Connor met us at his front door. I'd honestly been half expecting him to have the tequila bottle in his hand, ready to pass it over so that we didn't come inside, but to his credit he must have realised it was just an excuse to escape our own house. Nick followed us in, quickly removing his jacket³ before he headed straight over to the sofa and flopped down. I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

It was a bit of a surprise when Connor joined me. I'd assumed he would just sit down with Cutter but he leant against the worktop beside the kettle and watched my every move.

At the very start of mine and Nick's relationship it had been a little weird for Connor- not that he had ever really known Nick in a professional capacity thanks to his non-existent attendance - but he was still his student and hadn't really known how to act around him; normal people didnt really hang around their lecturers houses. The first night he'd come over he'd talked even more than usual and hadn't sat still. The second time he'd been absolutely fine and stopped overthinking everything. The third time he'd drank too much gin and gone on a bit too long about how "okay" he was with the two of us going out.

I could only guess his behaviour now was because he wanted something. After filling the kettle and finding the tea-bags to drop into the mugs, I glanced around at him. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm fine, yeah, why?' he returned.

'No reason,' I replied. 'Other than you're watching me to make tea, so... Do you want to talk about-' The penny suddenly dropped and I cut myself off to immediately restructure the sentence, '-you want to talk about something.'

He shrugged. 'I mean... I'm always up for a chat you know that. I'll talk to you.' Connor leant back against the worktop.

'What's this about?' This morning's conversation crossed my mind. 'Have you spoken to Abby?'

'What do you mean?' Wow. Got it first time. Connor had never been a very good liar. I reckoned it was his conscience that got the better of him, even if it was against his will. He'd tried to cover for me when I was little and had accidently knocked down a shelf in the pantry and hundreds of glass jar had shattered all over the stone floor. Mum had seen right through him but it hadn't mattered anyway; she was never angry when we had any sort of accidents.

I wasn't going to waste time humouring him. 'So you haven't talked to her.'

He sighed. 'No.'

'Come on, Con, what's the worst she could say?'

'"Get away from me you freak, you're disgusting and you make me want to be sick."'

'Right,' I said. 'Well the chances of you hearing those exact words again are so low.'

He groaned. 'I can't do it.'

'You can,' I returned. 'Have a cup of tea and have a chat with Nana-'

'What's Nana gonna say? "Where are my specks?"'

'She's gonna say exactly what you need to hear. You know that.'

His expression shifted in agreement. 'Yeah, no, you're right.' He sighed. 'God, it's just every time. Every time!'

'She's scary accurate.'

'You remember when she was standing beneath that pear tree in her garden and held out her hand before that pear just fell into it.' And he mimed it with his hands.

'Oh, yeah!' I said, 'she always has to be so dramatic, doesn't she?'

'That's why she's so funny.'

Through the open doorway, I saw Nick lift his head. 'What?' he called.

'Our Nana's psychic, right,' I replied. 'And she's hilarious. I think that's where you get it, you know Con, I don't really remember your mum and dad much, but they weren't like you were they?'

Connor shook his head, 'no, I don't think so, I don't really remember them either to be fair. I don't remember much before I came to live with you. You used to wander around the whole house in your nappy and you were best friends with the old man who restored all the old grandfather clocks, and you had pigtails and couldn't speak yet.' He put his arm around my shoulder. 'She was the cutest kid,' he said, 'I don't know what happened.'

'You know that would be a lot more convincing had you not come in to my room one morning convinced you'd had an ethereal experience– that an angel had given you cheerios and "tucked you in" the night before, when the reality was you'd just been super drunk and I'd had to put you to bed.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Sure. Anyway, weren't we were talking about Abby?'

'I just...' he came back down, laughter settling steadily and he drew out a long sigh. 'I don't know, A. I don't it's such a good idea. It'll ruin everything if she doesn't like me back. It's alright for you two. It is so obvious that you guys are, like, perfect for each other even if it seems really weird with the big age gap-' I instinctively kicked Connor in the shin to shut him up. I shouldn't have bothered; it was already too late and Nick was already frowning. 'Ow!' Connor said as he reached down to hold his leg. 'What was that for?'

'How big is the age gap?' Nick asked.

'It's not that big,' I replied calmly. I shot Connor a quick glare that I hoped Nick didn't see. Connor shrugged dramatically.

'I still don't know how old you are,' Nick continued.

'I don't know how old you are,' I replied, 'so I'm guessing it like 15 years at most. Does it matter?'

There was maybe a second of silence. It was long enough to frighten me. To my surprise it was Connor who answered. 'Of course it doesn't, age is just a number, innit? And you two are so meant to be it's actually quite sickening and super unfair. Seriously though, when did you guys know you liked each other?'

Looking back at Nick gave me butterflies. Our eyes met and his lips slowly curled up into a smile.

'When did you start liking me?' I asked.

Nick shrugged, 'second I saw you,' he said. 'I didn't let myself think that you'd be interested in me until we came back through that anomaly.'

'Really? What about when I kissed you at the hotel?'

'Yeah, I don't think it occurred to me that you might have liked me when you did that. Apparently I'm not as clever as I pretend to be. When was it for you?'

'The first time I heard your voice I knew you'd be important to me. I don't think I knew the extent of it until you came back from the anomaly in the basement and you weren't breathing. I don't think I'm as clever as I'm pretending to be either.'

'That doesn't work for you,' Nick replied.

'Why not?'

'Because you don't need to pretend.'

At that moment my ring tone started to blare out my pocket again and to avoid the blush flushing up my neck I reached down and quickly pulled it out. Then I turned my head to Connor. 'It's Abby,' I told him as I read the caller I.D.

Connor immediately straightened, 'is she okay?'

I didn't respond, instead I answered the phone. 'Abby? Hey, how are you?'

'Anna...' she immediately returned– and even without needing to see any sort of expression I could tell she was stressed. 'I'm sorry to call but I need to ask you something.'

'Are you okay?' I questioned in concern.

'Yeah...' she assured me unconvincingly, 'um, can you do me a huge favour? We're closing the zoo; I need to go down to the police station, my boss is missing. Apparently I was the last one to see him. Do you know anything about Sea Lions?'

'Sea Lions?' I repeated, 'Californian or Australian?'

'Californian, I think,' she replied. 'I think he may have injured a flipper. I mean I know it's a huge favour to ask but he's probably going to need someone to take a look, is it something you can do?'

'Of course I can,' I said. 'And it's no bother at all. I'll take a look at him and hopefully we'll be able to sort that out. I'm gonna set off right now, okay, I'll be 15-20 minutes, but if you need to go then don't worry.'

'Okay, okay, um yeah... I think...'

'Go down to the station,' I said calmly, 'talk to the police, we'll catch up when you get back to the zoo.'

'Okay, thank you, I'll see you at the zoo later then.'

'Okay, bye.' I hung up. 'Abby's got to go down to the police station to answer some questions about her boss, so I'm going to the zoo to check on the animals,' I relayed.

'Oh, I was gonna go into Uni and help Stephen with something,' Connor said as he walked towards the dining table and picked up his jacket from the back of the chair, 'can you drop me there on the way? You'll go past, right?'

I shrugged and nodded, 'sure.'

'You can stay here, if you want Cutter.'

Nick stood up, 'I was thinking about going into the home office, might as well get through some of the paperwork I've been putting off.'

'Alright yeah, well it makes sense to drop you off there on the way and leave the car with you in case you need it. We'll take one of the trucks to swing by the uni on the way to the zoo. I don't know how long I'll be, you might want to get home at some point.'

Nick quirked an eyebrow. 'I seriously doubt that.'

The zoo car park was empty this time when I pulled up in the truck. And it was weird considering we'd only been here this morning and a few hours later this same place felt like a ghost town.

I headed for the main doors, knowing it was quicker to walk through the reptilian centre to get to the aquatic mammals but half expected the doors to be locked when I put my hand on the handle and pulled. To my surprise, they swung open.

'Hello?'

I didn't get a response. Even the office was empty as I passed. I guess Abby must have just left the doors open for me knowing I wasn't going to be there long after she left, but still, something about it all didn't feel right.

I left the medical rucksack with all my kit and supplies outside at the top of the pool where the sealions went into the water and after taking a closer look at a few of them– who were laid out on the deck beside the water– I went back down into the tunnels beneath to watch them swim.

It didn't take long to spot the Sea Lion Abby had been talking about. It couldn't have long since been infantile; there were still patches of black-brown fur across his body where the others around him where a mix of slate grey and charcoal.

His right front flipper looked fine to the naked eye, but as he pushed it through the water, there was an acute degree in the range of movement from its scapula where its flipper went limp, until he circled it forward again. It was most probably a muscular issue, a swelling in the flesh around either his ribs or scapula from taking a tumble or something that reduced the capacity of its deltoid or pectoralis.

I stepped closer to the glass, hoping he would swim closer to me so I would be able to check there wasn't any sort of flesh wound beneath his flipper that could explain if it was a conscious effort to ease his own pain. I couldn't see anything. I needed to get him out the water. There was a bucket of fish on the deck.

I took a step back and hit something.

A gasp slipped past my lips as I jumped and reeled around as the fright jolted up my spine. Stephen was standing behind me. It was instinct to lash out and shove him. 'What the hell, Stephen!' I could feel my heart heavy and painfully pounding in my chest and I tried to put a hand over it to calm it. He looked back at me with an expression half amused, and half what I thought looked like relief. 'What are you doing here, sneaking up on people like that?'

'I wasn't sneaking.' He took a step forward to peer in at the sealions through the glass, he continued 'I was walking.' I laughed in disbelief. 'Normally.' I narrowed my eyes slightly as he turned his attention from the window to me. 'Are you alright?'

I wet my lips, 'why wouldn't I be?'

He lowered his head to talk down to me. 'There might be a creature here.'

'You think that's what killed the lion...'

He nodded. 'And maybe Abby's boss... The others are on their way.'

'Oh.'

His brow furrowed as he held my gaze and blinked back at me expectantly. 'What?'

'No, nothing.'

His eyes rolled slightly. 'Go on, you might as well spit it out. I know you're dying to say it anyway.'

I tried not to laugh. 'You were worried.' It seemed like a seemingly self-explanatory conclusion to reach. He was the advanced party that had come out to find me and make sure I was okay.

How very Stephen of him.

I'm sure my amusement was clear in my expression.

'About... ' he made a sort of half gesture in my direction before he put his hands behind his back, 'and the ... Sea Lions... wouldn't want anything to happen to them.'

Suddenly something unexpectedly piqued his interest and sensing it too I unfocused my gaze to strain my ears to listen. And so, again, I wasn't paying attention when he suddenly grabbed me, one arm wrapping around my back whilst the other pressed a hand into my chest to push me back.

I collided with the wall in an alcove where the glass of the window was built into the concrete. The air was knocked from my lungs as Stephen's body slammed against mine.

I knew not to speak, so it was completely unnecessary when his hand shifted up to press over my mouth. The surprise evolved quickly to panic.

My hand shot out to grab his wrist.

I was back there, the concrete of the stadium floor against my back, whilst Tom's sweaty palm crushed my mouth, trapping the air and starving my lungs.

A noise came from me, one I completely wasn't expecting or even knew I could make, but it snapped Stephen's attention back to me and my eyes met his confused gaze. I dug my fingers into his wrist and hoped he would get the idea. Slowly, he released the pressure over my mouth, his hand slipping from my face, but with nowhere else for it to rest it ended up by my hip, my small hand still enclosed around his wrist.

His gaze dropped, only for a moment, so quick I almost didn't notice it but the expression in his eyes when his gaze came back to meet mine told me I hadn't imagined him looking at my lips.

I didn't know what to do except keep staring, because I was aware that my brain seemed completely empty and my heart was still thumping so powerfully there was no way he couldn't feel it in his own chest.

I hissed his name –quieter than a whisper– but his expression was slack like he wasn't listening but waiting, and I didn't know what for.

Half a second later the creature dropped into the other end of the tunnel.

My eyes widened.

It wasn't anything like I had expected. It was a big black shape, crouched, walking with its wrists much like most species of bats and I could honestly see the resemblance of its evolutionally ancestors from the trident nose to the short tail. Fully erect it must have stood about 8-9 feet tall.

There were enough teeth in its mouth to bite off a head in one go.

And it was bound to be fast.

I cocked my head, trying to watch for its expression or tell that it was about to charge when I realised the direction of its focus wasn't actually on us but on the window we were next to.

It heard the footsteps of Ryan and his men long before we did. Its attention turned back on itself and just as the soldiers flooded the entrance of the tunnel it took off in one giant leap straight towards us. Stephen's arm wrapped around my head holding me against him, as the creature rebounded off the wall right above our heads and was gone in an instant out the other end of the tunnel.

Stephen slowly released his grip and pulled his head back ever so slightly so that he could look down at me again.

He didn't say anything. He just stared into my eyes.

I felt his breath fan out across my skin. His grip on my hip suddenly tightened, his thumb digging right into my hipbone and I jolted forward to get away from it.

His hand slipped from the top of my head to the back of my neck.

'Hey,' Ryan's voice cut through. Immediately we both turned to see him standing beside us, 'you guys both alright?'

I couldn't speak.

Slowly I started to nod.

Stephen agreed. 'Yeah,' he said.

'You sure?' Ryan asked as he punched Stephen's arm reassuringly.

'Yeah,' Stephen repeated. 'Thanks.'

'Of course... Anna?'

'Fine, I'm fine,' I said –more to myself than either of them. I put my hand against Stephen's chest and pushed. He took a step back. 'I'm alright, really.' I could sense the disbelief but I didn't try to plead my case any further. And just wanting to get the hell out the tunnel now the walls were feeling like they were closing in, I headed towards the soldiers and the exit.

I stood outside in the fresh air for a minute or two to collect myself before I found the energy to head back inside.

To my surprise I found Helen was sitting just inside the entrance hall, cross legged on a bench, in front of the camel enclosure

She looked up as I entered, my steps immediately slowing like my body didn't want to get any closer to her. And I hoped that leaving a distance between us would show I wasn't much in the mood for a conversation. I think she must have sensed that, because a moment later she stood up, grabbed her backpack off the ground and came towards me.

'You've got quite the knack for finding trouble,' she said. And I wasn't sure whether or not she meant to sound impressed.

'Usually, it finds me,' I replied, leaning back against the railing to the enclosure behind me. I sighed. 'I didn't say thank you before, for saving my life... even if you did leave it rather late...'

'Well, you were doing so well without me... it was only when Nick ran off that I thought I should intervein.'

I gave a straight lipped smile. 'Right.'

'I can see why he's attracted to you.'

'Oh come on now,' I complained, 'that's two. That's two times I've had to reject you now Helen, you need to take a hint.'

She laughed. 'Princess. I'm just saying. It's obvious you like him too.'

'Not that it's any of your business.'

'He's my husband.'

'You left him. You divorced him and you disappeared, remember? And I am so fucking grateful that you did, my god!'

'You're his type, Anna. Down to a T. Strong. Independent. Reasonably intelligent-'

I laughed. 'Are you trying to make yourself feel better? I'm sorry to say we both know I'm a lot more than that.'

'... you're modest...'

'It's the truth.'

She nodded knowingly. 'You're...' she paused, and looked me up and down, 'beautiful.'

'And there's the hat-trick. That's the third time you've hit on me, it sounds like you have a pretty serious crush... I'm sorry, I don't feel the same way...'

'... he didn't love me anymore... he didn't... whatever he says about it, you need to know one thing, I just did something he didn't have the courage to do himself. Because why should I have to be miserable for the rest of my life, stuck in a marriage to a man who didn't want to be with me anymore.'

'That's where you're wrong Helen,' I replied. 'I don't know who told you that, I don't know where that idea came from but you're wrong. He didn't stop loving you for a long time after it was actually over. But of course you don't believe that; you don't want to.'

'Why was I brought here now?' she asked.

'Because you're going to help us find the creature,' I said.

'Do you think if I had any idea how to do that I wouldn't have told you by now?'

'Honestly?' I asked, 'that wouldn't surprise me, no.'

'Well, I don't.' She crossed her arms over her chest.

'Well,' I mimicked, 'that's unfortunate because no one's going home until we do. What do you know about it?'

'It's fast, incredibly fast, and it can camouflage itself in almost any environment. And to have survived in the Permian it's had to be highly adaptable which is bad news for us. Who knows, maybe that's how humanity meets its end... by becoming the food source for a more successful species.'

I sneered. 'Uh. Well... that's nice.'

'Do you want the good news, or the bad news first?' I called out as Nick came over the hill from the car park and walked down through the trees towards us.

'What's the bad news?' he called back in response.

'So, we have no idea where it is, or how to find it...' I said. Nick joined the group, all of us: Connor, Stephen, Ryan and his men, and Helen, were reunited. 'And we don't think it could be headed back towards the anomaly site which is a couple of miles south of here, because it went that way...' and I pointed across the field in the direction we'd seen it go.

'And which way is that way?' Connor asked.

'North-east.'

Nick put his hands on his hips and sighed in frustration. 'What's the good news?'

'At least we know what it looks like.' We shared a look and I could tell he was hoping for better good news. I recognised his annoyance because my expression was exactly the same. 'And...' I continued flatly because it still wasn't good good news, 'it's ancestry could give us some clues.'

'Like what?'

'Well, even though it's evolved to be completely flightless it still moved like it had wings,' Stephen offered.

At the sound of his voice, I glanced across to him. I could tell something was up– I could sense it– but I had absolutely no idea what because right now it could have been a plethora of different things. Before he could notice I was looking at him I turned my attention away.

'Okay,' Nick nodded, 'anything else...?'

'Well, if it hasn't left a trail of bodies, it must be taking them somewhere,' I said, 'it must have like... a nest –'

' – a lair,' Connor interjected.

'A lair,' I repeated, staring excitedly back at him. 'But, without any way of finding the creature, I don't know how we'd find that either.'

'Short of stringing up some bait,' Helen said lowly.

I tutted at the unhelpfulness. 'Thank you, Helen,' I replied sarcastically.

'We will not be doing that,' Nick finished.

'I'm just saying,' she continued, 'if it found you in that building full of other animals...'

'Well, either it picked up your scent, or it's been stalking the zoo for days now...' Ryan suggested, 'when did the boss go missing?'

'Yesterday,' I answered, 'I think.'

Ryan clapped his hands together. 'Well there you go. It was probably waiting for someone to go down into that tunnel alone so it could grab you and haul you off for lunch.'

Slowly, I shook my head. 'It doesn't make sense. The way it behaved, down in that tunnel, was really weird, right?' When no one answered I turned my head back to him. 'Stephen?' I prompted. He seemed distracted– I wasn't sure by what– but apparently he'd been listening all the same.

'It doesn't make sense that it didn't attack,' he agreed.

'The creature was so close to us... but... it was like it had no idea we were there...' I said slowly as though that would help me understand. Perhaps it worked. Because semi-consciously I continued 'like it couldn't see us...' because it was distracted by 'the Sea Lions'. It was the noise. I turned to Helen. There are things here that can see your scream from a mile away. I narrowed my eyes. 'We can use dogs to find it,' I finally realised.

Nick whipped his head round to me.

Connor frowned. 'Eh?' he questioned. 'You... um... missed a few nouns out your sentence, Anna.'

'It's the frequency,' I said, 'they must still use echolocation. It didn't attack us because Sea Lions vocalize at a much higher frequency to humans so it was literally blinded by the noise of the animals. And since echo location works by excreting high frequencies that are reflected by objects in order to create a visualisation of their surroundings, all we need is something that can detect high frequencies...'

'Like dogs,' Nick repeated.

'Or an oscilloscope...' I continued, 'there's one in the car.'

'What's an... one of them?' Ryan questioned.

'It's a device that detects high frequencies,' I explained.

'Like the creature...' Nick said.

'Nick, it will always be one step ahead of us if it can detect physical movement before it's in visual range.'

'We still won't see it coming,' groaned Stephen. 'We need a warning. A weakness in its defence or attack strategy. Otherwise it's just going to pick us off.'

'Well, the dogs would know it was coming,' Connor explained. 'Or at least when we were really close. They'd start barking, right?'

I nodded. 'Yeah, absolutely.'

'We can use its own weapon against it,' Nick finished. 'Connor, go get it.'

Nodding compliantly, he quickly turned and ran off through the trees and across the grass towards the carpark.

'Alright,' Ryan continued, 'and what happens when we do find this thing.'

Nick looked across to me and he paused like he was waiting for me to disagree with him. However, this time, I had no qualms and knew the circumstances were completely different. I nodded. 'We kill it,' Nick said definitively.

'But I thought–'

'Not this time,' I explained.

'It's fair too dangerous,' Nick added.

'And killing these things won't affect the past or the present,' I added, 'only the future.'

Ryan nodded, adjusting his grip on the gun in his hand and straightening his shoulders. 'I've got to admit,' he said, 'that makes a refreshing change, I was beginning to feel like a social worker...'

Even I had to admit it was a little bit funny.

Ryan couldn't have been more different from me and yet there wasn't any disharmony in our friendship. There wasn't anything right or wrong about being different; I sometimes wondered if I'd have been more like him had I not suffered those various incidents that made me so opposed to it.

'Do you think there's any chances that the people it's taken could still be alive,' he asked.

Before I could give a polite answer, Helen interrupted 'I doubt it.'

Narrowing my eyes at her, I followed on 'we don't know. Maybe. Depends on its feeding patterns; if it fed recently it could be likely to keep its food source alive so its fresher for its next meal.'

'That's delightful.'

'Yeah, but it might mean some of those people are still alive. I brought a med-kit...' I then continued in realisation, 'I left it up at the enclosure. I should–'

A noise interrupted me. It was distant– barely recognisable from so far away but it sounded almost like glass shattering. And– 'What was that?' Nick vocalized, mirroring my thoughts.

I felt my heart drop. 'Connor.' Then I felt the ground moving beneath my feet as I took off in a run. Someone called my name, but I'd left them all behind in a moment.