Author's Note
I am so, so sorry. I know a lot of you must be hating me right now, making you wait like this. I completely forgot about updating and I'm sorry I'm late. It's past midnight where I am and I was supposed to update Sunday. I kinda got wrapped up in my new PS4 and the adventures of Nathan Drake. Uncharted is an awesome game series and I'm having a hard time putting it down. That's no excuse for forgetting to update, though, so I'm doing it now before I go to bed.
So, go onward and enjoy!
Evil
Liv doesn't get the text until much later in the night: Vic is going out to the mainland with his buddies. It makes her both relieved and irritated. Relieved, because it means he and his buddies will probably stay the night on the mainland and there's a good chance she won't see him again until right before she has to go back to Miami. Irritated, because it also means she could have stayed with Owen and the other raptor trainers at The Watering Hole longer if he had just gone sooner.
At least he's responsible enough to let her know he's going to be gone though.
But, hey, she has a worry-free night, so she takes advantage. She takes a very long, very hot shower and then ques up a movie in the living room, relaxing in a way she so rarely can while at Vic's place. She doesn't have to speak and act as if she's walking on nails, like any wrong move will leave her bleeding. She can just be, for a little while, and she quickly finds herself growing sleepy from the feeling of absolute peace. At around ten she decides to call it quits and heads to bed, hoping for a restful night.
She doesn't get one.
The labs of Jurassic World are cold, sterile, lacking all warmth or joy for a place whose sole purpose is to create new life. And it is new, in every sense of the word. The dinosaurs the scientists create are not the same dinosaurs that walked the earth millions of years ago. These ones are altered, each and every one of them, in some way or another, splicing genes of different modern animals in order to fill in the gaps of the genomes they find. The dinosaurs Masrani has commissioned them to create are not purebred. All of them are hybrids, mutants.
But their newest creations. They are true hybrids, beings the world has never seen before in all its years, beings man has made, not God. And they are about to awaken.
Dr. Wu watches the two eggs with proud expectation. They have been jiggling around on the table for several minutes now but neither of thedinosaurs have broken the shell yet. However, it is only a matter of time. These are his finest creations, the accumulation of all his research, his life's work. Everything he's ever learned and discovered about genes are amassed into these two eggs.
And they will be beautiful, ferocious.
Indomitable.
The Indominus Rex.
The first egg breaks, a tiny, clawed hand slipping out. The second egg breaks, finding it more difficult than her sister. The first hatchling then widens the hole she created, and in that hole a large, slitted eye blinks, gazing upon the world for the first time.
Liv awakens with a gasp, her eyes flying open to a world of color. The auras are gripping at her, forcing her to see, forcing her mutant abilities to the forefront in a way they never have before. They're pulsing erratically, all of them, human, insect, plant, animal, everyone on some basic level is sensing something whether they consciously notice it or not, some shift in the world, their instincts crying out in horror and fear and only she can hear them. It's a cacophony, like a sharp ringing in her head that doesn't go away even when she covers her ears. It just gets louder and louder, all of the auras getting jumbled, but they speak the same message and it is clear.
Something is not right, not right, not right.
And then a flash of bright red-orange flares in her mind, a new aura, just born, but bursting with intelligence far brighter than should be possible for an animal. And she knows it's an animal based on the color, but it is so disturbingly close to a red human shade that Liv shudders. Another joins it not long after, not as bright, subdued in a way that usually means the animal will one day end up prey.
Their auras both scream wrongness. This is why the world is crying out, these two new lives, and it scares her to her core as she looks upon them.
Because she swears they can see her, too.
Without conscious thought, she moves, throwing herself from her bed. Pulling on a jacket to cover the tank top and flannel pants she wears as pajamas, she quickly grabs only the essentials. The key card for the suite goes between her teeth as she scoops up her VIP bracelet and keys to her ATV, then stuffs all of it in her jacket pocket.
She runs out the door without bothering to lock it, not realizing until she's halfway down the stairs that the rhythmic slaps of skin on metal echoing around her, chasing her, are her bare feet and she forgot shoes. She doesn't care, just keeps running, running from the auras all screaming for her attention, running from the feeling of those eyes on her.
Never has she been more scared in her life, not even of Vic. At least with Vic she knows she'll heal from whatever he does. This…this is something dangerous and powerful enough to scare the entire island. If they can see her, then what will they do if they find her? What will they do to everyone on the island? Based on what she feels, even though they are only babies right now, these new lives will grow to reign sorrow and destruction down on everyone they touch if given the chance. They're not looking upon the world with innocent curiosity. Even a Velociraptor comes into the world unable to hurt a fly. But these creatures, they're wondering if the world will break for them. The hostility they're giving off absolutely terrifies her, enough to where if Vic had been home she would have been very close to seeking him out for comfort.
But he's not home. She's alone, so she hops on her ATV, revs the vehicle to life, and speeds down the service road to the only person she's ever felt safe with.
She doesn't know what time it is but it's still night out, the darkness appearing ominous beyond the reach of the headlights, as if those two new auras are right behind a tree instead of halfway across the island. Every swaying branch, every shifting shadow, is some monster trying to grab her and she swerves along the road. The tears blurring her eyes aren't helping either. She tries to blink them away but more come.
The screams are starting to hurt. All of the dinosaurs are awake now, she can see their auras moving around in the paddocks, unable to lay still and sleep with the threat of this new, unknown danger looming over them. They're all too afraid and their fear is just feeding her own.
It's the longest twenty minutes of her life, the drive out to Owen's bungalow, but she makes it, skidding to a stop in his yard and flying towards his trailer door, practically running into it. She bangs on it with her fist, over and over again.
"Alright, alright, I'm coming," Owen's muffled voice filters out through the door, sounding groggy from lack of sleep, but she still doesn't stop knocking until the door actually opens.
Owen has been tossing and turning all night, something not sitting right in the back of his head. His father always said Owen has really good instincts, he always knew when a bad storm was coming, always knew when it was best to get the horses into their stables and knew how long they had before it hit. It feels a lot like that now, like something is brewing just over the horizon and it's coming right for them. The question is, when?
And will he be able to keep those who matter to him safe?
Incessant knocking on his front door pulls him from his thoughts and he groans, looking at the clock. It's 3:30 in the morning and he hasn't slept a wink. This better be an emergency or he's going to feed whoever it is to the raptors.
He rolls out of bed, pulling up sweatpants over his boxers and tugging a t-shirt on. The banging has yet to let up, a constant thumping like stampeding Gallimimuses, and it's combining with his tiredness to give him a headache.
"Alright, alright, I'm coming," he grumbles, trying to get them to stop as he shuffles his way towards the door but whoever it is just keeps going. He opens the door and leans against it, trying to will his exhausted mind to cooperate. He scratches the back of his head and blearily peers down at Liv, also in her pajamas, and looking like she's running from the T-Rex. "Liv, what are you-oof!"
Liv crashes into him, wrapping her skinny arms around his middle like her life depends on it. He just stands there for a minute, arms hovering around her as he tries to understand what's going on, but then he realizes she's shaking. No, not just shaking, the front of his shirt is getting wet, her tears forming a cold patch on his chest. He wraps his arms around her, holding her close and making soothing sounds in her ear. He tries not to panic but his heart is racing, mind instantly going to all the worst places.
Why is Liv crying? Why did she come all the way out here in the middle of the night? Did Vic do something to her? Has he hurt her?
If Vic has been hurting her, all this time, and this is Liv coming clean, he's going to hogtie him and feed him to the raptors himself.
"Liv," Owen says calmly, taking her by the shoulders and pushing her away a little so he can see her face. It's tear-stained, her eyes red around the edges and still leaking. "Liv, honey, I need you to tell me what's wrong, okay? Why are you so upset?" She takes in a few sobbing breaths, trying to calm herself down but it's not working very well. He cups her face between his hands, stroking her tears away with his thumbs. "It's okay, honey. You're safe here; you're safe with me. You can tell me."
She closes her eyes, gripping his wrists in her hands, and then says, "Nightmare." She takes in a deep, steadying breath and opens her eyes. There's such deep, dark fear in them, he can see it clearly even though she's only illuminated by moonlight. "I-I had a nightmare."
Owen understands she's still just a kid, but can a single nightmare really make her this scared?
"Where's your dad?" Owen asks. "Did you tell him about it?" She shakes her head. "Did he say you could come out here?"
"He's not at home," she says quietly. "He went with his buddies out to the mainland."
He can tell that's definitely the truth and he releases the breath he didn't know he'd been holding. So this isn't really Vic's doing. Though, if he has been abusing Liv then there could be some really deep mental scars that could cause night terrors. He wipes a hand roughly over his face. This is so messed up. A part of him wishes this had been about Vic and he could finally get Liv away from him, but he can't, she's still stuck with that worthless father of hers who's probably abusing her. And apparently thinks it's okay to leave a fourteen-year-old girl alone on an island full of dinosaurs. This is his custody weekend. If he's not going to take care of her, then why does he insist on her still visiting him instead of just letting her mom have full custody?
But that's not important right now. Liv is important. She's had a nightmare, she's scared, and she has no one else to turn to.
Except him. She came to him.
He puts an arm around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze. "Come on. Let's get you inside."
When Liv takes the first step to walk over the bungalow's threshold she hisses in pain, realizing for the first time that her feet hurt. There's a stinging pain in both of them and now that she's noticed the pain flares in intensity.
"What's wrong?" Owen asks worriedly, looking her over for signs of injury.
"My feet," she says, taking another limping step and this time has to bite down on her lip to keep from crying out. "They hurt real bad."
His eyes go down and then widen. "Jeez, Liv, you came out here without any shoes?" Before she can take another step he lifts her up into his arms, one around her shoulders, the other beneath her knees, and looks at the floor just inside his doorway. "Crap, there's blood."
In two long strides Owen carries her to the dining area and carefully sets her on top of the table with her legs dangling over the side. He turns on the lights and Liv raises a hand to shield her face, squinting against the sudden brightness.
In the light she can now see a smudge of red on the side of her right foot.
Owen kneels down to get a better look, gently lifting her foot with a hand at the back of her ankle. He winces in sympathy. "Yeah, that's pretty bad." He inspects the left one and shakes his head. "They're both scratched up pretty good, there's a lot of dirt, too, but your right foot has something stuck in it. It looks like a sliver of wood, maybe a small stick."
Well, that explains the stabbing pain. She breathes in deeply through her nose, trying to keep herself calm. And her body from automatically healing itself. She needs to get Owen to stop looking at her feet as fast as possible before he notices any of the wounds starting to close up. The easiest way to do that would probably be to just let him take care of them right away and besides, she needs that stick to come out so that wound can heal too.
But what if she can't keep from healing and he notices?
She grips the side of the table in determination. "Just make it quick."
"Liv, you need a doctor," he insists.
"No!" If she goes to a doctor, especially if it ends up being anyone other than the one who already knows, then her mutant ability will definitely get noticed. Not to mention Vic will definitely find out she hurt herself, which he will not be happy about. "Please, Owen, no doctors. Just…do it yourself. Please."
He sighs deeply, closing his eyes and rubbing a thumb between them, but he nods. "It won't be easy."
"I know." She grips the table more tightly. "Just do it."
She's been through worse before.
"Alright," he says, obviously not happy about it, but he stands to gather supplies, the first aid kit from the bathroom, a bowl filled with warm water, and a couple of towels. He pulls on the latex gloves from the kit and then looks her in the eye. "I don't have anything to numb the pain." He pulls over a chair and sits, lifting her foot to place it on his knee. "This is gonna hurt. A lot."
She nods, wishing to tell him to just hurry up but knowing that won't help anything. Instead, he continues staring at her, gently stroking his fingers along the top of her foot. She's just starting to relax when he suddenly moves, swiftly pulling the stick out before she can register what just happened. The pain spikes and she gasps, closing her eyes tight, but she doesn't make a sound, doesn't even move. She moves herself away from the pain, instead focusing inward on her own aura and trying to keep it from healing.
"Good news, it was small," Owen says and she hears the sound of dripping water and then a wet cloth touches the sole of her foot, stinging slightly as he cleans the wounds. "I don't think you need stitches for anything. I'm just going to clean them, apply some peroxide to keep them from getting infected, and then wrap them up."
She nods to show she understands and just keeps breathing deeply, keeping a tight hold on her aura. It's uncomfortable, not allowing her instincts to react and her body to heal. She's literally suppressing a part of herself and it's difficult, like holding a hunk of ice that keeps trying to slip from her hands. She's never actually done this before, tried to force her own aura to do something for her, though this isn't something she'd normally want to do. She likes being able to heal right away, usually it's a good thing, but right now it's not.
Right now she's struggling between being found out she's a mutant and keeping it all a secret.
She doesn't loosen her hold until gauze is wrapped firmly around both her feet and Owen pats her knee. "All done. It'll take a good week, maybe two, for all of it to heal but there shouldn't be any scarring so long as you take good care of them and don't do too much walking. I'll take another look before you leave tomorrow. Make sure nothing's infected."
Finally letting go, she lets out a relieved sigh, feeling her aura bursting free and acting as it wants to, healing her wounds. "That won't be necessary," she says, the pain already subsiding to an annoying itch. There'll be nothing left but smooth skin in under a minute.
Owen just arches a brow at her as he cleans up, not saying anything, though he doesn't have to. He's going to check on her feet again whether she wants him to or not. Or, at least, he'll try. She'll have to slip away from him somehow because there's no way she's letting him look at her "miraculously" healed feet.
When everything's all packed away, Owen gets her a glass of water and some aspirin to help with the "pain". She takes it dutifully, knowing this little bit won't hurt anything even though she's completely fine now, and only then does he sit back down in the chair in front of her, leaning his forearms on his thighs so he can look up at her and see her face clearly. "So, mind telling me what had you running out here so fast in the middle of the night to where you didn't even bother to put shoes on?"
She looks down at her hands, twisting her fingers together in her lap, and avoiding his eyes. The pain had pushed it to the back of her mind but she can still hear those screams, though they're nowhere near as loud now. The world is quick to adapt, it's necessary, especially out in the wild, but that doesn't mean the auras are calm. They've simply accepted the fact that there is something new and different and dangerous and it isn't going to go away. There's no one to take care of it, no matter how much they cry out.
That doesn't make the fear any less palpable. She can feel it, like a constant pressure at the base of her skull, and it sets her teeth on edge.
"Like I said, it was a nightmare," she says quietly, falling back on her original excuse. She feels a little ashamed, not telling him the truth. Something bad has happened, shouldn't she tell someone? But doing that would mean outing herself as a mutant so she bites her tongue and plays off her shame. If it had just been a nightmare she would feel silly for coming all the way out here to bother Owen in the middle of the night, especially since she hurt herself when there is nothing to really fear. She shakes her head and lets out a puff of air that could almost be called a laugh. "It's stupid. I shouldn't have come."
She tries to slip from the table, moving to leave, but Owen stops her, folding his big hands around hers. "Hey, hey, it's okay. It's not stupid. Nightmares aren't fun no matter how old you are."
She looks up at him, finally meeting his eyes. "Do you ever get nightmares?"
His face falls a little, old hurts and old ghosts shifting in his eyes. "Yeah, I do. Did and saw a lot of bad things while in the Navy. They don't always like to leave me alone at night." He rubs his thumbs across her hands and gives them a squeeze. "Wanna tell me what your nightmare was about?"
She shakes her head. "It's silly, especially compared to the kind of nightmares you must get."
"Hey, don't be like that," he says, voice serious. "Don't compare nightmares. All nightmares are serious, doesn't matter if you're a kid or an adult. It's just that, as an adult, you have a better idea of what it is exactly you're afraid of and not just some mysterious monster under your bed."
She nods thoughtfully, unsure how to proceed. She knows her fear isn't childish since it is very real, not a dream, but she doesn't know how else to tell him about it without giving too much away. "It's not a monster under my bed exactly," she says, thinking each word out carefully before she speaks. "It's more like a monster hiding in the shadows. I couldn't see it, I couldn't even hear it, but I could feel it. I knew it was there, watching me in the darkness. And I know…I knew it wanted to hurt me and the whole island, just to see what would happen if it did."
Owen frowns. "The Velociraptors aren't giving you nightmares, are they? Cause you don't have to work with them if you're scared of them."
"No, no!" she denies vehemently. "No, the raptor squad doesn't scare me, they never have. And, really, I don't even know if it was a dinosaur in my dream, just that it was something…evil."
Although, really, what else could it be but a dinosaur? It's not like there's anything else being born on this island that could be considered unnatural. The scientists here could rival Frankenstein with their genetically modified animals. Things have been fine until now, they only tweaked genetic makeups a little bit, only what was absolutely necessary to make sure the dinosaurs survived. But now they've crossed a line. The only question is, how far past have they gone?
Owen takes her face between his hands, forcing her to look at him. "It'll be okay, Liv, alright? I won't let anything hurt you. I promise."
And he's being completely sincere and honest, not belittling or treating her fears as childish. He thinks this is just a nightmare but he's still taking it seriously, and she wonders, how much does Owen feel of what's going on? Does he know something's wrong? Are his instincts screaming at him? Human instincts aren't anywhere near as sensitive as animals' but that doesn't mean humans are completely oblivious. Does he suspect that there really is something out there that might hurt her?
Would he be able to protect her?
"Can I stay with you tonight?" she whispers.
He smiles softly, brushing hair away from her face and then placing a kiss to the top of her head. "Of course. Come on, let's go crash on the couch. Fall asleep to the T.V."
"Sounds good." Sleep certainly isn't going to come on its own, not after all of that, but maybe it will after a while. She lets Owen pick her up, since she's still supposed to be injured and not walking, and they sit together on the couch, Liv curled into his side.
It's easy to pretend it's safe here, with Owen. He makes her feel like nothing can touch her, like he's standing between her and the world and nothing's ever going to get past him, he won't let it. She knows that's not true, that he can't protect her from everything, maybe not even this looming threat. But she knows he's willing to try and he'll try with everything he has.
Like a parent should.
"Hey, Owen?"
"Yeah, Liv?"
"Thanks. For being here. For doing the things my dad should do."
It's the closest she's come to admitting how she feels, that she wishes he were her dad, that she thinks of him as her dad. She doesn't know if he knows, doesn't know if he feels the same, if he considers her like his daughter, which is why she's always been afraid to voice it, even now still not quite saying it.
But she can hear the way his breath hitches at her words.
He tightens his hold on her. "What your dad does...he's an idiot for treating you like that. You deserve so much more." He places another kiss in her hair. "And I plan on giving you all that I can. Always, okay? I'll always be here for you."
She smiles, snuggling closer. Yeah. Just like a dad.
Author's Note
So, I guess this is technically the start of the movie since the opening scene was of the Indominus Rexes being born but the rest of the movie won't be coming for a few chapters yet. They never say how old the Indominus is when everything happens so I'm kind of making it up.
I love Owen and Liv in this chapter. They're just so cute. And how many of you thought Liv was going to get caught as a mutant? Sorry, but it's not quite yet.
But it is soon. Very soon.
Next chapter will be Tuesday. I promise to actually get it up on the day this time.
Hope you enjoyed, PLEASE REVIEW, and see you all next time!