ADAPTATIONS

18 – A Threat and a Promise

The next day, Pet and entourage decided to leave early as Grant and Billy chose to leave later. There were still some things they needed to do at the museum and business to discuss.

When the two scientists arrived back at the dig site, it was nightfall. Muldoon and Derek had were in the bunkroom and its door closed. Pet couldn't tell if they were asleep or not and didn't bother knocking to find out. She was enjoying the peace and quiet without Derek there to pester her or talk her ears off about something. Instead, the hybrid was stretched across her bed and reading a magazine article on skin care. It was something she never thought about, but since she figured she would be wearing makeup more often, now, decided to look into it before she ended up with a mass acne breakout.

She saw Billy approaching Quarantine through the cracks in her bedroom blinds and quietly opened the front door for him. He was a little thrown off by this and was about to ask her what was going on when she hushed him with a hand over his mouth. "The others are getting ready for bed," Pet said. There was a sly smile on her lips as she led him to her bedroom and closed the door behind them.


Rattling of pots and pans in the kitchen startled Billy awake. He blinked his groggy eyes and wiped the sleep out of them. He noticed it was morning and that Grant must be awake. Then it hit him. This wasn't his room. This wasn't his bed...and that wasn't his boss flinging around a slew of profane words when shoving disorganized pots and pans back into the cabinet, but Muldoon. Oh…shit. Recalling the memories of the night before led him to where he was now and dread churned his gut. He rolled his hazel eyes to glance behind him and met the half lidded blue-green eyes of Veronica.

Pet ran a hand down the man's bare back where angry red welts streaked across his upper back from the night before. After arriving back to the dig site, the night had taken an interesting turn. At least for her anyway. She wasn't so sure about him, especially now given the look of panic in his eyes. Pet sat up, keeping the bed sheet around her shoulders, and studied the man.

Billy looked from her and to the collection of their clothes strewn about the floor around the bed. That's what he thought. He sighed, the woman questioning. "I guess something is wrong..."

"No, no…nothing's wrong."

Pet squared her gaze. "Yeah." She could sense it on him; doubt, hesitation, nervousness. She had a feeling this would happen, but hoped he would have been comfortable enough around her to advance their relationship. Maybe that was a bad idea.

Pet sat up on the side of the bed and got dressed in her pajama pants and tank top. In her getting dressed, Billy didn't move. He was too riled up in his thoughts to notice several minutes had passed. The hybrid went for the door, but he grabbed her hand to stop her. "Look, I didn't mean it like that."

"I get it, it was a mistake. I moved too soon." She rolled her wrist out of his hand, stating, "It won't happen again."

Pet reached for the door again, but was stopped once more. Billy pulled her down to sit on the bed next to him. "No, Nica, it's fine." Hearing the nickname made the hybrid's insides flutter. "It wasn't a mistake. Just," he rolled his shoulders the more aware of the subtle stinging he felt run down his back, "unexpected, is all." Billy reached for the one scratch that hurt the most over the others along his side. "Mr. Muldoon is going to kill me."

Pet snorted. "Does it hurt? Your back?"

Billy weakly laughed. "Yeah, kind of."

"Just wait till you take a shower. It'll burn like a son of a bitch from what I've been told."

Billy thought the words over in his head; from what she had been told. "Wait, what?"

Blue-green eyes melted to yellow as their irises took on a golden yellow look with the verge of shifting to a raptor's. "Let's just say you're not the only one Robert would gladly strangle…if he knew. I doubt he'll find out, though, seeing how he stayed so damn shit faced and passed out most of the time, then."

"Did you and-"

Pet interrupted him. "What does it matter? It happened before I even got here. After being rescued from a dinosaur inhabited island I was mostly alone on for four, almost five years I had a moment of weakness." She stood up and rested her hand on the cool metal of the door handle. "I'm going to get some breakfast. I'm hungry. You can stay in here if you want."

Quietly and in forced calmness, the young woman stepped out into the living and kitchen area of the trailer she had come to call home. Muldoon was cracking eggs and Derek was making a pot of coffee. Derek saw the hickie on the hybrid's neck and snickered. "Nice mosquito bite, Pet."

Pet snorted and reached into the fridge for the gallon of milk. "Fuck off, shit brick." Muldoon stared at her through a deadpan expression. "Don't…say…a thing, Robert. I'm a big girl, now."

Billy emerged from the bedroom, next, wearing a t-shirt and wrinkled cargo pants from the day before. His blood ran cold the moment he saw the extreme disapproving scowl on the scarred man's face.

Muldoon didn't move or even blink when he verbally warned the younger man. "Consider this your first and only warning. I have no problems making you disappear in a shallow grave so far off the beaten path no one would think to look for you there."

Billy gulped. "Is that a threat or a promise?"

"Yes," simultaneously answered uncle and nephew.

Pet rolled her eyes. "For crying out loud, Robert, can you not do this again?"

Derek's head snapped to look at Pet. "Again?"

"Yeah, again! There was this little cutie of a guard at Jurassic Park that would sometimes flirt with me. He couldn't have been maybe twenty-one, twenty-two at the oldest when I was eighteen! As in a legal adult!" Pet snorted. "I thought he was a nice guy but Robert had to have his talking to with the poor guy. He never said a thing to me after that." Pet stood between her best friend and Billy to block his acidic glare on the other. "Stop. Now. You're being over protective."

"Am I?" was questioned in a gruff voice.

"He's always been like this, Pet. You know that. It goes along with his being super paranoid." Derek patted his uncle on the shoulder. "C'mon, Uncle Rob. Go to your happy place."

Pet sighed and shook her head. "Yes, please. Go to your happy place." She went back to the fridge and rummaged around for the package of bacon. "Damn. Almost out." The package was sat down by the stove where Pet saw Muldoon still hadn't moved or blinked off Billy. The cracked eggs stared back at her from within the mixing bowl and she frowned. "Can I cook the eggs?"

"No," Muldoon snapped.

"Then will you?" Grey eyes looked down at blue-green ones. "Either you start cooking breakfast or I'm going to find my own."

Derek snickered behind a drink of his coffee. "There's always that old lady's yappy ass ankle biter dog. Please do everyone here a favor and murder that damn thing."

Billy couldn't take the heat of the older man's stare anymore and nervously scratched the back of his neck. Bad idea. His fingernails raked over one of the hybrid's scratches, there, that made him wince. "I'm going to go get cleaned up."

Pet called after him leaving the trailer, "You're more than welcome to come back for breakfast."

"At the cost of your life," Derek added in a laugh. Pet elbowed him in the side.


Billy could only pray to God that Grant wasn't awake yet. Much to his dismay, there his boss sat enjoying his own cup of fresh coffee and reading the morning paper. Blue eyes eyed the barefoot protégé. He said nothing as the younger man shuffled to the back room with his shoes in hand. Grant had a damn strong feeling he was going to have to hear about this from a certain hybrid's guardian.

Billy gathered a clean set of clothes consisting of a blue-grey shirt and khaki cargo pants and escaped to the shower.


Pet was almost done frying what remained of the bacon when a knock came at the trailer door. Derek opened it to see it was Grant's protégé returning and with a nearly full package of bacon. "Hey Pet, your chew toy is back." Billy scowled at the bounty hunter. Derek smirked and stepped aside so the other could enter. "And he brings a peace offering."

Billy timidly entered Quarantine, half expecting to hear a shotgun cock in warning, and closed the door behind him. He tossed the package of bacon on the kitchenette bar and smiled to the hybrid. "I figured I'd bring some more over."

Derek sat back down the dining table across from his uncle. "See that, Rob? Boy Toy isn't so bad, he brought Pet some more bacon! Nothing like giving a little meat to a young woman to make things better."

A split second later, a salt shaker went flying across the room and hit Derek in the shoulder. He yelped and grabbed the sore spot, seeing the shaker roll around on the booth seat beside him. He picked it up and slammed it down on the table. "Damn Pet, no need to be so salty about it."

Billy tried not to laugh and looked at the fluster faced hybrid, raptor eyes boring holes into the bounty hunter. Pet snarled.


Come midday, Pet was nose deep in excavating and carefully picking out dirt between wrist bones where cartilage used to be millennia ago. Beside her was Derek and watching them both was Billy across the fossil. Honestly, did he have to be everywhere she went? Billy could understand off the dig site, but while at the dig site? He clenched his jaw and tried to force his mind on his work.

The familiar rumble of a Jeep's engine returned to Quarantine, Derek looking up to see his uncle back from town. Doors opened and closed followed by the ex-game warden coming into view with a brand-new shovel in hand. Muldoon jabbed it into the ground next to one of Quarantine's patio chairs. His grey eyes fell on Billy, his tense lips making work of a toothpick protruding from the corner of his mouth.

Billy frowned. Pet grumbled. "Bloody hell."

Derek deviously smiled at the anxiety ridden protégé. "It'll probably be a bloody hell, later, when someone comes up missing."

Pet readjusted how she was laying on her belly to better observe the bounty hunter. "Do you want to join the body count? All I have to do is tell dear ol' Uncle Rob about that night in the bunker right after he drank himself sick and passed out."

Derek's smile dropped to a placid stare. "If you do, just know he's going to bury you in that shallow grave, too."

"Worth it," she stated and went back to digging out dirt from the fossil.

Derek could see the junior scientist was looking very much displeased at him, right now, and didn't care. He scooted closer to Pet and grinned at her. He didn't care he was pissing off the other man. Being a little shit was what he did best.

Pet nudged her counterpart in the side as though trying to push him away. "Seriously, Derek, go away." He ever so slightly slid away from her, but was still quite close in proximity to her. "I will give you a lobotomy with this chisel if you do not go work in your space." Seeing he wasn't going to stop being an annoyance, Pet got up and stormed away. She joined her guardian inside Quarantine as he rummaged around in a series of plastic bags. "Mark my words, there's going to come a day when I finally snap and kill your nephew."

Muldoon have no visual acknowledgement to the hybrid. "I keep telling him the same thing, but he doesn't listen." He took a bottle of engine oil out of a bag and sat is aside.

A receipt fell on the floor and Pet reached down to pick it up. "Six-hundred, nineteen dollars and ninety-three cents?! You spent that much money on car stuff? Seriously Robert? You could've taken it to a quick lube and gotten this stuff done for cheaper! You didn't have to spend this much."

"Correction," Muldoon began, "I could've taken it to a shop and been told there's more wrong with it than not and for a lot more than it should be." He grabbed a package of red automotive rags and tore it open. "I'd rather do it myself. Besides, it gives me something to do."

"But the Jeep is damn near brand new! What needs to be done on it?"

"We're in the middle of a grassy area, Pet. The drive to and from the highway to town is a dirt road. Dirty means shit gets dirty." The scarred man collected a funnel and bottle of oil off the bar top and went back outside.

"Okay, okay I get it," the hybrid stated in frustration, following her best friend. "I just, don't see why you have to do it yourself, regardless of it being something to do. I mean-" she gestured to the excavation behind her, "look at all the fun stuff to do in this sand box." When she turned around, Muldoon was gawking at her with a deadpan expression. "It's just…so much fun," she said sarcastically.

"You and I think of fun differently, Pet." Muldoon handed Pet the handfuls of stuff and popped open the hood of the Jeep.