DISCLAIMER – Not mine.

A/N – More action this time around, and more of the other characters. Although, again, I'm not massively pleased with this chapter, it is keeping my mind off the essay I should be writing. Oops...

P.S. Thanks to reviewers again, and readers who don't review – it's so easy, and I would very much appreciate your continued support. Plus, this essay is a nightmare, so any excuse to ignore it for half an hour longer...

Abby stood nervously beside her flatmate, wishing that she could do more to help. A part of her wanted to protest at not going with Cutter and Stephen, but someone needed to stay behind and protect the others. She gripped her gun tightly. Against a monster that big, she doubted it would be much use, but somehow the cold steel was reassuring.

"They'll be alright, Abby."

She smiled at Connor. Just like him to have a random sweet moment. "Yeah."

"Did you find out what was up with Rex?"

It was an obvious attempt to take her mind off their current situation, but she let him get away with it. The little lizard had been uncharacteristically aggressive of late. Connor knew, despite his own reservations about keeping the little green guy, that Abby loved him. He had once compared her fascination with Rex to his own love for Star Trek – quite a concession for him, she knew.

"I think he wants a friend." Abby waggled her eyebrows. "Come on, let's find out where our soldier boys are."

Connor produced his mobile, and awkwardly dialled Jenny Lewis' number. She had curtly informed that team that morning that they need not stop for her – she would travel with Captain Foster and his men. He wondered absentmindedly if they would have stopped for her at all. The PR professional had a bad habit of getting in the way, even as she helped smooth over some very tricky situations.

"Lewis."

"Um – hi, yeah..."

"I haven't got all day."

Connor winced. "We were kind of wondering where you are?"

Her terse reply was snapped back at him. Abby eavesdropped as best she could while trying to keep both eyes on the utahraptor. Their transport had apparently crashed into the central reservation on the motorway. They might have been able to get away with simply driving on, had they not been right behind a police car. Jenny didn't elaborate any further, but judging by the tone of her voice, Abby guessed that their explanations had fallen flat. She assumed they'd called someone to vouch for them. Whatever the problem was, it wasn't big enough to stop Foster and Lewis from reaching Brecombe.

"It's just that this could get a bit nasty." Connor said.

A pregnant pause followed. "How nasty?"

At the other end of the phone, Jenny Lewis tried to think of something she had done to deserve this. And would it kill him to give me a firm answer? she thought with sudden venom. I should quit and move somewhere sane. Or take a holiday. Somewhere with no lizards, no snakes, no giant worms that spit god-knows-what at you. Yes, she decided, that sounds rather nice.

Connor explained as best he could, given how nervous Jenny made him. After a heavy sight, she gave an ETA, and hung up without another word. In Brecombe, Connor stared at the phone and shrugged.

"She was her usual charming self." Abby said.

He shrugged. "She seems OK to me."

"Yeah, 'cause you fancy her."

"I do not."

"I see the way you look at her."

"I think you're mistaking me for Cutter."

They giggled nervously, glad that he couldn't hear them. Abby squinted out of the window, focusing on their teammates, who were slowly advancing towards the creature. Their guns were loaded and aimed. She wondered why they weren't firing. It was then that she spotted the other dinosaur.

Stephen's steps were slow but steady. The speculative warning shots had done nothing except alert the creature to their presence. He had been doing this long enough now for these things to be second nature. It no longer felt strange to be stalking a four-foot tall dinosaur from the Jurassic period. Which was in itself, he had to admit, very strange. He steadied the gun in his hands. They had no real idea how fast this creature could move, but if it was anything like the velociraptors, it wouldn't give them much chance to act.

"Alright." Nick said, softly. "Stop."

They stood far close to the creature than either of them really wanted to be. The concrete outbuilding was close now. Stephen squinted in that direction, mindful of the killer prowling in front of him. His eyes widened.

"Cutter." Nick followed his lab tech's line of sight. Just visible, in the murky glass of the concrete hut's only window, was a small, worried face. "Could be Rachel." Stephen said.

"Aye."

They readied themselves to fire, when their prey looked up. It made a shrill noise, and turned around to face the small clutch of trees in the middle of the field. Nick saw what it was responding to. That thing has to be twelve feet tall!

"This day just keeps getting better." Stephen muttered.

"If we stay still – maybe it won't try to eat us."

"You know, I never get tired of hearing that."

Nick grinned. "Hey, if we're really lucky, we might even get to keep all our limbs."

The larger utahraptor leant its head back and screeched. Its offspring loped across the field towards the trees. The two men breathed a heavy sigh of relief, tinged with regret. If they had tried to stop the juvenile, the parent would probably have attacked. They edged carefully towards the concrete hut. A young woman burst out of it, dirty and terrified. She launched herself at Stephen, who stumbled back in surprise.

"Oh God, what the bloody hell was that?" she sobbed.

"Rachel?"

The young woman released Stephen, and nodded. She wiped her eyes on the edges of her dirty sleeves. "Yes. You must be the people investigating –well – that." She said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. "What is it?"

Stephen exchanged a darkly amused glance with Cutter, who took over. "It's a dinosaur. From the Cretaceous period."

"Right."

Rachel stalked off in towards the road, having decided that these people were clearly insane. She recognized her cousin's police car, and started to run. Nick chased after her. If the raptors decided to pay attention, they were all going to be in very big trouble. Stephen, for his part, kept half an eye on the killing machines in the trees behind them.