case.
Once he arrived down the slope, he wasn't able to find her footprints because of the thick forest foliage. He did his best to look everywhere with his flashlight. At least he didn't find her body. Somehow, it wasn't making him feel any better. He didn't dare call her name though. He tried his best not to imagine her eaten by dinosaurs, or to think about the last thing she had said to him. But his mind couldn't help but wonder as he looked around in the dead of night, hurrying up because the rain would erase her footprints if he wasn't fast enough.
He managed to reach the river but unfortunately, he didn't have any more luck there. As he was about to turn around and go back to his car since there was nothing else he could do, he noticed a large footprint that hadn't been erased by the rain yet. It was much bigger than a human shoe and deeper as well. He would recognize the tracks of a Velociraptor anywhere and he shuddered. Despite how much he trusted Blue, he shuddered at the thought of Claire facing the Raptor alone.
