A/N: I'M BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER!!!
Well...kinda, lol.
Point is, I'm finally feeling better enough to keep writing. While it won't be too frequent, I'll try my best to upload every little while to keep you all invested and in the story. Thank you all so much for the support you guys have shown me as I heal through the past few months. I love you all and am truly grateful for your kind words!
I consider this an early birthday present to myself (sweet sixteen comin' this Tuesday!!! Ahhh!), and a reward for coming so far.
Again, thank you all.
Enjoy :)
Ben glares from behind us.
I know it's at Darius, but I don't pay attention to it. I'm too busy focusing on the feeling of his hand in mine, and the butterflies that flap around in my chest because of it.
Finally. We're actually together!
Since we'd first kissed, there'd only been two or three brief and quick ones. The reason being to keep my brother sane as we all traversed the jungle trying to figure out what to do. So far, we planned on heading back to the treehouse and making a plan to try and escape on our own, but with Ben's head injury, we would have to wait at least a few weeks so he could actually travel.
But those worries were in the back of my mind. Darius and I were together, we'd kissed, and right now that felt like all that mattered.
After thirty minutes of walking away from the limo, we decided to take a break and sit down on a log. Darius and Ben each covered my sides, and the tension between them was clear in the way Ben would continuously glance at him and Darius would shift uncomfortably. I rolled my eyes.
"Ben, stop. I get that you were just hurt, but you know Darius! He would never hurt me!"
There was a flicker. My brother tried to cover it up by looking annoyed at my comment, but I still noticed the small change in his expression. It had looked...sad? Surprised? I didn't have much time to read it before he looked away again. He didn't say anything, and I was going to ask him if he was okay, but we were interrupted.
There was a cacophony of roars in the distance. The ground started shaking beneath us.
All three of us let out a harmonic groan.
"Can't we have one minute without dinosaurs chasing us?"
"No time to complain!" I shout, grabbing onto them and pulling them to their feet. We start to run just as I hear to creatures breaking the tree line behind us.
"Run!"
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We barely leapt behind a fallen tree trunk before a group of brachiosaurus dinosaurs started leaping over our heads. I used my bow staff to push the three of us all flush against the log. Dirt, mud, dust, and rocks flew around us as the large creatures made their way back into the jungle.
We waited with closed eyes until the ground started to calm down. I carefully opened them again and watched them all disappear into the trees.
"Holy shit, that was close! You guys okay?"
Darius nods, and Ben gives me a shaky thumbs up. I look him over, relieved when I see no blood soaking through his bandages and no signs of disorientation. Slowly, I stand up, helping Ben as Darius pushes himself to his feet. We all look back in the direction the dinos had ran.
"Do you think the Scorpius' attacked them?" I asked.
"I hope to every supernatural being that they didn't, but seeing as that is highly unlikely, I say we should get moving before they find us," Ben suggests. I take my bow and hold it in front of me like a staff — seeing as I had no arrows, and no time to make any, I had to use my weapon in a much less effective and insufficient way.
"Let's go," I say, and we depart.
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We find the old Visitors Center after a while, the building slowly emerging from the trees, surrounded by wild and vast plantation that was finally taking over.
"Hopefully we're the only visitors at the Visitors Center," Darius says. We all slowly begin to slide down the small hill leading down to the clearing, trying our best to keep cautious and quiet. I keep a close eye on my brother as we do so, though he doesn't seem at all phased by his jerky movements.
"Don't worry," he chuckled. "Compies won't mess with us. We have a history."
"I meant that blue raptor," Darius corrects him. And I look at him with confusion.
"Wait, I thought all the raptors were dead?"
Darius turns to me. I can see the guilt in his face from miles away despite how hard he tries to hide it. I don't understand why.
"Well, uh...while you were gone, we...um...we found a surviving one. She's very territorial and usually stays around these parts, so we've gotta be careful."
Oh, I get it, now.
"Darius-" I start, only for his to cut me off with a gasp and run away.
Ben and I follow him to a rolled over vehicle, where, beside it, an empty tranq gun sits abandoned in the grass.
"Right where we left it. Tranq gun."
Darius goes to pick it up.
"Hopefully there's some ammo around here somewhere."
Just as he's about to touch it, the breaking of a branch behind us comes abruptly and we all scream and jump back in surprise. In front of us, Sammy, Brooklyn, Yaz, and Kenji all let out high pitched yelps and gasps, which turn into smiles of relief and joy, which I'm quick to echo.
"Oh! I-It's you guys!"
I'm the first one attacked by Sammy, who soon pulls the other two in while everyone else surrounds us in one large group hug.
"I'm so glad we found you!"
"We thought you guys were gone!"
"We thought you all died!"
The laughter eventually died down as we all pulled away, questions needing to be asked and answered now that we were all reunited.
"What are you doing here? We thought you left."
"What? No! Camp Fam for life, right? We'd never leave someone behind," Kenji says. I notice him sporting the dirty captain's hat, which I suddenly realized was no longer on Darius' head. I don't comment on it, though I let out a small chuckle about it.
"We just had to get away from that stupid Scorpios. It was on the dock."
"Yeah," I nod. "We saw them up close and personal."
"Wait, hold up," Sammy gestures at me wildly. "Them?"
"There's two of them."
Everyone groans.
"Because of course there are!"
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph..."
"Who would put two Scorpios on one island?"
"How is that even possible?"
Darius starts to pace, putting one hand behind his back and another out in front of him. I can't help the smile that pulls itself onto my face watching him, seeing him using his smart nerd heart to come to a logical conclusion. If the others weren't around, I'd let myself kiss him again. But I didn't know how they would all react, so I refrained.
"Some animals reproduce asexually, and I think...I think that the scientists must've coded something in their DNA to make as much possible, thought they probably didn't mean to considering how dangerous the animal is. They had to have known that, right? They wouldn't just...no, they couldn't. That's the best answer I can come up with. But all of that doesn't matter right now, because-"
"Holy shit, Ben, what happened!"
Oh, right, that...
Ben flinched at Brooklyn's obnoxiously loud question (thought there was genuine concern laced within her tone). Everyone else seemed to finally notice his head bandage, too, because they all gasped.
I quickly stood in front of him to keep them from crowding my brother.
"Ben's okay, he just...the Scorpios' — Scorpiei? Scorpioses? Whatever, that's not important — they attacked us while we were hiding in a limo, and Ben got really hurt. He just needs to take it easy for a bit-"
Ben pushed past me, glaring with no actual disdain.
"I'll be fine, Bee! I'm fine now, it was just a little blood."
"A little? You could've bled out!"
"Well, I feel that's a bit of an overstatement..."
"Uh, no, it's literally fact!"
"I am just fine! You don't need to be so damn protective of me — I'm fine!"
"Darius, please back me up on this," I turn to him. He looks between both Ben and I, conflicted.
"C'mon, Dar, I am just fine, right?" Ben scoffs.
After a moment, the boy finally looks at Ben apologetically.
"I mean, you did bleed a lot, Ben. And you could barely move, let alone stay awake, so, uh..."
"Really?" Ben gapes. "Actually, I'm not surprised. Of course you're on my sister's side, now that she's your girlfriend you can't just go against her, can you?"
Silence.
Darius and I's faces both go tomato red, while Ben doesn't seem to notice.
"Seriously, just because you two kissed and whatever, it doesn't mean you have to-"
"Omg!"
I'm suddenly pulled into Sammy's body, her arms keeping me tight against her while she squeals right into my ear.
"You guys are finally together? Yay! I've been waiting so long for this to happen!"
The flush doesn't leave my face, and neither does the one coating Darius', because Kenji has now walked up to him to pat him on the back.
"Congrats on getting some action, bro, took you two long enough, am I right?"
Sammy pulls back, but grips my hands tight in hers as she jumps up and down. I'm still caught up in a mix of confusion, embarrassment, and bewilderment, due to how quick the air seemed to change due to Ben letting our not-so-secret-secret out.
"Wait...you guys...I-what...I-I...huh?"
I can't speak clearly with how jumbled my brain is. Darius just stays quiet. I briefly spot Ben in my peripheral, looking a bit upset, but I assume it's due to how quick the subject was to flip to us.
"Oh, come on, it's so obvious! You two have been dancing around each other like two cattle doing the doe-c-doe 'round a campfire!"
"Yep," Yaz chimes in with a small smug smirk. "It was way too obvious."
I can feel the color in my face darken even further.
"It-It was?" I squeak.
Oh, God, I'm so embarrassed!
Even Brooklyn hums in agreement, but doesn't say anything verbal outright. Just smiles knowingly.
Sammy, on the other hand, keeps jumping up and down and squeezing my wrists.
"Heck yeah, it was," she laughs. "And now Blarius has finally come true!"
Finally, the other uncomfortable kid talks.
"B-Blarius?" He yelps. "What do you-"
"Alright, alright, we get it and we're happy for the both of you, really," Ben groans. He walks up to us and pats both of us on the shoulder, a bit too harshly in my opinion. Everyone quiets as he walks in front of us and crosses his arms with an annoyed stare at the group. "But we don't have any time for this. We have bigger things we need to address — like, I don't know, maybe the fact that there are two Scorios Dinos out and about? Dinos we all most likely have to defeat all by ourselves despite the fact that we're all tired and ticked off kids!"
Ben leans down and picks up the tranq weapon still laying on the grass. He cocks it, despite there not being any ammo within the gun. He then comes to grip it tight, eyes narrow with determination, along with other indiscernible emotions.
"Now, are we gonna kick some dinosaur butt again, or what?"