Isla Sorna

[cerhadivision]

2
For bluebetabitch

When you spend a long time building something with your own two hands, it becomes difficult to wrap your mind around the idea of the work being done. Owen grew up around that kind of mindset, and knows very well how it feels to be in the same grip. But he doesn't mind. That's the thing about having a family: it expands, and the world around it needs to expand with it. Little by little, the house came up around them, and they settled into it, and he's never really stopped working this little world of his over like an ever-evolving project that he loves with his whole heart.

They're settled here. Officially. No one can deny it, and even though Owen still has dreams sometimes about InGen -- or anyone -- hunting them down to rip the girls, or even the boys, out of his hands, those fears evaporate every morning. The girls get along as well as any sisters do, and even the squabbling has died down in recent months; the boys have adapted beautifully, and although Chi and Psi still exhibit behavior that looks odd alongside the girls from time to time, they no longer struggle to meet expectations that were completely alien to them for most of their lives.

And then there's Blue and Omega.

The difference in Blue between her youth on Isla Nublar, and the young womanhood that quite clearly blossomed in the Santa Lucia Mountains of central California, is not only noticeable, but striking. Always the one he could rely on over the others, Blue has managed to develop into a creature that is both an extension of his right arm and yet still a highly independent person who no longer looks to him quite so often for cues; she still values her space and her privacy, but those withdrawals from the pack just to brood and sulk have all but disappeared. And while Blue's temper will always strike fear into the hearts of her siblings -- adopted or otherwise -- she's learned to balance it with patience, a trait that would always thwart her more than any other. Until now. Owen always wanted Blue to learn that balance between animal instinct and human rationality, and he knew she'd get there in her own way sooner or later. Now, it seems she has, and it's a beautiful thing to see.

Then, as if her own transformation wasn't enough, she'd somehow managed to turn her mate into an entirely different person.

If Blue's maturation is impressive, Omega's has been nothing short of miraculous. All right... Owen is a professional behaviorist; he knows there's no such thing as miracles, only hard work and dedication. Only this time it wasn't his. It was Blue's time, effort, and uncharacteristic affection that turned a furious, hateful killing machine into something that could be now what he might have been then, before InGen had their way. Omega lives in the house now. He eats when they do. He joins the family in their gatherings, as long as Blue is with him, and although his temper is still zero to 60 when roused, these days it's much harder to set him off than it used to be, even if that wouldn't be saying much. He prefers his mate and solitude over anything else, but his violently aggressive tendencies have been all but curbed for the sake of keeping Blue happy.

For obvious reasons, Owen has kept a close eye on them both from day one, and even from the very beginning Omega has treated Blue like the center of the universe. Owen himself has salvaged his share of abused, wild animals -- it's literally part of the job -- but he knows without question that no one could have done this but her. And her success is absolutely indisputable.

Case in point: today, Omega's dislike for interacting with unfamiliar people had outweighed his desire to be with Blue as often as possible, and instead of throwing a tantrum he simply hadn't gone with her down the mountain.

For Barry, it was supplies; Echo wanted clothes; Blue was only interested in procuring necessary parts for her nearly-restored 1979 Pontiac Phoenix Firebird, a task built upon very specific requirements and one which she would never entrust to any of her siblings. The day is very nice for a sojourn into the city, considering the length of the drive: blue skies and a mild breeze, not quite so far into spring that the air is anything more than comfortably warm. Psi is helping Delta collect chili peppers and the new experimental plums. Chi fell asleep in the grass up the hill. Charlie is giving Owen a hand with replacing some worn poles along the stone steps leading down to the boys' den, when they hear the familiar sound of the Jeep rolling up the long hill that serves as their driveway.

Only, it sounds like it's coming up fast.

Owen and Charlie look at each other, and immediately drop what they're doing to meet the car just as Barry rolls up, screeching to a stop and diving out of the driver's side to rush around to the passenger door. He looks frantic. And he's helping Echo out of the car. She looks like she's about to pitch right off her feet.

"Owen!" Barry calls out urgently, eyes widening immediately as Owen rushes to them. "Owen!" He has to wrap an arm around Echo's back to keep her standing. And then, to Owen's surprise and dread, Barry yells again. "Omega!"

Owen doesn't actually know where Omega has been this whole time. But suddenly he's there next to him, clearly as alarmed at being summoned as Owen was to hear it, and Owen can practically feel the tension in the male raptor's body triple because they both realized the same thing: that Blue is not with them.

"They took her," Barry says, breathless, and the bottom falls out of Owen's stomach.

Echo tries to rouse herself, flopping a little, mumbling in groggy frustration as she tries to shake off whatever is wrong with her and help explain. But Barry keeps his hold on her and barrels right through it.

"It was InGen. They had an entire strike force, Owen, the streets are chaos now. They used non-lethals. Tranquilizers. Echo took a direct hit, but they left her behind. All of them were focused on Blue." He looks at both of them, Owen and then Omega, panicked and desperate. "They came for her."

The weather was gorgeous a minute ago. Now the entire world is ice. Owen's heart has stopped, his breath is gone. Delta and the boys come running up, but he barely notices them. Beside him is Omega, frozen; then suddenly the raptor whirls to him, eyes wide, and the fury -- the fear -- in them is apocalyptic.

Omega doesn't say a word, but Owen immediately finds his voice. "Go get her."

The male raptor is gone like a bolt of lightning. Owen turns and strides quickly to a hidden cache beneath the porch. He pulls out two assault rifles and a hell of a lot of ammo as Charlie shrieks behind him, "Why aren't we going with him?!"

"Because we're going to follow him." Owen tosses a rifle to Barry, and gestures sharply for everyone to get into the car, including the still-dizzy Echo. "After Isla Nublar, Omega found us in less than a week on nothing but Blue's scent and pure instinct. This time he knows where he's going. We'd only slow him down." The motor is still running. Almost before every door is shut, Owen jerks the Jeep into gear. His last words are almost a growl to himself. "With any luck, all we'll have to do is clean up."

The Jeep screeches in reverse, turns, and roars off down the mountain.

Comments

[bluebetabitch]

Exhaustion tore at her. Blue's struggles became less, and weaker, but her will was strong enough to force her flagging muscles to fight on. She thrashed her head and screeched with every indrawn breath, but the entire world came to a stop when she realized what Hoskins was actually doing.

She froze, blue eyes wide and now filled with inchoate terror when she at last realized what was happening, and Blue inhaled only to scream again, this time in pain when she felt him penetrate her! Her entire body locked, every limb stiffening in absolute rage, but the chains held her fast. Metal shrieked along with her as she tried her absolute best to turn her claws to his flesh--any part she might reach!

Her screams soon became wails and cries of indomitable defiance, but tears began to leak from behind her tightly closed eyelids. Her wrists and ankles were raw and bloody, flesh torn from her wild thrashings, but even as strong as she was, Blue couldn't fight the residual drugs competing with her anger and fear. Although she still wailed and cried, her body soon fell limp, though she shuddered with pure revulsion, keeping her teeth clenched to swallow her sobs and her face turned unseeing at the gouged white wall.

[cerhadivision]

This is what it's about, he reminds himself feverishly as he thrusts into her over and over, her body incredibly hot and still so tight it's almost too hard to shove his way in. Dominance. An act of strength to overpower the weaker creature, in this case the raptor beta Blue, who never did seem to understand where she really fit into the hierarchy around here. She submits to Owen. And Owen worked for Hoskins. She's beneath him, and always has been.

He can do whatever he wants. These are his projects, his careful plans. If her body has already accepted the hybrid implantation, then excellent, he'll get exactly what he was aiming for. And if not... her offspring might have DNA skewed toward the human side, but he'll get his hybrids one way or the other. Sooner or later, maternal instinct will kick in, and she'll stop fighting so much as long as the infant is well taken care of. And why wouldn't it be?

There she goes: the fight is finally draining out of her, and it's a lot easier once she's not thrashing against the chains and his hands gripping her hips, jerking her down every time he pushes in, breathing heavily with the exertion of proving his superiority. Her tears and her cries don't matter; sooner or later, she'll get over it, accept her place in the food chain. It's almost fitting that they're surrounded by the claw marks and scraped metal of the one hybrid who never managed to learn that lesson.

He looks down at Blue, her skin flushed by her anger, her body gripping him so tight -- with eager grunts, Hoskins thrusts in hard once, twice, three times -- he groans as he reaches his climax inside her, hips jerking until he's spent. Dizzy with satisfaction and the chills of adrenaline fading away, he climbs off of her and fixes himself up, looking down at her now with smug derision.

"There's a good girl," he snorts, and before he leaves, he can't resist sneering, "You ever do that for your 'alpha'?"

[bluebetabitch]

Blue scarcely realized it when Hoskins climbed off of her. Her body simply hurt too much. Small tremors of pain shook her every moment or so; she simply couldn't muster enough willpower to force her muscles to respond. Her breathing was shallow and it whistled in her throat, raw from her violent screams.

Blood still seeped from her wrists and ankles, it was caked over the scarred metal, but the shackles still held her fast. Every now and again a shiver racked through her; her flesh was cold, clammy. Blue couldn't open her eyes, the nightmare would return and she'd be helpless to stop it.

She felt--nothing.

It was only hours later, after the moon had risen high above Isla Sorna and been obscured by the gathering storm clouds, did the sound of broken sobs mourn through the impenetrable steel bars.

[cerhadivision]

In the morning, the technicians come for the routine checkup only to find her gown ripped, her wrists and ankles bloody against the restraints, and other signs of disorder that make them go immediately silent. None of them say a word as they dose her again and simply go about the process of cleaning her up, fetching a new gown while the drug is strong enough to keep her unconscious.

Hoskins shows up toward the end -- to supervise. As usual. The head technician makes eye contact with him, but neither one of them says a word, and the sharp edge in Hoskins' gaze turns the technician's attention swiftly back to Blue.

They give her an IV for her daily nutrients, and while the tropical storm rolls over the island, Blue is left alone. It isn't until the following morning, after the technicians have done their routine and taken a fresh blood sample to track the fertilization process, that the door to the white dungeon clangs open again, and Hoskins strolls in alone.

He stops outside Blue's cage, eyeing her within. "Seems like we finally took the fight out of you, huh."

+++++

The seas are choppy and rough in the aftermath of yesterday's storm, with another one billowing up on the horizon, but the speedboat cuts its way through the waves at 50 knots heading straight for the island rising jaggedly from the ocean. It's small, but it doesn't need to be big. It just needs to be fast. It's taken him a week to catch up to his mate and she's there, on that island, captured by the same bastards who imprisoned him and his brothers for most of their lives.

Omega steers the motor against a particularly deep swell, ducking back against the assault of salt water but staying fixed on course. The boat is stolen, from a private dock on the mainland. That was after six days of tracking the magnetic thread connecting his heart to Blue, on foot and on the backs of trucks and ferries and at one point a train; at one point, he'd even entertained the insane thought of stowing away on a commercial airline, but that plan didn't have a chance in hell of working. Not when every second counted. He barely ate, slept only in exhausted patches when whatever was beneath him was moving on its own, and made it to Costa Rica far sooner than any human could have managed it without flight.

If this had happened a year ago, out of sheer madness he might have tried to swim the distance and drowned. But Blue taught him how to sail, how to operate the boats that ran with motors. Now Omega is mere minutes away from Isla Sorna and closing it at 90 miles an hour.

The beaches will be guarded. He knows that. And the idea of just cruising right up to the ferry is an absolute joke. No safe way of sneaking onto the island from a boat, and even if he had his own helicopter, he'd never make it overhead without gaining a lot of attention. So, he'll try a different approach -- because it is his mate on that island, with InGen, with Vic Hoskins, and Omega would sooner drown himself on purpose than not to every last thing in his power to get her out.

As the roar of the waves crashing on rocks grows louder, Omega turns the boat diagonally on its path, aiming it sideways at the cliffs, and then he climbs up onto the side and dives. The boat speeds on its course and crashes into the rocks jutting up from the sea around the island, its momentum carrying it up and over, the bottom scraped to shreds; Omega swims underwater toward the island in the other direction, and pops up in time to be swept by a wave hard into the rocks. But he catches at it fiercely, clinging until the water recedes and leaves him coughing and soaked to the bone, and then pulls himself up from one rock to the next until he's standing above the waves, at the bottom of the sheer, jagged cliffs.

He looks over his shoulder, toward the dark clouds gathering in the far distance; the wind is strong already, and it'll only get worse. The aching pull of his mate is unbearable; Omega looks back up the vast height of the cliff, eyes stinging with seawater. One hand finds a rocky outcropping that holds his weight when he digs his claws in; the other hand finds a second one, higher.

He starts climbing.

[bluebetabitch]

She'd scarcely moved in a day and a half. Even when the medicos came in, she remained as still as a corpse. So much so, in fact, that one of them actually took vitals just to ensure her heart was still beating. The drugs they had snowed her with were potent, and did their wicked work far too well; Blue, Blue, was finally complacent and submissive.

If completely without any spark of life.

The storm rolled overhead, and while Blue had always enjoyed the sound of thunder and lash of rain, she seemed unaware of the broiling tropical depression, her head turned away from the cell door and eyes gazing unseeing and unfocused at the wall, lids only half-open. The tranquilizers had slowed her breathing, sapped all of her energy so that her chest only rose and fell slightly, the breaths she did take sparse and shallow.

When Hoskins entered her cell again, alone, there was no response from the creature prone on the cot.

[cerhadivision]

This really is something to see. Hoskins can't help the thrill that shivers through his blood to see the female raptor humbled like this, finally subdued, at the mercy of everything they intend to do to her.

And what Hoskins feels like doing to her again.

He closes the cell door behind him and steps closer to her bed, eyeing her with enough caution lingering from the last time; his hand stings like all hell, and even if he didn't need stitches for it, there's gonna be a scar there for a nice, long time. She's got a brand new gown, but that doesn't matter much. She's still chained, still drugged, and apparently at the end of her seemingly limitless capacity for defiance.

But still, he can't be too careful. Hoskins decides that a little test might be in order. He approaches her from the end of the cot, and this time he leans slowly over her, looking her prone body up and down. This is almost too easy. He could do anything to her like this. Anything. Maybe one day he'll even be able to take those chains off. Not too soon, though. And to make sure she's as meek and passive as she seems to be, he slides a hand slowly up to squeeze a rough handful of her breast.

+++++

Omega's claws are cracked, his fingers cut and bleeding from the rocks. He'd almost fallen twice: once, thanks to some loose rocks, and again because the shrieking wind gusted so hard that it nearly blew him straight off into the sea. But he clung to the cliffs, using the harsh rocks to brace himself against the unforgiving wind, and he kept going, because he was going to reach Blue or die trying.

And finally, he'd dragged himself over the edge of the cliff, onto flat, solid ground, and he was back on Isla Sorna once more. He would have fought tooth and nail against being dragged back here, and now he couldn't return to it fast enough.

His body could stand to lie there for a minute, catching his breath and blinking salt and wind out of his eyes. But there's no time for that. Omega picks himself up, ignoring the half-dry clothes sticking uncomfortably to his skin, and races off into the jungle. He knows exactly where he's going. This is his childhood home, after all.

As soon as he gets close enough, the ugly, human, scientific scents of the compound hit him in an all-too-familiar rush, and memory rolls over him in a nauseating wave. He nearly reels back on pure instinct, the half-buried animal in his mind shrieking at him to turn back, they are the enemy, you can escape, you won't ever go back. But the pull of mate smothers that voice like a dying flame. The CERHA Division compound might as well be Hell on earth, and Omega would still run headfirst into it just to get to Blue.

Under the circumstances, however, that would actually be a very stupid idea.

Omega is not surprised in the least to find the compound heavily guarded by fully-armed ACU, decked out in tactical gear and non-lethals (god, they just never give up). But it's not just tasers and nets -- those are tranquilizer rockets, and he'd bet a pirate's fortune that there's a generous dose of MORO-709 waiting in those payloads. Clearly, they're expecting him. Well, that's touching.

In the old days, he would have run in headfirst. He'd have charged the compound -- maybe from a weak point, maybe picking off a few first, but it would have had all the strategy of a savage creature driven by violence and fury. That won't do his mate any good now. As much as Omega would love to cut a path straight through those bastards, it wouldn't be hard for them to take him down, even if they lost some men along the way.

On the first day they met, Blue warned him against letting hate make him reckless. 'You're giving in to the beast too much, that makes them afraid. Weak fearful prey bands together, becomes strong.' At the time he'd dismissed it as pure ignorance. Now he knows better, and once again it's entirely thanks to her.

For one sharp instant, Omega's heart is gripped tight, and despite all sense of reason, a deadly, howling fury rises up in his chest, white-hot in his blood and flashing behind his eyes. It's a feeling he knows so well, too well, one he's only been able to control under Blue's firm patience and loving touch. They took her from him. Reason or not, they're going to pay for that in blood.

And Hoskins...

Omega clenches his teeth, eyes bright, claws flexing in the shadows of the jungle. He can't go straight through them. They know him, as he used to be. They're expecting him to try it, driven by rage and bloodlust, unable to wait. So, he'll have to try something else.

He jumps quickly to the high branches of the trees and circles the large compound, silent and swift and hidden.

[bluebetabitch]

Struggling would be painful. She knew that, logic was correct in that regard, but a spark, just a spark, of instinctual animal lived still in Blue. She moved not a whit when the cell door opened, not even Hoskins' disgusting scent stirred her.

The drugs still soaked her nervous system, making her slow, somnambulant, docile. Unfortunately the tranquilizers didn't dull her pain receptors; Blue's entire body throbbed with every slow heartbeat. An eyelash flickered as the fat man approached the cot, perhaps a chain clinked, unseen.

Her head was turned away, lips barely parted on shallow, uneven breaths. But try as she might, wish that she might, Blue could only clench her fists, and hardly enough to strain, when Hoskins groped her breast, the rough rude pain lost in a cacophony of other hurts and misery.

[cerhadivision]

Perfect. This is what he likes to see. Yes, it's a shame that such a proud, majestic creature needs to be humbled like this, but that doesn't mean it isn't a thrill to know that he's got her under his thumb now. Hoskins smirks just slightly, and his fingers spread wider over her breast, boldly feeling out the shape of it, familiarizing himself with his property.

But he shouldn't be wasting time here, because she's still a science experiment, and they're operating on a clock. He wasn't lying when he said he was getting impatient. So Hoskins gets up with a creak from the cot and turns around to spread her legs open again, once more pulling her taut against the chains at her wrists. The feel of her soft breast beneath his palm has him stirred up already, but just to get it going a little more, he rubs her thighs, appreciating how weak and helpless all that lean muscle is to him right now.

Yeah... he's ready. She might not even be as painfully tight as last time, when she's not fighting against the drugs. Hoskins reaches for his belt and opens it up quickly, unbuttoning his pants, too eager for this to bother with playing around anymore -- there's always time for that later--

Suddenly, with the ominous sound of power failing, all the lights in the dungeon go out. A second later, red lights begin to flash from above each cage and the doorway as an alarm sounds from somewhere above them. A female electronic voice speaks with artificial calm overhead.

"Warning: Critical Loss of Power in Primary Generator. Auxiliary Power Redirected to Containment Levels."

Hoskins jerks back, his pants loose and sliding, and he grabs haphazardly at them as he stumbles quickly for the door. Too late: the electronic lock on the cage slams into place, trapping him inside as the red lights strobe in the darkness.

"Shit!" Fumbling, he snatches up the radio from his belt and yells into it. "What the hell is going on?!"

The radio crackles. "--generator's down--"

Hoskins shakes his head furiously. "That's a geothermal generator, it doesn't go down!"

"Somebody--isconnected pipe--broken turbines, the whole things torn to p--"

All Hoskins can do for a second is stare at the radio in his hand through the intermittent flash of red. "What in the--"

HWOOM. The entire compound shakes, rattling the bars of the cages. Someone on the other end of the radio clicks on long enough for frantic shouting to be heard in the background.

"Jesus Chris--armory! Get the hell away from the--s that the goddamn rocket launcher--"

Another explosion rocks the ceiling above them and the cages shudder again. Shock dawns slowly to horror, and Hoskins doesn't even remember to fix his pants as he tries furiously to unlock the cage, prying at the mechanism until he remembers the keys on the back of his belt. He grabs wildly at them but his belt slips under his shaking hands, pants slipping down. "Jesus--!"

[bluebetabitch]

The blatting alarm hurt her ears and the flashing red lights seared her vision, reflected off the bare white walls. Blue blinked through the haze, feeling instinctively that something was wrong, and pulled without success against her chains, whimpering in frustration.

She dimly heard Hoskins barking and swearing somewhere nearby, but at least he wasn't right there again, looming over her, thank God. The crackle of the radio reached her just as the facility rocked on its foundations, and real panic began to close Blue's throat, slowly evaporating the haze of drugs.

Her struggles were weak, so very weak, but she jerked at the restraints regardless, feeling the crusted metal bite again into her flesh, but there was no way in hell she was going to die this way! Blue tried to scream, but the sound was limp, hollow, and entirely without volume, sounding instead like a whimpered moan, but she kept pulling, although her strength was barely enough to even move the heavy chain links.

[cerhadivision]

Hoskins finds the key. But in true fashion of combating the machinations of extremely clever, extremely aggressive hybrids, the key is oddly shaped, the lock very small; it's hidden in one corner of the mechanism, smooth enough in the metal to be easy to miss even with fingers passing over it. And Hoskins's fingers are shaking so bad that he can barely keep the key in his grasp.

This wasn't supposed to happen. The ground is still vibrating with intermittent explosions, and the klaxons blare in his ears, the red making his eyes water, his head aching. He knows what it is. The compound is under attack. God damn it, he knew they were coming, but how could Owen Grady possibly have made it past the blockades on the beaches, how could the raptors have breached the entire army of ACU guards surrounding the fences without sounding any alarms? He knows his boys. Knows them damn well. Raised them from birth. They never learned to be that subtle, and if there was one animal who could never resist even the smallest opportunity for bloodshed -- even at the cost of his own safety -- it was Omega--

All of a sudden the door to the dungeon slams open with a metallic crash, and Hoskins drops the keys.

He curses wildly, but doesn't dare take his eyes off the door, not even as he stoops unsteadily down and tries to feel around for the key. Then two dark shapes come flying out, one of them hitting the bars of the cage, the other one crumpling to the ground before Hoskins's eyes. They're the guards who were stationed outside the door, bloody and mangled. One of them had his chest caved in, shards of bone sticking out in the flashes of red light. The other one has no head.

Hoskins reels back from the bars, forgetting all about the key. Darkness coats his eyes, in the same instant that a dreadful purrrr curls its way to his ears, nearly inaudible beneath the sound of the alarms.

In the next flash of red, Omega is standing outside the bars of the cage door.

His claws are soaked in blood that's not his own, his whole body is vibrating with the adrenaline of killing, but for once Omega is not consumed by his own exhilaration. All of that was just necessary action, taken to get here, to find her, and he felt her pull him straight down to hell, a place he'll feel like the ghost of chains on his body for the rest of his life. But now that he's here, he doesn't see anything else but her.

And then -- Hoskins.

Blue is hurt, or sick, or both. Badly. Omega can see that at a glance, but more than that, Vic Hoskins is in there with her, alone with his mate, and he's responsible for this, for her pain -- and then--

And then--

He sees the weakness in his mate, the helpless splay of her body, and the open trousers dropping halfway down the trembling legs on that fat, disgusting sack of meat. In the instant that passes between seeing them, and realizing this, Omega's eyes widen, flashing white hot as his lungs constrict, and then suddenly the fire burns so hot that the burn turns to ice. Something utterly black descends over him, in that single heartbeat, everything in the world erased. Omega knows he's never felt anger like this. He didn't know what fury was until now.

The containment measures here are old and rusted. He is not. And there is nothing on this wretched earth that will come between him and his mate, least of all the hubris of InGen. Omega grabs the bars of the door, and doesn't bother with the lock. With a savage howl, he wrenches the entire thing off at the hinges and throws it aside to crash against his brother's cage, and then Omega throws himself at Hoskins and has his claws -- finally; finally -- around that disgusting throat--

Hoskins chokes, gurgles, terrified, and Omega's claws pierce skin, but then the compound rocks above them as another explosion tears down walls much closer to them this time. Omega quickly looks up, and then down at his mate as he comes immediately to his senses: she can't free herself. This place is going to come down on their heads before long. As much as he would love -- god, would he love it -- to scrape the bones out of this man, this god damn bastard who dared to lay a hand on his mate, he's not going to risk Blue's life for this.

His attention whips back to Hoskins, and in the next flash of red, he forces the man to his knees and slams a foot straight down on his leg. Flesh and bone crushes with a stomach-wrenching noise, and Hoskins shrieks; Omega lets him go, allows him to collapse in screaming agony back against the bars, and whirls to his mate's side, where he never should have left.

What have they done to her?

Omega doesn't waste time looking for the right keys. One by one, he grabs each chain and twists, pulls, presses a boot to the wall -- they shatter at the base, until Blue is left with dangling chains on her wrists and ankles, but she's free. And Omega's stomach roils, because when he pulls her into his arms, she doesn't have the strength to tell him to go to hell, and even in the flashing lights he can tell that her face is grey, her beautiful eyes (they should be so sharp, so bright) unfocused and dilated. There aren't enough ways to scorch the earth beneath the ashes of InGen to make them pay for this...

But he doesn't throw Hoskins a second glance as he dashes from the dungeon with Blue in his arms, cradled tight to his chest.

Above, there is nothing but chaos. The rooms over the dungeon are crumbling, broken; corpses litter the floor, of guards and technicians alike, and through the windows there are screams and yells and a bright orange glow. Another explosion bursts in the distance, quaking the earth, but Omega is steady on his feet, until they finally break out of the building and race across a compound that is slowly burning to the ground. They head straight for the trees, and Omega doesn't slow until he's brought his mate far from the devastation and up onto higher ground, into a deep thicket of tree roots and fallen leaves and the prehistoric flora of the island.

Omega kneels, and very carefully lowers Blue to rest on cool earth and soft grass. With the humans far away, all that's left in his eyes is the anxious worry, a sickening fear he hasn't experienced since the Indominus let her feel its claws. He knows what they've injected into her... her body wasn't meant to take this much. This was meant for him, and he's a monster. But Blue is better than him. Smarter. He should never have let this happen. He should have seen this coming...

He strokes back the tangle of her hair, both hands touching her face with a gentleness that has only ever belonged to her. Then he looks back toward the compound, and in his eyes narrow.

In an instant he's gone, a bolt of lightning headed straight for the battlefield down the hill.

[bluebetabitch]

Blue screeched, managing an actual raptor trill this time, panic rising high in her throat as the world continued to shiver. Red burned in her blurry vision and the alarm continued to burn her ears with its incessant noise. The shriek of metal close by had her flinching away, but a damningly familiar scent floated past her nose and Blue abruptly jerked, life sparking back into her for the first time in over a week.

Then she heard Hoskins' shriek, but felt her chains being severed and darkness loomed in her eyes, a fresh wash of that scent filling her nose and nearly making her weep with relief. Safe, her shocked mind finally realized. Safe. Home. Safe. She felt herself lifted, then carried, arms pulled down by the weight of the chains still trailing behind.

Moments later she smelt earth, trees, and the last of the rain, filling her nose with all the scents of her childhood, coupled with the scents of home and mate, yes... Blue mewled softly, trying to focus her eyes on the living darkness before her, tried to reach up to run her hands over it, but lolled back against the roots and grass, exhausted. The drugs still held sway over her system; time would purge it, but she was dangerously helpless until then.

[cerhadivision]

Hoskins's back is thrown against the tree so hard that something cracks. If it's another bone or two, it's hard to tell over the unholy, excruciating pain of his leg, which lands like a wet sock and makes him scream all over again. He can't remember when he stopped screaming.

Why his hybrid had come back for him in a dungeon half-buried beneath burning rubble, Hoskins still doesn't know. But somehow he doubts it's because the magical switch has finally flipped and turned the savage beast into a loyal companion. Omega had dragged him by the neck all the way out of the compound and into the deep jungle and then tossed him at a tree like a rag doll, and Hoskins can barely tell what is happening now, nearly blind with pain, but he doesn't want to die on this island.

"You..." he gasps, "...you don't have to do this, boy. You know that. Things got rough, that's all--" Oh Jesus, the pain is shooting up through his body in bolts of lightning, taking the wind out of him. But he's gotta appeal to the raptor's reason. He's not dead yet. That's gotta mean something. Maybe humanity has finally started to kick in.

"You did good here," Hoskins insists, trying to blink through agony, trying to sound as soothing and proud of his animal as Owen always did with his. "What a... what a hell of a plan, huh? Didn't see it coming. But this is what I... ugh... this is what I always wanted for you. You see that? I gave this to you. I'm on your side. Everything you have now... thanks to me... you and Blue--"

A fist slams into the tree just above his head, sending down a shower of splinters and chunks of bark, and Hoskins chokes on his own words. Omega's teeth are inches from his face, and bared.

"If you say her name again, I'm going to rip out your tongue and feed it to you."

The deliberate emphasis of those words is so much worse than the feral shrieks Omega used to make endlessly within the bars of his cage, and Hoskins can't meet the look in those burning blue eyes. He shuts his own tight, ashamed of being afraid in a tiny little corner of his mind, but every other part of him hurts and can't take whatever's coming. He wonders for a wild second if he could just start crawling away. Maybe he could find a hole, or get under the roots of a tree, stay there until Omega goes away, until someone else comes to find him--

Suddenly, something wraps around his throat and jerks him back against the tree. He gags.

"You know you're going to die here, right?"

Omega's voice is hard, but almost conversational, and coming from somewhere behind him. Hoskins scrabbles at his throat -- feels like vines, real thick and slippery, and it's hard to tear into the growth with blunt fingernails.

"I used to dream about the day I'd get to do it." Leaves rustle on the other side of the tree and the vines tighten. Hoskins' head knocks back against the trunk. Omega's tone actually turns fond. "Hearing that she hated you too was the first thing I liked about her."

The knife--! Blinking away stars, Hoskins fumbles at his belt, but the leaves crunch and the dark shadow in his peripheral vision kicks him in the side, and he yelps.

"Even after I got off the island, I would imagine coming back to find you, just to claw that ugly smirk off your face," Omega continues like nothing happened, stopping to yank the knife out of Hoskins's belt and toss it aside. Hoskins can feel another vine being lashed around his wrist, jerked sharply back against the tree, as Omega circles around again to bind the other as he talks. "We used to talk about it sometimes. But you weren't worth our attention, you fat sack of guts. I had a better life. What you and your InGen sycophants did to me, I would have hated you until my last day on earth, but I could've put it behind me. I never would've thought about you again. But then--"

The bottomless pit of poison and black fire that opens up beneath Omega's words causes Hoskins to reel back, expecting death in that very instant, as frantic as an animal in a trap who only gets caught tighter when they squirm. Omega's voice comes closer, that shadowy mass filling Hoskins's blurred vision.

"...you tried to do it to her."

Omega crouches down in front of him, and Hoskins chokes, wanting to say something that will let him get out of this alive, or at least stall a little longer. But he can't find any words. This must be what it's like for a bird or a rabbit to be paralyzed by a serpent.

"Now, one of two things will happen." Omega's voice is very calm -- an alien sound to Hoskins's ears, and horrifying. "My personal preference is for you to get a very slow, very painful death right here, tied to this tree, even if it means we simply let that leg rot off and the jungle crawl through your skin and eat you. But it's not up to me." He tilts his head away. "It's her decision. And your only hope for any kind of mercy is if she is too fucking sick of looking at your disgusting half-corpse to keep you around another second. So we're going to wait, very patiently, and see what she wants to do."

Then Omega leans in, and his voice drops lower, a hideously quiet purr, and Hoskins can finally see him as clear as a flame in darkness.

"And you'd better hope she recovers," Omega whispers, with a tension that Hoskins perceives as death hovering inches from his throat. "Because if she doesn't, I'm going to keep you alive, just so I can tear off pieces of you, one little strip at a time. If you're lucky, every wound will fester and your fat body will start eating itself faster than I want to pull you apart."

Hoskins feels like he is staring at death from a far distance; he can't think straight, can't breathe, can only try to speak. "...Please--"

"No," Omega says. Then he suddenly grabs for Hoskins's belt -- inspiring a moment of fresh, pure terror -- and jerks it out of the loops, in nearly one quick motion wrapping it above his knee through the buckle and jerking it almost tight enough to amputate. Hoskins screams so loud the jungle vibrates.

But Omega just straightens up. "Don't die yet," he orders, and then disappears.

+++++

In the distance behind him, the compound is slowly consumed by fire; on the horizon is another tropical storm, turning the sky dark and rolling steadily closer. Isla Sorna will survive his wrath, but InGen's presence won't. He should go to the beaches and deal with the other troops, but for now he's not going any farther. Besides, ACU can't track them this time.

Omega returns to the burrow in the earth where he'd left his mate, a bitter relief instantly flooding through him once he's beside her again. He immediately drops to his knees and crawls over her, touching her face and pressing his forehead to hers, nuzzling her to smother back the panic rising in his chest behind that relief. She's in bad shape. Omega has never seen her like this, couldn't even have imagined it until now, and he can scarcely wrap his brain around the reality of it as it is. His mate is fierce and proud; he knows that whatever they did to her, she went down fighting. But...

He looks her over, and realizes that he still has to take the chains off her wrists and ankles. Hoskins didn't have this key on him. There isn't much he can do about the shackles -- without the risk of hurting her -- but Omega takes the chains, and with concentrated strength bends the very last link at the cuffs until they snap. Soon enough, Blue has four coils of loose chain lying around her like metal snakes. Then comes back to settle beside her, drawing his unnaturally vulnerable mate into his arms again, ignoring the pounding of his own heart in an effort to keep track of hers.

Not a single word to Hoskins was exaggerated. Omega knows how strong Blue is, but he also knows just as well what InGen is capable of. Blue should never have come here, should never have had to see the inside of that compound; InGen's hands should never have touched her, not for one goddamn second. Looking at her now, Omega remembers very well how it feels to be suffocating under an overdose of MORO-709. But he'd been dealing with the stuff for years. They gave her too much. All of Omega's scars and vivid memories of a life spent here are old... not nearly as important as the ones he's made with Blue since then, the marks she's left on his skin.

What they've done to Blue is different. They hurt her on the inside, in more ways than one, and Omega doesn't know how that heals, he doesn't know what he should do besides keep her safe and get her home.

[bluebetabitch]

When warmth returned, she instinctively reached for it, mewling silently. The scents of the jungle were a welcome balm, but the scent which returned with the dark shadow in her vision was home. Alas that she was yet unable to reach far; just a mere movement of her hands towards the black shape, knowing that it was there for her.

She shuddered against the heat, craving more and more of it, shivering as the drugs pulsed their eternal way through her system. Her stomach roiled, forcing her to breathe shallowly, but that was fine since every breath brought her another taste of safe, of home. Blue burrowed into the firm, lean shadow, uncaring if doing so caused her even more agonizing pain, so desperate was she for a haven of rest.

But she couldn't bite back the minute whimpers that doing so brought. Blue clenched her teeth, but waves of piercing pain rolled over her abdomen, inducing another bout of shivering as she tried to fight her own body, paralyzed by its drug-induced weakness.

[cerhadivision]

Every scream from Hoskins had been darkly satisfying; every tiny sound of pain slipping out of Blue now feels like a knife twisting in his chest. His familiarity with the MORO tranks gives him an awareness he wishes he didn't have about what is happening to her -- and she never had a chance to build up a tolerance like he did. It's all too clear that they overdosed her in an effort to avoid the same trouble, and that's before whatever else they did.

...whatever Hoskins did.

He should have gotten here sooner.

Omega holds her close against his chest, but one hand seeks out hers, closing around her fingers. He hates how cold they feel, how weak. But he remembers wishing back then for something solid to hold, something that wasn't metal or stone. He wanted it to be warm. He didn't know what safety was back then, but he would have liked that, too.

"I know," he murmurs to her, hoarse and almost too quiet. He shuts his eyes tight, nuzzling her again, wanting an answer that isn't just this. "You're gonna be fine. I'm gonna get you home."

[bluebetabitch]

It was the voice that brought her briefly up from the haze of pain and drugs. It sparked recognition in the back of her mind, it clamoring and struggling to come through the tranquilizer fog. Blue forced her eyes open, blinking blearily, but her gaze focused at long last on the darkness that held her, and eventually an achingly familiar countenance came into view.

She was still just enough beyond coherent speech to actually say Omega's name, but her gentle trill echoed in the back of her throat, gently calling to her bonded mate, her other half. Blue closed her fingers over his, clutching their joined hands tight. She managed to return his nuzzle, somewhat; angling her head against his and wanting the rest of the world to just...fall away.

[cerhadivision]

Any sign of life from her lifts his heart straight up, but fear still keeps it tethered to the earth. She's strong. She'll get through this. He knows that. And yet there's still the tiniest voice in the back of his mind -- such a human thing -- that shudders and thinks, what if?

Every muscle in his body nearly seizes with the sudden, world-ending desire to run straight down that hill and leave Hoskins in pieces all over the jungle, but two things keep him still. One, as he had plainly informed the pig, it'll be Blue's call on how he dies. And two, any movement at all would take Omega away from his mate. And that just isn't happening.

Blue's trill is answered with a low purr, which is echoed almost immediately by the sound of distant thunder. It's going to be a heavy storm, and if he has to move her, he will. But the rain will quench the fires and keep InGen away from the island a little longer. For once, Isla Sorna seems ready to protect her own, and Omega would die here just to do the same thing.

He swallows, jaw tensing, mouth hidden in her hair. "...I love you."

[bluebetabitch]

Blue shivered for most of the night. Her body sapped as much warmth from Omega's as it possibly could, trying to keep her internal temperature regulated. The cool air brought the the storm, so welcomed by the island's other inhabitants, was another dangerous enemy to the suffering hybrid, still too sick and weak to put up much of a fight.

The following morning revealed Blue still too weak to be more than semi-coherent; she'd opened her eyes briefly and managed a small smile for her worried mate, but had burrowed back into his arms right after, leeching all the warmth she could. Every breath brought pain; her strained muscles throbbed, but those were minor hurts compared to the agony inside.

Abdominal cramps came and went, often so sudden that a spasm had her writhing in misery, too breathless to screech. She could only mewl, licking dry lips and fighting off the shocky shivers as her body tried to purge itself of the drugs. She slipped in and out of a fitful, restless sleep, unable to be easy even with her mate's strong, careful arms around her.

By the afternoon, she'd slipped into unconsciousness again, unaware of Delta's trilling call, seeking any sign of her or Omega, or the arrival of the rest of her family, armed to the teeth and more than willing to do whatever possible to get their Beta to safety.

[cerhadivision]

He'd told Hoskins not to die, and that abominable bastard would obey if he knew what was good for him (or not, really) but Omega forgets all about him. Whatever happens to Hoskins doesn't actually fucking matter. Nor do any effects lingering from what it took to get him here. Blue's safety is the only thing that does. He doesn't let go of her, and barely sleeps for the sake of keeping watch, despite there being so little he can do.

Lucky for them, it turns out that the rest of the pack wasn't too far behind.

InGen must have cleared out from the island, as Omega suspected they would, although who knows what their next move will be. Especially since CERHA Division was, according to Owen, not exactly an approved operation by the parent company of Masrani Corp. InGen might come back to salvage something, but it won't be immediate. In the meantime, Blue needs serious medical attention, something Omega is utterly incapable of providing, and when he hears her sister calling he would have teleported them both in a second if he could.


Owen's familiarity with the majority of Isla Sorna is slim. He's never actually been to the compound where the boys were kept, which was significantly separated from the other facilities more related to Jurassic World. Even when Blue came here that very first time, they never saw it. But Chi and Psi are alert and tense as soon as they make landfall -- on an eerily deserted shore -- and once again it's just a matter of following along behind.

If they'd taken another day to get here, he would have gone completely out of his mind, and in all honesty he's not sure he hasn't already.

There is no sign of anyone else, no hidden traps or scented enemies. Owen left Barry and Gwen by the boat with the radio; with any luck it'll only be a quick getaway. The boys stay ahead, sometimes in sight and sometimes disappearing, and when they finally return neither one of them stops Delta from calling out in the hopes her sister will answer.

There is a frightening pause -- but then, Omega's familiar crowing answers back.

Immediately the boys take off again, this time bolting straight in the direction of their brother's voice with a keener awareness of Owen and the others what they might be walking straight into. Owen doesn't have his bike or even a Jeep but he's damn well going to keep up with the raptors one way or the other, even if that just means following the trail every time they double back. Blue didn't answer the call. The fact that Omega did is enough reason not to panic, but neither one of them has appeared yet. That is not a good sign.

But finally, the sound of raptor calls up ahead let him know that the pack has found their brother and sister, and Owen lets relief slip through the cracks in his armor. It lasts just until he clears the trees to find Omega pushing his way through the others, with an ashen-looking Blue in his arms.

"Jesus," Owen breathes. "Back up." The other five instinctively part away, but they hover anxiously close, and both Charlie and Delta look like they're about to cry. Chi and Psi are darting quick glances around the jungle, and seem drawn to the opposite direction, down a sloping hill. Owen can't tell what they're smelling or seeing and doesn't care. He touches Blue's forehead: she's burning hot, but the rest of her skin is clammy and chilled, and she's shaking all over. Omega looks grim.

"Blue. Hey, baby girl, wake up. Look at me."

[bluebetabitch]

Despite Omega's best intentions, hypothermia had ruthlessly set in, exacerbated by starvation, dehydration and severe immunodeficiency. Deep in the grip of unconsciousness, wracked by cold chills with almost every third shallow breath, Blue never heard Owen's beloved voice, nor registered his unforgettable scent. She lay all but limp in Omega's arms, closed eyes dark in deep hollows.

She never heard the sound of the waves crashing against the empty beach, nor the crackle of the radio and Doctor Gwen's anxious voice demanding something of someone on the other end of a satellite phone. She was unresponsive when the boat's motor started again, and had no way of knowing that Owen, Doctor Gwen, Omega and she covered the ninety miles from one island to the other in record time.

Gwen, however, knew it'd be a helluva long time before she ever forgot any of this. She'd received Owen's call just an hour before he skidded the Jeep into her complex's parking lot--she had a duffel packed and was closing the passenger side door almost before the vehicle even stopped moving. Then had been a mad, grim dash south as quickly as it was possible to go; she'd had no qualm about using her emergency medical clout to skip security checks wherever necessary--at least doing so kept Owen from shooting anyone.

But seeing Blue in Omega's arms as he brought her from Isla Sorna's dense jungle...well, that had nearly frozen her heart. Immediately, she'd jumped on the satellite phone, knowing it was a long shot--Mitch might not even work there anymore--but she'd dialed one of the few numbers from her old career she'd taken care to keep committed to memory, and praise God it had been answered.

After only the briefest explanation, with a promise to deliver more details later, she'd hung up the phone and herded Owen with Omega and Blue into the boat, instructing Owen to head for Isla Nublar, to the site of their former respective employments. True to his word, Mitch was waiting for them at the back entrance of the medical center.

"I'm gonna get my ass chewed for this--!" the short man complained, staring wide-eyed at the group hurrying through the center's sliding doors.

"Mitch, thank you, more than you can know, but right now, we need to hurry. She's hypothermic and under-oxygenated, so we gotta move." Gwen hugged him quickly, but then all but shoved the white-coated tech down the hall, gesturing to Omega to bring Blue and quickly.

It took a bit of doing to get Omega back out into the hallway, but pointing out that Blue couldn't get any better as long as he was in her way did help Gwen's cause quite a bit. She shoved him back outside, to wait with Owen, while she and Mitch went to work on their comatose patient. Thankfully, the center was virtually unoccupied, this being the park's off-season, with guest counts in the record lows. Irony, really.

About three hours later, almost sunset, Gwen finally emerged from the room, looking tired and haggard. She crossed the hallway to where Omega and Owen paced, respectively, and called them both, telling Omega right off, "You can go in now. She's still not quite awake, but you should be in there with her." She opted not to remind him not to break anything; she surmised his concern for Blue covered that much.

After the male raptor had practically vanished--thank God Mitch had decamped right when Gwen urged him to do so--she turned to Owen, her face grave. "It's bad, Owen," she began without preamble. "Starvation, dehydration, her immune system's been compromised by all the goddamn tranquilizers they filled her with, Christ, I've never ever seen an animal take so much of that crap." Her expression thinned. "There's evidence of physical abuse, too. Her wrists and ankles are chewed up, which doesn't surprise me, to be honest, but there are bruises, Owen...bruises consistent with rape victims."

Gwen's eyes grew anguished. "--and that's not the worst of it." She put her hand on his arm, gently. "Blue's hemorrhaging--the drugs have abraded the lining of a few blood vessels, and," Gwen took a deep breath, dreading the words she was preparing to say, "...she's also pregnant."

[myraptors]

A year ago, Owen would never have risked being alone with Omega when tensions were so high. The male raptor is streaked with dirt and blood and pale beneath it, his eyes wide and sharp, and more than once Owen noticed him reflexively curling his claws as if he wanted to sink them into something. But the male raptor had followed Gwen without so much as a snarl, and had let them take Blue from him, although being shut out of the examination room brought the first recognizable flash into his eyes, but reason prevailed again. He'd withdrawn to the shortest distance Gwen had permitted.

Owen can't help noticing all of this, even now. It just has Blue written all over it.

Besides, he can certainly appreciate what Omega is feeling. He's running on autopilot himself, only one real thought sticking in his brain, and that's what is going to happen to his beta. Owen has seen bad. He's seen the boys' files, too, and he has a better grasp of InGen's methods than he wishes he did. But none of them know exactly what happened to Blue out there, at least not until she wakes up to tell them. And when Gwen comes back out and gives Owen some fresh information, he nearly shuts down altogether as his mind attempts to reconcile the reality around him with things she could not possibly have just fucking said.

"She's what?"

Is that his voice? Who's speaking? He's not actually hearing this. He's somewhere back on the island, still, or maybe he fell asleep on the way to find Blue -- no, they did find her, and she's --

"What did you--" He's suddenly raising his voice, and he has to catch himself fast, dropping it immediately to a whisper, staring at Gwen with growing horror. All of a sudden he has a thousand questions, all of them twisted up in fury and anguish and disbelief, and -- god, he can't even pick one place to start. "Are you sure?"

Then he clenches his teeth, his eyes going harder. "...Gwen, tell me you can find out who did it."

[dinodoc]

She hadn't wanted to believe it herself. She'd made Mitch run the test three times before she'd even admit it was legitimate. And, staring at the printed results back in that operating room, Gwen had known right then and there what an absolute clusterfuck this was going to be.

"Owen, I'm sure." Gwen kept a firm grip on his arm, just in case he flew apart. "We ran the the tests three times, and each time was a proof-positive." She finally dropped her hand, relocating it to pinching the bridge of her nose.

"As for who--I...can't say yet with any certainty. This is an unprecedented case, in all of mankind's history. We'd never even speculated, Owen...God, just the ethics about such a thing all scream taboo. It wasn't even a possibility until you told me about Blue and Omega." She leaned her butt against the wall, bending over slightly, fingers to her temples.

"A human fetus wouldn't be in this stage of development so soon. Nor would a true velociraptor. My gut is screaming at me that they've used growth enhancement, which would make sense given her current condition, especially if she was being starved." Gwen straightened, looking back at the raptor alpha. "I have blood tests running, but I can't promise definite answers, Owen. Not while she's this incapacitated."

A thought then occurred. "Do we know if anyone there at InGen survived? Any of the medical files? Someone has to know."

[myraptors]

Owen thinks he might be sick. Or scream. Or throw something. And that is only because he can't actually rip any part of InGen to pieces with his own hands. Especially one in particular -- Hoskins, that fucking psychopath, this has his fingerprints all over it and now Owen is going to vomit blood at the sinking suspicion that it might not only be fingerprints.

Jesus Christ, he should have killed that son of a bitch when he had the chance. He should have landed that second right hook and knocked him straight off the catwalk, broken his neck. He should have thrown a torch onto the compound before he left--

Gwen bringing up ethics makes Owen feel slightly hysterical, and he very deliberately straightens his back as well, and takes a deep breath so he doesn't launch into an explosive tirade on how InGen feels about ethics. He still very much wants to throw something. If there was anything close enough at hand, he might already have done so. And instead of answering Gwen's very valid question, Owen turns and heads straight for Blue's room, only just managing not to kick the door in for the sake of his unconscious beta.

Blue doesn't look much better, her pallor ominous and grey; Omega is sitting at Blue's bedside with his mate's hand wrapped in his own and curled to his chest, their heads touching and his eyes shut. He doesn't move when Owen comes in.

The first thing out of Owen's mouth is, "Is there anything left?"

"No," Omega answers dully.

"Did anyone survive?"

"Yes." The male raptor doesn't open his eyes; he sounds like he's barely listening. "I left Hoskins tied to a tree."

Owen goes suddenly cold and burning hot. He stares at the two hybrids, breathless, for an instant longer, and then whirls around and lets the door close again behind him. He storms right past Gwen, and on his way to the door he snatches up his gun.

"Gwen, I'm not going to ask you to save her because I know you're going to do it," he says, every word as hard as steel. "Whatever it takes. I'm going back to Isla Sorna."

[dinodoc]

Unsurprised over Owen's abrupt change of pace, Gwen didn't impede him when he headed out of the medical center, rifle in hand. Gwen did, however, offer up a brief prayer for everyone in their little 'family', especially the still-comatose Beta, lying in the next room. Going back in, Gwen spied Omega just where she expected him to be, and stepped to the other side of Blue's bed, checking her vitals with old experienced habit.

No change, but then Gwen didn't really imagine there would be, not yet.

Even though these hybrids had an astronomical healing ability--much greater than a human--and were able to take much more damage before going down, they still had their limits. And InGen had done their damnedest to find poor Blue's, Gwen feared. But the Beta's heartbeat was sound, if not as strong as usual, and she was receiving as much oxygen as she could breathe; Gwen noted the purplish color had faded from her fingernails. A good sign.

She brought another bag of IV fluids from an interior room, replacing the near-empty drip with the full. Making a note on a memo book, Gwen sighed softly and looked over at Omega, unmoved from where she'd first saw him. God, the poor hybrid had to be exhausted...

"Omega...?" She didn't expect him to acknowledge her, but she tried anyway. "Would you like to sleep there in Blue's bed with her? I don't think she'd mind, and she might come around quicker if she knows you're nearby."

[myraptors]

At first, Omega remains unresponsive, as if he either hadn't heard her or intended to act like it. But then his eyes open slowly, and he tilts his head without lifting it, just enough to look toward her. Then he nods, without speaking. If it won't cause his mate any suffering to have him beside her, then that's where he'll be.



The boat roars its way back across the waves, straight toward Isla Sorna. If Owen never sees this island again in his life, it'll be too fucking soon, but right now he can't reach it fast enough. Barry and the other raptors are still there; he left them behind to sweep up, and to give the island itself a once-over, such as it is. Now he suspects he knows what the boys were so anxious about earlier.

With any luck, they haven't killed him yet.

Owen's boots hit the sand practically before the boat even stops moving. Barry is still maintaining a sentinel post on the beach, but Owen doesn't linger to explain the situation other than a few bitten words that give the other man enough information to stay back. He wishes he had the fucking Jeep, but at least he can still follow the raptors' deliberate trail through the woods, and Owen barely remembers the actual effort of getting from the beach to the deeper jungle, but finally he calls, and the girls answer him.

They rush to him, and surround him with anxious questions and muffled tears about their sister, but for once in his life Owen doesn't have it in him to stop and making them feel better. He makes the girls direct him to the boys. The boys are not far off, and they lead him down the hill.

Tied to a tree, just like Omega said, is Vic Hoskins.

Owen notes humorlessly that the man has seen better days. His eyes are crusted, his skin a ghastly pallor even worse than Blue's, with mottled spots on his cheeks and dry, cracked lips. Both the bones in his right shin have... exploded, looks like, his foot is hanging on by skin alone and the splintered bone is jutting out of nothing but red, fleshy pulp. A horrible smell wafts past Owen's nose when he draws closer. But none of it makes his stomach turn nearly as much as the man himself.

Chi and Psi prowl like wolves under the shadows of the trees. Submission to their elder brother has kept them from finishing the job he started in his absence, but they've been tormenting their former jailer all the while, just waiting for the chance to rip him to pieces. But Owen sends them both away with a sharp word, and Hoskins's eyes peel open, watery and bloodshot.

His mouth moves, but Owen doesn't hear anything at first. It takes the man a couple tries to get it out. "...Owen."

Owen tightens his jaw against the bile that rises up just from hearing that son of a bitch's voice. But he needs him to talk. He's gonna get some goddamn answers, and he steps closer until he's standing over Hoskins, eyes narrowing, expression hard as stone.

"If you want any help at all, you're gonna tell me exactly what you did to Blue."

Hoskins coughs, making a disgusting sound in the back of his throat. For a second, Owen is honestly afraid that the fucker is about to keel over dead before telling him anything. But then Hoskins looks up at him again, and -- good lord, is his lip trembling? The bastard looks like he's about to cry.

"It wasn't supposed to go like this, Owen," Hoskins pleads with him in a voice raspy and shot. "You know that, you... you know what we, what we... were trying..."

"You were trying to breed better hybrids," Owen snarls, "using those boys and my girls." His fingers flex on the strap of his rifle, still slung across his back. "Is that what you were trying now?"

Hoskins nods weakly. "We... we were taking good care of her, Owen, I swear, but... you... you know how she is. Stubborn... always fighting, we had... had to quiet her down."

"So you overdosed her on tranquilizers?"

"Didn't want... didn't want her fighting like... he did." Hoskins coughs, hacks, and makes a choked sound of pain before his head falls back against the tree. "She could've hurt herself, Owen... I didn't want that, ever..."

Owen considers stepping on that dead leg. "What did you give her?"

Hoskins wheezes. "...MORO-709."

Jesus. That's the tranquilizer they use on the actual dinosaurs. Owen is appalled. "How much?"

"...22 ccs," Hoskins answers after a brief pause, during which he was either thinking or briefly unconscious. "But Omega... used to get 25. We didn't give her that much, Owen."

"Yeah, that's great," Owen growls. "What did you do, dose her every goddamn day?"

Hoskins's silence answers that question well enough. Owen realizes he's gripping the strap so tight that his hands are shaking, and his chest feels cold and tight. He slowly crouches down, even though it puts him closer to the man he hates more than anything else on the planet, and he's so disgusted by the sight of him that it might make him retch on the spot. The question he has to ask out loud to this absolute scum of a human nearly does the trick.

"How were you trying to impregnate her?"

Hoskins answers a little more quickly this time. "We... we saved specimens from the boys. All of 'em. I wanted... you know I wanted to see her and Omega together, Owen. You know that... you know there wouldn't be a hybrid better than that..."

Owen has had just about as much as he can stand. But there is one more thing. "And is that the only thing you tried?"

That's when Hoskins goes quiet, and Owen can tell just by the look on his face that it's not because the man is confused by the question. Hoskins is already dying out here in the jungle, in too much pain to hide the way his eyes go wider, his mouth opens and shuts, he shrinks back just a little -- because he's been caught, hasn't he, the repulsive motherfucker knows his little secret is out.

"Okay." Owen straightens up and swings his rifle down from his shoulder.

Hoskins's expression falls apart. "No, Owen--"

But Owen doesn't bat an eyelash -- just puts the first bullet right in his lap.

Hoskins screams, long and raw and high-pitched; his crotch is an exploded mess, blood pouring out between his legs, staining the grass and the leaves beneath him. He screams, as Owen cocks the rifle again, and then the next gunshot leaves everything silent.

Owen collects his shell casings from the ground, swings his rifle back over his shoulder, and heads up the hill to rejoin his raptors.

"Let's go."

[dinodoc]

Gwen was in the middle of a hushed conference with Mitch when Owen returned to the medical center, and her expression suggested the news was anything but good.

"--we can't pull off a procedure like that now, not while she's hemorrhaging, Mitch, good God--"

"Gwen, I get what you're saying, but if we wait too long, it'll be impossible to remove--"

"All right, I know, but if we expect her to even have a chance of recovering from such a--"

"Yeah, it sucks." The little man's face was grave, eyes tired behind his thick glasses. "But that's how these hybrids were engineered, Gwen, you know--"

Gwen waved an exasperated hand, cutting him off and rubbing her forehead, trying to ease the headache brewing there. Glancing up as the doors hissed open, she spied Owen and spoke to Mitch, the tech nodding and stepping back a pace as the raptor's alpha approached.

"Omega's in there with her," Gwen told him, more than likely unnecessarily. "He's asleep next to her, I told him she'd probably like having him close." She gave Owen a once-over, noting the grim demeanor and placed a cool hand on his arm. "Are you all right? The girls and the boys?" She assumed he'd discovered something on that other island; the expression on his face screamed it aloud.

"What happened?"