AN: We have reached chapter 21 and hello to the rising action phase of the plot! Also, I know I've been beating Owen up pretty badly…but no worries! He's sturdy.
Claire woke up to Owen covering her face in small kisses, his eyes sparkling with happiness. The sunlight shone brightly above him, leaves fluttering off the trees that surrounded them. "What brought this on?" Claire asked lightly,her voice now returned to its full strength.
Owen smiled, his teeth cold against her cheek. "I've been awake for about an hour and couldn't keep my hands off you anymore."
Claire laughed, overjoyed that he seemed to be recovering from his recent injuries quickly. She captured his lips with hers, rolling around with him on the soft grass. He gasped softly in pain when she put a bit too much pressure on his thighs, shifting Claire slightly to the side.
"Where's Lowery?" Claire murmured, twisting her head around to try and find him.
Owen pulled her face back down to his. "He's still asleep."
"No, he isn't," complained Lowery, sitting up and rubbing his eyes in a disheveled sort of way. He observed Claire and Owen sleepily, slowly realizing what –and who- he was seeing. "Claire! Aren't you being held hostage?"
Claire laughed and mussed Owen's already-messy hair. "I was rescued in the night."
Owen raised his eyebrows. "You make us sound like a crazy romance novel."
Claire met his eyes. "We would make a crazy story, you know. These past few weeks, they've been…"
"Interesting," Lowery finished. "And I'm not even going to ask how you got her out of there, man."
"So," said Claire, turning to Lowery. "What happened to you?"
Lowery explained everything to her. Claire was a good audience, paying as much attention to Lowery as she would Jurassic World's highest stockholders. She knit her eyebrows when she heard about Hunt's apparent lack of concern for Jurassic World and Project K; she started brainstorming about ways to use that against him. Hunt had started off proud of InGen's technology, of what it could do to dinosaurs. Ever since Claire had flipped the switch on Alice, he'd been in a downward spiral, making rash decisions and abandoning his colleagues.
"Revenge," Claire said. "That's what this is about for Hunt. His raptor lost. She's dead; I killed her. So why didn't he show up to the tent last night after he was finished with you, Owen? I was right there. He could've gotten rid of me, no problem. Wu wouldn't have protested; I own this park now. Without me, he'd be next in line to run the place."
"Hunt's after something else," said Owen slowly, sitting up straight. He pushed himself up to standing, peering over the rocks that shielded them from the fields. "Come on. We gotta go."
Claire didn't ask questions and simply jumped to her feet, dragging Lowery behind her. Out of habit, she stepped where Owen did, knowing he'd find quietest spots to place his feet. Owen ran unsteadily on his sore legs, but Claire could tell he was feeling better than he had yesterday.
"Where are we going?" Lowery yelled, crashing loudly through the trees.
"Sh!" said Owen and Claire at the same time.
"Hunt's got a head start on us," Owen said, brushing past a large fern-like plant.
"You don't think-?" Claire broke off, grasping Owen's train of thought. Crap.
"You don't think what?" asked Lowery, confused. He stumbled through a patch of weeds and successfully avoided tripping over a protruding root.
Neither Claire or Owen answered him, each too caught up in their worries to respond.
Hunt had gone rogue. He was obsessed with Claire because Owen loved her, but as far as he knew, Claire was safely tied up in his tent. What was the only other thing on Isla Nublar that Owen cared about that Hunt didn't have?
Blue.
…
"What do you mean, she's gone?" Hunt yelled into the walkie-talkie.
"You were supposed to be guarding her," replied Wu, calm as ever. His tone pissed Hunt off. Didn't Wu understand how important Claire was to Grady? "You said you would get rid of the Navy man, and get the girl. Now you've gone and messed everything up. You need to remember why you are here, Hunt."
Hunt slammed his fist into a nearby tree, feeling invigorated at the pain that now coursed through his body. "I know why I'm here. I'm going to kill Grady's velociraptor, kill Claire, and kill Grady himself."
"That is not why we hired you," Wu argued, serene as ever. "You are here to get rid of the old dinosaurs and prep the park for our new prototypes. You are supposed to give me a place to perfect my weapons for our buyer. I don't have much time left, Patrick."
"I don't care," said Hunt. "Grady was out of the game, until you let her escape. That Claire Josephine; she's a feisty one. If anyone can find Grady, she can. Now I'll have them after me, and I'm trying to figure out a way to sedate a hostile velociraptor long enough to eject a switch receptor into its brain. There isn't a microchip in this one, Wu. I'm on my own out here."
"So forget about it. Come back, search for the girl, and kill both her and her boyfriend."
"That's not good enough!" shouted Hunt. "I have to take away any shred of hope Grady has left before he dies. Anything he loves, I want."
"Why are you doing this?" asked Wu, with just a hint of anger in his voice. Hunt smiled with satisfaction; few things were better than pissing that stupid genius off.
"Because I am the alpha," said Hunt. "He thinks he can beat me? No. No." Hunt pressed his hands to his temples, trying to force away a migraine. The headaches had been getting more frequent lately, especially after Alice had died. Hunt's jaw clenched at the memory; he relived his dinosaur's death every time he closed his eyes. Sure, he had hated the thing, but it was the closest thing he had to a friend, excluding Bridgette, who was so annoying most of the time that Hunt could barely stand her.
But Alice had died and here Hunt was, traipsing through the woods, knowing that Grady's closest, deadliest friend was wandering around here somewhere. "I'm going to prove that I'm stronger than him, Wu. He can't beat me."
"Beat you at what?"
"Everything." Hunt smashed the walkie-talkie against a rock, breaking the thing into bits of plastic and wire. He looked through the trees in front of him, where he could see the barest trace of a shadow, the smallest gleam of a yellow eye, poking through the thick leaves. "I know you can see me, Blue."
The eye blinked at him and Blue turned and ran away, screeching so loudly that whole flocks of birds flew rapidly from their nests in the trees. Hunt pulled out the thick syringe from his pack, examining the steel needle in the sunlight. "I'm gonna flip the switch on you." He sprinted after her, feeling like he finally had a reason to continue on with his scattered, personal mission.
…
Owen froze. "Did you hear that?" he asked Claire, trying to pinpoint the direction that the screech had come from. Claire nodded. Blue had to be nearby; Owen said she wouldn't stray too far away from him. Maybe she was simply chasing after her breakfast, and not running from Hunt.
"I still don't know what the heck is going on," said Lowery, coming up behind them. He bent over, trying to catch his breath. "What are we running from?"
"We aren't running from anything," Claire explained impatiently. "We have to find Blue."
"We're chasing a velociraptor?" Lowery asked incredulously. "When did we decide to do that?"
Owen set off again, fighting his way through the thick branches in his path. "She's running from something. That was a defensive noise."
"Okay," said Claire, hitting her bad leg painfully against a thorn-covered bush. "She'll kill him if he gets too close, won't she? Blue's the first dinosaur Hunt's ever come into contact with that he doesn't have any control over. He's overconfident. That'll be his downfall eventually. Where do we need to go to get to her before he does?"
Owen stopped, turning to face her. "I don't know. If I whistle for her and Hunt's near here, I'll be telling him exactly where we –and Blue- are, but I can't just leave her."
"So whistle for her," Claire said, pulling the bandages tighter around her still-bloody calf. "We'll run."
"And if Hunt chases us?"
Claire didn't answer Owen's question, instead taking a deep breath. She had an idea…sort of. It was a good one in theory, anyways. In real life? Crazy. Stupid. But it might also be insane enough to work.
"What are you thinking?" Owen asked. "You've got something floating around in your head."
"Fight," Claire said. "Old versus new."
"Do you think it'll work?" asked Owen, immediately understanding what Claire meant.
"I am so confused," said Lowery, looking from Owen to Claire, trying to decipher the unspoken words in their conversation.
"If we're smart about it. And if we don't die trying," said Claire. "We might end up killing half of Jurassic World's dinosaurs in the process, though."
"What are you talking about?" questioned Lowery, who was now pacing impatiently around them.
"Project K is all about 'replacing the old with the new', right?" said Claire in an attempt to fill Lowery in. He nodded, still looking utterly confused. "So we prove InGen wrong. We show them that the old dinosaurs don't need to be replaced. Hunt's falling apart at the seams; he's trying to break us down in every way he can, but he's too scattered. He doesn't have a clear sense of purpose anymore."
"If we put ourselves out there with an army," said Owen, "he wouldn't be able to stop himself from fighting us. He'd have to come after us."
"An army of what?" Lowery wondered aloud.
"Dinosaurs," said Claire, feeling the same tightness in her chest that she had felt when she got the idea to use the T-Rex to fight the Indominus. "Lure Hunt out of his mad quest to find Blue by gathering all of Jurassic World's dinosaurs."
"He'd fall for it," said Owen. "He wouldn't be able to resist pulling out InGen's robots to use against us. It would be the ultimate chance for him to prove himself."
"But what about Blue?" Lowery asked, still a little bewildered.
Owen sighed. "I hope both of you are ready to run, because he'll be after us the second I do this." He looked at both of them, making sure they knew what they were getting themselves into before he whistled loudly, the sound echoing all through the dense trees. Claire heard a yell of triumph float through the air: Hunt. "Come on," said Owen, grabbing Claire's hand. "We've got to go."
"And now we're running from the velociraptor," said Lowery, stumbling along behind them. "This makes no sense."
AN: So, if most of you are like Lowery and have no clue what is happening, then I don't blame you! Let me explain.
-Hunt is after Blue because he's literally going insane
-Owen has whistled for Blue, and she's coming for them with Hunt on her tail
-Claire wants to gather the old dinosaurs because she knows that if they do, Hunt will gather all of InGen's dinosaurs to fight them-it's the best way to get him out in the open
-Now Hunt knows where they are because Owen whistled for Blue, so that sucks
-If you have any more questions, feel free to PM me or ask them in the review and I'll try my very best to answer them, because I know this is really confusing!
Review!