𝘼𝙐𝘿𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙊𝙐𝙎 » 𝙟𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙘 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 ✓ [1]

XIII

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NIGHT GARDEN

In my abundance of nights letting tyres carry me home like a child being carried to bed, I'd never thought I would ever find myself regretting a climb onto the back of my motorbike.

I was accelerating feverishly down the darkened path in front of us, small traces of blue and green grimly passing me by in the little pockets of headlights. The engine was rambunctious and aggravating, not a gentle hum. Like I would swerve off the path at any given moment, and I wouldn't care less. My hands were numb. My mouth was dry. My tongue was settled tightly between the grooves of my teeth, listening out for the activity of Owen, Barry and our raptors. Air wasn't touching the bottom of my lungs when I inhaled.

I didn't want to be here. It was the only thought circulating through my mind, and for selfish reasons.

I wanted Alex and I to leave. I didn't want to venture any further into this day. This day that kept unravelling more and more reasons as to why I'd overstayed my welcome when I'd never had a choice in the first instance. Why this wasn't the home I had believed it to be. If I left now, I didn't have to know. I could keep feeling my way through the dark. I didn't have to find myself crawling back to the questions I knew I'd avoided every waking day of my life, just like that first morning in my unit's kitchen with Alex.

This drive that was stringing me along through a thread of bleak headlights, guiding whatever was left of my conscious through uneven jungle floor.

We followed through with the scent drill, letting the pack guide the way, but Delta was slowing herself down, tail preceding to swing. She sniffed the air.

'They're slowing down,' I said into the radio attached to my shoulder. 'I think they've got it.'

'They got something!' Owen's voice crackled back.

The four velociraptors race past Owen's bike having kept at his heels the entire drive, leaping over a log and into the shrubs ahead of us. It took all my strength not to make eye contact with Delta, who had been occasionally spinning around to see if I was still on her tail. Claire had been placed on security watch back at the compound, hidden away from Hoskins with the boys. If Hoskins was even still at the arena. The man had a talent for running.

And maybe now, with the numbness of today setting in deeper every second, it was a trait that had been handed over to me.

The cars and bikes came to an abrupt stop, a set of high beam floodlights flickering on. Everyone was silently climbing from their vehicles, cocking their weapons and shuffling for cover. Weapons. Around our raptors. How awfully obscene.

In the short distance, I could make out the silhouettes of the four raptors, Delta hovering beside Blue. Charlie and Echo sniffed the air, bickering amongst each other.