𝘼𝙐𝘿𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙊𝙐𝙎 » 𝙟𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙘 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 ✓ [1]

XV

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
INDOMINUS WRECKS

The Indominus Rex, a surface-summoning rumbling around the back of its throat, narrowed its amber flecked eyes inside those horrific red sockets. They glimmer menacingly in the lights of the main street, the protective film over its iris retracting back into its skull. I felt any string of life in me being pulled from the ground up, uprooted and thrown aside. It was the kind of sheer, undiluted panic that could only be felt standing at the foot of this thing, watching its chest rising and falling.

She was even bigger out here in the open. There were no shades of branches and lack of moonlight to diminish her. She was as far as it got from allusive out here. Slick against the concrete, towering over every building, making humans look like insects that need to be squashed forcefully under feet. 

I felt myself stepping back for the door I had came through. Stumbling as quietly as I could, hands shivering, eyes darting around for another escape route or some sort of hiding space. Any sort of crevice of safety. I couldn't outrun this thing with the throbbing pain in my right calf. It would be no use regardless.

Claire, Zach, Gray Owen and Alex, huddled together hopelessly, all of their eyes on me.

He had a cut poking out of his shirt, his entire skin glistening with sweat. Even from a distance, his eyes were sparkling to see me alive. I couldn't believe it either. I couldn't believe we both were. Had this thing not been between us, I would be sprinting to him. Hauling my leg behind me and pushing down the pain in my back. Thudding against the concrete with my arms stretching out. To tell him both the joy and horror of what I'd just done. What I'd stood up to. All because he'd given me the courage to allow myself to see it in me. That'd I'd always had it in me. The urge was so strong it drew me out of this situation in a brief flit of euphoria, swept away by The Indominus Rex swiveled to face the group, a bone-splintering roar cracking open from the depths of its mouth.

Gray was clutching Claire's side, bottom lip quivering, watching the dinosaur with the same helplessness I'd seen in the jungle earlier today. Alex and Owen had their hands protectively in front of them and Zach. Owen's eyes dart between Blue and their two siblings behind them. Echo and Delta. Charlie was nowhere to be seen, and I could think of one very awful reason as to why. The sunken realisation was eased with Delta's eyes falling on me. Her tail swung graciously behind her, cocking her head, pricking up as she always did. Even when this horrific concoction of anatomy had tried drawing her away from me, that arena was still buried beneath her. My face.