Author's Note:

This is part one of reintroducing the old team, and you will understand what I mean once you read the chapter. It is dedicated to Squabble, who's birthday is tomorrow! She's awesome and I hope she has an incredible birthday :D

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Everything seemed to be passing so quickly after we heard Eric scream that it was like someone had hit a fast forward button. I expected chaos, but while everything was moving extremely quickly, it was surprisingly organized. I had a feeling he'd long since told them what to do in an emergency. Abby and I tried to do something, anything to help, but it was like were invisible. Jane Milton, who had walked outside to find Eric on his knees on the steps with three very long claw marks in his abdomen, had wanted to call an ambulance but Kara and the twins had told her absolutely not. I really hated to agree with pom-pom girl, but even I was wondering why we hadn't dialed 911 by now.

The twins each grabbed one of his arms and pulled them over their shoulders, not seeming to be fazed at all by the weight of his now unconscious body. Kara was using her tee shirt as a bandage to wrap around his body and keep anything from coming out of the wound, leaving her in a tank top underneath. Good thing she dressed in layers. Abby set to work trying to calm the panicked Jane, and I helped the twins lay Eric out in the bed of one of the pickup trucks. Not the most normal way to get him back to the warehouse (or wherever the hell they were taking him, since they had obvious issues with hospitals) but it was the only way we had because the trucks didn't have backseats.

"What happened?" I asked Kara.

"He got attacked," she replied hurriedly, taking the keys out of her pocket and pulling herself up into the driver's seat of the truck before I could even offer to help.

No kidding, I thought. "The raptor?" I guessed.

Her answer surprised me. "No, that's the thing. I've never seen anything like it before in my life. And there were more, I saw them out in the woods right before one attacked Eric. Probably twenty at the very least."

"Crap," I muttered.

"Stephen, you go back to the warehouse with Kara, I'm staying to help the twins find these things," Abby called out. I was reluctant to leave her, but I also knew that Charlie and Chandler would keep her safe.

"Call if anything happens," I replied before getting in next to Kara.

Once we got back to the warehouse, I felt invisible, again. She got first aid looking stuff ready while I took Eric up to the third floor and laid him out on a bed. After I had him laid out, I stepped out of the way because she obviously knew what she was doing. She made quick work of removing his shirt and the makeshift bandage before cleaning the dried blood from the wounds. I couldn't help but note that the efforts were in vain, given that more blood seeped from them even as she cleaned them. I handed her stuff when she asked, and before I even thought she'd had time to, she had the gashes stitched up.

"Is there anything I can do?" I asked as she sat down on the edge of the bed and took Eric's hand.

She shook her head numbly, clutching on to him for all it was worth. I would have asked what we did now, but I already knew the answer to that. We waited. He could wake up, or he could die of blood loss. Either thing could happen now. I paced the room anxiously, worrying about Abby. There were twenty of whatever had done this to Eric, and there was only her and the twins out there. "Outnumbered" was an understatement. I was worried for her, and while I would probably die before I admitted it aloud, I was worried about Eric.

Leaving Kara alone with her passed out and possibly soon dead boyfriend, I went down to the second floor and sat down in front of Eric's desk, opening the laptop there. I had some research I wanted to do while no one else was around. The other handful of people that usually milled around were nowhere in sight, and I intended to take advantage of their absence. I had tried to start fresh, to forget about my old team and my old friends so Abby and I could move on, but I couldn't. Nick had been like a father to me (which sounded creepy once you consider the fact I slept with his wife, but hey, it's a strange world) and everyone else had eventually become extended family.

I searched news articles by typing in keywords like Nick, Cutter, Connor, Temple, and so on and so forth. Once upon a time I hadn't known much about computers and wouldn't know the first thing about running searches like this, but I blamed it on having hung around Connor too long. My head was starting to hurt from the futile search, typing in name after name, only to come up blank. I was about to give up when something caught my eye.

A picture of a stunningly pretty brunette woman talking to media. The quality wasn't great but good enough for me to be able to see what the picture was of. Or more accurately, who the picture was of. Her hair was wavier than it had been last time I'd seen her, but her features were familiar to me. Brown eyes, fair skin, a smile that appeared friendly but once you knew her well enough, that smile said she wished the entirety of the media would spontaneously drop dead. I knew she'd been around since she'd had lunch with Abby, but it was the man standing in the background that got my attention, and I probably wouldn't have been able to identify him had it not been for that ridiculous fedora.

I had never been so relieved to see a photograph of Jenny Lewis and Connor Temple in my life.