by Anna Martin
“She seemed really upset.”
“Shit. I should check in with her.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s get you in, first. Try that door. If you’re coming from the docks, it’s on the right side of the building. You’re not going to see it at first because the entrance is sort of hidden, but it’s there. But you don’t want to get too close to the building because you could trip the alarms.”
“Great,” Logan muttered.
“I’ll stay on the line until you’re in.”
He decided to stick close to the tree line as he edged his way along, keeping an eye out for a hidden door. He ended up passing it twice, partly because he’d been hanging back. Narrow steps led down to a black door, the top of which was beneath ground level, keeping it very well disguised.
Logan pressed Leilani’s key card to the panel on the door, and after a breath-stealing second, the light glowed green and the door opened.
He heard Dizzy’s mournful cries before he was even in the building. Logan had never heard anything like this from her, or any of the other dissimosaurs, before. She was in pain, he realized, and his heart broke.
“I’ve got her,” he breathed into the phone. “Gotta go.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Thanks,” he said and rang off.
Dizzy was being kept in what looked like a large dog cage. There was paper on the floor that she’d shredded, likely out of boredom, and a bowl of water in one corner.
“Hey, pretty girl,” Logan cooed.
Dizzy stopped crying and cocked her head to the side. Logan figured she couldn’t see him and stepped forward, trying to find the catch on the gate. For a heart-stopping moment he thought she’d been padlocked in there, but no, there was just a bolt.
Dizzy skittered over before he managed to get it open, honking and grunting in delight. She almost knocked him over when he got on his knees and held his arms out to her. She was so big now, compared to the tiny thing they’d brought home.
“Hey, Dizzy.”
He wanted to be true to his word and didn’t let Dizzy out of the cage. Instead he crawled in with her—there was just about enough room for the two of them if he folded himself in half. Dizzy honked again and butted her head up under Logan’s chin.
He lay down on his side, curling up to fit his legs in the cage too. He was too tall to sit up, so this would have to do. Dizzy immediately found her spot in the curve made by his body.
Logan rubbed his hands all over her skin, trying to soothe her with the contact he knew she needed. She slowly started to settle, leaning against him heavily.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “I’ve got you now.”
Around two in the morning, Dizzy woke up with the sniffly, shuffly movements that told Logan she needed to use her litter box. But there wasn’t a litter box down here, just paper on the floor. She’d go outside or in her litter box, but not on paper, because he’d trained her that way so she’d never pee on his paperwork.
Fuck.
Logan debated with himself for a minute on how big of an idiot he was. The answer was clearly “very.” He sighed, unbolted the cage, and let the both of them out.
Dizzy needed to be carried up the steep steps that led outside, because her little body and deformed joints wouldn’t let her get up on her own. Logan took her to the edge of the tree line, then set her down, satisfied that she could take it from there herself. Since he had the opportunity, he relieved his own bladder into a bush, and looked down at the dock.
There were speed boats down there. He had a good idea how to hotwire one. He could take her back to the North Island, hide her among the rest of the herd until it was safe to go back and get her.
But Dizzy wasn’t a normal dissimosaur.
She was a litter-box-trained dinosaur.
He sighed, knowing it was a stupid pipe dream.
Logan stretched, letting his back click, then gave a low whistle. A moment later, Dizzy was at his heel.
“Come on, girl.”
She followed him blindly, right back into the cage.
Logan woke when the lights flicked on the next morning. He’d slept in some pretty rough spots in his career, but this one had been particularly uncomfortable.
“What the…?”
“Hey.”
Logan didn’t recognize the lab tech, though it was clear that’s who the guy was. He looked young.
Dizzy was already awake and butting her head against his arm. As she got bigger, it was starting to hurt. He wondered absently if they should try to discourage it.
“What are you doing in here?”
“This is my dissimosaur.”
“Dr. Beck?” The kid stepped forward and groaned softly. “Oh shit.”
“Sorry. She’s hungry. Can you find her something to eat, please?”
Logan stretched the best he could in the cage. He thought he might be developing a cramp in his leg.
“I, uh, I don’t think we know what to feed her.”
Logan took a deep, fortifying breath. “Do you have Dr. Sterling’s number?”
“I can find it.”
“Okay. Call Dr. Sterling and ask him to bring over one of Dizzy’s tubs.”
“Dizzy?”
“She’s hungry,” Logan said. “She’s a baby and she needs to eat.”
“Right, got it.” He scuttled away.
Logan turned back to Dizzy. “Sorry, kid. We’ll get you some breakfast soon.”
Dizzy honked softly in response.
He didn’t really expect it to be long before people started to turn up. First a gaggle of lab techs, peering in through the door at the top of the stairs like they were trying to ascertain if the rumors were true.
Yes, that is Dr. Beck. In a dog cage.
With a rather pissed-off-looking dissimosaur.
After the first group, there was another two, both senior scientists, like Kit. Dizzy was really starting to get hungry by then. They were treated to the sight of Dr. Beck, in a dog cage, trying to discipline a recalcitrant dissimosaur.
Then Kit arrived. His cheeks were flushed, like he’d been running, and he was wearing a button-down shirt over gray wool slacks, and his lab coat. All professional. Logan’s stomach lurched.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you didn’t have any food for her.” He tripped over his words as he rushed into the room, then drew up short. “You’re in the cage.”
“Yes.”
Kit shook his head. “I really don’t know what to do with you.”
He crouched to push the tub of Dizzy’s food through the bars of the cage. Dizzy honked in delight, spinning around so quickly she smacked Logan in the face with her tail.
“Thanks for that,” Logan muttered. He rubbed his cheek. Fuck, that had hurt.
“Sorry. I’d kiss it better. If you weren’t in the cage.”
Logan glared. “If I’m in it with her, they can’t try and separate us. I’m making a point. If they want to keep her in a cage, they have to keep me in one too.”
Kit sat down cross-legged on the floor and propped his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hand.
“I’m completely, utterly in love with you.”
Logan’s laugh was startled out of him. “Thanks. I love you too.”
They grinned at each other like idiots for a long moment.
“Do you need me to sit in the cage for a bit?” Kit offered.
“Nah, I’m okay for now.”
“Oh, I brought you a granola bar.” He passed it through the bars. It was a little squashed, but Logan didn’t mind. Dizzy was still picking through her own breakfast, seemingly uncaring that it was all layered up in one small area rather than scattered all over the floor, like she was used to.
“I should have waited for you. Listened. I’m sorry.”
Kit shook his head. “Don’t be. You needed to be with her, I know that.”
“She needed to be with me.”
Kit’s smile
was fond and disbelieving. “Right.”
“Fine. I needed to be with her.”
“That’s more like it.”
Kit’s phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket, quickly scanning the message.
“I need to go,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “I’m trying to stay out of this for as long as I can, or until my mama gets here.”
“Okay,” Logan said, trying to hide how his heart had sunk.
“Just until she gets here,” Kit repeated. “It could make things worse if I’m involved.”
“I’ll be fine,” Logan said with a confidence he didn’t feel.
“You’re causing quite a stir out there.”
“Yeah. I can imagine.”
“I’ll arrange for more food to be sent down to you. Both of you.”
“Thanks.”
Kit pressed his fingers to the edge of the cage, and Logan obediently leaned forward to kiss them.
“Oh, and Kit?” Logan said, just as Kit was leaving.
“Yeah?”
“Check your emails.”
Kit nodded and ducked out of the room.
Chapter Twenty Four
Check your emails.
Stupid, pig-headed, obnoxious idiot who thought he knew better than everyone else….
Kit ranted to himself the whole way back to his office. He was pretty sure he was making what Leilani called his “scary face” as he stormed through the corridors, because no one stopped him to ask about kidnapped dissimosaurs and more than one lab tech jumped out of his way.
All the things Kit had grown to love about Logan were the same things that had driven him crazy over the past few years.
Kit slammed his office door behind himself, drew the blinds, then locked the door.
He was pissed off.
It wasn’t like he didn’t have work to do—important work, both his own research and supervising some of the younger techs with their own projects. But no. He’d been forced to close and lock his door, which was his sign to his team that they shouldn’t interrupt him, and read a stupid email from Logan Stupid-Head Beck.
Kit fired up his computer and drummed his fingers against his desk while he waited for Logan’s email to download. It was just a zip file, no message with it, so all he could do was stew over it.
The folder was neatly organized, with subfolders and an index that showed all the appendix documents. There was a lot of work that had gone into this.
Then Kit started reading, and he was immediately absorbed by Logan’s words. He’d laid out everything they knew in a way that any idiot could understand, which would come in useful when they had to defend themselves to the idiots who were in charge of this island.
Halfway through reading the first page, Kit opened up a document of his own and started making his own notes, determined that he could contribute his own thoughts and impressions to what Logan had already documented.
His computer pinged a few hours later to remind him it was lunchtime, and Kit cursed up a storm as he remembered he hadn’t sent any food down to Logan and Dizzy.
He called in a favor from a friend and handed over a Tupperware container of Dizzy’s food and ten bucks to go buy Logan something from the cafeteria. Unsure of what was going on down in the basement, Kit decided to text Logan before he called.
You busy?
His phone rang moments later.
“No, I’m not busy; I’m bored out of my skull.”
“How’s your phone battery holding up?”
“I’ll need to charge it soon.”
Kit leaned back in his chair and pushed his glasses up onto his forehead. His eyes ached.
“What’s going on down there? Has anyone been down?”
“Like management? No. Plenty of people coming down here to look, but no one’s brave enough to come in.”
“Why would they do that? Whoever took Dizzy couldn’t have planned to leave her alone down there all this time.”
“I don’t want to think about that,” Logan muttered darkly.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Bored, like me.” He paused, and Kit straightened. “Hold up, someone’s here.”
Kit listened as Logan had a brief conversation with someone; then he came back on the phone.
“You sent food for us?”
“I said I would,” Kit said, relieved that it had been Daniel and not someone from the management team. Though that was surely imminent. “There should be enough there for dinner for you both too.”
“Thanks,” Logan said softly. “Okay, I’m going to eat now. I’ll let you know if anything happens.”
“See you later,” Kit promised and ended the call.
He didn’t move for a long moment, scared that whatever he did next would be the wrong decision. Kit wasn’t used to being this unsure of anything. Maybe, for once, there was something at stake that was worth risking everything for.
In the end Kit started to feel stupid, so he locked his computer, grabbed his wallet, and headed down to the cafeteria to buy his own lunch. That morning he’d forgotten to make a sandwich, as was his habit, and now he had to face the lunchtime rush. It was his own fault, really, but it didn’t make him feel any less anxious as he took a seat near the window so he had something to stare at as he ate his salad.
When he got back to his office, the door was still open, but there was a brown paper package sitting on his desk. It was the package he’d been expecting, forwarded on to him from an old colleague who didn’t mind being the middle man for this sort of thing.
He tucked it under his arm and, hoping he looked far more casual than he expected, headed down to the genetics lab.
Leilani was at the first desk, carefully labeling samples.
“Hey, do you know if lab six is free?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, Mei is working in there. Nine should be free, though.”
“Thanks, Leilani.”
“Need help?”
He hesitated.
“Please, Kit,” she said, apparently reading his expression. “I want to help.”
“Of course. When you’re done, come on down.”
She sighed, apparently relieved. “Thank you.”
There were three small labs that were barely big enough for one person to work in alone. Kit was honestly surprised they hadn’t been turned into offices yet, especially as the research community continued to grow in terms of both how much floor space they took up and the number of people working there. Right now he was grateful, though. It meant he could work in peace.
Following rituals that had been burned into him for years, he changed into his lab coat and methodically cleaned the workspace and the tools he intended to use. Then he set his phone up on a shelf and set it to record, wanting every step of his work to be documented.
Only when everything was set up to his satisfaction did Kit start to unwrap his package. He photographed the outside, then each layer of wrapping as he peeled it away, until he was left looking at a piece of leather about the same size as his phone.
He hadn’t bothered being careful with the wrapping, knowing it had passed through too many hands for any kind of forensic evidence to be taken from it. Now, though, with gloves on, he photographed the small offcut from every possible angle, with different light sources and exposure times.
The whole process had taken so long that he was only just finishing up when there was a soft knock on the door.
Kit went and unlocked it, letting Leilani in, then bolted it behind her again.
“What’s that?” she asked, stepping over to the table.
“We’re about to find out,” he told her.
Kit had spent his spare time over the past few weeks, since he’d heard about the supposed dinosaur leather, researching how to successfully extract DNA from leather samples. With his professional contacts, it wasn’t difficult to log in to a few portals and read up on his colleagues’ experiments, so he already had a good idea of what he was dealing with
and how long the tests would take. Fortunately, they were working with some of the most advanced genetic testing equipment in the world.
Getting his hands on the “dinosaur” leather in the first place had been the riskiest part of the entire process. Kit had gone through a number of different sites before he was confident enough to hand over several thousand dollars from his own savings for what was clearly a rough offcut of unfinished leather. The buyer didn’t need to know that was what Kit specifically wanted. The finishing process would further damage the leather, and they were already looking at a few days’ work to run all the tests.
The process was, in theory, fairly simple. They’d perform a DNA extraction on the sample, then compare the results to the existing dinosaur DNA database that Kit had helped to build.
“How badly does the tanning process damage the hide?” Leilani asked as they got to work.
“It depends,” Kit said. He was done documenting the leather in its whole state, so he’d cut off three tiny samples from different edges, so they’d have multiple results to use. “From what I’ve read, sometimes the leather needs a longer incubation period in order to extract the DNA. That’s why we’re going to run multiple tests.”
“But this is fairly raw material.”
She held the leather up to the light, running her finger over the grain.
“Yeah. I’m hoping that means we can get some results from the first sample and not have to wait on the others, which I’ll leave in the incubator for longer.”
“Is this the right color?”
“I think the treatment bleaches some of the color out.”
“Kit.” Leilani put the leather down and turned to him, crossing her arms over her chest. “This is oviraptor hide.”
Leilani’s no-nonsense attitude was one of the things Kit liked best about her.
“Yeah. I think so too. When Logan and I looked at the pictures, we thought it was dissimosaur at first.”
“It could be dissimosaur,” she conceded. “But the color is all wrong, and the scales are way too big. That would be either the biggest dissimosaur on the island, or….”
“Or an oviraptor. You’re right.”