"Look at me," she growled. Claire tried to drown out what she was saying but the Indominus was the hardest to block out. She was so sharp, so angry that her voice hurt to hear. "When you talk about me, you look at me!"
Masrani only heard the growl. He didn't realise the threat that low little sound contained. It could be worse though, she was behaving today (it, not she, she needed to remember her little mantra) and wasn't just purring like she'd done last week.
Last week when she had tried to break the glass.
She was so smart. When Claire had first heard of her she had hoped she would take after Rexy. For all that Rexy terrified her, she was also calm in a way no other dinosaur on Isla Nublar was. She was ruthless but so very tranquil at the same time, absolutely certain of her place in the world as queen. Rexy wasn't very smart and perhaps that was why but she was never cautious about being around humans, never really aware of them much. The Indominus was. She was aware and so smart that Claire wondered if she had some human in her because of all the creatures on this island she was the only one that realised that Claire could understand what she said. The raptors thought so as well but they didn't really care about it the way she did. Blue, Charlie, Delta and Echo thought Claire was strange and much preferred Owen. They were smart but she wasn't a threat, she wasn't pack and she didn't run nearly fast enough to be good prey and that made her simply backdrop so they didn't care.
The Indominus cared. She was so hungry for attention, so lonely but what was Claire supposed to do, just start talking to her? Go into the paddock and scratch her head? She wasn't a cat, she was practically human. An adult with all the self control of a child, all the killer instinct of a tiger gone mad and all the teeth of a T-Rex.
"I like her spirit." Masrani said and the Indominus fixed an eye upon him.
And that was really the scariest part of it all. Because like Claire understood her, the Indominus could understand humans, all of them.
"I like the smell of your flesh." She told him and Claire pressed her lips together to stop the whimper from leaving her. The slitted eye flicked from Masrani to her and the briefest flash of teeth bared, not in a gesture of threat but in a cruel amused smile, was seen before she disappeared from view, leaving laughter in her wake.