Disclaimer: Don't own of course!
Yes! I'm still alive! Sorry I didn't get a chance to tell you all I was going on vacation for a week, my stupid internet modem crashed and we had to get a new one. Frankly, I don't like this chapter very much, it's kind of dull in my opinion and was a complete pain in the arse to write. Hopefully the next one will come easier! We are getting closer to the end! Oh and I finally got Jurassic Park the book, I read the whole thing in less than 12 hours :D
A huge shout-out to my amazing reviewers who insist on sticking with me. mysterygirl123, anonymous, Damico, bayumlikedayum, Midnight Cheesecake O.o, dino-SOAR, shippolove844, xXxKaraBeckerCutterxXx, DarkFireAngel00 and the ever amazing YouHadMeAtSkinTightJeans, you guys are amazing!
"So what do we do now?" Dave asked, warily watching the ground as Compies flooded the area, picking at the corpses in a feeding frenzy.
I barely managed to stop myself from shrugging, the pain in my shoulder reminding me the movement would have been excruciating. There were a number of things we could try, but at the moment I couldn't think of anything that would guarantee our survival. It was impossible to tell if the raptors were waiting to ambush whoever came down or if they had really left and responded to the cry for help.
The Alpha was still down, but I couldn't decide if we should tempt leaving now or wait. Waiting until she woke could go both ways, either she would find her pack and leave or-and most likely- she would call her pack to her and they would ceaselessly hunt us until we were all killed. Either way our chances didn't look good.
"We can't chance climbing down, not here." Billy spoke up, his voice startling me at its close proximity behind me. I could feel his breath on my neck and it was a distracting annoyance as I tried to think of some way we could get out of here.
Looking through the trees, I started mapping out some way we could all climb through them. Billy was right, we couldn't chance climbing down here, but perhaps we could get far enough away that it would be relatively safe to make it down. "Alright, we'll have to go across the branches, get far enough away where we can climb down."
The men looked less than excited at the idea of traipsing through the tree tops, but at the moment we really didn't have any other option left to us. "So which way do we go?" Jack asked, shifting just the slightest and sending a small twig twirling to the ground.
"Obviously, we head back to the camp." Kane spoke up, his narcissistic and power-hungry attitude preventing him from fully realizing he was far from command.
"No, we head away from camp actually." Billy stated, I turned to give him a questioning look. We needed the supplies that were left there if we had any hope for surviving. Then again, I may have more experience in surviving in dangerous situations, but he knew far more about the dinosaurs than I had any real desire to. "If they haven't already, the raptors will be raiding it, if they have enough members they might even set up an ambush there too."
Well isn't that just peachy? If only there was at least some way we could get the guns and the food then we could hole up somewhere until rescue came. Our chances were getting slimmer by the second. "That settles it then," I stated, "We head away from camp." Now for the hard part… figuring out which way camp was. The raptor attack had gotten me so turned around I honestly couldn't say which way we had come from.
Thankfully the tree Billy and I had found ourselves in was taller than the rest. So, taking a deep breath, I grabbed onto a thick branch above my head and heaved myself up, biting back a hiss as my shoulder flared in pain. I heard Billy heave a sigh before he was suddenly in front of my on the very branch I had just gotten myself up on. "You don't have to do everything you know." He said softly, giving me a disapproving look as I struggled to force my right arm up to the next branch.
"I have to find the tree we camped at so we know which way to go." I argued, failing to see his point as I took another deep breath when I finally latched my hand onto the next branch.
He shook his head, a slight smile making its way onto his face as he grabbed my hands and pulled them down. "You are a stubborn and bull-headed woman." His grin widened as he pulled me to him, planting a kiss on my forehead. "Now stay down here." He let go of me, and easily swung himself up into the higher branches.
I wasn't happy about it, but I stayed where I was, grudgingly admitting to myself that I really wasn't in the greatest condition for climbing up the tree. Leaning my back against the tree's thick trunk, I impatiently waited for him to come back down. He may not have actually said it, but he was right regardless; he was in far better condition to be doing the extra work. It killed me to be motionless while he was doing something though. It made me feel useless, completely and utterly useless. Until this damn island fiasco I had never felt that feeling before and I didn't like it one bit.
Restlessly, I tapped my foot, waiting for Billy to come back down. I was irritated at my lack of ability to do the simple task of easily scaling up a tree, hell I couldn't do much of anything easily at the moment.
The branches above me creaked and groaned as Billy made his way back down, he landed with a thump on the branch I was on, the limb drooping down as the excess weight hit it. "Alright we need to head that way." He stated, pointing in the direction of Scott's tree and thankfully, upwind of the carnage below. The rancid smell of death was starting to permeate the air and the flies were quickly growing in number, swarming around everyone.
I followed Billy as he led the way to the thickest and longest branch of the tree, accepting the hand he held out for me as we crossed over to the next tree. I idly noticed that that kind of gesture had once been unacceptable to me; I never even took Cooper or Nash's attempts at help. Usually I would give them a dirty look before crossing on my own.
Once again, Billy had proven himself to be different than any other man I had ever met, he'd become a constant exception to every rule I had ever established for myself. I still couldn't say if that was necessarily a good thing or not.
Thankfully the trees in this area where thick and huge with several overlapping branches so making our way from tree to tree was relatively simple; well, as simple and easy as it could be with only one fully functioning arm.
"I'm not completely helpless." I stated to Billy as he held his hand out to me once again. We'd been traveling through the trees for a good fifteen minutes and he'd been helping me across every one. At the risk of sounding like a teenager, I didn't want him to see me as the weak damsel in distress.
He simply rolled his eyes, muttering something that sounded like 'bull-headed woman' before reaching out and grabbing my good arm, hoisting me across before I could even begin to protest. I didn't bother trying to refusing his offerings of help anymore, not only was the skin-to-skin contact extremely welcomed, but-and I wouldn't admit it out loud- I would probably slow the entire group down if I had to make it across on my own. The going was slow enough as we all had to cross the same branches one at a time. Even though we'd been moving at a steady pace; we could still hear the Compies chittering amongst themselves as they gorged on the remains left behind.
We were at least twenty feet up, above the heads of any predator we may come across. Normally I wasn't afraid of heights, but when I looked down to see the assortment of scavengers attracted by the smell, my stomach clenched and I found it even harder than it already was to keep moving. A fall from this height might break a bone or two, nothing fatal; but falling from up here into the growing number of animals below was a death sentence.
The whole group froze as a Tyrannosaur moved directly under us, pausing to take huge sniffs, moving his head from side to side before he moved on, following the direction of the other scavengers. A few minutes later the Rex roared and all of the other predators- with the exception of the Compies- came scurrying back. Some paused to look back, snorting and growling in outrage at their easy meal being taken from them. The rest moved off, in search of a different and less dangerous meal.
We were far enough away that the lower branches of the trees behind us blocked the sight of the attack, but we could still hear the Tyrannosaur growling and the crunching of bones as he found his prize. I closed my eyes, hoping to try and block the sound somehow. "Come on, we have to keep moving." Billy whispered in my ear, gently pulling on my hand and leading the group on.
It was hard to say just how long we spent in the trees, but the further we went, the fewer animals we saw running around below. The hours went by and as the sun started hinting towards the horizon, the trees got thinner, forcing us to move up or down to pass over to the next one. "We'll stay here for the night." Billy stated as he crossed over to the largest tree in the area. It wasn't hugely thick or tall, but it was the best we had at the moment.
"Can any dinosaurs climb trees?" Dave asked, warily looking down at the empty ground as he uncomfortably straddled a branch.
I looked to Billy, curious about the answer myself; we hadn't come across any so far, so perhaps not. He shrugged, "It's hard to say, some are suspected to have been able to climb but that isn't really something bones can tell us outright. Alan had said on the other island they had Hypsilophodontids that could be found in the trees and some of the younger raptors could get up a few branches as well."
Well wouldn't that be just lovely? Wake up to a pack of juvenile raptors sitting on the branches with us. Wonderful. "At least Hypsilophodons are herbivores, so if they show up they shouldn't be any problem." The other men still looked uneasy at the thought that anything could get up here with them, I didn't blame them. Herbivores were still dinosaurs that could attract the unwanted predators, or knock us out of the tree.
The hours of another long night passed quietly and uneventfully, no Hypsilophodons or any other animals came up into the tree with us and Kane stayed silent the entire time. It was easy to forget he was even there. I actually doubted anyone would notice if he disappeared for at least a few hours. Dawn arrived in the same quiet peace and I took a moment to relish in the tranquility it brought.
Blaine had done an amazing job patching me up and while I was nowhere near healed, the throbbing was steadily decreasing each day and no infection had set in. It was by no means professional work, I would carry a nasty scar for as long as I lived, but he'd saved my life and given me a chance to get off this island. I looked around for the man as everyone started to wake, spotting him a branch over and up. The bottom of his shirt was torn off, the strip wrapped around his forearm where he'd gotten a large scratch the previous day.
Billy was on the branch closest to me- I swear the man hadn't been further than five feet from me since I'd been shot. It wasn't near as annoying as I would have thought it had been, in fact, the realization set off an eruption of butterflies in my stomach. He may not return the full feelings, but dear God I was in love with that man and there was nothing I could do about it.
"Is it safe to climb down?" Scott asked, yawning as he stretched; he winced and I noticed that his entire left bicep was wrapped in a reddening strip of his shirt.
"It's impossible to tell for sure." Billy answered as I moved around him to get to Scott. Gently, I pulled off his makeshift bandage, cringing as I took in the injury. A raptor had bitten him- how he'd managed to get his arm out of the animal's mouth without tearing it to shreds was beyond me-but the slowly bleeding wounds were near perfect punctures of the raptor's jaws. He probably needed stitches, but it wasn't bleeding too badly and there was nothing that could be done out here. I had to settle with rewrapping his arm with the cleaner half of cloth, tugging it tight to stop the bleeding completely.
"Hello?" A muffled voice broke through the momentary quiet, shocking all of us. It had been so quiet I couldn't even tell for sure if I had heard it or not. But judging from the way everyone else had gone still, they had heard it to. Someone else was out there, somehow they had survived.
"Is anybody out there?" the voice yelled out again, the sound echoing across the near silent morning. I jumped up from my crouched position, barely steadying myself in time to avoid slipping off the branch. Billy was already several feet up and climbing. Yelling wasn't the best idea, but we had to get his attention somehow.
So I let out a piercing whistle to let him know where we were. He went quiet and for a moment I thought he had taken the sound as an animal, but then an answer whistle came in the same pitch I had given. He'd gotten the message at least, he wasn't alone anymore but he shouldn't be alerting every animal where he was.
We waited in silence until he gave another call; he was asking which way we were. I responded and it went on like that for nearly five minutes, every whistle getting louder and louder as the survivor got closer to us. Finally he broke into sight, though he wasn't looking up.
As much as we hated to do it, we stayed silent for a long moment, waiting to see if anything would attack. Nothing did thankfully. The man looked young, too young to have been working for Kane.
"Pete!" Scott stated in surprise, quickly dropping down the branches as the cabin boy startled at the sound.
"Captain!" Pete shouted in surprise as Scott jumped from the last branch and landed next to him. "It's safe guys, come on!" I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the order, why was he telling us to come down? But it wasn't us he was talking to.
I couldn't stop the grin from spreading over my face as five other men came into view towards us. There were more survivors! Maybe, just maybe, we had a chance at making it through this. Scott shook hands with two of the other men, obviously crew members of his, which meant that the other three were Kane's hired goons. I could only hope they wouldn't stick to their 'boss' now.
Slowly, I finally made my way out of the tree, almost toppling over as I landed. If Billy hadn't strung an arm around my waist in time to steady me I would have fallen back onto my ass.
"How have you made it this long?" Scott asked the group, looking as bewildered as I felt. I knew there had been a slight chance of other survivors but after this many days I had figured we would have at least heard them by now.
Pete shrugged, unsure as to the answer himself, "It took two days for me to find these guys," he started, nodding towards the other men, "We lost one to some sort of animal that night, after that we pretty much stayed up in the trees, only coming down for water and to scavenge something up to eat."
A big burly man who couldn't be less than forty nodded in agreement, "Pete thought he heard gunshots the other day and yelling yesterday. He was damned determined we would find whoever else was out here."
"You're lucky nothing else found you with all the noise you were making." Billy stated, keeping his eyes on our surroundings rather than on the new group.
He was right of course, but just because nothing had attacked them when they were shouting didn't mean they hadn't shown up to investigate the noise. "We need to move." I said to Billy, whose expertise had made him the unofficial leader of the group, especially since I was wounded.
He nodded, stepping forwards and tugging me along with him; apparently he hadn't removed his arm from around my waist. The rest of the men fell into step behind us; I could dimly hear Scott talking to his crew members and Kane attempting to speak in a hushed tone to the other new additions. I leaned against Billy slightly, choosing to not worry about what Kane might be up to, we still outnumbered him and no one had any weapons. He no longer posed a threat to us.
The early morning kept the temperature mercifully down as we continued walking. I realized that we didn't have any sort of plan unless Billy had thought of something. Then again, there wasn't much we could do until Kane's 'rescue' came; all we could do was survive until the week was up. I ran the days through my mind, trying to figure out how long we had been here and how much longer we had to wait. The days seemed to blur together in areas, but as far as I could tell we had at least 5 days counting this one before rescue would come. We had been here for at least six that I could account for, if not more. I really couldn't be sure at this point.
The ground we were on gradually sloped up, cresting right on the edge of the tree line and opening into what was probably a large field. The entire group had fallen silent by now as we focused on our surroundings and keeping as quiet as possible.
Finally we reached the top of the slope, the mid-morning sun temporarily blinding us as we came out of the shade of the trees. When my eyes adjusted to the light, the scene before me took my breath away. "Wow."
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~Black Wolf-Dog~
p.s. No Dino-Trivia today, instead I urge all Glee fans to check out YouHadMeAtSkinTightJeans' stories! She is an amazing writer! Also, to any and all fans of Jumper (especially Griffin), you have to read bayumlikedayum's story Jumping Currents! It's hilarious and spectacular!
