by Tess Sharpe
It’s the same as mine and Tanya’s, though one side is incredibly messy, the bed unmade, dirty socks at the foot.
“Look, camera equipment,” Justin points to the neater side of the room. “That’s Eric’s side.”
“Eww,” I say, looking back at Wyatt’s side. “I should’ve brought gloves.”
“I’ll go through his drawers,” Justin offers. “Do you see his tablet anywhere?”
I look around. “No luck. He probably brought it with him. I’m going to check the bathroom. Maybe he hid stuff in the cupboards.”
There’s just your normal stuff in the medicine cabinet—hotel shampoo with different dinosaur species stamped on the wrappers, an electric razor, Q-tips. I bend down to look in the cupboard under the sink, but there’s nothing but pipes and extra toilet paper. I dig carefully through the cabinet holding the neatly rolled towels, but there’s nothing there either. I’m about to turn around when something hits me: the towels in my room weren’t rolled by housekeeping—they were folded.
I turn back to the cupboard, take the stack of neat terry-cloth cylinders, and set them on the bath mat on the ground, unrolling them one by one.
They’re empty. Except for one.
Something falls out of the last towel I unroll, and I have to reach forward to grab it before it rolls away.
It’s a tranquilizer dart. The same kind I spent all that time cataloging—the kind Wyatt knocked over. And I thought he was just being a jerk…
“Justin,” I call.
He pokes his head into the bathroom. “Did you find something?” he asks.
I hold up the tranquilizer dart. “This was rolled up in one of the towels.”
“What’s he doing with something like that?”
“I don’t know,” I say, rerolling the towels and shoving them back into the cupboard. “Where else would he hide stuff?”
Justin looks around the bathroom. “You try the shower curtain rod? Sometimes they’re hollow.” He walks over and tests it, trying to pull it down. But it’s screwed to the wall. “Hmmm.” His glance falls on the toilet. “The tank,” he says.
We lift off the lid, and I gasp. There are two waterproof bags taped to the sides of the half-filled toilet tank. Justin pulls off the tape, grabs the bags out of the water, and lays them on the bath mat.
I open one, and my stomach sinks.
Inside are the same kind of memory cards as the crunched one I found in the jungle—but in better shape—plus four cylindrical glass containers full of a clear gel.
“That’s the fusion bandage compound,” Justin breathes. “He stole it. What the hell?”
“What’s in the other bag?”
“A bunch of security specs. Look, they’re all stamped INTERNAL ONLY.” He passes me a thick wad of folded papers, and I leaf through them as quickly as I can. They’re layouts for the paddocks and training areas, even a few fuzzy gray pictures that look like they were taken by aerial drones. Some of the papers have notes about the location of fuse boxes, and even a few number sequences that look like key codes for places like the training area and the valley.
“He must’ve stolen this from his dad too. Like the intern list,” I say. “What is he up to?”
“I don’t know, but we need to take this to Mr. Masrani,” Justin says, gathering it all up and dropping it back into the plastic bags. “What if he’s planning to steal more stuff tonight, when everyone’s distracted?”
My stomach sinks. “Let’s go check to see if he’s watching the movie with everyone else,” I say.
“And if he isn’t?”
“Then we need to find Mr. Masrani—fast—before Wyatt does anything,” I say. “He’s had access to the Pteranodon eggs for weeks now. That’s what Tanya and I have been doing in Dr. Wu’s lab every morning. We’re monitoring the first hatch. Wyatt somehow weaseled his way into the job too.”
“A Pteranodon egg would be easier to smuggle out than a live dinosaur,” Justin says, looking disturbed. “But if he’s already stealing tranquilizers and fusion bandages…he’s stealing them for something.”
“Maybe he’s got a buyer,” I say as we hurry out of Wyatt and Eric’s room with Wyatt’s stash. “The fusion bandage will revolutionize trauma medicine once they figure out a way to get it to stick to nondinosaur skin. And I’m sure the tranquilizer is some special megapowerful kind. They’d need it to knock out a dinosaur.”
Justin closes the door behind us, and we walk down the hall, no one the wiser.
“Let’s hope he’s got a buyer,” Justin says.
“Why?” I ask. The elevator dings open and we get in.
“Because if he doesn’t, it means he’s got something else planned,” Justin says. “Tranquilizers? Bandages? Security specs of the paddocks and valley? What if his aim isn’t the Pteranodon eggs? What if he’s after one of the dinosaurs?”
A cold snap of shock sweeps through my brain. It didn’t even occur to me that Wyatt might try his hand at dino-napping. He isn’t that stupid, right? No one’s that foolish. He’d be caught. And the logistics and the sizes of the dinosaurs, even the young ones…
But then I think about the Compsognathuses. They aren’t very big. They might be vicious little biting and eating machines, but if Wyatt manages to get his hands on a sedative, he might be able to smuggle one out.
The elevator doors ding open, disturbing my thoughts.
“Come on. Let’s go,” Justin says. “The movie’s playing in the second-floor conference room.”
We jog down the hall, both of us too impatient to walk. The conference room is dark, with couches grouped around a projection screen. I can see the top of Beverly’s head in the front, so I stay low as I creep up to the couch in the back, where Amanda is sitting with Art, his arm around her shoulders.
“Hey,” I whisper.
She turns, shooting me an expectant look.
“Is Wyatt here?”
She shakes her head. “He told Beverly he had a headache and was gonna lie down in his room,” she says softly. “He made a whole deal out of it.”
Of course he did. He’s up to something.
“Thanks. Sorry to bother you.”
I creep back to Justin, who’s standing in the doorway, and shake my head to indicate he isn’t there. We slip out before Beverly notices us.
“He made some excuse up about having a headache,” I say.
“Typical,” Justin says.
We take the stairs instead of the elevator down to the main floor. Rather than going through the lobby, we make a left at the bottom of the stairs and end up in the service hallway that leads to the kitchens. I don’t want to risk running into any security guards in the lobby.
The kitchens are hot and bustling with activity. When we pass by the short-order cook, he shoots us a look. “Sneaking out?” he asks.
“We’re just trying to avoid someone,” I say.
“You and everyone else,” he says, and I raise an eyebrow.
“Someone else came through here?”
“Sneaky interns are always coming down here and bothering me,” he says. “Now shoo!” He waves his spatula at us, and we turn around before he decides to rat us out.
We take the exit out of the kitchen, and the muggy night air envelops us like an oppressive hug. The intern jeeps are parked in the back lot as always, and the keys are in the lockbox, so Justin grabs one and we jump in.
“Where’s Mr. Masrani this time of night?” Justin asks as he starts the engine.
“He’s got to be at the quarantine paddock. It’s west of here.” I say.
“You sure that’s where he’ll be?”
“Yeah. Bertie said they did a toast at the command center after a new dinosaur was brought to Nublar, but they would’ve locked us down earlier if the Raptor was arriving before dark. They probably wai
t until nightfall because of light sensitivity or something. Masrani being at the paddock’s the smartest bet.”
“Let’s go, then,” Justin says, pulling out of the parking lot with a screech and heading down the road. He keeps flexing his fingers around the wheel, and I feel as nervous as he looks as we speed through the jungle, the glow of our headlights the only thing breaking the darkness as we head deeper into the thickly forested, mountainous part of the park.
When we pull up to the quarantine paddock, it’s totally dark. I frown as we get out of the jeep. I expected the kind of setup we saw when Lovelace was released into the valley our first week: huge trucks, tons of trainers, floodlights, armed guards.
But there’s nothing. The outside light isn’t even on.
“Has she not arrived yet?”
“They could be still on the docks, waiting to transport her,” Justin suggests.
“That’s a good idea,” I say. “Let’s go down there.”
I’m about to turn back to the jeep when all the lights in the training center suddenly flash on, then off. Like a power overload.
“Claire, smoke!” Justin points, and then I see it too. A wisp of smoke rising from behind the training center—from the training yard.
“We need an extinguisher,” I say immediately. I dash to the door and grab the knob tentatively, worried it’ll be hot. But it’s not—and it’s unlocked. Justin’s right behind me as I run inside, and he grabs the fire extinguisher fixed to the wall and we hurry to the back door that leads to the security tunnel that opens into the training yard.
When Bertie brought me in here before I got to see Rexy, I saw her punch in the key code. I do it now from memory and the big steel door clicks open. All I’m thinking about is what she said about how deadly fires could be on the island. What if sparks fly into an occupied paddock? We need to get it out—fast!
I cough as we hurry into the dirt training yard. There’s not a ton of smoke, but it smells terrible—not like plant matter burning, but like plastic and metal. The taste of it coats my tongue and I want to gag.
“Where is it coming from?” I ask Justin, squinting in the darkness. The training yard is big, at least a few hectares, and the cement walls and steel walkways crisscrossing overhead cast huge shadows, making it even darker with all the smoke.
“It’s thicker over there,” Justin says, pointing through the haze. We forge ahead. My boot kicks something—I think it’s a feeding trough—and I stumble into Justin, who makes sure I don’t fall.
“Steady,” he says. He reaches out, and his hand makes contact with the fence that divides the training yard from the paddock. We use it as our guide moving forward.
And then I hear it, just before I see the shadowy figures ahead. A voice.
“Hurry up!”
As I squint in the darkness, a cloud shifts in the sky and moonlight spills across the yard, slicing through the smoke…and I see.
But it’s not Wyatt, as I expected.
It’s Eric and Tanya.
My mind stalls like a broken truck. The world flips, and it’s cold and it’s hard and so confusing.
“What are you doing?” Justin shouts, his voice booming across the yard.
Tanya shrieks, jumping from her spot behind her brother’s shoulder. Eric’s crouched down in front of a giant steel box, wires spilling out of it, a soldering iron on the ground next to him, along with a burnt-off padlock. Tanya’s shriek startles him, and I watch in horror as his hand jerks and the clippers he’s holding slice through the red wire he’s clutching between two fingers.
Neither twin has any time to answer. Because a metallic screeching sound fills the air and I whirl around as holding pens and paddock gates begin to open—and the emergency hatch that leads to the unguarded, unwalled jungle rattles starts to rise.
“Oh my God, Eric, what did you do, what did you do?” Tanya says, her voice shaking.
“The main power port—I didn’t mean—” he stammers. “I can fix it. I promise. I just need to access the backup generator. Just give me—”
Justin’s hand clamps around mine, his entire body going rigid, and I turn to look where he’s looking.
There’s something moving toward us through the smoke, something big and curious, and when I see the glow of her yellow reptilian eyes through the haze, it’s not like Rexy. There’s no control. There’s no safety. There are no adults. There’s no food to distract her with. And in this moment, I truly understand what Bertie said about carnivores and how they look at you and think food first and friend second.
There’s no friendliness in her eyes.
Just hunger.
I do the only thing I can do.
I open my mouth. And I scream.
“Run!”
There is no fight or flight when a dinosaur is involved. There’s only flight.
We run. It’s not mindless, but it might as well be. There’s no way we’d make it across the training yard and into the security tunnel. She’s blocking our way. There’s only one choice: into the paddock.
Into the jungle.
“Go, go, go!” Justin chants as we pelt toward the paddock’s gate. We dash through, and the three of them keep running toward the trees, but I hesitate, looking around frantically. Where is it? The emergency button…
“Claire!” Justin shouts, glancing over his shoulder.
But I’ve spotted it. Six feet away, shining like a beacon. I bolt toward it, even as I see the Raptor out of the corner of my eye, circling, getting ready to dive for the opening the gate provides.
I slam my palm down on the button and run toward the trees. Behind me I hear a metallic whine as the gate scrapes across the road, and Please let it close fast enough, please, please…
I glance over my shoulder and the Raptor’s diving for the gate as it closes, her speed and her strength giving her all the advantage, but her tail…
Slam. The gate pins her down by the tail. The Raptor screeches, an inhuman sound of pain that makes my stomach cramp with sympathy, even though I’m so, so scared of her. She jerks forward, but she can’t move. Not without really hurting herself.
I keep running, vines whipping my face, branches cracking under my boots as I scan the jungle ahead, trying to find Justin.
“Claire!”
He runs toward me out of the dark, grabbing my hand.
“The gate’s got her pinned, but she’ll be after us soon,” I pant, bending down, my hands pressing into my thighs as I try to catch my breath.
“You locked us in here with her!” Eric hisses.
“You idiot, the emergency hatch opened with the gates! What if she got out?” Justin snaps. “She’d kill someone if she got into the more populated areas.”
“So now she’ll just kill us!”
“You’re the one who was breaking into the security power grid!” Justin says. “What the hell are you up to? That stuff Claire and I found in Wyatt’s and your room—that was your stuff. You two have been stealing things.”
“You guys,” I say firmly. “We have to move.”
“Claire’s right,” Tanya says, and I want to glare at her, because what was she thinking? But we have way more pressing matters now.
“We need to get out of here,” Tanya says firmly. “The walls aren’t climbable, but the trees…”
Justin’s anger seems to fade as he scans the canopy. “We need to get to the wall. Find a tree that we can use to jump it.”
“What if the tops are electrified?” I ask.
“They’re not,” Eric says. “They have sonic barriers like the portable ones they use in the valley for training.”
“Let’s move, then,” I say.
We’ve gotten all turned around in our dash through the jungle, and I have no idea what direction we’re actually facing…whether the gate and the training
center—and the Raptor—are behind us or in front of us, or if she’ll come at us from the side this time.
Run, run, run! It’s like a heartbeat inside me; each step I take might be my last. I’m poised for it, my shoulders tight, my body a rush of adrenaline and fear, waiting.
Justin’s hand squeezes mine before dropping away as he climbs over a huge fallen tree. I scramble up next. We’re on higher ground here, more ferns, fewer vines, and I think I hear the rush of water in the distance—or is it the rustle of Raptor feet swishing through the thick fern underbrush?
We move through the darkness for I don’t know how long. At some point, I realize that there’s blood dripping down my cheek. I wipe it away the best I can, but I worry. Will the Raptor be able to smell it?
Does it matter? She’ll find us in the end anyway. She’s bigger and she’s stronger and she’s way faster.
“There,” Tanya hisses. “It’s the wall.”
I press my palms against the thick cement, relief flooding me.
“Okay, we need to find a tree tall enough,” Eric says. “Hurry.”
We begin to jog along the wall, trying to find a climbable tree with overhanging branches. But the farther we run, the less likely it seems. It looks like the landscapers trimmed all the trees.
Eric swears rapidly under his breath, sweat trickling down his face in the moonlight. “What do we do?” he mutters, mostly to himself.
“We’ll find a tree. We’ll get out,” Tanya says, or more like begs, like she needs him to believe it. For the first time, I look at her, and I see how scared she is. I bite the inside of my lip, refusing to feel bad. She and Eric are the reason this is happening.
“We need another plan, just in case,” I say. I have to stop for a second, and everyone else slows too, sagging against the wall with me. My lungs feel like they’re on fire.
“We could hide,” Tanya says. “You hit the emergency gate alarm. That has to have sent out an alert to the command center, right? Maybe they’re already here. They’ll get the Raptor contained.”
“The alert might not go out, considering Eric messed up the power,” Justin growls.