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"It's okay! Stay back!"

"You're crazy!" Barry shouts down the street at him, waving the hand not holding a gun. "You're going to get eaten!"

Says the man who didn't shoot the raptor trying to dig through a log to kill him. The raptors can be scary mofos, but Barry doesn't want to shoot Blue any more than Owen does. The corner of Owen's mouth turns up, but he doesn't drop his hand to give his friend the appropriate response. Blue probably wouldn't understand what a single extended finger means.

She knows what his raised hand means. Smart as she is, she prompted him into doing what she wanted. She's using the training on him, as if she trained him to respond as much as he was training the pack to his cues. He knows some of the pack's social sounds, but interpreting Blue's purrling sound as acknowledgment and submission isn't the same as actual two-way communication. This is new. She's taken her training and used it to tell him she wants him to follow her, and that's as alarming as it is intriguing. How smart is she?

The answer seems to be: one smart cookie. The blue-marked raptor loping down the street is positively antsy as she stops to look back, killing claw tapping an impatient tattoo. Clearly, she's expecting him to follow his own training. Considering the way she pulled on his shirt, it seems pretty urgent he follow her.

"I'm going to follow her," Owen says over his shoulder. He stoops to pick up his rifle with the hand holding the clicker. Blue loops back around, head bobbing as her eyes flick from him to the ACU people, but he keeps his other hand raised. "Easy, Blue. We're moving. Let's go."

She perks up, purrling her submission-acknowledgment sound. Her toes tap again, and she stutters the funny growl the raptors exchange when running as a group. He guesses that means he should get his butt in gear and follow as she darts away.

Owen's earned his five minutes and then some. The head honcho of the recovery team didn't want to let him go down the main road alone, not with a confirmed mankiller velociraptor on the loose, but if he can pull this off, the security footage from this is going to save her tail. Owen can use her well-socialized, well-trained behavior with him right here and now to argue Hoskins was solely responsible for the deathtoll. The idiot tried to make her something she isn't. What she is, is a captive-raised animal outside her paddock, and she's acting like it. Asset Containment is hair-trigger at his back watching Blue jitter, but she's interacting with her handler without hostility, and that's bought her reprieve from the shoot-to-kill orders.

"Crazy," Barry says through the radio clipped to his collar, but he stays with the containment crew at a distance. Whatever breed of lunatic Owen Grady is to trust the raptors, it's worked so far.

"She wants to show me something. It might just be her nest, but I want to see if I can get her back into the paddock without sedating her." He doesn't want to give her reason to distrust him. Right now, he's all the pack she has, and he wants to keep that bond tight.

He doubts she'll last on her own. If ACU doesn't kill her, being alone will. Raptors are intensely pack animals, their entire lives structured around social bonds that are suddenly no longer there for her. However much of a killer she is, she's also a captive animal set loose in a wild environment she hasn't been raised to cope with. In that light, her response to him is simply the clinging of a confused pack animal to her parent, and he wants to encourage that trust. Bonding closer together will make her more dependent on him.

He won't trust that the bond is strong enough to be stress-tested, but he'll use whatever he can get to keep her following him. If he can get her back in the paddock, it'll be familiar territory. She'll be safe inside. Nobody will come hunting her, and she won't be able to hunt anyone.

Hopefully, clinging to him as her pack will keep her balanced. He can keep her healthy. On her own, Blue's not doing too good. She's lost weight. It's only been three days, but raptors are high calorie-burning predators. He's a little surprised by how much weight she's dropped, but it makes sense. The chaos of three days ago involved a lot of running and killing, far more activity than a captivity-raised animal was used to. By herself, she's likely scavenging for whatever scraps she can find.

He hopes she went back and ate Hoskins. Serve the bastard right.

Claire was breathing fire, brimstone, and lawsuits down InGen's neck last Owen talked to her. Masrani's COO was backing her to the hilt, standing with her against screaming investors and rabid media alike. Owen doesn't like smarmy business suits, but he likes Wiesner if only for the language Claire told him the man used when the camera turns off. That language has been getting a decent workout the last three days as damage control kicked into high gear.

Key resources and assets connected to Hoskin's Security Initiative up and disappeared overnight three days ago, and the Masrani Global Corporation is out for blood to get them back. Also to get a hold of whomever in InGen is ultimately responsible for the entire park incident. Hoskin's people pulled out with Dr. Wu, probably planning to vanish without a trace, but they made the mistake of using Lowery for part of their operation. What he didn't copy, overhear, or poke into while letting them into the Jurassic World computer system, Vivian did. Between the two of them, the lawyers are going to have a glut of evidence to bury InGen in.

Owen kind of thinks the pack of lawyers has more in common with velociraptors than any human should. The incident isn't as much of a disaster as it first appeared, not now that they have proof of InGen's meddling. Public Relations' wheels were just catching traction when Owen left with the recovery team for Isla Nublar. Claire sent out tentative schedule to employees this morning, getting them ready for the park reopening.

So Owen intends to keep his raptor safe and cared for until the park's up and running again. The lab will science up a few more eggs once the lawyers hunt down the military vultures who took the embryos. He'll keep Blue socialized and introduce her to the next generation. It's the not the first time he's brought young raptors into the pack, one at a time. Blue will adopt new siblings well enough if he's real careful about it, and he's got a few ideas about how velociraptors can be part of the park itself instead of keeping them out of the public eye as a research project.

For now, he jogs after Blue, keeping his motions steady and smooth. He knows how fragile his position is. Tomorrow will wait until he deals with today.

"We've got your six," Barry says through the radio. "Still no sign of the 'rex."

Owen gives a thumb up over his head before resuming the movement-signal for Blue. She's turned up ahead and is dancing in place, head bobbing up and down as she looks at him and then past him at the containment team stopped at the crossroad. They're making her nervous.

Raptors are pretty damn smart. It's obvious she knows what those guns can do. He's lucky she doesn't automatically associate that wariness with him, and really lucky she's not attacking anyone.

She gives a distressed screeing chitter, and he slows down as he approaches. "Easy. Easy. What's here, Blue?"

He deliberately eases closer, and her head cocks, teeth champing. It's not an aggressive gesture, or the bared teeth he half expects. It's inquisitive, if anything. Her foreclaws are curled under instead of spread. She's not afraid of him or ready to attack. She's just not sure what he's doing.

Owen doesn't trust the docile acceptance to last, but God, the sense of satisfaction he's getting right now will fuel the training of a hundred raptors. It really works. Ha! "Easy," he repeats, daring to lower his hand toward her.

Her head jerks up, eyes fixed on it, and he pauses. He doesn't want to lose a hand. He's not Hoskins to think a raised hand translates as anything beside a crunchy target to a predator. She eyes his hand as if wondering what it's there for, but she knows him. When she shifts her feet and grumbles, eyes returning to him, he slides another step forward until he can touch her.

She's dry and warm. Resting his hand on her neck sends a thrill through him. Part adrenaline for the danger, admittedly.

Owen smiles without showing his teeth, just for her.

Blue twists her head, her body following in a boneless predator sinuousness. Pebbled skin slips out of his hand, but she slaps his side with her tail like she would one of her siblings as she moves quickly through a hole in the wall of a building. Her creel is almost frantic.

A soft cheep answers her.

Owen's eyes widen. "Hold up, what?" Slinging the rifle onto his shoulder, he turns and waves both hands at the team before bringing one down to press the talk button on his radio. "I'm going in."

"Don't go into the building!"

Barry's protest is too late; Owen is already climbing up into the hole. "I've got to. I think one of the other raptors is alive in here. That's what she wants to show me - holy shit."

It's dark, coming in out of the bright tropical sunlight. He squints, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Everything's dark shapes at the moment, but in the middle of the shop is a big moving shape. Blue. She creels at him, head bent so low over limp raptor stretched out on the floor that her chin almost brushes skin. Her eyes catch the light, dark but glistening. They're fixed on him in what he can only call hope.

No, that's a human emotion, too wishful a concept for an animal. It's trust. He's the alpha. She trusts him to help.

The downed raptor she stands over is still, too still. His heart aches. "Aw, Blue…"

A croaking rasp startles him so bad he jumps. He turns wide eyes to the side, and there's another raptor. Normally, that's something to inspire sudden panic, especially with this raptor. She's always been the challenger in the pack, aiming for the beta space in the pack right up until the day Blue beat her tail down for good. Even after that, her aggression levels were fairly high.

He considered the scars on her face from that challenge fight to be a warning of her aggression, but he can't even see those scars anymore. Owen hisses an indrawn breath and immediately takes a step forward. Panic isn't what he feels, seeing her. "Oh no. Echo?"

There's not much left of her to be afraid of. Echo tilts her head to the side, good eye on him. Weeping, infected burns crack and leak as she tries to rise. She collapses midway through the attempt, rattling a moan. Her pain-filled eye stares up at him, glazing over. The nictitating membrane slides slowly over it, a protective reflex that's not helping her one bit. The damage is done.

Ah, shit, he should have known. He'd been too busy scrambling out of the Indominus' way to think about how short the violent flare-up was when Echo hit the grill, but common sense kicks him as he looks at the burns, now. It was an open-fire grill exposed to a tourist thoroughfare. Park Health & Safety doesn't just hand out pamphlets on what to do in case a guest collapses from heat stroke. They're responsible for accident-proofing everything, and the grill probably had nineteen safeties slapped on it. At the very least, the propane had a safety cut-off.

It's too late to change anything, but Owen wishes he'd thought about this two days ago.

"Easy, Echo, easy," he says, crouching down slowly. Animals in pain lash out. He won't get any closer unless she recognizes him, and even then, he doesn't think it's smart. He doesn't want to discover what a fever-delirious, pain-crazed velociraptor is capable of.

She stares at him. He talks softly to her, trying to judge how much coherent she is. She whines pitifully in response to his voice, eye blinking clear enough to focus on his face, and the tension bleeds out of her. Her head sinks back to the floor, neck twisting so she can keep her eye locked on him. Good, she recognizes him. It'll be easier on her if she stays calm. The burns haven't killed her outright, but shock and infection are no laughing matter, and he doesn't want to aggravate her condition.

Blue creels, drawing his attention back to her. He turns his head without standing, eyes flicking back and forth between her and Echo. "It's okay. We're okay. I see her. I'm gonna help her, Blue."

But she's nudging the raptor she's standing over.

Owen stands up so fast he has to take a step to recover his balance. Surprise sends his eyebrows into his hairline. "Delta!"

He thought Blue was guarding a dead body, but his eyes have adjusted to the dim light by now. He sees her tail thump on the floor first, and a cold leaden weight in his chest lightens. The downed raptor attempts to raise her head to push Blue's snout away. She moans a low, rough cry full of pain, and Owen can see why. Her leg is the most obvious problem, broken and swollen midway between knee and ankle, but he can hear her labored breathing over Blue's loud creeling. When Blue stops nudging her in order to fix Owen with that hopeful, trusting gaze again, Delta's head flops back to the floor. Too weak or tired, she's unable to keep it up.

Taking a few steps closer and kneeling down, he thinks he sees the problem. Those ribs have to be broken. Moving her torso just to breathe has to be torture, and that's only the wounds he can see from here. He remembers the sick crunch as the Indominus closed her jaws on Delta. Broken ribs are likely the tip of the iceberg for internal injuries.

"Aw. Aw, girl. Easy, easy," he soothes her when she tries to lift her head again. He puts his hand out but doesn't dare touch her.

Echo cheeps. Owen looks at her, and she cheeps right at him, the high-pitched peep she used to make when she wanted to be picked up. She picks her head up off the floor enough to drop her jaw and baby-bird gape at him, begging. A couple seconds later Delta picks up the noise, cheeping and peeping like a baby. She tosses her head back, looking back at him as best she can how she's lying, and she cheeps, chewing on nothing. It's like walking into the nursery again, baby raptors begging at his knees for their parent and alpha to give them food, attention, to make everything better.

Blue keeps giving him that look.

"Owen! You crazy man, are you dead yet?"

All the raptors raise their heads, eyes alert. Delta drops hers, too pained to keep it up, and goes back to cheeping. Echo hesitates but adds to the chorus after a moment. Blue flexes her claws, rocking from foot to foot.

Owen toggles the radio. "Still alive. Listen, I'm going to need some sedatives. Three. The food tablet kind if you can get them. Someone run to the paddock, get the moving truck, the sedatives, and something to put them in."

"What's happening in there?"

He looks around what had once been a shop. There's a mound of souvenir t-shirts and tree branches around Delta, swept together in a crude nest. The smell of rotted meat is nauseatingly heavy, but aside from massive wet-tacky puddles of blood smeared everywhere, buzzing with flies, there isn't any meat in sight. He's grateful for that since he's fairly sure what they've been eating. For some reason, there are dozens of plastic water bottles scattered all around the nest, ripped apart.

He picks one up to look at as he talks. "Not sure, but from what I'm seeing, I think Blue's been keeping the other two alive. Echo's burned to shit. Delta's got a broken leg and looks like some broken ribs." He turns the water bottle over in his hands. Why water bottles?

There's a long silence. This is far more complicated than one lone velociraptor wandering loose in the park. ACU's going to pitch a fit.

"...I'll make the calls," Barry says at last.

Owen looks at the two wounded raptors peeping at him in increasing desperation. They're acting like chicks, but Blue did the same when she spotted him on the road. It's not so much a regression in mindset so much as a strong association between baby behavior and, what, protection? Care? Depending on how intelligent raptors are and the social bond inside the pack, that makes more sense than it doesn't. Wounded animals are more often left to die. Delta and Echo are thin, but not starvation-thin. The cheeping could be pack behavior, a response to their helplessness. Since they can't hunt, they're appealing to the pack for food and water.

Blue's been taking care of them like a mother with chicks. She's obviously been sticking around, bringing them whatever meat she's scavenged.

And water. "Clever girl," Owen says quietly. He holds the water bottle up, suddenly getting it. Helpless siblings at the nest, finding and bringing in full water bottles from other stores, bite marks in the plastic..."Clever, clever girl."

Blue's head jerks back. She blinks rapidly. She knows that tone of voice, and damn right he's going to pull it out for her. He's proud of her.

"Good girl," he says firmly. "That's a good girl."

The purrling cry is loud enough to shock him, but not as much as her lunge over Delta. Blue's on him before he can reach for the rifle.

"Gyaah!"

"Owen! Owen, what's happening?!"

"I'm - " Blue chitter-peeps right in the radio, interrupting him. Owen pushes her head away for half a second, and she goes right back to rubbing her jaw all over him, nuzzling and pushing in an orgy of scent-marking. He grunts, pushing up on elbow. His back's wet from the blood on the floor. He'll smell like a slaughter house until he can get changed. Slaughter house, and raptor. She seems determined to mark every last inch of him. "I'm fine. Blue's happy to see me. Get those sedatives and put in a call to whoever's staffing the vet center."

"Do we need to keep watch for them coming out?"

"Nah, don't think so. They're in bad shape." Delta, at least, can't move. Echo's watching Blue 'assault' him without joining in, which tells him how injured she is. This is usually a full pack social ritual.

Blue's almost three raptors on her own. More rubbing, pushing into his shoulders and over his face and neck, the raptor equivalent of 'Mine mine mine!' She snorts into the radio, butting his hand, and he pushes down on her nose to get some room. Nostrils flare against the palm of his hand, and she purrls, nudging as she tries to push it aside to get at him.

Scooting back, he fends Blue off enough to get back to his feet so he's not in range of an accidental stomping from clawed feet. As soon as he's standing, she headbutts him in the stomach, chitter-peeping. He inhales sharply, expecting a bite, but she turns her head to rub the whole side of her face against him. Letting the breath out in a long sigh, he cautiously lays his hand on the back of her neck. He knows this behavior. He's seen the pack do it enough. Hell, he used to be part of it in the nursery.

His fingers dig in, scratching hard, and she croons, twisting her head around to rub her bony jaw up his other side. He returns the rubbing with his hands under her jaw, scratching down her neck, loosely hugging her neck to reach the itchy sweet spots he remembers, and she wriggles in his arms, twisting like a snake to cover him in the smell of pack.

The vaguely disturbing scent of velociraptor plus the rotted blood soaked into the back of his shirt will fill the recovery team with confidence, he can tell. Nothing like seeing a man dripping blood and smelling of predator. Mm-mm. Behold the glorious life - and reek - of an animal handler. Barry will probably just tell him he's got something on his face. The raptor paddock crew's seen Owen covered in worse.

He chuckles and scratches up underneath Blue's chin, up in the soft spot behind the bone, and she goes still, just her tail moving. It lashes slowly from side to side, and her lower eyelids curve up to half-lid her eyes. Her jaw drops, but he knows that unique little churr sound. "Good girl," he says softly. "Good girl."

Eventually, she blinks, shaking her head free. She draws her head back to look into his face. He keeps his hand half-extended, and she purrls. The social ritual completed, Blue steps over to Echo, bending down to rub faces and carefully down her back while Echo rasps and tries to return the jaw-rubbing, claiming and being claimed.

He knows she'll move on to Delta next. They're pack. That's what pack does.

The radio clicks on. "They going to make it? Three days is a long time for broken bones and burns."

She won't leave the pack, and neither will he. "They'll make it," Owen says into the radio.


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