Abstraction ➳ Owen Grady

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"WELL THIS IS a nice change of scenery," Ally remarked as she walked around the square perimeter with her arms crossed. Mills' men had locked them in one of the cages meant to hold a dinosaur or two. She still couldn't quite believe they'd gotten mixed up in this maelstrom.

"It's a cage," the redhead responded in a dry tone, leaning back against the brick wall. Ally stopped in her tracks, unfolded her arms and turned to look at her friend with an annoyed expression.

"I know that, Claire," she retorted, "I was being sarcastic." Owen rolled his eyes. He'd already tried getting her to sit down but she'd insisted on pacing around the cell even if there was a wobble in her step.

Alysanne leaned back against the brick wall. She ached all over and now that pounding headache was resurging. It made her vision fuzzy and eyes heavy. The scab on her forehead was itching and without much thought, she reached up and rubbed it. Though as soon as her fingertips brushed the welt near her temple she cringed and jerked her hand away.

"Hey," Owen whispered, leaning closer to her. "Look at me." Ally turned her head toward him. Her exhausted expression was desolate. She was a researcher, a scientist, an esteemed member of the academic community, and was in over her head. "We're going to get through this," he told her and gave Claire a reassuring glance. They would find a way to get out and with any luck shut down the auction too.

✹✹✹

Footsteps echoed in the hall and then came the echoing sound of slow, mocking applause. The man that appeared wore a black suit with a navy and red striped tie. "The founders of the new age," he announced to the armed guards positioned at his sides.

"You son of a bitch!" Claire darted toward the steel bars, jutting her arm out in an attempt to grab Mills' arm or tie. He was the reason they were locked in this cell, the reason they'd almost died on the island.

Ally and Owen pulled Claire back, but when Eli stepped closer and wrapped his hand around one of the bars Owen jerked his arm forward and pressed it back against one of the bars. Just a little more leverage and force and it would snap the bone. "I think I'll break it," he said.

The guards drew their guns and pointed them at Owen. "Let him go," one of them said, pulling back the hammer of the pistol until it clicked. Alysanne Sattler gripped onto Owen's arm, urging him to let Mills go. Finally, he did, and the guards lowered their pistols, but then Claire reached through the bars, gripped onto the man's tie and pulled it hard and fast. The echoing sound of his face hitting the metal filled the containment area. Eli's glasses fell to the floor and cracked. His nose was bleeding.

The armed guards lifted their weapons again. "Say the word and we got 'em, Mills."

He picked his glasses up of the floor and pulled out a white handkerchief to clean the lenses. "Well-" Mills spared the three of them a quick glance, "-as far as everybody else is concerned, they burned up on the island."

Uneasy silence lingered, interrupted only by the occasional heavy breath or movement of one of the dinosaurs. Claire was picking the dirt out from underneath her nails. "Do you remember the first time you saw a dinosaur?"

Alysanne Sattler opened her eyes and sat up straight. She'd seen thousands of fossils, heard a dozen tales from Ellie, Alan, and Ian but bones and words couldn't quite capture the majesty and awe of seeing a leaving, breathing creature that had roamed the Earth more than sixty-five million years ago.

The first one Ally had seen and laid hands on was a Stegosaurus. It was a moment that she'd never forget.

Claire looked between Owen and Ally. "First time you see them, it's like a miracle. You read about them in books, you see the bones in museums but you don't really," she paused, feeling a swell of empathy and guilt rising in her gut, "believe it. They're like myths. And then you see the first one alive." There was a faint smile on the redhead's lips.

"None of this is your fault, Claire," Ally said, shaking her head. Claire might have goaded them into coming, but at the end of the day, they had both made their own decisions. Nobody had forced them to come to Isla Nublar. Lockwood and Mills still would have managed to gather up dinosaurs to auction, only they wouldn't have been able to get Blue without them.

Claire Dearing shook her head, unable to understand how Alysanne Sattler could still be a forgiving and optimistic person after everything she'd been through with Jurassic World, everything she'd been through in the past thirty-six hours. "How can you say that?" The redhead's voice cracked as she asked the question.

"You just wanted to do the right thing-" Dr. Sattler glanced over at her friend gave a slight shrug "-you can't be blamed for that."

That answer didn't seem to convince Claire. The redhead looked around the brick cell, shaking her head. "Look where's it landed us, though."

✹✹✹

Anesthesia had begun wearing off some of the larger dinosaurs, but the smaller species were still down for a little while longer.

The brick wall Owen and Ally leaned against rattled following a large and loud thump. A few moments later the same sound and rattling occurred. Despite the throbbing in her head, Ally jumped to her feet at the premise that their cell neighbor could be a Pachycephalosaurid. "Owen, give me a boost."

Owen balanced her weight on his shoulders, so she could look into the cell through the small window near the top of the ceiling. A large smile crossed over her face, followed by excited laughter. "It's Stiggy!"

Stiggy was a juvenile stygimoloch. One of the last dinosaurs hatched at Jurassic World before the Indominous incident. Alysanne looked between Owen and Claire. "We're getting out of here," she told them. There wasn't a drop of uncertainty in the statement.

Claire furrowed her brows at their new prospects, not quite understanding how they were going to get out of the holding cell with three brick walls and reinforced steel bars.

Ally glanced up at Owen and took a step back from the diving wall. "Whistle," she told. He did. The brick wall separating them rattled and bulged. It took less than a dozen hits from the living battering ram for the bricks to give way. The young stygimoloch stepped over the debris, not looked away from Claire.

"Stiggy!" Ally called. The dinosaur turned shook its head and turned in the direction that it had been called. "Eyes on me." The stygimoloch was steadily approaching, looking for its next item to ram. Ally reached up and grasped onto the metal grate above the door. She glanced at Owen and gave him a slight nod.

"Whistle again." And despite his better judgment, he did. Stiggy charged toward Dr. Alysanne Sattler. She leaped, swinging her legs up and out of the way as the barred gate clattered on the concrete door. A few seconds later, the stygimoloch had taken off down the hall.

Ally looked around the line of cells but paused when she saw a small person by the winding iron staircase. "Hey!" She shouted, taking off after the kid with a severe limp. "Wait!"

It was a girl, no older than ten years old. She'd climbed into a dumbwaiter. "It's okay," Ally said. Claire stepped up next to her, explaining she was Lockwood's granddaughter in a low voice.

The young girl stopped trying to close the door of the dumbwaiter as she looked at the three adults attempting to coax her from the small elevator. Her dark eyes darted between Claire and Ally. She recognized both of them. "You," she paused, sniffling, "you're Alysanne Sattler."

Ally nodded and glanced back over her shoulder. "And this is Owen and Claire. They're my friends."

The girl focused on Claire and wiped some of her tears away. "You were here talking about saving them." The redhead nodded. Then her attention shifted to Owen. "I saw you," she said, looking at Owen, "with the velociraptors and Blue."

That surprised him. "If you come out of there, I'll tell you everything you want to know about her. That sound alright?" She nodded and crawled out the dumbwaiter.

"Can you take us to your grandfather?" Claire asked, but she shook her head and began crying again. A moment later, she ran to Owen, wrapping her arms around his waist. He glanced up at Ally, unsure but returned the girl's embrace.