Quick warning of adult themes, but nothing too detailed. There are mentions of abuse, neglect, and inappropriate behavior in this prologue, but it won't be mentioned a lot in later chapters. And obviously in later chapters there will be some blood with dinosaurs eating people. If that makes you uncomfortable, this may not be the story for you.
More information at the end.
Prologue:
2011:
"12a - 9a = 9." Sierra muttered under her breath, repeating the same stupid math problem for about the twelfth time. Yelling from just on the other side of her thin bedroom wall made her huff in annoyance. "12a minus-"
"This would never have happened if you weren't such a whore!"
"If I'm a whore what does that make you?! Don't think I didn't notice the lipstick marks on all your shirts!"
Sierra groaned in annoyance, hanging her head and raking her fingers through the loose ponytail her dark auburn hair was in. The 12-year-old had debated putting her earbuds in to drown out her parents' screaming, but honestly she wouldn't be able to focus then, either. She'd just end up singing along to the music instead of working on her homework.
Her laptop went off, letting her know she had a video call. It was an honestly-welcomed distraction, even though it didn't exactly help her get her homework done.
Putting her pencil down in her textbook, she tapped her keyboard and a video screen popped up to reveal a very welcomed face. She instantly found herself grinning.
"Owen. Hey, I wasn't expecting a call from you today." Her grin matched his.
"Hey, Shortie. Yeah, we just finished up a mission and we're heading back to port. Since I had a spare minute, I thought I'd call and check in." She noticed him glance down toward the bottom of the screen. "I see I'm interrupting homework."
"Nah. I wasn't getting much done, anyway." Sierra assured him, a small fib. She had another two assignments to finish before bed, but she couldn't focus with the racket in the living room. "What about you? Do anything cool lately?" she asked curiously.
Her older half-brother was an animal behaviorist with the Navy, and as an avid animal and nature lover, she loved hearing about a lot of the work he did. Her favorite was when he was doing some studies with a dolphin pod, mainly their social interactions and relationships.
"Not really, sorry." Owen smirked as if he could read her thoughts. "Nothing you'd be interested in, anyway. How are things with you? Soccer's started by now, right?"
Sierra's mouth opened, her brain scrambling to come up with an answer, when they were thankfully interrupted by Owen's door opening. A quick brown shape that barely appeared at the bottom of the screen entered the room and scurried up to Owen's desk. Sierra's face lit up as the familiar black-furred face popped up to nudge at Owen's elbow for attention. The next second the dog's whole body was in the frame as she planted her front legs on Owen's desk in an attempt to get attention. Sierra could hear Owen laughing and pretending to try to get her off.
"Ah. I see Astrid found you." a familiar voice came from the background of the video.
"Barry!" Sierra grinned excitedly. Owen managed to push Astrid, Barry's Belgian Shepherd, off his desk so she could get a good view of Barry in the background of the video.
"Sierra. How've you been?" Barry asked, his French accent clear even in the poor-quality audio.
"I've been good." she answered with a grin even though it was a lie. "How're you doing? And Astrid?"
"We're both doing good. Although, Astrid is actually nearing retirement." Barry informed her, a bittersweet smile on his dark-skinned face. Barry had been working with Astrid for almost as long as Sierra had known him, about seven years.
"Aw. I'm sorry to hear that." Sierra's smile shrunk a bit.
"Don't be." Barry waved her off. "She's earned it. Just a few more months and she can start enjoying life. Chewing shoes and chasing squirrels and all that." he joked. "Anyway, we were just stopping to get this." he added, picking up a worn-out looking soccer ball that looked well-chewed. Astrid perked up at the sight of it and followed Barry toward the door. "It was good to see you, Sierra." he told her.
"You, too. Bye Barry. Bye Astrid." she called as Barry led the excited dog out the door, closing it behind him. "What'll happen to Astrid?" she asked quietly.
"Barry's actually looking to adopt her." Owen admitted. "He's got a sister who'd be willing to watch and help take care of her if Barry needs her to. She'll be fine." he assured her. "Now, quit changing the subject. How's soccer?"
Sierra bit her lip for a moment before figuring there was no point delaying the inevitable. "I'm not on the soccer team this year."
"What? Why not? I thought you liked soccer." Owen asked, confused.
"Well,…I mean it's not too surprising, is it?" Sierra tried to brush it off. "I always try something new every few years or so. First it was gymnastics, then horseback riding, then soccer. Now I'm just looking for something new." she fibbed.
"Except you usually only try something new when you move to a new town." Owen pointed out, referring to the numerous times she's had to move when her dad was stationed in a new town. "Gymnastics was in, what, Phoenix? Horseback riding was in Enid, Oklahoma. You started soccer when you moved to Dayton. You haven't been at it that long. I thought you liked soccer."
Sierra shrugged. "Yeah, I like soccer alright, I suppose. I just wanted to focus on my studies this year." she fibbed, fiddling with her pencil nervously. Unfortunately, her fiddling caused the pencil to fly from her fingers and onto the floor. She leaned to the side to snatch it up off the floor.
"Whoa-what was that?!" Owen demanded, making Sierra sit up straight, her spine stiff.
"What was what?" she asked casually, the pencil clenched in her fist.
"Turn your head." Owen demanded. Sierra slowly did as asked, turning her head to the right. "No, smartass, the other way." Owen snapped. Sierra swallowed the lump in her throat and turned her head the opposite way, the way it was when she reached for her pencil. Now the right side of her face was no longer cast in shadows caused by her desk lamp. "What the hell happened?" Owen demanded when he saw her face. Or, more specifically, the fresh black eye on her right side. She was sure by now, given it was a couple hours old, it was at least red if not starting to turn purple.
Sierra sighed in defeat, knowing her stubborn brother wasn't about to let this go. She put her pencil in the textbook and pushed the huge math book aside so she could rest her elbows on the desk. "You want the short answer, or the long one?" she asked dully.
Owen seemed to debate for a few seconds before answering, "The long one. Start at the beginning."
Sierra tilted her head slightly. "Do you want the beginning, like the beginning of the incident? Like the beginning of a movie? Or the beginning-beginning, like the movie prequel?" she asked, partially to be difficult and partially to get out of telling him too many details.
Owen sighed, knowing what she was doing. "The prequel. And don't leave anything out or sugarcoat it. I want the full story."
Sierra sighed in defeat, hanging her head for a moment before lifting it. When she started talking she avoided looking into the camera or at her brother's face.
"Okay, so, last night my mother worked another late shift at the bar." she started. "And I got woken up when she came home…with another friend."
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Owen grimace. He was well aware that her mother, Jessica, liked to bring home guys she picked up at the bar during the months her husband was deployed. It wasn't exactly a secret. Just like it wasn't a secret that their father, Nathan, had affairs while stationed or deployed. That was how the two met, after all. When Nathan was married to Sophie, Owen's mom, he slept around while away and ended up getting Jessica pregnant, resulting in a messy divorce and custody battle.
"So, their…loud activities woke me up and I couldn't fall back to sleep." Sierra went on. "When they finally stopped it was probably close to…three in the morning? When it was quiet again I thought I could fall asleep. And I started to doze off…Then someone came into my room."
If she dared look at her brother's face, she knew he wouldn't look happy.
"I was half-asleep, so it didn't completely register with me…until someone climbed into my bed behind me."
She was pretty sure she heard something break on Owen's end, but she ignored it. He was about to get even angrier.
"I…freaked out. I jumped out of my bed and spun around and…there's this stranger…a completely naked man that smells like booze and my mom's perfume…laying in my bed."
Sierra swallowed a lump in her throat before continuing. "I ran to my mom's room. I jumped on her bed and woke her up. I was freaking out and I told her what happened. She was tired and cranky from a long night at work, and she just kinda…brushed it off." Sierra admitted with a shrug. "She told me I was overreacting, and basically that it's perfectly normal for a girl my age to have sex."
"You're twelve." Owen spat, his face red and jaw clenched. "And it wouldn't have been sex, that's rape."
Sierra shrugged again, hugging herself with her arms, hands clenched around her upper arms as if that would keep her together. "The guy followed me into my mom's room, my comforter wrapped around his waist," she added with a disgusted grimace, "and my mom basically told him she was going back to sleep and that he either could get back in bed with her or leave. Then she told me to go back to bed. There wasn't much else I could do, so…I just went back to my room. But I was paranoid and pushed almost every piece of heavy furniture I could in front of my door to keep everyone out. And there was no way I was sleeping in that bed after he…I ended up sleeping in my closet." she admitted. "But I still couldn't really sleep. Every little sound had me thinking he was coming back into my room. Probably about the time I managed to fall asleep it was time to get up and get ready for school. I probably should've taken a personal day or something, but I just wanted to get out of the house and away from them.
"But at school…I was exhausted and distracted. The day kinda passed in a daze. I can't really remember most of it. So of course at least one teacher noticed something was up. Next thing I know I'm in the school counselor's office and she's pulling the whole story from me."
Sierra looked down in shame. She was normally better at keeping her family problems separate from her school life. But the last few years that was becoming harder and harder. And today she'd been so tired and upset by what had happened that it just came spilling out of her.
"Hey, that's a good thing." Owen assured her gently. "Maybe they'll finally do something. It's about time someone besides me stepped in."
"Well, they ended up making it worse." Sierra muttered bitterly.
"What do you mean?" Owen asked warily.
"Remember how I said Mom brought the guy home last night? Well, turns out Dad got back from his deployment yesterday. But of course, he didn't actually come home until today. With lots of lipstick marks on his shirts." she added wryly.
Owen snorted. "I swear he does that on purpose at this point."
"Probably. But that also means he was home when the school called about the whole thing. I think they were looking more into it before deciding if they needed to get CPS involved."
Owen's eyes widened slightly.
"So, when I came home from school, he wasn't very happy." Sierra admitted, almost hoping her voice was too quiet to hear. "It sounds like he was able to smooth-talk them into believing that I like to make up stories to get attention, due to him not being home a lot because of the Air Force. Fairly believable, I suppose."
"You mean that's it?" Owen asked incredulously. "A story about attention-seeking and they just drop it?"
Sierra shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure if they're going to look into it anymore. I guess I'll find out tomorrow when I get to school."
"So, what about the black eye?" Owen asked warily.
"Oh, that." Sierra spoke as if she'd almost forgotten about what started this whole conversation. "Well, like I said, Dad wasn't very happy with me, saying I was embarrassing him and that I shouldn't be spreading lies and nonsense to people outside of our family. One thing lead to another, we argued, and…he punched me in the face."
It was dead silent for several moments, Owen's face void of emotion.
"He hit you?" Owen repeated quietly. He leaned forward on his elbows, cupping his hands in front of his mouth as he stared blankly in thought. "Has this happened before?" he asked. "Has he hit you before?"
Sierra didn't answer. She just averted her eyes, which was answer enough.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Owen asked, emotion starting to come back into his voice. "You knew he hit me before. You knew I'd understand."
It was true. Their father had hit Owen once when he was a teenager. But Owen had hit back and it never happened again. Why go against someone in a fair fight? That wasn't exactly their father's style.
"There was no point. You're too far away to do anything about it. I didn't want to worry you." Sierra answered.
"Just because I'm at sea doesn't mean I don't need to know. Tomorrow at school tell your counselor that your dad hit you and that you don't feel safe. Maybe they'll get you out of there."
Sierra was already shaking her head before he'd finished his sentence. "No. I can't. I only have…six years before I turn 18 and can get out of here. If I tell anyone, they'll put me in foster care. I can't go into foster care, it would be worse than here with them."
"I think that's a bit of an exaggeration." Owen countered reasonably.
Sierra gave him a look. "81% of girls in foster care reported being sexually abused. Plus, teenagers in foster care account for less than 10% of all adoptions."
Owen stared at her for a long moment. "That can't all be true." he whispered, barely loud enough for her to hear him.
"I looked it all up on the internet. I fell down the rabbit hole." she admitted, a bit sheepishly. It had started with a simple internet search about foster care and she ended up with more information than she ever wanted.
Owen was once again silent, which was rarely a good sign. He normally couldn't shut up. He was always talking and joking. But now he was silent and serious.
"Maybe I can do something about that." he finally said.
"What do you mean?" Sierra asked curiously.
"Well, that was part of the reason I called. I wanted to let you know that my contract is up in a few months." Owen grinned. "This was my last deployment. I'll be finishing up my contract on my home base for the next few months."
"That's great." Sierra grinned. "You're not going to renew your contract?" This was already his second contract with the Navy. She'd figured he'd make a career out of it like their father, who'd been in the Air Force for almost 30 years. Of course, Owen actively tried to not be like their father. He actually chose to join the Navy because their father was always trash talking the Navy when they were growing up. So it was a bit of a dig. Plus he could do more work with animals in the Navy than the Air Force.
"Nah. I've been in it for almost ten years. I figure it's time for something new." Owen decided. "And I've already got a few job offers for when I'm out. And one of them sounds pretty cool, actually. I'm looking forward to looking more into it."
"What is it?" Sierra asked eagerly.
Owen smirked. "I'll keep that to myself for right now. Just in case I decide to go with something else. But what I was getting at is that this might be the solution we need."
"What do you mean?" Sierra asked in confusion.
"Well, you were just pointing out that if you went into foster care it would be unlikely you would get adopted. But that wouldn't be a problem if I adopt you."
Sierra stared blankly at him for a long moment. "Wait-what?"
"Well, if we can make a case that you're being neglected and physically and emotionally abused, not to mention strange men spending the night, it shouldn't be too hard to get you out of there. And it's not unheard of for older siblings to get custody of younger siblings. Especially since I'm 15 years older than you, so it's not like I just turned 18 or anything. And courts usually prefer to keep families together when they can, so they'd probably prefer I get custody of you as opposed to putting you with a foster family."
Sierra narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. "You seem to know an awful lot about this." she pointed out warily.
Owen grinned sheepishly. "You're not the only one who tends to fall down the rabbit hole."
Sierra snorted, trying to smother a grin. Then she sobered up again. "You don't have to, Owen. Taking in a teenager would really cramp your style." she pointed out lightly, offering him a way out of this suggestion.
"I'm not worried about that." Owen assured her. "Honestly, I was looking this stuff up before I even turned 18." he admitted. "After the way I grew up, with my parents' divorce and custody battle, and then the few times I stayed with Dad and Jessica after you were born,…I didn't want you to have to go through the same crap. I mean, let's be honest. Dad and Jessica's marriage was doomed from the beginning."
He had a point. Their dad, Nathan Grady, had dated Sophie, Owen's mom, while in high school before going into basic training for the Air Force. When he got back it was to Sophie telling him that she was three months pregnant, from just before he went to basic training. They had a shotgun wedding and moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, since Nathan was first based in Tullahoma. He was obviously away a lot, being based in a different town and then getting deployed for months on end. Sophie tried to attend college while basically raising Owen by herself, but she couldn't manage it, and she had no family nearby to help her out. Owen and Sierra both figured it put a strain on her emotional state, being stuck at home as a sort of homemaker instead of pursuing a career like she wanted. Especially since Nathan got to have his dream career and move up the ladder in the Air Force.
Then, of course Nathan felt the need to "sow his wild oats", probably due to having to get married young to basically the second woman he'd ever been with. So while deployed he had a tendency to sleep around.
Which is eventually where Sierra's mother, Jessica, came in.
He had a brief affair with Jessica while on deployment out of state and got her pregnant. Owen and Sierra weren't sure of the details, but they were pretty certain Jessica bribed or forced him into divorcing Sophie to marry her. Maybe she threatened to drown him in child support or something?
When Owen's words registered in Sierra's mind, she frowned. "Wait, you were looking into all this before you turned 18?" she repeated.
Owen shrugged. "Like I said, I didn't want you to go through all this crap. But you were a toddler at the time, and I wasn't sure I could take care of you any better than they could. And the selfish part of me just wanted to get out and get away from the rest of the family. But now, you're basically a teenager, I'm 27 and have plenty of money saved up and a couple great new career options ahead of me. I can at least look into it. Barry's sister does some work in family court, so I could ask him to get me in touch with her and see what I can figure out."
Sierra swallowed the lump in her throat, her eyes burning. She could always count on Owen; she'd known that from a very young age. Despite the huge age gap and having different mothers, he was still her big brother. And he'd always gone out of his way to make sure she knew that.
"You don't have to." she tried one more time, just in case.
"Too bad. I want to." he countered confidently, making the knot in Sierra's chest loosen. "What I need you to do is collect evidence. Take pictures of that bruise, talk to your counselor about any abuse and make sure they keep track of it. If you can think of any witnesses, or any time you've had to go to the hospital because of all this, get records of that. If the counselor or CPS thinks you need to be removed from the home, make sure they know I'm looking into getting custody of you, and if you need to, make sure they know I'm Navy and if you get mistreated or abused while in a foster home, I will become their worst nightmare."
Sierra grinned weakly at the last phrase. "Okay. I will. Owen?"
"Yeah?"
"The reason I quit soccer was because last time Dad was home…well, I got a couple bruises on my ribs. I didn't want to risk the other girls seeing while in the locker-room."
She peaked up from where she'd been staring at her keyboard. She could tell his jaw was clenched, his face turning a bit red. Finally, he swallowed and relaxed a bit.
"Collect evidence. Talk to your counselor. I'll talk to Barry tonight about contacting his sister as soon as possible. I'll work as fast as I can." he swore.
Sierra nodded in agreement. "I will. I love you."
"Love you, too, Shortie."
AN: Hi! Hope you all liked this prologue. It's been a while since I posted a story on this site; well, it at least feels like it to me. I wanted to make sure I would actually finish this story before I posted anything. If all goes well, and this story receives a positive reaction, it might become a trilogy later on to go with the Jurassic World movies.
This first chapter takes place in 2011, which was noted at the beginning of the chapter, and will go through the first JW movie, so about four years crammed into this story with a few time-jumps along the way.
If there's any confusion/questions regarding Owen and Sierra's parents, let me know. I borrowed some of the information about Owen's parents from the Jurassic Park Wiki page, such as their names, but other than that I took a lot of creative liberties.
Let me know what you all thought in the reviews! Thank you!
