Have fun with this one guys! Thanks to all my readers, reviewers and followers!
Disclaimer: I still don't own Jurassic Park/World and all OC's with the exception of Kavita belong to Macx.
When Owen got back from Winston's the pack were waiting for him eagerly. Owen opened the paddock, got his bike and rifles and they set of for the restricted area. The girls hunted eagerly, while Owen made a circular route to check on some of his cameras.
Luckily most of them seemed to be in good shape so far. When he finally stopped in one of their usual camping spots, Blue presented him with two wild chickens.
A meal, she projected at him humorously.
Owen laughed and rubbed her snout, affectionately.
"That teaches us both to bet huh?"
Blue huffed imperiously then rubbed against him before dashing off into the forest to hunt for herself. Owen spent the remainder of the time plucking the wild chickens until the girls came back, sated with food and ready for the run back.
He stowed the chickens in a compartment on his bike and then hopped on. But before he started up the engine, he frowned and his brow creased. There was an odd pressure for a moment, something that reminded him of the Indominus. But it was gone after a second. He blinked, projected a question at Blue and tilted his head while he concentrated to see if he could pick up anything again.
After ten minutes however, he admitted defeat and left. Either he was tired and it was just one more thing he might have to dealt with after having overstretched himself, or it was something else. He'd ask Claire when he got back.
Blue agreed. She hadn't caught the weird pressure but neither of them felt like taking any chances.
When he got back to the cabin, he called Claire.
"Claire," he said when she answered, "I was out in the restricted area today and just for a second I felt something, similar to the Indominous. Please tell me the labs have not made anything else."
There was a moment of shocked silence and then Claire said, "No. No. Of course not, Owen. We've all learnt our lesson."
"Do you think I imagined it?"
"I wouldn't know," Claire said, briskly, "But I will get Carter and Masrani to run a check to ensure that no one is building anything they shouldn't."
"Thank you," he said.
"No, thank you," she said, "NO one wants another incident." With that she hung up with purpose. Owen blinked at his phone and then decided he was glad he wasn't going to be on the other side of that tone.
He looked at the pack who were waiting silently. "That's as much as we can do for now," he said to them. Then he took stock of their muddied and bloodied condition and went for the hose.
By the time he got back, they were jockeying for position for who would get sprayed first. He waited patiently for them to figure it out and then commenced with the spraying.
Thursday dawned bright and insufferably hot. The girls were tucked in the shady places of the paddock and showed absolutely no inclination to move. Owen sympathized. He didn't want to move much either. Kavita showed up to the paddock with a sweatband and a hat, along with a vest and thin over-shirt.
She was also entirely too perky with regards to the heat. She laughed at Owen's expression when she skipped over.
"I grew up in the tropics," she explained, cheerfully, "So the heat doesn't bother me so much. At least it's not humid though."
"The tropics?" Owen questioned as they made their way up to the catwalks.
"Yeah, I'm a Caribbean gyal, you know."
"No," said Owen pausing on the steps and looking at her, "No I did not know."
"Really?" she said, "Yeah, I am. Trinidad and Tobago. Home of Carnival and soca and steelpan. Land of the Hummingbird and all that."
"Last of the islands, right?" Owen asked as he struggled to remember his geography.
"That's right," she agreed with a nod.
"How did you end up with an internship here?" he asked her.
"Masrani Global," she said stressing the 'global', "They actually do, do worldwide, instead of just pretending to."
"Huh," said Owen, "I guess they do."
"Yeah, so the weather isn't so bad for me," she said cheerfully. "It'd be awesome if we got some breeze."
Owen gave her a look that channeled some of Blue's displeasure. "I don't think any amount of breeze will make this feel better."
Kavita laughed again. "So what are we doing today?"
"Today," Owen says, "Is to make sure that the raptors stay healthy. Temperature is a little over 102 and we have to ensure that they stay cool. They're similar to reptiles which means they derive their body temperature from the environment. Too much heat is bad. We actually can't do any training or hunting today because it's too warm and we could make them ill. With that virus going around, I don't want to chance weakening their immune systems."
Kavita nodded solemnly.
"Good. Now listen carefully. The heat is going to make them cranky so take especial care when you're dealing with them."
She nodded again, face still serious and Owen was glad. He himself was a little on edge, the pack's crankiness throbbing through the bond. He was exerting himself a bit to ensure that the girls didn't begin to snap at each other.
The morning passed fairly well. He and Kavita worked in silence, to spray down raptors as well as the walls of the paddock to keep them from retaining too much heat and cooking the raptors inside. The only time they spoke was when a rare breeze blew bringing with it the scent of steamed greenery, and then the rich, brine-y scent of mangrove and behind that the scent of the ocean.
Kavita had tilted her face up, into the wind, breathing in deeply and Owen was struck by the homesickness that has flashed across her face for a second.
"Homesick?" he'd asked.
"Mmm, yeah," she'd answered, eyes closed, head still tilted up, "I lived near the mangrove so the scent is like home. And I've always loved the sea."
Then she'd gotten back to work humming under her breath something that sounded like soca. Not that Owen was any judge because soca just wasn't his genre.
In fact, she'd kept up the humming, which Echo admitted was rather soothing, and Blue found tolerable, all through the rest of the morning, switching from tune to tune effortlessly. All the music she chose was light, with a wild, bouncy beat, but airy enough to make you think of white shores and crisp blue waves.
The pack allowed them to spray them down with good grace and then made mud puddles into which they sank gratefully into and refused to move, the cool mud coating their skin and keeping the heat off.
Owen and Kavita also somehow got mysteriously wet themselves, from head to toe. Fifteen minutes later though, they were practically dry again. They worked in inventory, checking security of the paddock, ensuring that surrounding bush was far back enough from the paddock in the event of bush fires, which had a nasty habit of springing up practically anywhere. It didn't help that Isla Nublar was volcanic in nature which meant a lot of the soil had some sulphur, mostly up in the hills, but there were sometimes little deposits that, in extreme heat, sparked a fire. In fact, they used the hose to wet down the surrounding brush until it was time for lunch.
The raptors peeled themselves out of their mudpits for lunch and when they were fed, Owen sent Kavita off for hers, whist he retreated to the cabin and dived for the fan.
The jeep announced Kavita's return to the paddock in an hour. Owen was out on the porch reading the book he'd gotten from Masrani. She waved to him and headed off to the paddock to clean out the remains of the pack's lunch.
Blue watched the human girl through the bars of the paddock. She worked industriously, but something in her manner was off. She was bothered about something. Her shoulders were tight with tension, and her head kept twisting for her to stare off into the distance.
The temperature was noticeably cooler, the weather having made one of its rapid switches. So, the human wasn't bothered by the heat. No, it was something else. She'd been happy earlier, now she was wary, watchful, like a creature that is being stalked but cannot see it's predator.
She paused by the bars, crouching to push some of the bones into the bag. Blue stalked over to her and pushed against the bars. She jumped back and Blue caught a satisfactory spike of fear. This one did not respect them as she ought. Even as Blue watched, the scent of fear faded away and the intern settled back down.
"It's too quiet," she said after a moment to Blue. "Something is wrong. It's too quiet, except that it isn't and…!" she broke off in frustration. "It's like feeling the pressure drop in the atmosphere. You know a storm is coming even though you can't see it."
She tilted her head and looked Blue square in the eyes. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
Blue did, somewhat. She remembered what it felt like when the Indominus was in the island, the strange pressure it had put on her alpha. She remembered how he had known that there was something wrong even though he could not see it. She supposed it was something like this.
Blue huffed. She did not like this girl who did not fear them enough, could not fear them enough to respect them, but she did know. Kavita sat back on her haunches and exhaled.
"I really, really hope I'm just imaging all this," she said. Then she was moving, finishing up in her work. Blue watched her for a moment and then projected her unease to Owen.
Owen caught the unease from Blue, and frowned. His intern was worried about something. She did not know what she was worried about. Owen did not like that. Carter and Claire had both been sending him updates about the lab inspections, but so far everyone was clean.
His phone chimed with another incoming email and Owen opened it up to see that it was a lab report of the blood work up's of the babies. He'd asked to be kept in the loop about it and Gary had agreed. He settled in to read it, nodding absently to Kavita as she walked past.
He was halfway through the lab analysis when he heard Kavita's voice, sounding puzzled and angry.
"Hey you! What are you doing here? This area is off-limits!"
Owen looked up from his phone to see Kavita walking up to what appeared to be yet another enterprising tourist who had apparently hiked his way to the paddock.
"Do they never learn?!" Owen hissed under his breath as he stormed off the porch and over to the guy. Before he'd gotten a few steps though, the guy reached into his pocket, pulled out a somewhat oval object, pulled the pin on the end and tossed it towards the paddock.
Owen felt like time slowed as he watched the grenade fly towards his pack. He was moving even though he knew he wouldn't reach there fast enough. Kavita was closer than he was though and she was also in motion. She ran and then parkoured partway up the paddock wall. Unfortunately, she wasn't fast enough to bat away the grenade entirely. The tips of her fingers brushed it just enough for the grenade to spin to the side instead of landing inside the paddock. The grenade blasted the paddock's gate open.
Owen, Kavita and the not-tourist were thrown back by the explosion. Owen struggled to his feet a few moments later his thought frantically searching for the pack.
We're here, Blue told him, We are unhurt, save for the noise.
He could feel their confusion as the sound from the grenade echoed in their ears. He rushed towards the paddock noting Kavita was starting to move from where she'd been thrown. The curvature of the paddock wall had apparently saved her from the full effects of the blast. The not!tourist was running away as fast as he could.
He wouldn't get far Owen thought grimly. He had just reached the jagged hole which had once been the paddock's gate when a searing pain went through his head. Owen stumbled to his knees in shock. There were faint echoes of the pack's distress and then nothing, but bands of pain spiking into his skull.
He was roused to awareness, by someone talking frantically above him. He opened his eyes, not sure when he'd closed them or when he'd laid down. He caught glimpse of a woman above him, though he couldn't seem to focus on her properly.
"Owen, paddock, hurt, medic," were the only words that he made out before he sank back into buzzing pain.
"Owen! Owen!" A voice called faintly. Then there was the rough feel of scales and hot breath over his face. The next sound he heard was the cocking of a rifle and it was alarming enough that he tried to drag himself out of the painful fugue but the effort dropped him even further into the arms of the pain.
He fought his way out again enough to hear the roar of a motorbike, his motorbike, some part of his brain noted and then another spike of pain rolled over him and sent him into unconsciousness.
Thoughts guys?