Death Strike

Welcome to a story that is very near and dear to my heart :) As many of you know, this is the first novel I wrote and it is raw and unedited. If you do dare to read this book, please now that it is a scary endeavor with many mispellings, poor prose, and bad plot. If I were you, I would wait to read the newest novel I am working on :)

Read if you dare

-Josiah Kenizzite

Introduction

Raydawn stared at the ceiling of his foster home, looking at a crack in the wood of his bunk bed.

Raydawn was sweltering hot, and the air smelled of smoke from all the cigarettes and air pollution in the city. Boys lounged around him in their underwear, too hot to even put on clothes. Raydawn couldn't even go outside because he couldn't stand the smell of the air in Los Angeles. Raydawn was having a pretty lousy day, sweating to death in that apartment.

Raydawn had lived a short, miserable life up to this point. Not too long ago, his father had died in an accident with a horrible creature that Raydawn couldn't even bear to think about. As a consequence, Raydawn's mother had become very depressed. She had these horrible mood swings and would even hurt Raydawn from time to time.

Wanting the best for him and his mom, Raydawn had contacted the correct authorities to get his mom somewhere where she could get the help she needed. Raydawn had wound up in a foster home in Los Angeles until his mother changed her ways while being cared for at a rehab center for those who had been through extreme loss.

Raydawn's nose wrinkled at the stinky, smelly boys around him. Those boys had been the worst. They would steal things out of his bag, take his money, and they were just total jerks wanting whatever was best for themselves. Just because you had a hard life doesn't mean you have to be a jerk.

All of this was a good reason to escape.

Raydawn had been thinking of ways to escape, and finally, Raydawn had a plan that he felt he could put into action.

One night, he woke up in the dead of night and carefully got out of bed. Raydawn didn't make a sound as he collected his bag full of personal belongings.

Raydawn snuck to the foster parents' bedroom. He quietly opened the door. As quick as a mouse taking a slice of cheese, Raydawn bolted into the room, opened a wallet sitting on one of the two bedstands, and grabbed a thick wad of cash with his hand.

Raydawn left the room and quietly shut the door behind him, cash in hand.

"What were you doing?" A little voice squeaked. Raydawn nearly fainted from fright.

He looked down and saw the youngest foster child before him. He was about ten and was in his PJs. The kid always popped up when Raydawn least expected it.

"Why are you up?" Raydawn whispered, holding his fingers to his lips, shushing him. It was only so helpful.

"I was hungry," He said at the same volume he always used. "What's the money for?"

Raydawn was about to die.

"I'll give you a dollar if you shut up and go to bed," Raydawn said.

The kid took the dollar like it was a gold bar.

"I'm telling mommy when I wake up," The menace said, wagging his finger as he went back to his room.

Raydawn quietly got out of the apartment and let out a deep breath that he didn't know he had been holding. In the hallway, he counted up his loot. $167. Enough to get him to Hollywood.

Raydawn had a simple enough plan in mind. Go find a quiet neighborhood in Hollywood. Locate a fancy house that looked deserted, and live there until the owners arrived back at the house. As soon as he was booted out of the house, he would leave and consider his life choices. Being as naive as Raydawn was, he never considered what type of security systems the houses would have.

For now, though, the first step was to wait in the hallway. There was no way Raydawn would venture out onto the streets of L.A. at this time of night before the sun had risen. The darkness in Los Angeles was when the worst of the worst arose from wherever the heck they came from to roam the streets.

Raydawn had seen many unsightly creatures by daylight. He could only imagine what it would be like at night.

Creeeeak.

Raydawn heard the door to the apartment begin to open. He bolted into the emergency stairwell, which was close to the apartment he had just escaped from. Thankfully, it was an indoor stairwell.

Raydawn ran down the stairs, nearly tripping and eating the floor on the way down, and emerged, going out the wrong door onto the street. His apartment had some dumb code to get back into the building that his foster parents had never bothered to tell him, and he couldn't just walk up to the door and call the foster parents. What would he say? That he had stolen a bunch of money and wanted to be let back inside so he could get whupped? Raydawn knew that wasn't an option, so he was forced to brave the dreaded streets of L.A. at night.

Raydawn saw one hideous homeless person, and his imagination went to work.

Unearthly faces were appearing out of the night. Faces of men and women who had been defiled to mere animals appeared through the fog. Raydawn had seen the homeless before, and he thought they chose their way of life, but in his mind, those who came out at night were wretched brutes who didn't dare show their faces in the daylight.

By some miracle, Raydawn ended up stumbling into a hotel lobby. The man who was supposed to be watching the lobby was out of sight in a back room, so Raydawn was able to hurry away to the guest rooms and locate a stairway to get further away from where the hotel staff could find him. He found a random chair in some obscure corner and promptly fell asleep.

The next morning, Raydawn woke up to a little girl poking his knee.

"What do you want?" Raydawn asked groggily. He looked around and remembered his situation. Waking up in the morning always came slowly for him. The girl held up her Barbie and said,

"Do you like my Barbie?"

"I really like your Barbies, but I have to go eat breakfast," Raydawn said, taking the elevator to the lobby. If he got booted, so what? He was leaving anyway.

Once he was back on the streets in daylight, glorious daylight, he proceeded to a bus stop. Raydawn carefully mapped out where he wanted to go and was on a bus to urban Hollywood in no time. Within two hours, he arrived.

After a short walk, he found himself in a beautiful residential area tucked away in the hills. The houses were huge and grand. Raydawn was looking for a house that wasn't over-the-top huge, and the lawn was disorderly, as that was a sign of an empty house. At least he thought.

Finally, he found one. It had an overgrown yard, with a great meadow filled with wildflowers surrounded by trees that were crawling with vines. Raydawn couldn't see any cars parked anywhere along the street, which made him feel even better about the house being deserted.

Though it was kinda sketchy, he couldn't see the house from the street. Maybe when he got to the actual house, cars would be parked out front and the lights would be on? Or maybe it was a perfectly deserted house? Raydawn decided to take the chance.

Raydawn started to walk up the driveway. He walked for five minutes, an unusual amount of time for walking up a driveway in a small neighborhood, and started to notice his grave mistake.

Raydawn walked up to a gate surrounded by a fence. A very tall, mean fence, looming down on anybody who dared to face it. Raydawn could hear the fence crackling and realized it was electric, too.

He also took note of the cameras on the fence that were peering down at the gate.

Somebody was rich and famous, Raydawn thought.

Raydawn strolled back down the driveway to a point where the cameras could not see him and strode through the meadow until he got back to the fence. Then he found a large oak and climbed it to get over the fence.

Raydawn walked for a couple more minutes, and he found himself in the most extravagant garden he had ever seen. It had blossoming fruit trees, rose bushes, and snaking paths that disappeared into the shrubbery.

Raydawn eventually found the driveway and was pleased to see the lack of cars therein.

Then he saw those darn cameras all around the house. Why did some people have to be so rich?

Raydawn scouted around the house, being careful to stay out of view of the cameras, and found a blind spot in the cameras.

A large tree branch was right over an open window where no security cameras were situated. Raydawn loved to climb trees, so he got up into the branches of the oak tree across the street and carefully lowered himself into the open window. Through all his careful thought processes, he never even considered that an open window meant that somebody probably still lived in the house.

Raydawn had entered via a stairwell. He went downstairs to check things out.

Portraits of a woman were on all the walls, diamonds in cases, and dresses on manikins. Everything looked like it cost a fortune and was all to impress people.

Raydawn didn't even suspect that anyone lived in the house till he went upstairs.

There was a TV with gaming controllers strewn about, a place to eat, a kitchenette, and a dining room. And Raydawn hadn't even gone through the closed doors yet.

By then, it was around mid-afternoon, and Raydawn was getting hungry, so he started making his way to the kitchenette when he heard the garage door open.

"Crap," Raydawn said. He knew he only had seconds to hide. Raydawn ran into the nearest room and bolted into the closet. It was mostly empty. He noticed a small hatch in the ceiling's drywall. It was an attic, so Raydawn quickly climbed up a shelf, moved the hatch out of the way, and pulled himself into the attic. His arms hurt from the exertion, and Raydawn had only just replaced the hatch when he heard the door open to the room.

A boy came into the room and sat on his bed. He scrolled on his phone for what felt like forever. Raydawn sat in the attic, not knowing what was going on in the room below him. His butt was growing numb, and he was getting tired when he heard a new person enter the room.

"Did you see the news?" A feminine voice asked. She was probably the celebrity, and the boy in the room was her son.

"Yeah," the teen said, bored. "It has to be fake, though."

"Well, I don't like it. We are going to leave the area for a bit. Our beach house in Hawaii is being prepared as we speak. Pack up your stuff, we leave in ten minutes."

The mom left, and Raydawn heard the boy sigh. Poor kid, always getting whisked away at his mom's bidding. Raydawn figured this always happened to him, being famous and all. He never even suspected that the whole city was infested with horrible beasts.

Raydawn sat in that attic for twenty minutes until he heard the garage door open and close. He waited for another twenty minutes and climbed out of the attic.

"Hello?" he called out, his voice echoing around the house. It was eerie hearing only his voice in such a large place.

"Anybody home?" Nothing. Raydawn went to the kitchenette and opened up the cupboard. It was full of all the junk food he could possibly imagine. What a goldmine. Raydawn took out some Doritos and Sour Patch candy, opened them, and devoured them. He doubted the celebrities would miss them when they got home.

Raydawn proceeded to explore the rooms behind the closed doors, which he had not explored yet. There was a gaming room with all the video games in the world, a bar with lots of drinks, and a guest room with the biggest bed Raydawn had ever seen. It could easily fit his entire family, or at least what was left of it, with room for a bear or two to spare. Raydawn could only imagine what the master bedroom looked like.

He walked into the master bedroom and was surprised by how simple it actually was. It looked like his parents' bedroom. Finally, Raydawn opened the one door he hadn't gone in yet. It was the teenage girl's room. And it sure did look like a teenage girl's room. Clothes were strewn everywhere, makeup was on the dresser, and Raydawn even saw a glass case that held what looked like a diamond ring. What a bum.

Raydawn left and played on the Xbox until he beat Fortnite. Once he did, he made his way to the guest bedroom and collapsed onto the ginormous bed. Moments later, he was asleep.

Raydawn woke up in the middle of the night to a huge explosion. Raydawn heard things falling off the walls and something huge crashing to the ground. The house rattled.

Raydawn quickly got out of bed and ran down the stairs. A giant chandelier had fallen from the ceiling. Raydawn remembered a huge diamond that had been its centerpiece.

Good luck finding that diamond, Raydawn thought.

Little did Raydawn know the explosion went off all around the city of Los Angeles, spanning hundreds of miles to try to stop the spread of... something Raydawn didn't know about.

Raydawn turned on the TV, trying to figure out what the heck was going on. There was nothing on except static. Then he heard a voice.

"If you are in or around the city of Los Angeles... evacuate the... a type of... will kill you... A wall is being put up... go to... to get out... make sure you stay in..." The voice said, cutting in and out.

Suddenly, the TV turned off. The power was out.

Shoot, Raydawn thought. The power was out. There really was an emergency.

Raydawn ran down to the cupboard and grabbed an armful of snacks. He was running down the stairs with his arms full of snacks when a window broke. Raydawn's heart was beating so hard he felt it would jump into his throat.

Raydawn frantically ran around the house, opening doors. He found the garage door fairly quickly. Raydawn rushed in and slammed the door. He listened as soft footsteps ran by; whatever it was made a strange clicking sound, like a gas stovetop turning on.

It was what had killed his father. Raydawn had to get out of there, or he was going to meet the same fate as him. Little did Raydawn know, but if he had gotten into the garage only five seconds later, he would have been killed.

Raydawn looked at the garage. It was huge and there was plenty of space for more cars. The celebs must have thought they were going to have more cars than they currently had.

Raydawn found a cabinet with a couple of car keys. There was a Lambo, a Jeep, and a minivan in that garage. Raydawn took the Jeep.

He unlocked it and climbed into the driver's seat after he had thrown his snacks in the back. His plan was simple: get out of the city as soon as possible.

In a moment of oversight, Raydawn stepped on what he thought was the brake and accelerated, making a big hole in the garage door.

When he lurched into the driveway, Raydawn glimpsed something dart into the bushes in the dim light coming from the garage.

Scared for his own life, he held down the gas while he went down the driveway. Raydawn panicked as it got dark, and he tried to find the lights. Suddenly, the car jolted to a stop because it had plowed through the gate. Raydawn came to his senses, turned on the headlights, and slowly cruised down the road at a more leisurely pace. Raydawn had driven a little bit with his dad, so he knew the basics.

When Raydawn came to the main road, he gasped.

The windows of houses were shattered, bullet holes were in cars, and other things from a war zone were strewn everywhere. Raydawn nearly vomited when he saw a severed arm lying on the road.

Raydawn's imagination started to fill in the gaps, and Raydawn hit the gas. He cruised down the streets, getting more comfortable with the Jeep every second. Everywhere he looked was horror and destruction.

Raydawn eventually found the interstate. It was completely empty, save for a few car wrecks here and there. He gunned it down the street.

Driving super fast isn't really that hard, Raydawn thought. It's just like driving through the neighborhood, just more dangerous.

Going eighty miles an hour felt awesome, but the more he saw carnage through the brights of his lights, the more his heart was saddened and his imagination terrified.

At one point, Raydawn drove by a skyscraper that had fallen to the ground. It was illuminated by the fire that was raging around the decimated building.

Raydawn averted his eyes before he saw anything else. He kept going and kept his eyes on the road. After another ten minutes, a pit appeared out of the blue straight in front of the Jeep with a tall fence on the other side.

Raydawn couldn't stop in time and flew into the massive pit. His vision went black instantly. Raydawn would later find out that the chasm he had flown into was a ditch to keep those horrible beasts from advancing, and the fence served the same purpose.

After a few days, Raydawn woke up in a hospital. He saw on the TV at the hospital all about the cataclysmic attack on Los Angeles. He was safe. But the city wasn't.

Chapter 1

There were strange rumors going around my neighborhood about a mysterious beast roaming the area. I didn't really know what to think about this. I lived in Southern California, so it was probably just a mountain lion. The only thing that didn't add up with that theory of mine was that I lived in a pretty large neighborhood, densely populated with lots of people.

I mean, I could see what our neighbors were watching on TV, for goodness' sake--why would a mountain lion come here? Surely it would be confirmed that it was a mountain lion rather quickly.

Anyway, my name was Kolin Perez, and I was the youngest in a family of three. Life was the best being the youngest. After all, my mum had seen that the older siblings had turned out okay, and they figured I would too. This made it so I was homeschooled while my older brother and sister were both stuck in high school.

This often left me to wander the neighborhood in search of something, never particularly finding what, and sometimes I would knock on my friends' doors to see if they could hang out. I swore they were just too lazy to get out of their bed sometimes. I mean, I can see the lights on in your house, buddy.

That day towards the end of summer was just one of those days where I was meandering around on my own, doing whatever I pleased.

So to lay out the exposition or whatever, earlier that week I had been hearing rumors about something in our neighborhood. I had been hearing so many confusing things that all had the same premise, and I didn't really know what to think about it all. Let me explain.

The talk was that there were these mysterious tracks in a dry riverbed located not far from the neighborhood. People had told me the tracks were bigger than anything they had ever seen, even bigger than a bear paw. The only thing that really threw me off was that people described the print as having three toes in the front, and one toe sticking out kinda to the side.

This was some kid's direct quote. His name was Zach, and his family loved to camp so he claimed that he had seen a grizzly bear footprint, so he could make an accurate size comparison.

"It was a huge track," Zach had said. "Absolutely giant. It had three toes in front and one in the back. I didn't dare follow the tracks, and when I came back the next day to take a plaster of them, the wind had blown them away."

I really got two things from that conversation.

A. He isn't an expert tracker or anything, since he said a toe was in the back, even though almost all the accounts I had heard said it was sticking out the side.

B. Talk about a wimp. He wouldn't even follow the dang track? I mean, come on.

The other thing that had me concerned was that Mrs. Roberts' dog had disappeared and the same tracks were in found her backyard.

At the time I thought that there probably wasn't actually an all - terrifying beast. I wouldn't have been surprised if it was just somebody's cruel idea of a joke.

There was a kid in our neighborhood who most people called The Kid. He walked around with dynamite in his pockets, and messed with kids two times smaller than he was. I was convinced he didn't have parents to be completely honest. I mean who lets their kid wonder around and beat the crap out of second graders just so he could make ten dollars off them? People could be so stupid sometimes.

The Kid pulling such a prank would be right up his ally. He had even claimed he had had an encounter with a huge ten-foot-tall monster, and had narrowly escaped with his life. I didn't believe him for a second.

If he was the culprit I knew I would catch him, which was why I was biking down to the dried up riverbed on a Saturday afternoon.

The wind whistled through my hair as I sped down the hill to get to the riverbed; the wind in my face reminding me that I would never lose the joy of getting outdoors on a bike or speeding down hills.

I automatically pulled onto the bike trail that ran alongside the riverbed for what felt like the millionth time, and carefully lifted my bike over the short fence that had warnings on it about trespassing and whatnot.

As usual, I was using my dad's bike, and he would not be happy if it had any bumps or scrapes, so when I carried it into the bushes I made sure to hide it with care.

Then I went exploring.

After ten minutes of lurking through tall bushes, and reeds, I found what I was looking for.

"What in the world..." I said aloud. I was looking down at a massive footprint. The sides of it were kind of fuzzy since they were in the sand, but I got the big picture all the same.

It had three front claws the size of a large carrot. A very big carrot. There was also a smaller toe in the back that was less clear. The thing must have been running.

What was I finding? I thought. A precise mold, or was there really a  giant lizard thing eating dogs in our neighborhood?

Just the tracks made my head spin.

I heard a bird chirp right next to me, making me jump. A sparrow flew out of the shrubs next to me.

Hold yourself together. I thought. There is nothing to be afraid of. It all is just an elaborate hoax.

I took one last look at the tracks and steeled my nerves to continue on. I could practically hear the little voices in my head, deciding whether or not to keep going.

"You really shouldn't follow the tracks the size of rhino's footprint." The scared little boy said.

"Oh it's just a hoax." The brave grown man replied. "If Kolin catches whoever is behind this he will be the hero of the neighborhood."

I pushed onward into the thickets. As I made my way I kept hearing birds chirping, having a merry time, while my skin was being ravaged by flies. Lucky birds got a carefree life.

I followed the tracks until I reached the beginning of a big sewer that led to yet another dry riverbed that snaked along the back of yet more residential housing.

I looked at the tunnel warily. Something felt off. I couldn't tell if it was the cobwebs that were everywhere and my arachnophobia was kicking in, or...

The birds weren't chirping.

I took it all in in half a second.

Crunch.

I heard a snarl, and a clicking noise that sounded like a gas stovetop igniting.

I screamed and bolted back from where I had come from. In seconds I was back at my bike. This time I didn't care about damaging my dad's bike, I just threw it over the fence, hopped on it, and got the heck out of there.

Whatever had been in that sewer was massive. The sound of that crunch had resonated in that tunnel. Whatever was in there was big, and I could see the grains of sand on that cement shake, but  whatever it was was stealthy at the same time, so I didn't hear a thing until that twig snapped. How was The Kid even doing that?

As I biked back to my house, I decided I wouldn't tell anybody what happened for fear of being made fun of.

When I got home, I quietly tried to creep through the front door without being noticed by my mom. After being scared to death, I wanted to go think about what had happened in my room, not get questioned by my mother.

My effort was to no avail. She saw that my face was ashen white the moment I walked in the door.

"Is everything okay, Kolin?" she asked. I could tell she was worried because her eyes crinkled at the edges.

"Yeah," I said nonchalantly.

"Was it that kid again?" she asked.

"I dunno. I wish I knew," I said. I turned to the stairs and started to my room, leaving my mom with a puzzled expression on her face.

"I'm here if you need anything, honey," I heard her say as I got to my room. I loved my mom.

I continued to sit on my bed and think in silence, gazing at my numerous books, wondering about what my favorite hero would do in my situation.

Drifting off into my dreams about Harry Potter zapping The Kid in a lizard costume with a wand, I quickly fell asleep and woke up at dinner time.

I ate with my family, thinking about how even the birds had been quiet.

"Are you okay?" my sister Katrina asked me as we were scraping our leftover food into the trash can.

"Yeah," I said, putting my plate in the dishwasher. I retired to my room and fell asleep thinking about all the situations concerning how I would confront The Kid in the sewer.

"Something broke into Tamara's backyard and killed her pets that she keeps back there," my mom told me the next morning over breakfast. My head started to spin at the new information.

Whoever killed my friend's pets had made this personal real fast. Tamara would be in shambles for days over such a thing. I wanted to take whatever idiot was doing this and lock him up for the rest of eternity. But who was it? There was nothing to lock up until I found out who the culprit was.

My thoughts going a million miles an hour, I slowed myself down and assessed the situation. First things first: I needed to go over to Tamara's house and comfort her. Maybe I could do a bit of investigation while I was at it.

I abruptly stood up from the breakfast table.

"I'm going over to Tamara's house," I said and left my mom behind, ignoring her attempts to call me back.

I ran straight to Tamara's house.

Tamara was a good friend of mine. We lived two drastically different lives: she had four younger siblings, lots of pets, and loved to read. I had two older siblings, no pets at all, and reading was considered a waste of time in my mind. I guess we were polar opposites, but we were still good friends and hung out all the time.

Multiple people I know called her pretty, and she was, and I knew her better than most of my friends, and she was a great person, but she never really seemed to show any interest in being anything other than just friends.

She was super tall and had the most stunning blonde hair. Put together with her eyes that sparkled like the brightest star in the night sky, she was quite attractive to guys. I rang the doorbell, and when the door opened I saw those beautiful eyes streaked with tears.

I could feel the loss of Max. He was the best dog, always looking out for Tamara. His death was like taking a chunk out of her life. Somebody was going to pay for killing that little ball of fluff.

"Oh my gosh, Tamara, what happened?" I asked, thinking I would pretend like I didn't know what had happened. I tended to do this a lot. I found people just liked to get it out of them sometimes.

"Last night something broke into my backyard," she said, tears starting to well up in her eyes. "Whatever killed Max didn't leave a trace. It took out all the rabbits too."

"I'm so sorry," I said.

"Kolin, do you think it's the monster that everyone is talking about? The one that killed Mrs. Roberts' dog?"

"I don't know. Can I have a look at your backyard?" I knew it was too soon, but I just couldn't help but check it out.

"Sure," she said. I could see her curiosity peeking out through the grief. "Who do you think you are now-a master detective or something?"

"Nah, I just have a suspicion."

"What is it?" Tamara said, opening the gate to the backyard, making her way to the bunny cages.

"That," I said, pointing down to another one of those strange tracks positioned right outside the pen in the mud. "Either some type of monster is killing things, or it is somebody's idea of a cruel joke."

Tamara broke down in tears.

Stupid me. I thought. It was way too early to drop a bomb like this. She was crying now!

"Who would do such a thing?" Tamara said trying to gulp down tears. Time for me to tread very carefully.

"It could have been The Kid," I said, gently patting Tamara on the back. "Let's stop talking about this and do something else. Could you hang out today?"

"Sure," so instead of investigating, I just hung out with Tamara and made sure she was going to be okay.

We had a little funeral for Max, and with no body to bury we just made a little grave for him in the dirt by her house. Zach came by to pay his respects, as did Tamara's siblings, my siblings, and my good buddy Raydawn.

I personally found the whole thing stupid. Just put the dang grave out and call it good, but instead we have to have a whole thing where everyone says how much Max was a good dog, and that just gets Tamara crying all over again. Then you repeat the process about twenty more times. But I sat through it like a good friend that I am, and she felt better at the end of it all which made it worthwhile.

Raydawn was also trying to comfort Tamara. It really shocked me how Tamara hadn't already figured out that Raydawn had the biggest schoolboy crush on her. All in good time, I guess. That would be a conversation I would like to avoid when it came up among the two of us. It would be like trying to mediate a meeting between two statues. Neither one would have much to say.

Raydawn really was a great kid though. We had grown up together, so we were great friends. He was on the shorter side, and had the blackest hair I had ever seen that it was almost purplish in the sun. He was a clown, and was always smiling at everything, always up for a good dare or trying something new.

Today he was quiet and respectful to Tamara, partially because he had some emotional capacity, and partially because whenever I saw a joke forming on his lips, I did him a favor and kicked his shin as hard as I could. Tamara thought it was quite kind that Raydawn was wincing for the loss of her rabbit.

The day slowly passed with the funeral and whatnot, and then it was Sunday-full of church and hanging out with other family friends. Some were brats, and others were good friends. It was Monday before I knew it, and I woke up with another great piece of news from my mum.

"Five more dogs have disappeared," she said. "Something is running away with them all, never leaving a trace. I don't understand. The city thinks there is a cougar running around killing things. I think you should stay inside until they catch it."

Great, just great. Now The Kid was really getting on my nerves. He was making it so I couldn't even go hunt him down to get him in trouble for killing Tamara's pets. What a smart hairball.

But if my mom wanted me to stay inside, there was nothing I would be able to do about it. So I stayed inside and grew my brain by slogging through math homework. Oh how I wish I was investigating. Later that night I went to bed worrying what The Kid would pull off in the morning. Who knew; maybe he would dress up in a Bigfoot costume and rob a little kid of his money?

"I don't believe it. I just don't believe it," I heard my mom saying over the telephone. I was already dreading to hear that more dogs were gone. "I'm calling an ambulance for you, Mr. Chung." My mom hung up the phone, and when I saw she didn't call 9-1-1 (my mom was really good at empty threats), I eagerly asked her,
"What happened?"

"Nothing to worry about. Mr. Chung is just complaining about how some monster attacked his dog and ran off with it. He tried to chase it and fell and broke his arm. He was calling me from the hospital."

"What?!" I exclaimed. That idiot Kid had really attacked a person's dog when they were walking it around the neighborhood. How in the world did he have a convincing costume that could get past Mr. Chung's sharp eyes? He had one of the sharpest eyes of any old man I knew.

"What did he describe the beast as?" I had to know what this Kid was dressing up as.

"Why do you care? You aren't going to be caught up in the rumors, are you? I want you staying out of this, young man. There is clearly a mountain lion on the loose, and the government will handle it—not you," she said, her eyes crinkling around the edges again. I could tell she was hiding something. Preparing for another mom lecture, I said,
"He didn't describe a mountain lion, did he?" My mom's shoulders fell, and she seemed resigned.

"No, he didn't," Mum said. "He said something about a creature about six feet tall and ten or twelve feet long, with a long tail and sharp teeth. He talked about it being faster than any animal he's ever seen. He claims it was covered in scales. The poor old man is going insane. He will be transferred to a mental asylum by the end of the week."

Man, I thought. How the heck was The Kid pulling this off? And why would he target Mr. Chung out of all people? He gave every kid in the neighborhood twenty bucks for Christmas each year! Even to The Kid. Now he was going to an insane asylum. Maybe there was a beast in our neighborhood after all.

Another slow, sad week went by, and Mr. Chung was transferred to an asylum. There were no other attacks. I was thankful The Kid had stopped his game. There were no more rumors of anything even remotely suspicious in our hood, nor of any dead animals.

At the end of the week, my mum graciously lifted her ban on going exploring. I remember making the greatest—or stupidest—decision of my entire life by slowly biking down to the riverbed and gingerly lifting the bike over the fence.

I carefully hid the bike in the tall undergrowth and ventured towards where I had heard the beast. This time the birds were chirping with gusto. I had nothing to be afraid of. Until I looked down towards the ground.

I almost jumped. Footsteps were all over. The back claw was more clear, and the prints were fresh. The creature had been pacing here only moments before.

I thought about turning back, but then I thought about Mr. Chung. It was time I caught The Kid and got Mr. Chung out of that asylum once and for all.

Suddenly, I heard the clicking again.

Like a stovetop turning on, I thought to myself. Maybe The Kid is cooking something? Fresh dog?

I listened on and still heard nothing. Biting my lip, I put my leg over the lip of the sewer and stepped inside.

I screamed some words my mom would wash my mouth with soap for saying, and then take away the TV forever. There was a strange reptilian monster waiting at the other end of the sewer, crouched down like it was ready to pounce.

"No freaking way," I said to myself. "What is thaaaa!!!"

Out of nowhere the beast pounced. I sprung back, launching myself into the sand. I felt the wind flying through my hair.

Crack. I hit the sand. My back exploded in pain, and I got up ready to run off. Silly me decided to look back, but instead of seeing The Kid take off his costume and start to laugh at my epic wipeout, the beast snarled at me, thoroughly unamused.

I looked closer. It stood about as tall as my dad, who was six-one, and its skin was the color of the sand, with very small blotches of green peeking out here and there. I saw its wicked teeth as it snarled at me, large incisors overlapping each other the size of my fingers. It stood upright on three claws the size of massive carrots, with another claw sticking out the side for support. The beast had three long claws that were proportionate to the ones on its feet on its arms, which were the size of my arms but bigger and stronger. I saw a ridge on its nose that looked like the bulge in the dirt as soon as a plant poked through. The most disconcerting part was its eyes.

They peered into mine with intelligence more than a lot of humans I know. The eyes really unsettled me, so I looked down at the tail that extended about four feet behind the monster, helping it keep its balance. Its whole body was lean with powerful muscles. It was a killer. I felt like I was going crazy, so I naturally said the dumbest thing I would ever say to the creature,

"Kid, this isn't some kind of joke," I said. I didn't know why I still thought it was an elaborate hoax at this point. Maybe my brain just wasn't comprehending it. Yeah, that sounded about right. I started to get light-headed.

The beast then slowly started to limp towards me.

"You're hurt," I whispered to no one in particular, turned around, and ran straight home mumbling to myself. I left the bike and everything. I had just seen a dinosaur.

Chapter 2

Once I got home and collected my wits, I decided I wasn't going to tell anybody what I had seen. A prehistoric beast that had supposedly lived millions of years ago was living in our large densely populated neighborhood and was killing people's pets? Even I still thought it was a prank. That thing had looked so darn real though. I don't even know how anyone could fake such a thing. I could see the texture on his scales, the glare of its eyes, and I saw the pebbles shake when he walked on the ground.

The only thing that didn't make sense in my head was if science said it lived millions of years ago, why in the world was one of those still alive, in my neighborhood of all places. I would find out that evolutionists were real idiots. If that thing turned out to be flesh and blood, bye bye goes the theory of evolution. Hello young earth.

I finally pulled onto my street and made my way home.

I got in the house and considered going to my room, but decided I needed to get on my computer to figure out what that thing was.

"Mom," I yelled upstairs, trying to keep my voice steady. The shock of the dinosaur was still too fresh in my brain. "Can I get on Duolingo and learn some Spanish?"

"It's just me, Kolin," my dad yelled down the stairs. "You can do it, but just stay on the site."

Thank goodness it was my dad. Mom would have seen something was wrong just by hearing my voice in an instant. Dad wouldn't be able to tell anything even if tears were pouring out of my eyes. (Dad was still really nice though, just bad at reading people.)

I quickly hopped on my computer and pulled up ChatGPT. I gave it a description of the beast, and it said it was probably just an escaped cassowary or something. It did say that if it theoretically were to be something, it would most likely be an ornitholestes.

I typed the word into Google, and sure enough a skeleton popped up that could align with what I had seen. An accredited website said that it would have eaten small rats, or even birds if it was fast enough. That made no sense.

The ornitholestes was bigger than science said it to be, stronger than science said it was, and it most definitely did not eat rats. That thing was eating dogs. Most importantly it was killing my neighbors' dogs. That ornitholestes had had my best friend in tears for nearly an entire day.

At the same time, it was a dinosaur. Very likely the most important find of the century and the most endangered creature ever to exist. Plus, what was I going to do to it because it killed my friend's dog? Kill it or something? It was an animal that hunts. It was just trying to survive. I didn't think I had the heart regardless to let such a creature starve. The least I could do was feed it. And maybe it would stop killing pets as a result.

As I lay on my bed I made plans to wake up very early to go see the ornitholestes and get him some food. I was going early so I could avoid the wrath of my mother when I stole her food.

And I would pray to God I wasn't caught. If I was, I would get whipped twenty times, my skin would be peeled, covered in tar, which would then be covered in feathers, and finally she would torch me. (I'm just joking. Maybe not about the whip :) )

For the rest of the day I sat in my room playing on my PS5 jacking around doing nothing. Call it decompressing before my mission. Definitely not a huge waste of time.

The next morning I woke up at 4 A.M. I carefully rolled out of bed and threw on some cargo pants with a sweater on top.

I started to walk to my door.

Creak.

I hated our stupid squeaky floors. It sounded like the house was groaning when I walked around, moaning from the weight of our footsteps.

This made me have to slowly tiptoe down the stairs, but even then I could have sworn I was going to wake someone up. I opened the fridge and pulled out the five-pound ham. I also opened the freezer and pulled out the salmon my mom was going to cook.

I carried each one out to the garage. It was a bit of a struggle to get it open, but once I was in... The door slammed shut behind me.

I stood dead still. There was still a possibility that nobody had woken up, so I dumped the food in a backpack and slowly rolled my dad's bike out the side door. Once I was far enough from the house I hopped on the bike and started to pedal to the riverbed.

"Finally," I said aloud. "Back on the road again."

The backpack was heavy, but with the wind whistling past my face once again all felt right in the world. I biked past all the houses and was just about to get to the bike trail when I noticed a large reptilian form standing on the soccer fields that were on my way to the bike trail. It was right in the middle where anybody could see him.

"What the heck is that ornitholestes doing?" I said. That idiot was going to be spotted and shipped off to a testing facility or something.

Not wanting such a thing to happen, I walked out onto the field and pulled the ham out with one arm. It weighed quite a bit, and when I raised my arm the dinosaur turned around quickly.

He cocked his head like a curious dog. I swore I almost saw recognition flash in his eyes. The thing that I found disconcerting is he didn't act surprised or unsettled that I had been behind him the entire time.

Not that I was very good at reading dinosaurs, or any animals' body language at all. Including humans for the most part.

"You want the ham, boy?" I taunted him. "You want it? Then come and get it!"

I hung the ham by the handlebars of my bike and finished the short ride down to the riverbed. The ornitholestes jogged alongside me all the while. I felt quite the adrenaline rush coursing through my body thinking that I was biking alongside a living fossil.

It broke my heart to see him so eager for food. His last meal must have been Mr. Chung's dog. It made me wonder what had happened anyway.

I got to the fence and carefully lifted my bike and the ham over the fence. I stowed the bike in the reeds and then looked back at the fence waiting for the dinosaur.

He was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly the reeds next to me shook and the ornitholestes grabbed hold of the ham. He ripped it away from me, my arms no match for him. He spit it out right away, however.

"You don't like plastic, do you boy?" I laughed to myself. I took off the plastic and gave the ornitholestes the ham. He ate it in two or three bites. I pulled the salmon out of my backpack and led him back to his sewer. I got bit up by the mosquitoes on the way. Stupid insects. May you burn in hell all of eternity.

When we got there, I took the wrapping off the salmon and threw it in the air. The ornitholestes snatched and gulped it down in seconds. I was starting to view him as a dog. A very old, deadly dog.

I cautiously reached out my hand to touch him, but he shied away. I sat down on the edge of the sewer and contented myself with watching him while I attempted to sketch the ornitholestes in the dirt.

"What should I name you?" I said to no one in particular. I remembered how a circus had been in our town not too long ago. They had a lion who was the main attraction of the show. (It was very pathetic.) The lion's name was Death Strike as it had supposedly mauled some of the keepers. I had looked it up and it had been cuts and scrapes from normal things keepers do.

When I thought about it the ornitholestes was the ultimate killer. Sharp claws and teeth. He was ultra-aware with a keen sense of smell. Muscles rippled all up and down his body.

The ornitholestes made the lion look pathetic.

He could be the ultimate Death Strike.

Death Strike would be a perfect name.

"Death Strike it is," I said to Death Strike. He cocked his head at me like a dog. I looked at him. Boy, was I falling too emotionally attached to the animal. I had NAMED him for crying out loud.

I checked my watch out of habit. It was nearly five in the morning.

"I should probably go," I said to Death Strike and started to walk away. I pushed through some reeds and looked behind me. Death Strike was gone. Such a weird animal.

I got to my bike soon enough and lifted it over the fence. I jumped over myself and was on my way home. The whole way my fingers were literally crossed. If a parent was up I would be flayed alive.

When I passed the soccer fields, I noticed something. There were rabbits everywhere. So that was what Death Strike was doing: trying to hunt for rabbits. I kept biking on as fast as I could.

I pulled onto my street and looked up at my house in horror. The lights were on. I could feel my heart start to pound at the thought of getting into this much trouble.

What should I do? I thought to myself. Maybe I could sneak around back and get into my room without incident?

I slowly snuck around back, easing the gate open. I took in a breath as it creaked open. I shuffled past without any more creaks. I exhaled in relief and entered the side garage door. This time there was no creaking. Praise the Lord.

I eased open the door that led to the laundry room and stepped into the harsh light. I saw my mom in front of me.

"Young man!" she yelled at me. "Where do you think you've been?"

Then she lowered her voice.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes," I said. Maybe it wouldn't turn out so bad after all. After I said yes her eyes filled with flames. Maybe not.

"Go to your room!" my mom yelled at me. "Your father and I will be up to talk to you shortly."

I walked up the stairs with head hung low to show my submission to my parents. THAT had gone well. I noticed my siblings were peeking their heads out of their rooms.

"What were you up to?" my older brother Ryder asked. He seemed genuinely curious. I gave him the quickest comeback I could think of.

"Nunya," I said. I really suck at comebacks. What I usually did was throw something back in the person's face or said something stupid altogether. Occasionally I would have some sick burns though.

"What were you up to?" my older sister Katrina asked me, concerned. Her eyes crinkled at the edges just like my mom.

"Is it illegal to go exploring at four A.M. in the morning now?" I asked, pointing out a true fact. My parents had never told us we COULDN'T go out at four A.M.

I watched my siblings shake their heads and go back to their rooms. I bet they were only annoyed that I had woken them up at five A.M. It really sucked being the youngest sometimes. If only they knew I was the only person in the world who knew dinosaurs still existed. Everybody else was an uneducated idiot. Including them.

"Kolin!" my mom hollered. "What in the world is wrong with you? Where's my ham and salmon?" I gulped. There was one more reason to be grounded for longer I guess.

I could hear my mom storming up the stairs in a huff. My dad right behind her.

My father was a quiet man. Never really cared what I did, it seemed. My mom always was the one who made sure I stayed in line. As she would demonstrate beautifully today.

The door opened.

"For goodness' sakes. Why would you need a whole freaking ham and salmon?" my mum asked.

I thought I would start by using the silence technique. Now the fire in her eyes was being upgraded to powerful firearms.

"When I ask you a question, I expect you to answer it, son," she barked.

"I can't say why, Mom," I said. I saw bombs now.

"What do you mean you can't tell me? I am your mother, and you will tell me or you're grounded." I was grounded either way, but I might as well try the next tactic: lying.

"I was... throwing a party with some friends and they asked me to bring some meat."

"Who? Who were the friends?"

"Just some friends," I said. The bombs were steadily growing bigger.

"I know. Stop playing dumb with me. What were the friends' names?" Her eyes bored into mine. I looked over at my dad and almost started to laugh. He was twiddling his thumbs watching the two of us, as one would watch his favorite sports game. We must have been entertaining to watch.

"Well... there's Joe, Charlie, Tim, Eddie, and Jeremy," I said, fully knowing none of these kids were my friends. The bombs turned to full-on nukes in my mom's eyes, and then she seemed to settle down.

"You're in trouble, young man. Sneaking out at five in the morning for a party and stealing all our meat in the process is not okay." My mom shook her head in disgust. "Go back to bed. We'll discuss this more in the morning."

Both my parents left, and I collapsed onto my bed and let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding. I wasn't given a sentence yet, so that was good.

Still, what had I been thinking? Next time I would have to be more careful not to get caught. What had I been thinking?

At least now I knew I wasn't going to give up Death Strike no matter what the cost.
He was the most incredible animal I knew about—the last of his kind—I would protect him and keep him alive. The problem was going to be keeping such a thing a secret. He was a large prehistoric creature that hunted in the neighborhood.

If he were caught, he would be taken away from me in a heartbeat. I found him, and I could keep him from being harmed. This was going to be the hardest thing I would do in my life, and the most rewarding, but right now the next right step was sleep.

I started to drift off and in moments I was back asleep.

I woke up in the morning and turned over groggily. I looked over at my clock. 9:32.

I groaned. I had slept in far too long. Even so, I lay there and stared at the ceiling, 'cause it sucks getting up early in the morning sometimes.

Some unknown amount of time later I heard a knock on my door.

"Can I come in, Kolin?" my mom asked. I said sure, and she came in with my dad holding my brother's old phone in her hands.

"Kolin, you are in big trouble," she said. I never got any peace and quiet. "But me and your father have talked about it for a bit, and we think it is time to give you a phone." My jaw dropped. For real.

"What?" I thought I had heard her wrong. She would never do such a thing to me, especially just after I had committed the worst crime of my entire life.

"We are giving you your brother's old phone. You can use this to call us at any time or call any of your friends or have social media or whatever, but most importantly, we can call you at any time and track where you are whenever we want. You must keep the phone on you at all times," she said, and then saw the exuberant smile on my spoiled little face.

"Don't think you are out of trouble, though. What you did was foolish and immature. You should be ashamed of yourself. You can come downstairs to eat when you are ready."

My mom left me in my room, where I got dressed while I plotted how I would get food for Death Strike. I had around a hundred dollars cash in my room, so I could walk down to the grocery store and use that before dinner. In the meantime I could eat and go hang with Death Strike as I tinkered around with my new phone.

Speaking of the phone, I looked down at it in my hands. I swiped on the screen. It unlocked because mum and dad hadn't set a password yet. There were also no apps except the web, App Store, and text and calling functions. There wasn't much to the thing I had been dreaming about getting for the past ten years of my life. All I had to do was sneak out to get it.

I walked downstairs and ate breakfast. I said goodbye to my mom and headed out of the house, brand new phone in pocket.

As I hopped on my bike, my hand started to shake. I was excited to get a closer look at Death Strike now that it wasn't dark outside.

In moments I was at the sewer pipe, bike successfully stowed away. Death Strike was standing up patiently waiting for me.

"I don't have anything," I said. Death Strike already seemed to know this. His sense of smell was so good that he knew that there wasn't any food on me before he even sniffed the air.

He clicked at me. He stepped around me, eyeing me up and down. I watched him and noticed how he kept his tail lifted high into the air when he walked. His elbows were also unique in that they were bent inward. Cool.

He still favored his other foot, but hopefully his foot was getting better. If he healed, he would be able to hunt for small critters again and I wouldn't have to feed him.

Maybe not, I thought. But once he starts to eat dogs again the search will resume for him.

I left Death Strike once I saw he was okay, and went to Tamara's house. Tamara was home and she was in a significantly better mood from when her dog died. It made my day ten times better when we got to talk with each other for part of the day. She had gotten a new puppy who was adorable and was clambering around saying hi to me. The cute little thing only weighed five pounds. He broke my heart. And it would kill me if Death Strike killed him too. I guess I would try to follow through with feeding him consistently.

We were chilling out in Tamara's back yard when I remembered my phone. I realized I could text with her now.

"Tamara," I said, holding up the new phone. "Look what my mom gave me this morning."

Tamara looked thrilled.

"Kolin, that's great! What's your number?" she asked.

"I've no clue," I said. So for the next hour Tamara sat by my side and showed me how to do all the things on my phone. Once she was done with her little presentation I looked at the phone wonderingly and asked Tamara,

"I wish I could make money off this thing." I could totally see myself having little dollar signs that equaled hams in my eyes at that moment.

"You could if you made a YouTube channel and had good content," Tamara said. "I've given it a try, but my channel never really took off."

She showed me on her phone how to set up a channel. I would try that later to see if I could make any cash for Death Strike. As long as I made a couple thousand a week I should be fine. Speaking of Death Strike, I should go check on him.

"You want to hang out after lunch?" I asked.

"Sure," Tamara said. "I can teach you how to make a social media account if you want?"

"That'd be great," I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. I wasn't really a big social media person. As long as I had Subway Surfers I would be fine.

I left and biked in the direction of my house just in case Tamara would be watching me. I went right past it and made a beeline for the riverbed.

Once I was there I made my way to the sewer after my bike was stowed away. When I got there I got a pleasant surprise. Death Strike had a dead rabbit hanging from his mouth.

"Hey dude, nice job catching something," I congratulated him. Death Strike put the rabbit in the sand and pushed it towards me. What the heck was he doing? I was surprised he still had the rabbit in the first place. That thing was bite-sized. He should have swallowed it when he first got it, not saved it. Death Strike pushed it forward again.

"You want me to eat it?" I asked. "I'm fine, you can have it."

Death Strike must have been trying to repay me for the food I had given him. This just proved my theory that his intelligence was on a whole other level.

Death Strike pushed it yet closer to me, when I did reach out to get the dead animal.

"You sure?" I said, pushing the rabbit back to him. He just pushed it back, snarling—making it clear I should eat.

I picked up the rabbit and hucked it into the undergrowth.

"That should teach him," I said, proud of my good work. I was NOT eating a dead rabbit.

I watched Death Strike run off into the reeds with his tail held high.

Moments later he was back. He tried to push the rabbit back to me. I threw it into the sewer. He ran to go get it and when he came back it was gone. Praise the Lord I didn't have to eat that thing.

Then he regurgitated the food onto my lap.

"Nasty," I said, getting up and taking off my shirt. Death Strike just cocked his head and ate the shirt. On second thought, maybe he wasn't as intelligent as I thought.

"Thanks a lot man," I said. "Now I have to go and get a new shirt."

I walked away, and when I looked back Death Strike was gone. I shook my head.

I quickly returned home and ate lunch, making sure I threw on a new shirt. During lunch I spontaneously started to laugh, and my mom asked what was so funny. I was thinking about how Death Strike had eaten my shirt.

After lunch I headed back over to Tamara's house. I rang the doorbell.

"Yo, Kolin," she said, pointing to something on her phone. It was a YouTube video. "It looks like someone got some type of creature on camera in our neighborhood by the bridge that goes over the dry riverbed at four in the morning today. Doesn't that kid look sort of like you?"

I looked down at the video, and the walls of her hallway started to close in on me. I started to panic. A five second clip of me and Death Strike running along. The image was blurry because it was taken by a passing car, but you could faintly see the outline of Death Strike against the sand. Thankfully his coloring helped him blend in well. He was circled by a red circle so he couldn't be missed. The video was titled:

I saw a velociraptor! This is no joke!

Chapter 3

"That must be the thing that ate all my pets," Tamara said angrily. "What do you think it is?"

A flood of emotions was coursing through my head. Did people know where the video had been taken? Were they going to take Death Strike away?

"I don't know, Tamara, but I really have to go now. My mom is telling me I have an email from my teacher I need to read." I pulled out my phone and looked at it.

"Is everything okay?" Tamara asked. "You told me about the text before you pulled out your phone."

I almost slapped myself in the face.

"I have to go," I said hurriedly and ran out her door, hopped on my bike, and made a beeline to the sewer. Death Strike was waiting for me.

"Oh, Death Strike," I said. "We have quite the problem on our hands. You've been spotted, and I can't just have you wandering around like this anymore. Somebody could hurt you."

I paced around the sand, thinking to myself. My best bet was going to be to get Death Strike living on a private piece of land that I owned with high-tech fences to keep him contained. It was going to hurt to take him out of his natural environment, but it was better that than him being taken away from me.

All that was going to cost money. At least half a million dollars, which I did not have.

I thought about the YouTube that Tamara was talking about. I needed good content according to her, but I didn't have any remotely interesting things about me. All I had was Death Strike, and I wouldn't have him for much longer if I didn't do something about it.

Feeling my sorrow, Death Strike came over to me and rubbed his snout against my arm. I paused and cautiously tried to put my hand on him. I slowly extended it and laid it on his nose. His skin was rough and scaly. That reptile really knew how to get to my heart.

Suddenly, a brilliant idea came to mind.

"Death Strike!" I said. "What if I make my YouTube channel around you and show you on camera? I would get like a million views."

I thought about it. A prehistoric creature would certainly roll in many views, as long as I could prove it was real. I would just be careful not to show my face, but I could show Death Strike all I wanted. I could start it right now if I wanted.

I pulled out my phone and made a YouTube channel called DEATH STRIKE.

I pointed the camera at Death Strike and started to record. Death Strike snarled at the phone.

"Hello YouTube, this is a rare ornitholestes I found a couple days ago, and I have bonded with this unique creature." I tried making my voice deep and gravelly so my friends wouldn't recognize it. "He very well might be the last of his kind, and I need to keep him safe, so please like and subscribe so I can buy him plenty of meat."

I posted the video. No views came in right away. I got on a new page that was logged off my channel and watched it. It got one view. Then I sent it to Tamara. Two views.

"What the heck is this?" she texted.

"I was searching around on YouTube and found it," I texted back.

A week went by of me popping in, feeding Death Strike, and leaving. Thankfully, YouTube was really paying off.

I had posted about ten videos of Death Strike doing different things like hunting rabbits or jumping on things.

By the end of the week I had a billion views on a short where Death Strike jumped ten feet in the air and landed without making a sound. My other videos of Death Strike hunting for rabbits and whatnot were getting anywhere from 20M to 650M depending on the video. My favorite video was where Death Strike completely disappeared into some really dense foliage and came out with a rabbit in his mouth, which he proudly presented to me. That one had about 523M views. The most incredible thing was even though I was so new to the platform, I already had about ten million subscribers.

As you could imagine I was getting a lot of money. I got $500,000 in one week thanks to Death Strike.

Yet the good news didn't stop there. As I was watching Death Strike I saw that his limp was gone and he was hunting regularly again.

Of course not everything was perfect in the world. More dogs were dying and with the YouTube videos out, my neighbors were getting suspicious that the raptor might actually live nearby.

The comments were also a bit worrisome. I was getting some things like this in the comments:

I don't know how anyone could CGI such a thing, but the kid who made this discovery still hasn't shown his face, and it's making me wonder if it is all a fake or something.

The landscape that these videos are taken in looks like it might be somewhere in Southern California.

What are we going to do with such a discovery if it turns out to be true? I don't want those dangerous beasts running around in my backyard.

Each of those comments had millions of likes. If people thought that all this was fake, they might stop watching my videos. I had to find a way to make things more convincing.

I pulled out my phone and started to record.

"Hello, sceptics of this channel," I said. "Today, I will be trying to prove to you that Death Strike is real. And remember that if you want to see any footage of Death Strike I can get it to you if it helps you verify that he is real."

I proceeded to do a close-up of things like Death Strike's scales, up his snout, in his mouth, and even shone my light into his eyes. Close-ups always made things seem more real to people.

After I uploaded the video, I said goodbye to Death Strike, but I knew I would see him again around midnight so I could film an epic video.

Early the next day, I found Death Strike hunting for rabbits at the soccer fields again. I didn't see any cars around, so I pulled out my phone and started to record.

"Hey, Death Strike," I said. "How would you feel if I rode you around?"

Death Strike did that cute little thing where he cocked his head like a dog.

At this point, I was pretty nervous. I could totally see myself trying to climb on Death Strike's back, Death Strike getting all fired up, and those massive fangs sinking into my arm.

I would have to be very careful.

I approached him and cautiously extended my arm. My heart was beating like crazy and my hand was shaking. Why was this even so challenging? I had touched Death Strike before.

I pushed down on Death Strike's back because I wanted to see if the pressure would bother him. I had to take this one step at a time, but Death Strike just looked curiously at me, asking with his eyes what I was about to do.

Seeing that look of genuine curiosity in his eyes reminded me that even though he was a wild animal, we were bonded. I didn't have much to worry about. He was just as curious and ready to try new things as I was.

I quickly hopped on his back so I wouldn't overthink it, and Death Strike looked back up at me, seemingly unconcerned.

That dinosaur was my favorite. Not that I knew any other dinosaurs.

I still couldn't believe that I was riding a prehistoric creature. It was so surreal to think that I was riding one of the most iconic extinct species ever to roam the earth. I was so lucky, and I was already taking it for granted.

Still recording with my phone, Death Strike took off. He ran down the street, probably going forty miles an hour, and jumped over one of the brick fences that surrounded our neighborhood in one jump. It was so cool. I could feel myself go airborne. The only thing holding me down was me holding on to Death Strike's neck.

Death Strike snatched up a rabbit and wolfed it down in one gulp, then vaulted back out of my neighbor's yard and into the street. I could sense my heart beating in my head. This was insane.

Death Strike booked it down the street and was out of the neighborhood in no time. He went into the desert of southern California that surrounded our hood. I held on tight as he sprinted along at forty miles an hour, not even winded. He wasn't trying to stay hidden either, so his footsteps shook the ground as he ran. It felt like riding a gigantic horse that ran on two legs. I felt safer on Death Strike than on a horse, for that matter, because his tail went up in the air, making it harder for me to fall off.

Plus, Death Strike was lower to the ground than a horse. I guess you could also say he had scales.

I was still recording the whole thing as we swept through the landscape. The wind felt so good on my face, and I felt like I was on top of the world when Death Strike jumped over a large bush with a flying leap, going ten feet in the air in one jump. I turned the camera behind us where the phone could see the faint glimmer of the city in the distance. Man, we had gone far.

"Let's gooo!" I yelled into the night. I felt like I could float into the clouds. I never wanted this to end.

Suddenly, Death Strike stopped and sniffed the air. He seemed curious about something.

I carefully climbed off him, my camera still rolling.

"What is it, bud?" I asked.

I watched with bated breath as Death Strike slowly crept toward a group of dense bushes. I stayed quiet. He must be hunting something.

Then Death Strike sprinted ahead and plunged into the bushes. I saw a massive hog come out of the bushes, headed straight toward me. I could see the slobber coming out of its mouth, the terror in its eyes, and the gleam of the sharp tusks in the moonlight.

I whimpered, thinking I was about to get mauled.

Coming to save my life, Death Strike beelined back toward me and made a flying leap, landing on the hog's back and tearing out its heart. The boar slid to a stop only a few feet away from my face.

I stood there, shocked, and then said,
"You just saved me." I hugged Death Strike. I was now indebted to that dinosaur as much as he was indebted to me.

I sat down next to Death Strike, looking out at the wilderness of the desert. Large shapes loomed in the darkness and howls permeated the air, but next to Death Strike, I didn't care. Without him, I would be terrified.

When I had Death Strike by my side, I felt like I could take on the world. I could never lose him.

I posted the video of everything that had happened on YouTube. It immediately started to pull in hundreds of views, and I knew I would have the money to return the favor and keep Death Strike safe in the future.

I hung out with Death Strike and took it all in. Having a chance to be out in the wilderness, especially with a prehistoric creature, was huge for me. The wilderness was a place I loved but hardly ever got to go since my parents weren't huge fans of camping.

After I was satisfied and my yawns joined the chorus of animals, I decided it was time to head home.

I climbed back on Death Strike's back, and we headed home, going slower this time.

Death Strike dropped me off at the dry riverbed, and I biked home, carefully sneaking into the house through the garage door. Once I was safely back in my room, I let out a deep breath.

As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.

I woke up in the morning and groggily headed downstairs in my pajamas to eat breakfast. Adrenaline really makes you hungry.

I grabbed the milk and cereal, heading toward my mom to sit down. She had her phone out, looking down at it, jaw dropped.

"What is it?" I asked, peering over her shoulder at her phone. It was the app that showed where my phone had been recently. It showed I had been out in the middle of the wilderness, thirty miles away from our house.

I felt the pit in my stomach drop.

"Look at this," she said, pulling up YouTube. I watched over her shoulder in my PJs as she pulled up the video I had posted last night.

"Watch," she said, her voice wavering. She skipped forward a bit, and I noticed that in the part of the video when I pointed the camera back at our little city, I had flashed my face to the camera.

I smiled weakly, but inside I was a flurry of different emotions. This was never supposed to happen. My mom could do anything. She might call for somebody to take Death Strike away, and on top of that, I had let her down. Now it would take forever to earn back her trust. At this point, lying was out of the question.

"That kid in the video—that's me," I said to my mom. I saw her eyes flare in anger for a second, and then her eyes crinkled around the edges.

"How are you even doing this?" she asked, face going pale. "I mean, look at it. It looks so real. It can't be real."

I felt horrible that I was putting my mom through this. I watched her face as she put together the implications of the whole thing. Either I was the best movie maker of all time, or I had a dinosaur. Either way, a thought came to her.

"How much money are you making off this?" she asked.

"Enough to feed him," I said. I saw my mom get angry.

"And you don't deny that you found a dinosaur, even to your own mother?"

"I found one," I said, holding my ground. I saw the lecture forming on my mom's lips.

"Kolin, you are grounded. You are lying to the entire world about something that is not true, and the worst part is that people believe you. How you learned to do this is beyond me..." My mom was really starting to freak out.

"Mom, calm down," I said. "Everything is fine."

"NO, IT'S NOT," she yelled. "If you flashed your face to the web, you flashed your face to the world. Our gullible neighbors are going to call the cops on you, or some type of corporation is going to track you down, demanding the fake dinosaur."

It suddenly dawned on me how stupid I had been. The worst part was that when somebody came knocking on my door, they would demand the very real dinosaur—one that I did not want to give up.

I heard the doorbell ring. I went to answer the door, ignoring my mom's commands to keep it shut.

I opened the door.

"Kolin," Tamara said, standing in our doorway. "What is this?" She was holding up her phone, my face right in the middle of my video. Raydawn was behind her, just staring at me. I could feel my mom behind me, just as shocked.

"Dude," Raydawn said, looking at me, disappointed. "Why didn't you tell us this was you? It's freaking awesome. How are you even doing it?"

I looked at Raydawn, but a big black van behind him pulling up caught my attention.

One of the doors rolled open, and a man stepped out, dressed in all black with a mask on his face and some type of gun in his hands.

The man fired the gun, and my mom collapsed behind me. I stood still, heart pounding, not wanting to spook the man.

"What did you do to my mom?" I asked him quietly.

"Don't worry," he said. "It was just a tranq, but don't think I'll go easy on any of the rest of you kids. If you move, I will kill you."

The man pulled another gun out of his pocket.

"I promise this one is real," he said and shot the car across the street in the gas tank. The car blew up, sending shreds of metal everywhere.

I felt the heat wash over me, and a little piece of glass hit me in the arm, cutting me.

The van shielded us for the most part, though.

"Are you Kolin?" the man asked.

"No," I lied out of instinct. Today was not the day I wanted to die.

The man leveled the gun at my face and started to talk.

"Give me the dinosaur, or you die. That dinosaur is one of a kind, and it needs to be properly cared for by the right people," the man said as a couple of thugs jumped out of the van. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

I just smiled at him, stalling for time. I had seen Death Strike run down the street. My heart beat so hard as I thought of a way to stall.

"Could you say that one more time for the camera?" I said. "I have a YouTube channel."

"This isn't time for your games, kid."

Just then, Death Strike jumped down on the van and onto the man in black clothes, ripping the gun out of his hands and sending it skidding into the street.

A gunshot rang out and I heard somebody yell just as I grabbed the gun. Death Strike ripped the man's leg to shreds, and he blacked out.

"Stop right there," a thug said calmly. I peered through the smoke forming from the fire. The thug was holding Tamara in a chokehold. "Tell the beast to stand down, or she dies."

"Death Strike, don't move," I said, praying he wouldn't. He cocked his head and moved like lightning, attacking the man holding Tamara. He was so fast even I could hardly see him. He went for the man's legs, biting down hard. I heard one of the legs break.

Confused shouts rang out through the smoke and a gunshot went off, but Death Strike made quick work of the other thugs. I started to hear sirens in the distance.

"I'm leaving," I said, looking at Raydawn and Tamara. "Keep my mom safe for me."

I jumped onto Death Strike's back, and he sprinted away down the streets of our neighborhood. I could tell he was headed to the hills. Death Strike picked up speed, jumping over cars and causing multiple wrecks. I trusted him to keep me safe and calmly sat on his back, trying to upload the footage I had just gotten to YouTube. I typed:

WHY ARE PEOPLE CHASING ME?! PLEASE WATCH THESE VIDEOS. I NEED MONEY FAST.

As soon as I uploaded it, it started to get views, so I put the phone away and looked up.

We were running along a busy road, and I could see the hills behind us. I didn't know why, but this time Death Strike was heading for the hills on the other side of our town instead of the desert on the opposite side.

I was watching the reactions of people in the cars as we ran alongside them when I heard gunshots. I cursed. There was a cop behind us firing his gun!

I looked behind us and saw the cops only two or three cars back.

"Death Strike, go faster," I said, hoping he could just outrun them. However, this was just wishful thinking on my part, but Death Strike had my back.

He suddenly stopped, and seconds later the police car went by. As it passed, Death Strike timed it perfectly and jumped onto the top of the car. He broke the glass of the front windshield with his face and pulled the gun out of the policeman's hands, throwing it into the street.

I held on to Death Strike for dear life as the car careened every which way, and Death Strike bent down into the car and pulled out the man in the passenger seat, throwing him onto the road.

I heard his bones break as Death Strike jumped off the car just before it crashed on the side of the road.

"Get the guy out of the car," I said, but my dino was already on it, hauling the man out of his car.

I grimaced as Death Strike mauled his leg to keep him from moving and dragged him back to his comrade.

I shook with fear as I held up the gun to shoot the police car. I had to show people that I was dangerous and get them to stop chasing me. I wasn't going to give up my dino that easily.

I fired the gun, reeling from the whiplash, and hit the gas tank of the car. It blew up, and I felt a wave of heat wash over me and heard other cars wreck to avoid the fire. I was horrified. What had I done?

I sat on Death Strike's back as he carried me away to safety in the hills, and he kept going and going until I was lost in the wilderness. Once Death Strike stopped, I clambered off him and started to cry. I could have just killed one of those innocent policemen. I was a horrible monster.

The stress of it all was too much for me to bear, and I fell asleep on the hard ground, shaking from my own sobbing. It was all too much.

At that time, I was just a normal kid living a normal life. I wasn't meant to fight in small-scale battles.

I was out like a light, and when I woke up, Death Strike was poking me, I had over a million dollars from YouTube, and I heard the sound of a helicopter overhead.

Chapter 4

"What's going on?" I mumbled, still sleepy from the day before. Death Strike snarled at me, and I could sense he was scared about something. Then I heard the sound of something cutting through the air, blowing wind and sand every which way. I looked up, and a helicopter was hovering fifty feet above us.

"Ah, crud," I said and hopped onto Death Strike's back, dreading the thought of being detained or, even worse, losing Death Strike. Death Strike took off, and I watched as the helicopter started to follow us.

"Stop where you are," I heard a voice say through some type of speaker. "Head to the city and surrender the beast, or we will shoot."

No shot I was just walking into their arms. I urged Death Strike on, nudging him with my foot. He took off, and the guns started to shoot. I heard the loud shots and the ground around us start to spray plumes of dust where bullets hit. Death Strike quickly reversed direction, effectively juking it out. By the time the copter had turned around, we had a good enough head start.

I looked behind me and saw the copter swoop lower and lower until it was only ten or so feet above us. A spray of bullets erupted from the machine gun, and I felt Death Strike's muscles tense up as he jumped onto the helicopter, latching onto whatever he could for a split second before he grabbed the man sitting in the copter with his machine gun. The man yelled out as Death Strike fell back to the ground with the man in his jaws. I held on tight as Death Strike continued to dash through the hills.

I looked back, and my head started to swim at the sight of the bleeding man lying on the ground. I hated this. Why did it have to be me?

I spotted another helicopter on the horizon and knew that this could be it. Suddenly, Death Strike jumped up again and latched onto the helicopter, climbing into the cockpit. I shuddered as Death Strike grabbed the pilot, biting down into his leg. I made sure to hold on tight as Death Strike jumped back out of the helicopter, sticking the landing on the ground using his tail to keep his balance. I looked behind me, eyes wide, as the helicopter veered into a hill and exploded. The light blinded me, and I felt a wave of heat hit me as pain erupted in my arm. A piece of shrapnel had clipped me in the arm.

We kept rushing into the hills, and I looked back to see the other helicopter approaching in the distance.

I turned back around. What was I becoming? Some sort of criminal? I had maimed a dozen men, blown up a police car, and destroyed a helicopter in the space of twenty-four hours. I didn't even want to be chased. I was just a kid with a dinosaur. What was the big deal?

I knew I didn't have time to think about all this right now. I had to get Death Strike somewhere safe without getting him killed. That meant getting him somewhere where he couldn't be seen and clearing my name so I could stop getting chased.

To make matters worse, there could still be a helicopter on my tail. I craned my neck around and sighed in relief. The helicopter had landed. It was probably helping the men I had injured... or killed.

I started to think about how I could be a killer but then stopped myself. I didn't have time for this right now.

I pulled out my phone and googled a lawyer. I clicked around until I found one that looked good and emailed him, saying that if he helped me out, he would get a nice little bit of cash. Then I hired a truck driver to meet me at the nearest road.

After thirty minutes of hard riding, I reached the road where I had arranged to meet the truck driver. I spotted the truck and jumped off of Death Strike, walking over half expecting a SWAT team to jump out of the back.

I relaxed a little when I saw a man in overalls and a handlebar mustache climb out of the car. He looked like he was forty. He looked harmless enough.

"You aren't my client, are you?" the man laughed at me, then looked at Death Strike. "What's that, a movie prop?"

I loved how he was like an old grandpa, but I hated how he treated me like a kid. I looked him in the face, dead serious.

"Hello, sir. I am the man who hired you, and I hope that you're fine with a live animal staying in the back of your truck."

I tried to sound as professional as I could.

"You have the promo code I sent to your phone?" the man said, chuckling a little bit like he had laid the final blow. I would show him a kid could beat him.

"Yes, in fact, I do," I said, listing out some numbers proudly. The man stuck out his hand with a little more respect for me.

"Call me Joe," he said as I shook his hand. He would be perfect. I liked a person who learned quickly from their mistakes and was quick to adapt. Just the person I would be needing.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Kolin."

The man narrowed his eyes at me. I could see him changing his mind. He looked cautious yet curious.

"Are you the kid who is all over the news? 'Cause I don't want trouble," he said, glaring at me to get his point across. No reason to burn bridges so soon. I needed a lift.

"What if I offered you two thousand dollars if you were to help me out?" I asked, crossing my fingers.

"Done deal. But before we go any further, destroy that phone of yours so the government isn't tracking your every move," Joe grinned. "You do know the phone is a way for the government to keep tabs on everybody, right?"

Shoot, I hadn't even thought about that. That made sense—that was how people kept finding me. I was such an idiot. I looked the man in the eyes and threw the phone up in the air behind me. Death Strike grabbed it in his jaws and snapped it in half.

"Done."

"I like you, kid," the old guy chuckled to himself. "You can put him in the trailer and shut the door."

I went to the back of the trailer kind of nervously. Would it be covered in junk that Death Strike would eat? I didn't really think so, but I peeked inside to make sure.

"Go in there, Death Strike," I motioned to the trailer bed. "You'll be safe there."

Death Strike hopped in, and I shut the door behind him. I walked around the truck and climbed into the front seat of the car. Just as I got in, I felt Death Strike lay down in the back. The truck tilted a bit to one side.

The truck driver looked at me skeptically.

"Where do you wanna go?" Joe asked. I gave him the address of a property by the Sierra Nevada foothills that I thought I was going to be able to buy that would be perfect for Death Strike to roam free in.

"Two-hour drive?" Joe said, looking at me curiously. "You are one interesting kid."

He started the truck, and we started to drive, so I started to get to work, giving money to my lawyer, telling him to buy the property in the foothills, but then also another large chunk of land in Mexico. I also told him to hire a construction guy to help make all the fences and whatnot. I put more money into the lawyer's bank account for that too.

All this stuff was beginning to get to me. I really wasn't much of a financial guy. I just wanted to have fun and be with Death Strike. Plus, when I started to think about it, I was going to have to film more videos with Death Strike on the new phone, and I had most likely forgotten the password to my YouTube channel. It didn't help that I was still probably getting chased. What a mess.

After two hours of driving, we had arrived at our destination. The property was off of a dirt road, and the place was overgrown, looking like nobody had bothered to come down here for a long time. It was perfect. My lawyer was even waiting for me in his car.

"Joe," I asked him, "mind if you get the phone started up when it gets here?"

He nodded his head absentmindedly, so I got out of the car and opened up the back of the trailer. Death Strike was taking a nap, so I let him be and walked over to the lawyer's car.

The window rolled down, and I saw a man in a nice crisp suit sitting in the car. That is exactly what I thought in my brain was a perfect lawyer. I definitely had my stereotypes.

"May I help you?" the lawyer asked. I could tell he was one of those kid doubters. Ah well, he was all I had to work with.

"I'm Kolin," I extended my hand. "The man who hired you."

The lawyer balked for a second but still shook my hand.

"You're a kid," the lawyer stated.

"What did you expect? An adult?" I said, ticked off. I started to get more ticked when the lawyer shook his head, amused.

"The land over there is yours, as is the stuff in Mexico. A construction firm is on the way, but I am still working on getting you off the hook with the government."

"Perfect," I said. At least my lawyer was on top of it. I walked away from the car, making my way to the back of the truck trailer to rouse Death Strike from his beauty sleep.

Together, we set off to go explore our new land. It ended up great, with a spot with a nice open meadow, with trees around it that I thought would be perfect for Death Strike's non-permanent habitat. He would have plenty of room to roam around and explore but be far enough from any neighbors I might have that they wouldn't get suspicious.

I was already making plans for a lab and a home in my head. I would have to have space for a vet to live on the property along with my family, so that would be fun to design with the architect.

Death Strike and I ended up sleeping under one of the trees on our new property, and when I woke back up, the lawyer and the construction guys were already there.

The man who led the construction company was a nice guy to me. His name was Joshua, and he had worked with everything from zoos to building homes for quite a while. He was respectful to me as a kid, and when I asked him why he said this: "When I was a kid I started to do construction for people, so why can't you start doing what you love, young too?" After we had talked over plans for exactly what I wanted, he walked off to go get started with his team.

Then I pulled up the phone and called John, and all he had to report was that my name was cleared with the law until I got a hearing in a couple of months, and that the property in Mexico was purchased. All was well.

Over the course of a month a lot of boring work happened that you probably don't want to hear about, so here is the gist. The housing for people and an enclosure for Death Strike were built, and I had made another ten million off of YouTube with a large sequence of videos. I got reunited with my family, who decided they would sell their house to build a house on my property, which was fine for me. They designed it themselves, and I doubled all the money they gave me, as it was partially my fault they were moving in the first place.

The housing system closer to Death Strike's enclosure was amazing. It was right up against it, and it had a veterinary clinic for Death Strike along with a living area for the vet with a large window looking out across the enclosure in her office so she could see Death Strike from the safety of her office behind glass that was many inches thick. Then a commons area had also been built for the staff to hang out in, as well as a bedroom for me so I could sleep there if I wanted, and two other bedrooms for other staff that might come along. All the bedrooms had private bathrooms attached. Behind the vet's rooms I had put a science lab for an idea that I would be able to implement down the road.

The finishing touches I had put in were a zipline course high up in the trees that went through a small area of Death Strike's enclosure by the vet office so he could still have privacy over the other parts of his property. The habitat even had a ten-foot-tall electric fence covering the full 50-acre enclosure. Death Strike had tried to get out already and had been unsuccessful. Plus, even if he did get out, there was a stone wall around the property with a twenty-foot-tall hedge to keep things looking wild, and to keep anybody from peering in. The gate that we had in the front was top security too, with cameras everywhere.

Everything was going great, but something was wrong with Death Strike. He was depressed. He would pace outside the vet's window, or just stare out the fence. Plus, he also started to move around less and less. I had a couple of theories, one of which was that Death Strike was simply bored and wanted to hunt, or that he was lonely and wanted to be with other ornitholestes. Or maybe it was a combination of both. Either one that may be, I hated seeing Death Strike pace around his fence like a caged animal. Absolutely hated it.

So I hired a man from a company who would be able to make more ornitholestes by cloning them and then putting the embryo into a different host or something like that. Now that I thought about it, it wasn't really cloning—just making an ornitholestes with slightly different genetics than Death Strike.

Anyway, when the day finally came for the man to come I was excited. I had gone into Death Strike's cage and livened him up by riding on the zipline and throwing pieces of meat into the habitat below. He had lots of fun chasing the chunks of meat. Though, to be honest, he caught most of them with his precision and speed.

After Death Strike was taken care of I went down to my parents' house and kindly said good morning, reminding them that I had a "VIP" coming and that if they could they should stay in the house. Once everything was said and done, the man arrived.

I hurried out to meet him, thrilled at the chance to start making Death Strike happier. He seemed nice when I first saw him, but for some reason seeing his face gave me severe deja vu.

"Hello," the man said, extending his hand. "I am Arthur. You hired me to clone your ornitholestes?" I shook the man's hand, thoroughly pleased at how he treated me as an equal.

"Yes, sir, that would be why I hired you. Thank you so much for coming out."

"I hope you don't mind that I brought my son out to see the raptor," Arthur said, a gleam in his eyes. I gulped—the last thing I wanted was a little kid running around here breaking expensive equipment, or even worse getting eaten by Death Strike because he mistook them as a snack.

I started to cringe as the car door opened. It was Raydawn and Tamara! I ran over to them, overjoyed to see them, and gave them both a hug. It felt so good to see both of them, as they were all smiles from ear to ear. Raydawn, with his goofy smiler, and Tamara with her sparkling eyes made me realize how much of a normal teenage life I was sacrificing for Death Strike. It made me miss my old life. Seeing Raydawn and Tamara made me promise myself I would still be a kid even though I had a dinosaur.

"Why are you guys here?" I asked them.

Raydawn laughed at me. "Well, my dad works for you now so I talked him into bringing us along. He thought you'd get ticked off, but I knew you'd be fine with it!"

"I didn't know your dad worked in the genetics field," I said, vaguely remembering his dad doing something else.

"Well, he does, so now that we're here, can we check out the ornitholestes?" Raydawn asked.

"Sure," I said, excited to hang out with my friends again. "After, though, I need to talk with your dad."

I turned around to face Arthur. "Do you have time to wait around for an hour or two?" I asked Arthur.

"Yes, of course," he said, smiling. "You can check out the facilities while you're at it if you want."

I said that and then walked off with Raydawn and Tamara. We walked toward the habitat, laughing and talking about life. Even though I had been gone for a month it felt like our friend group hadn't even skipped a beat.

We went into Death Strike's cage and I introduced him to Raydawn and Tamara. They were touching him and petting him when I saw Death Strike get that look in his eyes like he was on to something.

Before I could react, Death Strike had taken Raydawn's pants right off his bottom and had run off with them. "Death Strike, stop!" I yelled at him. Death Strike came back and dropped the pants at my feet like a dog. I started to laugh when I looked at Raydawn's face. It was beet red.

"What was in your pants?" I barely got out because I was bending over laughing; Tamara joined me, delirious with laughter.

"I may have had beef jerky," he smirked, and snatched his pants out of my hands. "Give those back."

"I would give Death Strike the beef jerky," I said with a straight face. "Or he might take a chunk of meat out of you."

Raydawn hurriedly threw the jerky to Death Strike, and I broke down laughing again.

"Death Strike wouldn't hurt a fly," I said.

"Why don't we get out of the cage with him, regardless? I've seen what he can do," Raydawn said, jokingly. "I'm subscribed to your YouTube, you know."

For the rest of our time we rode the zipline, which Raydawn claimed "was out of Death Strike's reach." Death Strike ran under us and we had fun throwing him raw meat, although Tamara wouldn't touch it. It was awesome, and when we were finished I went to go talk with Arthur.

"So how quickly can you get me some ornitholestes?" I said as I stood with Arthur in the science lab I had made for this purpose. Arthur looked at me.

"It will take me two to three years for ten fully grown ornitholestes to be packing with Death Strike," he said.

My hopes immediately crashed. Two to three years was way too long to wait. I could see Death Strike going into a state of depression after being lonely for a couple of months.

"Is there any way you can shorten the time?" I asked, ready to do anything I could to help Death Strike. Arthur looked at me sympathetically.

"I can take the blood draw now and get started for you," he said. "Just get the ornitholestes into a small contained area for me."

I walked down to the vet center with Arthur, put out that it could be a couple of years until Death Strike could have a pack. Until then I would need to get him live prey, that was for sure.

"Okay," I told him. It was a bit out of the blue, but we could do it now. I walked over to Death Strike's habitat and jumped the fence from a tree on the outside. I looked around for him, but he found me as usual, jumping out of the bushes and scaring the crap out of me.

"Hey, there buddy," I said, rubbing his neck. We walked over to the veterinary and peered through the window. Arthur was on the phone with somebody and when he saw me and Death Strike he shoved the phone into his pocket. He was acting strange.

I motioned to Arthur to press a button on a control panel that opened the steel door into the veterinary space. Death Strike trounced in and started to sniff around without hesitation.

Arthur pulled out a wicked-looking needle from his briefcase that I grimaced at the sight of. Death Strike growled at Arthur.

"Are you going to put him down or something while I stick a needle into him?" Arthur asked, his eyes darting every which way nervously. Something was off with him.

"Why would we?" I said. "He's perfectly tame."

The way Arthur looked at me made it clear that he did not think he was tame.

"Could you at least restrain him somehow?" he said.

"I could just go get my vet to do it for you," I said. "This is what I pay her to do." After I suggested it, something resigned in Arthur's eyes. What a strange man.

"I got it," he said. So I watched Arthur try to jab the needle into the side of Death Strike. Death Strike suddenly lunged at him and was only inches away from taking off his hand. Death Strike snarled menacingly. I did not get why he hated Arthur so much.

"Why don't I do it?" I suggested. Arthur agreed rather reluctantly for a man who had almost just gotten his hand torn off, but he showed me how to do it.

I took the sample without a problem. The needle went in and I saw Death Strike's eyes widen in pain, but he trusted me. I hated to see him like that, but it had to be done.

Then Arthur asked for one more, and I took the other one. When I opened the gate to his habitat he took off running. Poor guy.

Once Death Strike was out of sight, I turned my attention to Arthur, who was quietly slipping one of the blood samples into his briefcase. I did not like that.

"You aren't allowed to take any of those off the property. They could be dangerous in the wrong hands. All you need to do is work in my science lab. It has all the equipment you need."

I watched as Arthur's lip curled upward into a sneer, but as soon as he saw me frown at his expression, he became Mister Nice Guy again.

"Oh, and it would be great if you wouldn't tell anybody where this place is or the press will be pounding on my door."

Arthur nodded curtly at me and left the room with the blood samples in his hand. I had a bad feeling about using him, but all issues aside I had work to do.

I needed more ornitholestes so Death Strike could hunt with a pack. I was already imagining him cutting through the trees with four or five more dinosaurs alongside him. He was deadly on his own, but when I thought of more of him working together, I shivered. They could take down a full-grown elephant if they tried.

All daydreams considered, I got to work on my computer and started to do research. I dug through all sorts of websites: shady chat forums, news articles, blog posts, and even just raw footage of what was claimed to be raptors. It was crazy how much you found when you started to dig deep, and I was just looking up things about raptors. The two things that stood out to me the most was that a couple of years ago a raptor had been spotted on a security camera in Florida, but that one was too far away for now. My other option was that there were lots of areas in Utah where people claimed to spot raptors.

There were two possible locations that had had the most sightings by far over the years that we were most likely going to check out. The problem was that we would need a truck to carry any dinosaurs that we found and a helicopter because it would get me there faster and it would come in useful later.

I got my engineer Joshua on the phone and explained to him exactly what I wanted. I was quite let down to hear that it would cost me ten million dollars that would take a good chunk out of my bank account.

The other thing that I had to consider was that I would love to go and explore more remote areas that you couldn't get to in a helicopter. This wouldn't happen now, but one day I was sure it would be a necessity. When I asked Joshua about that, he said it would take a month to construct and the cost would be around 100 million dollars to produce and possibly more to fly.

I was overwhelmed by these numbers, but I knew one thing: I needed cash, and fast.

Chapter 5

I had come up with an ingenious solution to make some cash. It was fairly complicated and very well might end up badly, but if all went according to plan, I would be rich by the end of the week.

First, I would cook up some select tickets that would be available for auction. Whoever bought these tickets would be able to come see Death Strike in person, up close, and they might even get to touch him. I was still deciding on all the details. I would have the starting amount be a million dollars USD, and whoever paid the most would get in. Additionally, I was still deciding if a million dollars was too much and how many tickets I was going to sell, but I would take care of all the details later.

The second thing I had in mind to roll in the big bucks was to give one news company a chance to come and film Death Strike—but they would pay me to film him, and they would need express permission from me before handing over the copyright to anyone else. The thing that I thought would make me a lot of money was that if they wanted to come back and film again, they would have to recompete with the other news companies to get in. I figured that was going to make me a ridiculously large amount of money.

And finally, the biggest money-maker of them all would essentially be me mooching off the rich. One lucky billionaire would get the chance to sponsor my company. If he did this, he would pay a small fortune each month, and in return, he would get his name put up on signs and whatnot as the dinosaur lover, and he would get access to our facilities 24/7.

After doing all the math, I figured that I would be making around 350 million dollars USD, which would then enable me to go on my little expeditions for a long time without having to worry about my budget. Hopefully.

I got my lawyer on the job, as he had also kind of volunteered to be my marketing and money guy. (I think I have been paying him way too much.) The tickets were put up for auction, and the news companies had the offer put on the table for them to consider, even though I heard that most of them were moping about the terms. John said that was pretty normal. Finally, the stuff about the donor was sent to all of the super-rich dudes. I was about to be swimming in money.

Sure enough, by the end of the week, all the tickets had been sold for hefty sums, the news companies got way too competitive, and I had a billionaire who transferred 50 million dollars into my bank account for his first payment. Other payments were to be decided after that.

Now that I was loaded, I had Joshua start on the construction of my vehicles, and once everything was done, I went to sit in my office and wait for something interesting to happen and start to plan out the celeb's tour in my head. All was well.

In a week, the helicopter and the state-of-the-art truck were complete. It was time to go to Utah. I had many things to contemplate for that trip: who I would take with me, what I should bring, how I was going to get the living creatures home, but the thing that was the hardest to navigate was my parents.

"Are you sure it won't be dangerous?" I stood in front of my mom, worried she was about to shut this whole thing down. My dad was there too, but he didn't really care what I did. As long as Mom was fine with it, he was too.

"It will be completely safe. I know what I'm doing," I said, all the while thinking in my head:

OF COURSE IT'S NOT SAFE! I'M GOING TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE TO HUNT DOWN A CREATURE THAT KILLS FOR A LIVING AND THAT HUMANITY HARDLY KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT.

"But are you sure it's safe?" my mom said.

"Yes, Mom," I lied to her face.

"Could we at least go with you?" she asked, concerned.

I was literally about to say, "No, you can't because you might get hurt." That would have been real bad.

"This is like a business thing," I told my mom instead. "If you come, you could cut off the income that you live on."

My mom blushed when she realized that I was using my position against them. Being rich and being able to tell your parents that if they stop you from doing something they might have to live on the streets was awesome.

"You can go," my mom resigned, and I almost pumped my fists into the air for joy but stopped myself.

NO GETTING AHEAD OF YOURSELF, KOLIN, I thought to myself.

Finally, I was off, ready to go live out my dream and hunt for dinosaurs. I got into the passenger seat of the truck, blaring loud music, getting amped up for the trip, when Joe came in and said,

"Get ready for a six-hour drive."

I was asleep in ten minutes.

I was brutally awakened by the honking of our car's horn, and I rolled over mumbling to myself. Suddenly, I felt ice water washing over my face, and I sat up straight.

"What's going on?" I said, suddenly alert.

"What's going on is that we are here," Joe said. "And you weren't waking up, so I took drastic measures."

Joe cracked a smile, and I laughed with him at my own dignity. I must have been really tired if I was in that deep of a sleep after getting six hours of rest.

After I had settled down, I went around back to open the complex mechanism used to lock the trailer of the truck. I also just thought that I would point out that we were using a normal semi-truck to tow the very much abnormal trailer.

The trailer was my pride and joy. I had carefully designed it for Death Strike with a large open-air space in the middle for him to enjoy. I had added reinforced sides, but the top of the vehicle was mostly open air besides five steel beams that prevented Death Strike from jumping out the top. My personal favorite part was that I put a window in both the semi cab and the trailer so that I could see Death Strike at all times. The final addition to the rig was a smaller holding area for smaller dinosaurs that would be able to get through the steel bars, and a back room that had an incubator and a bunch of small holding areas for baby or smaller dinosaurs. The whole rig looked just like a normal semi-trailer and was working just as I had designed it to.

I let Death Strike out of the trailer to stretch his limbs, and while he looked around, I opened up my email and gasped at the sheer number of people that had sent me emails reporting dinosaurs. Before I had gone on the trip, I had made a post on all of the platforms that I was active on and had said that if you live in the Utah area and had spotted a dinosaur that walked on two legs—or if you had spotted a dinosaur that walked on two legs anywhere, for that matter—you should shoot me an email.

I typed in "Utah" in the search bar of my email, trying to narrow it down, and was both pleased and let down that only about a hundred emails were left. This was going to take a while, so I told Joe to go take a nap and got to work.

In the end, I found five different people who were all from the same area of Utah. All of the sightings seemed legitimate to me, and every single person gave their address. The last thing to do was to start the drive over there, and I considered telling them I was on my way but then changed my mind, coming to the conclusion that surely they would call the paparazzi, and that would just slow me down.

The people lived an hour away, in the middle of nowhere. The whole drive was mostly dirt, and all I could see was desert in every direction. I was glad I had installed four-wheel drive on the truck.

I stayed awake this time, and in no time, we had arrived. Before we drove all the way up to the place, I asked Joe to stop so I could review the emails.

Silas Wolfe didn't tell me much about himself but just left an address. Phoenix told me that she lived in a community of mobile homes in the wilderness that had been seeing odd things. She left an address. Two other people had said they had been seeing odd things and had left an address but decided not to share their names. Finally, Zoe Hart was a biologist who was retired and claimed to live out in the wilderness to stay in touch with nature. She also left her address.

I told Joe that we were all set, and we set out to off-road. After five or so minutes of driving, we arrived to see five mobile homes set up next to the rim of a large canyon.

"Thanks for driving, Joe," I said, giddy with excitement as I jumped out of the car. "I can take it from here."

I got Death Strike out from the back of the car and went to ring the bell of the mobile home that belonged to Zoe Hart.

Ding dong.

The door opened to a frail but rather strong old lady who looked like she was in her early seventies. She had graying hair and a weary smile on her face, and along with her creased skin, she reminded me of my grandma.

"You must be Kolin Perez, I assume?" she asked, looking curiously at Death Strike, who was sniffing the air beside me. He was on to something already; I could just tell.

The one thing that caught me off guard, though, was the fact that she was not caught off guard by Death Strike. Most people had a moment of awe when they first saw him.

"Yes," I said, looking at her. "Why aren't you, like, in awe of Death Strike?"

"You think he's the first dinosaur I've ever seen, young man?" she huffed. "Why would you have come out here if you didn't believe that I had seen a dinosaur before?"

Dang. That lady was speaking facts. I probably looked very stupid right now.

"I... I... that's actually a really valid point." This lady was making me stumble over my words and think. She reminded me of a demanding old grandma—the kind that was full of wisdom and always spoke facts. Then, out of the blue, she made a very daring statement.

"Now listen to me, young man. If I show you where the dinosaurs have been spotted, you're going to let me come to your preserve and study the dinosaurs you have there, and you will let me document them in the name of science. You won't even have to pay me. I have a Ph.D. in animal behavior."

I thought about the offer for a second. It would be great to have somebody to document the dinosaurs for me who knew what they were doing, but the only thing holding me back was that I had literally just met her.

"Do you have a phone?" I asked her, as I googled the name Zoe Hart on my own phone.

"No, I don't have those stupid pieces of garbage," she said with a huff. I looked on my phone and saw that Zoe Hart was a well-renowned animal behaviorist who had worked in multiple world-famous zoos and was indeed a trustworthy figure in the animal world. At least, that's what Google said.

"You can join the team," I said, figuring the worst that could happen would be that I would have to remove her from the property. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.

Zoe was starting to hobble toward the edge of the canyon, so I shook my head to clear my thoughts and followed her. She lifted her knobbly old hand and pointed to the canyon, saying,

"They live down there somewhere."

I just laughed as she went back to her house and hollered out behind her, "I'm going to pack!"

I was going to like that lady.

Old lady aside, I started the short walk to the mouth of the canyon. It took me about ten minutes, and when I got to a place that I thought I might be able to get down, I realized it was going to take me at least an hour to get to the bottom of the canyon. I figured if I just rode Death Strike down at top speed, I would get to the bottom in ten minutes.

The canyon itself was covered in small shrubs and bushes, with trees growing in small clumps here and there. There were also quite a few caves around, dotting the landscape with plenty of nooks and crannies that a dinosaur could hide in.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of movement as something darted into one of the caves. It looked just like Death Strike, but it was hard to tell from this distance how big it was.

I whistled for Death Strike, who had wandered off somewhere, and he was by my side in no time. Then we were off down the hill to go find the dinosaur.

Sticks hit me in the face as we barreled down the rugged mountain path, and I was sure we were about to go off a cliff at any moment, but Death Strike was careful, and in about ten minutes we were at the bottom of the canyon.

Death Strike immediately started to go nuts for some reason and darted straight for the cave that I had seen the possible ornitholestes go into. My heart beat wildly as Death Strike darted into the cave so fast that I hit my head on the ceiling, and I fell off his back.

My head spun as I sat up and groaned but quickly shook it off because I was so excited to see these creatures. My enthusiasm was only encouraged by the soft growls nearby. Thinking back on it, I realize most people would be running—not eagerly approaching—something that could potentially kill them.

I got up off the ground and slowly made my way through the narrow passageway of the cave tunnel. I would always look behind me every few seconds to make sure Death Strike was right behind me, and look ahead to make sure I wouldn't get eaten by anything.

With my eyes darting back and forth like this and my heart beating faster than I think it had ever gone, it was a miracle that I didn't have a heart attack.

Then Death Strike stopped and couldn't get any farther. Fortunately for me, I reached the end of the tunnel in a couple more feet.

I gasped at what I saw.

Out of the safety of the shadow of my tunnel, I saw a giant cave that was illuminated by a small crag in the rock above. It emitted a ray of light that allowed me to see three groups of small raptors whose heads reached midway up my thigh. I watched as their mouths opened to reveal their teeth, and I heard them snarl—not unlike Death Strike when he wasn't happy with me. Each parent guarded a nest and seemed very agitated that I was there.

I carefully stepped deeper into the small passage, and I swear you could hear my heartbeat echo throughout the room. I tried my best not to make any sudden movements when Death Strike let out his deep, guttural snarl—and six deadly raptors came rushing at me.

Chapter 6

I could hear the mini-raptors coming at me, and the first thing that came to my mind was how my mom had told me to stay safe. I very well might die here.

Time seemed to slow down as I heard the soft footsteps of the mini-raptors and the sound of the wind whistling eerily off their backs. I just stood there in awe of the majestic beasts who were just trying to defend their home, when I snapped out of it and leapt into action.

I knew my one hope of survival would be to get on Death Strike and use him as a kind of dino-shield. The only problem was that Death Strike was crammed into the tunnel so much that I couldn't get around him.

Then Death Strike suddenly backed up just enough so that I could get through, and I got up onto his back with only a moment to spare.

I thought that I had won when I felt an excruciating pain erupt in my calf, as a mini-raptor had run by, taking a chunk of my calf with him. I clung to Death Strike for dear life, sobbing hard, my vision getting blurry. It was all over. What a stupid idiot I had been to do such a thing. Going straight into their home turf was so freaking stupid.

I heard the mini-raptors leave the cave before us, and Death Strike was out of there too as fast as he could. Death Strike ignored the little devils as they rushed him as soon as he hit the sun.

I braced for more pain, but the little guys were only trying to get back to their nest. I kept sobbing until we got to the mouth of the canyon, and Death Strike carried me all the way to the truck.

Joe was whistling, and I almost fainted out of fright. That sound would be permanently ingrained in my nightmares as the sound of death.

Death Strike banged his head against the side of the car, Joe hollered, and got out of the car.

Joe said some very bad words when he saw my leg—words I thought were very appropriate at the time—and rushed to get the first aid kit out of the car. At the same time, Zoe came running out of her house and cursed.

"What happened?" she asked. I just tried to mumble something, but it only made me feel woozy.

"Give me the first aid kit," she said, snatching the kit from Joe, who had just gotten out of the car. Thankfully, I had made sure the first aid kit was well-stocked to handle situations that dinosaurs might cause. This included splints, tourniquets, and all sorts of other things that you might need if you were to get mauled by a dinosaur.

"I didn't even realize those things were that dangerous," she said, a worried look on her face. I heard what she said but didn't pay attention. I was too busy gritting my teeth, trying to block out the pain as she cleaned out the wound with alcohol and wrapped it with gauze. At one point I felt like I was going to pass out from the pain, but after Zoe gave me pain meds I was feeling much better, if not a little braver than usual.

"Where did you learn to do that?" I asked.

"I've been a lot of places with dangerous animals, son. You think I don't know how to handle a flesh wound?" she said. I highly disagreed with that. I definitely did not have a flesh wound, but I let it go. At this point, the drug I had taken for pain must have clouded my thinking a little because I asked a very stupid question.

"Zoe, I hate to ask this of you, but I am going to need someone to handle the giant cage that I am going to call in to transport the dinosaurs. Could you help me out?"

"As long as you let me back out at any time if it gets too dangerous for my comfort," she said, smiling at me. I didn't really know how to interpret this, so I just nodded my head.

"I'm going to go take a twenty-minute snooze and then we will get down to business," I said, heading to the truck to kick back and rest my leg. Once I got there, I pulled out my phone and called Joshua.

"Hey, Josh," I said. "How fast do you think you could make me a cage that could be attached to the copter we have?"

I then proceeded to lay out with my words, the best that I could, a complex blueprint for the exact type of cage I would be needing. After some thorough questioning by Joshua, he said that he would be able to have it ready in two or three hours. I hung up the phone and went to bed.

I felt my phone ringing in my hands and bolted upright in my seat. The screen said that Joshua was calling, so I answered it, and he said that the cage was ready to go.

Now that everything was set, I called up the pilot that I had hired and told him what the deal was. He said that he would be here in half an hour. I sat back in my chair, content with everything—besides the gash in my leg.

The pilot that I had hired had been a pilot for the Air Force and had flown a little bit of everything. Combined with the fact that he had also been a test pilot and currently had a small family made him the perfect choice for me. His name was Jaxon Maddox.

The helicopter was due to arrive at any moment, so I got out of the truck and knocked on Zoe's door. She came out, and I told her what was about to go down.

After that was done, I climbed onto Death Strike's back, glad that my leg wasn't hurting all too bad.

"Let's go a little bit easier down the hill this time," I said, patting his side. I helped Zoe up too, and we were off.

By the time we got to the bottom of the canyon, I could see the helicopter in the distance and knew it was time to set my plan into action. I called Jaxon—who I was calling Jack at this point—and told him to try his best to position the box inside the lines I was going to draw into the sand.

Then, with Zoe's help, we carefully drew a box in the soft dirt of the canyon directly in front of the cave the creatures lived in. We backed away as the helicopter came in and lowered down the cage. I climbed up to the top with a little boost from Death Strike to compensate for the loss of a limb, and unhooked the helicopter from the cage. The helicopter flew away, and it was time to see if my careful planning had worked, because if it didn't, I would be wasting millions of dollars.

I took a deep breath and stood back to admire the product of my imagination. The steel box had come together quite nicely. It was made out of titanium, so that made it very durable while at the same time light so the helicopter could carry it. The cage was made as simple as possible with a flat bottom and top made out of titanium, with a bunch of boxes strapped on top that would carry the eggs once the raptors were contained. Two parallel sides were also made of titanium, but instead of a solid surface they were thick bars, like those of a prison, so that the animals inside wouldn't get too freaked out at being inside a confined space. Finally, the two other sides were my favorite part. The side facing the cave had a garage-door-like system which allowed the steel beams to be quickly and easily lowered or raised, without being obstructed by the low ceilings of the cave. The final side was simply titanium beams, but it also had an opening that I could easily run or hobble out of, and then a gate would slam down—compliments of gravity—to stop any dinosaurs from eating me alive. It was quite simple when you thought about it.

I got all the different things set up and then explained to Zoe how it all worked.

"All you have to do," I said, "is press this button here as soon as I leave the cage and your job will be done, and hopefully the raptors will be contained."

I pressed two more buttons on the control pad: one that started the micro-cameras on the inside to start recording (this whole thing would be live-streamed on my YouTube channel), and one that told the system that the button was now live. I stepped into the cage.

"I'm ready, Zoe," I said. "You know what you're doing, right?"

She nodded her head in all seriousness.

"Give me a big roar, Death Strike," I said, and waited expectantly. Death Strike didn't even move from where he was watching the whole thing only a couple of feet away. Sometimes I swear he didn't do what I wanted him to do just to get on my nerves.

Thankfully, Zoe picked up the slack and kicked him in the belly. Death Strike snarled at her, unfazed. She kept kicking him until he unleashed a mighty roar in her face.

Roooaaar.

Time seemed to slow down as I heard the whistling of the raptors coming my way once again. I dully took note of the pain in my leg that they had caused not too long ago.

Suddenly, I glimpsed one of them in the cave ahead, and I threw myself out of that cage as fast as I could. Time sped back up as the gate slammed down, and a raptor's head was sticking out. I heard it whine like crazy, and I felt bad for it. Death Strike walked up behind me, however, and it quickly retreated back into the cage.

IT WASN'T ACTUALLY STUCK, I thought. IT WAS JUST TRYING TO LURE ME IN.

It made me sick to my stomach to realize how smart those little guys actually were. I got up off the ground and looked into the cage. All of the raptors were contained. My plan had worked perfectly.

I was giddy with happiness as I limped over to the entrance of the cave and went in, this time reassured that nothing was still in there. This time when I saw the majesty of the cave, I was able to go in and inspect the eggs carefully. Each one was larger than the average egg, as should be expected—a little bit larger than a tennis ball but shaped like a chicken egg.

I went outside to get the boxes that Joshua had put on top of the raptor cage. They were filled with small foam blocks, which were made out of all-natural material to keep the eggs from breaking.

I unhooked the boxes from the top of the cage and carried each one into the cave.

"You need any help with that?" Zoe asked me.

"No thanks," I said. I wasn't going to trust anybody with my precious load. If it took me an hour to properly get all the eggs into an incubator, so be it. After an hour of hard work, all of the eggs were safely stowed in the incubator in the truck, and it was time to head out.

The plan that I had come up with in my head was to fly the raptors to Death Strike's habitat and drop them off somewhere in the middle of the area. I would then keep a close eye on them until we could get them a proper enclosure that I knew for sure they wouldn't escape.

"Ask Joshua to start getting his construction team together," I told Joe as I climbed into the front seat of the car. "I am going to fly the raptors to the preserve while you drive the eggs over. Are you cool with that?"

Joe nodded his head at me, and I got out of the car to call Jaxon over with the helicopter. Joe pulled out, and it was time for the extraction. (Or at least that's what I was calling it.)

I heard the sound of the rotors once again as the helicopter approached us, and I told Jaxon to land it not too far away from the canyon so I could talk to him face-to-face. I have to admit I was more than a little nervous to meet this war vet who might shut me down as soon as he saw the cargo he would be carrying.

A pilot climbed out of the helicopter as the rotors slowed down and took off his helmet. Underneath, I saw a man who was probably in his thirties, not that much older than me. He had a warm smile on his face, and I could tell he was a kind father and a good person.

I extended my hand to him, and he shook it firmly.

"I'm Kolin," I said. "It's nice to meet you." The man smiled at me.

"You can call me Jack," he said. "How are we going to get that cage hooked up to the helicopter?"

I suggested that we could bring the helicopter closer to the edge and then hook the cable onto the helicopter, but I was immediately shut down.

"You want to have a helicopter crash on top of those precious creatures of yours?" Jack asked, and when I actually thought about it, it made sense.

"What you're going to have to do is bring in another person to hook everything into place as the helicopter is hovering above the cage," Jack said. "I have a good buddy that lives near here who will do it for you."

I couldn't thank Jack enough as he called up his friend and told me that I could come check out my helicopter and get Zoe loaded up while we waited for his friend to show.

The inside of the helicopter was very nice and had an incubator inside—albeit a smaller one than the one in the truck—with only enough room for one or two eggs. That was the only thing that was remotely interesting about the helicopter, besides the fact that it had a little more storage than the average copter. Other than that, it was just a normal helicopter.

Down the road, I was planning to add some machine guns onto it or some extra armor plating or something, but for now it was just what I needed.

Finally, Jack's friend arrived, and we all got into the helicopter and got ready to go. Jack fired up the motor—or whatever a helicopter had—and we took to the skies.

I held my breath as Jack lowered the helicopter down and something was attached, and we rose into the sky with the precious load dangling below us.

We flew a little bit lower than what I would think a normal helicopter would, and I could feel the occasional jostle from the cage down below. Everything seemed to be going smoothly when suddenly the helicopter lost weight, and we suddenly bobbed upward like a balloon, gaining altitude. I looked out my window with dread and saw that we were missing a raptor and that there was a hole in the side of the cage.

"Land the helicopter!" I screamed, panicking at the thought of losing the raptor, or even worse... hurting it. Everything I had worked so hard for could all go down the drain if one idiot tried to approach the little raptor and got hurt. I imagined the government coming in and taking away Death Strike because they considered dinosaurs to be "too much of a threat to our country."

"No can do, sir," Jack said calmly. "We are only ten minutes away from base, and we have to get the rest of the raptors to the enclosure before we go back to get the other raptor. I don't want anything else to jump out of that cage and attack people."

My brain wasn't thinking clearly, however, and I started to freak out, yelling at Jack and really just throwing a fit that probably made all of my acquaintances think I was a baby. It was horribly nerve-racking as we slowly came to the preserve. Jack lowered the cage over Death Strike's habitat and let the cage hit the bottom.

"Look to make sure they're all out," Jack told me, and I looked through the window to see the cage was empty.

"All clear," I said, and cracked my knuckles, nervous to see the possible disaster I was about to handle. I took deep breaths trying to get myself under control.

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE NOW? I asked myself. YOU ARE AN AMBASSADOR FOR A WHOLE NEW SPECIES. GET YOURSELF TOGETHER OR THEY COULD SUFFER.

I put on my brave face as Death Strike put his head on my knees in sympathy. I had almost forgotten that he was here because I was too preoccupied with the little raptors. I beat myself up a little for forgetting that he was there the whole time. I shook my head at myself.

LOOK AT YOURSELF, I thought. YOU FORGOT THAT THERE WAS A DINOSAUR THE SIZE OF A LION RIGHT NEXT TO YOU ON THE FLOOR.

I chuckled at the thought, and in that moment felt at peace, and I knew I was ready to handle whatever was waiting on the ground.

"I am going to hover about twenty feet off the ground," I heard Jack say over the com. "You and Death Strike are going to have to jump. Everything else is up to you."

I looked confidently at Death Strike. I knew he could make that jump. It was light work for him.

"Okay," I responded. "Tell me when you're ready."

Zoe got strapped into her seat and gave me a thumbs-up, telling me she was ready to go. I opened the door to the helicopter with a click of a button and climbed onto Death Strike. The wind howled at me as I clung to Death Strike for dear life, and I could feel the air pulling at me like a suction cup, trying to pull me out into the sky, but Death Strike held strong. Then, when I was least expecting it, he jumped, nearly giving me a heart attack. I saw some people rushing away from the helicopter as it approached, while some stood where they were, recording with their phones.

This made me immensely glad I had Death Strike, because when he hit the ground there were no people around him. I immediately made sure Death Strike was okay from the fall and then turned to the mini-raptor to make sure it was okay. I got goosebumps as I looked to see what had become of one of the rarest creatures on earth. I almost cried for joy when I saw that it was still breathing, though it was in much pain.

The raptor's legs were bent at odd angles, and it was whimpering in a low rumble that I had heard Death Strike make from time to time. I slowly reached out my arm to touch its side. My hand grazed the scales, and I quickly pulled my hand away, not wanting it to get bitten off, when I heard Death Strike's deep guttural growl.

I stood up to see what the deal was. People were gathering around us, phones out, staring at me and Death Strike—but mostly Death Strike. Death Strike would snarl at them, and they would back up quickly.

I cleared my throat, seeing an opportune time to make a little statement.

"Who here didn't believe dinosaurs still roamed the earth until now?" I asked, sounding a whole lot braver than I felt.

"Who here thought that they were like the dinosaurs that we see in movies?" I said, looking around into all the faces of the people gathered. "Who here thought that Death Strike here was a fake, a fabrication of a camera?"

People just stared at me like I was crazy.

"Who?" I shouted. "Just raise your hand. I won't be offended."

I looked on shocked as the vast majority of the crowd raised their hands awkwardly. I didn't think the doubt was really that bad. When I started to think about it, it made sense why the world wasn't going that nuts, or why major universities and zoos didn't want to study the dinosaurs: they thought they were a hoax. It made me consider if I should take Death Strike on tour or something.

"And who here would like to touch this dinosaur and vouch to the world that he is real?" I said, pointing to Death Strike. I looked on as one pretty girl my age raised her hand nervously.

"Come over here," I said, as she walked up timidly.

"What's your name?" I asked her, marveling at how her outfit came together so well and looked so good.

"My name is Brooklyn. Brooklyn Wells," she said, speaking loudly to the crowd.

"Nice to meet you, Brooklyn," I said, shaking her hand. "Would you like to meet Death Strike?"

Brooklyn nodded her head.

"Will you verify to those watching that he is real?" I asked, looking into her striking green eyes. She was beautiful—there was no doubt about it.

"If he is real, I will verify," she said, smiling at me in a way that made my cheeks feel warm. I could almost imagine how embarrassing it would be to have this whole interaction on TV. My brother was going to rub this in my face—that I lost it in front of a pretty girl on TV. I pulled myself together and gestured to her that she could approach Death Strike.

I watched in awe, as it was the first time Death Strike had had an interaction with someone I didn't know beforehand, besides the people that I had hired.

She slowly reached her hand toward his side but yanked it back when Death Strike snarled at her.

"It's okay," I reassured her. "He won't hurt you as long as you don't hurt him. He's just trying to tell you that."

I was very shocked that the random girl trusted me that much. I wouldn't touch a giant lizard that some rando told me to touch, personally.

She slowly grazed Death Strike with her hand and just gasped in awe.

"What in the world," she said in awe at the magnificent creature, but her moment was quickly interrupted by someone pushing through the crowd.

"Kolin," Jack said. "The helicopter is landed nearby."

We loaded the fallen raptor into a tarp with two beams attached to it so we could carry it easily. We picked up the two sides, and I spoke a final word to the audience before we headed out.

"One last thing," I said to the crowd. "If you ever stumble across a dinosaur in the wild, call me immediately. You can find me online. Just because Death Strike is gentle doesn't mean he isn't dangerous."

I pointed down to my leg, where blood was beginning to seep through my pants.

"Even with a dinosaur on my side, that is what one of the smallest species ever discovered did to me. Remember, though they are magnificent, they are the most dangerous creatures the world has ever seen."

With that statement, I walked away with a flourish, proud that I had made such a statement in public. Jack told me he had landed the helicopter not too far away, and in no time I was heading off into the sunset with high hopes for a new species.

Chapter 7

A man in a dark hood stared down at a man cowering in front of him. They were in a shady room in an area of Los Angeles that you wouldn't want to be in. The smell of meth and beer wafted in from a door nearby.

"How is the progress going?" the man with the dark hood asked. His face was hidden in the shadow of his hood, the iridescent light bulbs hanging from the ceiling casting an eerie glow on the room that didn't light much up.

"Good. The five hundred female Komodo dragons you've requested have been stolen. Your head de-extinction man has gotten the DNA. The dragons are ready to be impregnated at your command, sir," the man said, shaking in fear.

"How long will it be before the shipment is fully grown?" the man said, pulling a gun out of his pocket. He started to examine it, going over every inch of it with his eyes. The man gulped.

"How long, Marcus?" the man asked, looking at his gun with malicious intent in his eyes.

"Only one or two years before your army is ready, sir," the man said.

"That's way too long," the man in the hood said. "The construction company will be done building the underground containment chambers in six months. Could you have them ready in six months?"

"No sir, we can't speed up the process any—"

The man didn't have a chance to finish his sentence as a gaping hole appeared in his neck and he fell to the ground, dead.

The man in the hood looked pleased with himself as he slid his gun back where it had come from.

Chapter 8

Once I got back to the preserve, I took a deep breath and stepped out of the helicopter where I heard the cries of the new species coming from Death Strike's enclosure. It was so miraculous to me to be hearing the calls of creatures that science said went extinct millions of years ago.

Listening to the calls of nature was quickly put aside when I heard the dinosaur behind me make a little whimper. I turned around to see Death Strike snuffling the little guy curiously, and then opening up his jaws like he was about to take a big bite out of him.

"Stop!" I yelled at Death Strike. To think that he was about to eat a creature that was about to go extinct.

I called Jack over to help me carry the little raptor over to the vet's office. When we got to the door somebody opened it before I could even knock. A pretty lady was ushering us in. She was wearing a tank top paired with jeans, and her hands were covered in something really smelly and brown.

"What's on your hands?" I asked, wrinkling my nose.

"No 'nice to meet you'? I'm Elena, by the way," she joked. I was going to like this girl.

"I'm Kolin," I said, but I was still awfully curious about what was on her hands. "I have to ask you again: what in the world is on your hands?"

"It's dinosaur poop," she said, smiling at me cheerfully and then seeing my face. "How else are we supposed to know that Death Strike is eating healthy?"

I nodded my head. It was common practice for zoos to do that, so why couldn't we do it here? It really was stupid we hadn't been doing it. Death Strike could have been really sick and I would have never even noticed.

Me and Jack set the mini-raptor onto the operating table Elena was guiding us to while Jack introduced himself. Once we were done with that Elena told us,

"Get out of here, I have work to do."

So I scurried out of there and went outside to get on Death Strike and go exploring around the fence, hoping for a glimpse of the little dinosaurs. (I really don't know why I keep calling them little when they really aren't that little, but that's beside the point.)

After a good thirty minutes of hoping for a glimpse of what had tried to kill me earlier, I got a call from Joe that he would be there with the eggs in fifteen minutes. So in the good spirit of preparation, I went out to go ask Elena what she thought I should do with the eggs.

Once I was with Elena in the vet's office looking out through the window into Death Strike's habitat, I asked her,

"The eggs are going to be here any minute. What do you want me to do?"

Elena looked at me confused, which made me confused about why she was confused.

"What eggs?" she asked. I almost slapped myself in the face. I hadn't even told her that we had gotten eggs along with the raptors.

"We found eggs in the nesting site where we found the raptors," I explained to her.

Elena's face lit up with excitement.

"You found three breeding pairs all in the same spot?" she said. "You do know how rare it is to have an almost extinct species still have a breeding pair, right? You've gotten a real lucky break, I'll tell you that."

It made sense as I considered it.

"So what do you want me to do with the eggs?" I asked.

"You should try your best to make them feel at home," she said, and then saw my confused expression and elaborated. "Usually, when an unknown creature is taken out of its natural habitat and a zoo is trying to keep it alive and breeding, they put it in an enclosure that mimics where they were found to the full extent of their budget."

"So if I found them in a canyon, I should try to make their enclosure here look, smell, and feel as much like the canyon where I found them?" I said and was pleased when she nodded her head.

"Exactly," Elena said. "And just by the way, I have identified the species of dinosaur you have there."

She just left me hanging like that and looked at me. I did not appreciate her spunk as she just didn't say anything. As I got impatient, I blurted out,

"So? What species are they?"

"Coelurus," she said, laughing. "You should have seen your face. It looked like it was about to explode."

I shook my head at her as she continued to talk.

"Last thing," she said. "Each month I will be emailing you a comprehensive email covering each creature's health and well-being in detail for you to look over, as well as all the care the animals will need in the future and how much it will all cost."

I was glad that I had such a great vet on the team, and as I thanked her and walked out of the room, I was glad that I had clicked on her profile online.

Once I got out of the building I took a deep breath of fresh air and composed myself. It was time to get into business mode. I called up Joshua on my phone.

"You're on property, right?" I asked him. He said that he was parked somewhere along Death Strike's fence watching all the action going on. I laughed to myself at the thought of all this being mildly entertaining for him.

"Could you come over here?" I asked him, and he said he would be right there.

We got together in an empty room of the facility with a window looking out over the plot of land that I planned to use for what I was going to call the Coelurus Canyon.

For the next hour or so I explained my dream to Joshua and he faithfully listened to all of my ideas and gushings of fantasy as we put our heads together and built something new together. You don't even know what it feels like to have the money to build whatever you wanted with a professional that would actually get it built. This exhibit was going to please myself and those billionaires that were coming on tour so much that it might be their favorite zoo exhibit they had ever seen, and not just because of the animals that were going to be inside.

"How fast are you going to be able to get this done?" I said as we were wrapping up. I was hoping it would be rather quickly, as the sooner the eggs were reunited with their parents the better. Until then they would have to be kept inside an incubator.

"I'll call the construction team over right now and we will get to work," he said, and we parted ways—he to get to work, and I went to my bed and was asleep before you could say coelurus.

Boom! I sat up in bed as I heard an explosion right outside my bedroom. The house shook ever so slightly, and I figured it was just Joshua working on the canyon because I vaguely recalled him mentioning something to do with dynamite. Sure enough, when I looked out of my window, the plot of land I had pointed out was obstructed by a hazy cloud.

I HOPE DEATH STRIKE DOESN'T TRY ANYTHING STUPID, I thought to myself as I pictured him freaking out from where I had dropped him off the night before. He was somewhere far away from his habitat and the construction zone. Hopefully he wouldn't try to jump the wall surrounding the property or anything, I mused, and soon I was once again unconscious on my pillow.

When I woke up in the morning I checked my phone and saw I had gotten a text from Joshua saying he figured the construction would get done sometime tomorrow because he and his team had worked straight through the night. I was going to have to give that guy a pay raise.

That day I went to go retrieve Death Strike and found that he had a dead deer by his side. I almost vomited at the sight of Death Strike sleeping on top of the half-eaten carcass, his lips covered in blood. I even thought I saw a piece of meat on his chin or his nostril or whatever you called it.

"Where the heck did you even find that?" I asked him, shaking my head. When he heard my voice Death Strike lifted his head off the ground and looked at me. He let out a loud belch and put his head down.

"You ate too much, didn't you?" I said, walking over to him, gingerly bending down to scratch his belly.

I figured that even though we had gotten all the deer out of Death Strike's main habitat, apparently we hadn't cleared out the rest of the property. I started to walk off and Death Strike got to his feet gingerly.

WHAT A FATTY, I thought, laughing to myself. For the rest of the day me and Death Strike just hung around hoping to catch a glimpse of the coelurus, and in the evening I enjoyed the presence of my parents. Once the day was over, I crashed in my bed and was asleep in minutes.

That morning I bolted out of bed to grab my phone as soon as my alarm went off and immediately looked for a text message from Joshua. I was about to put it down when I saw his text.

THE HABITAT IS FINISHED! THE CODE TO GET IN IS 4925.

I scrambled out of bed and hurried to the habitat, ready to take it all in. Finally the time had come to check this place out that I had carefully imagined with Joshua.

As I approached the building I marveled at the height of the lookout tower that was going to allow me to see down into the Coelurus Canyon. The other thing that stood out to me right away was the steel beams that jutted over the canyon, making a fence that even if the coelurus were able to climb the sides of the canyon, they would not be able to get over the electric barrier in their way.

I loved how the way I had ingeniously designed it had come together to make an open-air enclosure that, while safe, invoked a deep sense in me that I was in nature entering the belly of the beast. I had even made it so that only a small dirt road led to the habitat, and even that was only for emergencies. The way I had even just then walked was along a dirt path through the forest that was on the property.

Once I got to the edge of the enclosure I looked in through the bars and was pleased to see how close to the original canyon the habitat was. I saw all the same caves and nooks that the original had, and I even saw a couple of trees right where they had been in the OG. When I was looking out I even saw the same hole that led to the nest, and I knew that the same nest would be inside.

Daydreams aside, I walked around the metal beams until I got to the entrance of the complex, which I was going to call the Coelurus Complex. As far as I was concerned, it was the best viewing apparatus for a species that didn't even know it was going to be observed ever created.

I entered the code on the thick sliding door, which was supposed to be indestructible. More about that later. Anyway, the door slid open and I walked in and almost gasped even though I had known what was coming. A spiral staircase made of glass wound around an elevator that was also completely see-through. I could see both the top floor and the bottom floor. And that wasn't even the coolest part.

I took the stairs down until I got to the bottom floor. I passed one floor that was empty that I planned to make a sort of exhibit for the billionaires, and entered a hallway with glass looking out into the coelurus habitat. It was insane to think that the creatures would be so close and you would still be able to see them without being in any danger yourself.

Now if you are wondering how it is safe if it is glass, I have a very good reason. There are two layers of glass. One is very thick, like the walls you normally see in a gorilla's cage at the zoo, and two, the second layer is a type of see-through rock so that I would be able to see the coelurus but they wouldn't be able to see me. And that brings me back to why the sliding door up above was so thick. Even in the rare situation that they did get through the glass, they would never be able to get out of the building unless I opened the sliding, practically bombproof door. It was a genius setup if I do say so myself.

I continued my walk along the hallway, all the while looking out into the canyon. I was even further impressed with myself when I got to look in the thick one-way glass that gave you a chance to peek into the smaller caves that dotted the canyon. I had also put cameras in all the caves so I could see everything the coelurus were doing.

Finally, I reached the part I was the most excited about: the nesting area. The hallway opened up to a large room where one entire part of the wall was glass that made it so I could look right into the coelurus nesting area. This time when I would look in I wouldn't get attacked because I would be behind the safety of one-way glass and they wouldn't even know I was there.

I could already imagine myself watching the babies hatch from those eggs and the best part was the coelurus wouldn't even know they had left their home or that they were in captivity.

Once I was finished I went up to the top level with the escalator and looked out over the canyon from the lookout tower, appreciating the bird's-eye view while pondering how I was going to get the coelurus in in the first place—and how I might get them out.

In the end I figured I would just do it how I did it at the OG canyon. I would lower them in through the cage I had designed and then release them where hopefully they would bolt into the cave to find their eggs waiting for them. One of the hard parts would be getting the eggs into the canyon without breaking them, but I already had a plan in mind.

About an hour later I was standing outside the fence to get into the canyon, where I, Elena, Joe, and some of Joshua's construction crew watched as each of the eggs were lowered into the canyon via a small crane that we had already had on site working on the canyon. We watched with bated breath as each egg was carefully lowered down in a protective case and left on the floor of the canyon.

Once that was done and had gone smoothly, Elena and I walked around to the crane where we would be strapped in and lowered into the cage to move the eggs into the cave. I helped strap Elena in and she went first, clenching her hands nervously on the harness that held her in. The crane carefully lowered her in, and once she could touch the bottom, Elena wiggled out of that harness as fast as she could.

The crane came back up around and it was my turn. Joshua came over and strapped me in, and the crane started to lift me into the air. I hated to say it, but I was more concerned about the pressure on my privates from those straps than the gorgeous view of the preserve that lay in front of me. Finally, once I was down, I unhooked myself and me and Elena got to work painstakingly moving one egg at a time into the cave, cracking open the box, and trying our best to leave the eggs 'just as we had found them.'

As soon as we were out of there the clock began to race as we needed to get the coelurus into their habitat as soon as possible. My bright idea was simply to put a dead deer inside that cage that we had used before, which Death Strike had already killed, and once all the coelurus were in there feasting away, we would remotely shut the door and helicopter them into the habitat, and then take out the cage the same way.

We had already moved the cage into Death Strike's habitat, so all I had to do was go and get that deer that Death Strike had killed at the other end of the property.

Death Strike was snoozing under a tree while we were working hard, so I woke him up and got his attention that we were going somewhere. I climbed into an ATV and we were off, Death Strike running alongside me to keep up. Once we got to the deer, I didn't have to do anything as Death Strike pulled it into the back of the ATV and laid over it protectively, so thanks to him we had a very slow ride home—but at least I didn't have to touch the deer.

The rest of the work I made Elena do, because I had the brilliant excuse of luring off Death Strike so he wouldn't attack Elena when she was taking away his deer.

Finally, all we had to do was wait for the coelurus to do their thing, and after forty-five minutes of patience, all five of them were feasting away and all we had to do was shut the doors. I hopped the fence to Death Strike's cage (the power wasn't on) and strutted over to the cage, pleased to see that it had been reinforced with pure plates of titanium instead of bars. Looked like those little guys wouldn't be able to chew out this time.

When I peeked into the cage, I was happy to see all five were healthy as could be. My glimpse was quick however, as Jack came in with the helicopter and lowered them into their habitat, setting them free back to where they belonged.

I went down to the viewing area and was pleased to see that I could see the dinosaurs nurturing their eggs just as they were supposed to, like nothing had changed.

I was a little bit disappointed that the coelurus that had fallen out of the helicopter couldn't be reintroduced yet, but she was still with Elena in a small paddock healing from her injury, so hopefully she could join the pack soon.

As I watched the magnificent creatures, I decided it was time to give them names, so this was what I came up with:

One of the girls had a birthmark on her snout that was almost white, so I called her Blinding Star.

One of the girls was very fast and agile. I called her Velocity.

One of the boys was clearly the leader of the pack, showing dominance over the others, so I called him Alpha.

One of the boys was always trying to compete with Alpha for dominance, so I called him Arcturus.

One of the boys was smaller than the rest, so I called him Runt, and finally, the coelurus that had fallen out of the helicopter was a girl, and I called her Survivor.

The dinosaurs were fun to watch as they reunited with their eggs, and they quickly began to develop a routine and I began to see their instincts, which were both similar and different from Death Strike. I had probably been observing them for about a week, visiting Death Strike off and on. It really was a great time with him and we bonded more in that time, but I could still tell that he was just getting more and more depressed. As I began to mull things over I decided: It was time to make an expedition to Florida.

Chapter 8

I really wanted to make this trip to Florida fast because I knew it would kill me if the Coelurus eggs hatched and I didn't get to see it. Though, to be honest, I was pushing my limits because a massive tropical storm was heading right toward where I was going. The best part was that it all lined up perfectly, since the plane was finally finished and was on our property ready to go, along with a private runway so we could leave whenever we wanted. So now that I had the logistics figured out, it was time for me to figure out who to bring.

The first two people were quite obviously my parents, as they were wanting to go on one of these excursions. Next up was Raydawn and Tamara because, hey, why not? Though it was a little bit hard to convince their parents to let them go, in the end I pressured them into letting them go. Finally, I needed one more person with me who was good with dinosaurs, and I couldn't take Zoe Hart because she had to look after the Coelurus. This left me with a difficult decision, and this is what I came up with.

My brother was a senior, and he was living in our old house because he still had school and whatnot. His name was Ryder, and he was a chill guy who would sometimes get on my nerves, but I knew I could trust him with my life, so I called him up on the phone. "Hey, Ryder," I said. "Would you like to come help me lasso some dinosaurs?" As I explained to him what was going on, I grew more and more confident in his abilities. Apparently, he had been working on a ranch lassoing cattle and whatnot, so the unique skill set he was developing made him the perfect fit for this excursion. While I was thinking it over, it occurred to me that I had no clue what my brother had been up to, and I hadn't seen him in over a month. This made me feel guilty, but I quickly shook away the feeling. I had a job to do.

The reminder of that thought carried me to get everybody together and hurry them into the plane. I won't go into the logistics of this happening, as I know you have too little brain space and don't care about things like logistics. Anyway, sooner or later we were off into the skies, heading toward Florida.

I bounced up and down in my seat, excited to be able to get up and explore my new jet. I must have been really hyped because Tamara asked me if I had to pee. This made me blush for some reason as my brother and Raydawn started to laugh at me. WE'LL SEE WHO'S LAUGHING SOON ENOUGH, I joked to myself and then said aloud, "Death Strike is hungry right now and he needs a snack. Who wants to be his snack?" The others started to laugh, and I jumped out of my seat as the seatbelt light overhead went off. I really hated that I had to have those in my plane. I didn't even legally have to follow them if I wanted to. Government.

As I mentally ran through the blueprints of the plane, I decided I might as well give my friends a tour. We had hours upon hours to sit in this plane anyway. The layout was quite basic, honestly, as it was a plane used only for transport. It had the passenger seating in the front with about ten or so luxury seats in case I had to entertain any rich guests, a security quarters, Elena's office on the fly, and finally cage upon cage for any dinosaurs I had to transport.

"This is the guards' room," I said as I waved at the bunks around me. "Just in case, you know?" My friends chuckled as I quickly moved into the next room.

"This is the vet's office," I gestured to the room around me. This time Tamara gave a little gasp as she saw the incubator and all the equipment around her. I wasn't surprised; she did want to be a vet one day. The rest of the crew thought it was interesting, but all they wanted to see were the dinosaur cages.

I made sure everybody was there and then realized I had left my parents sitting in the passenger area. I almost slapped myself in the face. I had all but forgotten about them as they sat in the corner trying not to embarrass me in front of my friends. I really needed to be careful about spending more intentional time with them.

I quickly told my friends and brother to wait in the security room for a sec while I grabbed my parents. "You guys can join the tour," I said as I found them.

"I thought you would want to entertain your friends alone," my dad said as he got up and ruffled my hair. "So we don't EMBARRASS you." He laughed at his own joke.

"You guys would never do that," I lied. "Come on, the others are waiting."

I saw my mom smile at my dad as they followed me. I swear they still thought I was a little baby sometimes, though I made it so they didn't have to work anymore. Still, I would do the same to my own child, so I loved them all the same.

We caught up to the rest of the group, and I showed them the vet's office. "Have you set up your cameras yet?" my dad asked. Now that I thought about it, I hadn't yet. I shook my head. Gotta love Dad.

"I can help you with it if you want," he said and immediately started to get to work, getting on the computer and clicking around on things.

"Thanks, Dad," I said as I moved into the last room of the large plane. I could sense I was stepping into a large space, the stale air hitting me hard. The sound of a large creature walking around, waiting for something, echoed through the walls of the empty room. I finally found the light switch and flipped it on.

I calmly stepped into the room knowing what to expect. Six pens big enough to hold an African elephant comfortably stood with a gap in the middle that was the size of my room. One of the pens had Death Strike in it, pacing around, patiently waiting for me.

"Poor guy," I said, walking up to his cage. "I forgot to turn on the lights before I shut the door, didn't I?" I nuzzled Death Strike for a second and then turned around to talk to my brother. He was staring at Death Strike, mouth open at the sight of the giant lizard.

"It really is true," he wondered aloud, looking at something he never thought could have existed.

"Of course it's true," Raydawn said, breaking the silence. "How could something like that look so real and be fake?"

"You really don't believe it until you see it," my brother said, a little bit annoyed at Raydawn. "I bet you didn't believe it until you saw it either."

Raydawn didn't respond to that but respectfully disengaged. I knew my brother did not like to be messed around with. Apparently, that meant Raydawn too.

"What's in that last room?" my brother said, pointing to the door in the back. I explained to him that it was just a jeep and that they would be able to see it once we had landed.

"Well," I said. "That's the end of the tour. I hope you guys have a good rest of the plane ride." I went back to my chair and promptly fell asleep.

"You should kiss him and I bet he'd perk right up," I heard a voice say. Only a second before, I had been slapped in the face by somebody. I lifted my head to see that Tamara was blushing like crazy. I felt like I had missed something very important, but not knowing what, I decided to let it go.

"You guys ready to go?" I said, yawning as I stretched my tired limbs. "We've got some dinosaurs to catch."

I looked around to see my friends gathered around me, looking at me awkwardly. "What?" I said as the others started to crack up. "What is it?"

"You really take forever to wake up, don't you?" Raydawn said, laughing. I shook my head. My friends were really a bunch of goofballs no matter what situation we were in. You would think that going on a mission to find a prehistoric beast would get them in line, but oh well. It helped keep my nerves down anyway.

My friends finally held it together as I told them to go unload Death Strike from his confines. When they were gone, my mom walked up to me. Her eyes were crinkling around the edges. She was nervous about something.

"The storm is almost on us," she said. "It will be right over this little town in about thirty minutes. Could we come back and do this a different day when it is a bit safer?"

I considered her for a second. "I think if we are fast, we can be in and out before the storm comes," I said. "You guys can stay here if you want."

My parents hastily agreed that they wanted to come with me, so we got everybody loaded up in the jeep that was in the last room of the plane, and we were off.

The jeep was armored and pretty high-tech as far as jeeps went, but it still didn't have room for Death Strike. So, for the sake of time, Death Strike just ran alongside us and I made sure I never went too fast.

I thought back to my plan. It was pretty simple. I would just scout out the area by the lady's house to help conserve time and then I would get out of there. After all, talking to the old lady would just waste our time.

The thing about this lady that made me hopeful, though, was that her house was right by a dense swamp that had been mostly unexplored because it was so hard to get through, even if you had some type of skiff. However, a large dinosaur like an Ornitholestes could easily wade through the deep water, and I wouldn't think that the crocs would bother it much either. Just thinking about what I could find sent shivers down my spine.

When we got to the house and my friends and I eagerly jumped out of the car, excited to get to work, I realized my mistake: I would only be able to take one person with me, and even then that would slow Death Strike down a considerable amount. So I decided that I would just give them a meaningless distraction.

"Why don't you guys go interview the lady who caught the raptor on footage while I go explore so that we can save some time?" I said, and my friends quickly nodded their heads in agreement, but my parents said that they were just going to stay in the jeep. This wasn’t really their cup of tea.

While they went to do that, I got to work climbing on Death Strike's back, getting ready to brave the swamp. The swamp was so thick you could hardly see much from the side of the road. All sorts of calls came wafting out from the darkness: the wind rustling through the trees, birds chirping, and the sound of things moving in the water. I also noticed the snout of a croc dip below the water as Death Strike approached.

For the first time in a while, I heard Death Strike start to click. He was nervous about something, and I didn’t know what. Death Strike looked up at the clouds in the sky and then looked at me.

THE STORM, I thought to myself. Maybe Mom had been right and we should’ve just stayed home. Death Strike took a step into the water and I heard it squelch as the water enveloped his paw. Before I knew it, I could hardly see the jeep behind me; the trunks of the mangroves blocked my vision.

Suddenly, all thoughts of doubt and worry vanished from my head. Death Strike perked up his head and I knew that he was on to something. The tracking instinct was in full throttle. Death Strike had found the scent of something, and it wasn’t a croc. All the crocs were scared of him and had disappeared as we ventured further into the darkness. No—Death Strike had found something very meaningful to him.

My heart started to beat as Death Strike sped up, beginning to run through the tangled mess of trees. This was it, I could feel it in my bones.

Then we hit a boulder in the water and Death Strike suddenly stopped. I looked down to see what the deal was, and then realized that we had not hit a boulder but an alligator. A big one at that, but the gator just swam away into the swamp, scared for its own life.

That little interaction made me almost one hundred percent certain that there was something very much like Death Strike if the alligators knew to fear him.

Click, click, click.

I heard the clicking sound that had led me to Death Strike not that long ago. It was behind us. Nothing had crept up on Death Strike. Not me, not the coelurus, not anything. I was terrified. Death Strike had an inkling of fear in his eyes. This was not going to be pretty.

Death Strike whirled around and I was face-to-face with another ornitholestes. It was poised to attack, in the same stance that Death Strike used when he was about to make a kill. It was bigger than Death Strike with coloring that stood in stark contrast to Death Strike’s shades of green and brown. Its top half was a green that would blend into any bush in the area, but its lower half was more suited to blend in with the dark brown of the mangrove trees. Its teeth were just like Death Strike’s—short and sharp things that could disembowel me before I could speak—and its eyes had similar size and proportions to Death Strike’s that made their vision so great.

The ornitholestes clicked without moving a muscle so it could still attack at any provoking from us. I held my breath as Death Strike clicked back, not moving just as she had. The stare-down continued as the ornitholestes flicked her eyes up to me for a moment.

They started to click back and forth and I felt like a stranger hearing something that I should never witness. It was shocking to me to have so much proof that the ornitholestes were so intelligent that they could have what appeared to me to be a short conversation. This just made me wonder why anyone would have tried to hurt these marvelous creatures.

Death Strike walked right past the other ornitholestes and, without turning his back, started to walk straight toward the lady’s house that we had come from. I was about to slap Death Strike for abandoning the one thing that could give him any amount of company that wasn’t a human, when I looked behind me and saw the other ornitholestes was following us.

Boom.

The ground shook as lightning flashed overhead and it started to pour, the water soaking my clothes through in an instant. Then Death Strike went into a full-out sprint and I held on to him for dear life as I felt a slight trembling in the ground.

We broke into the street just as a wave of water the size of a house barreled down the street. My eyes opened with terror as I saw the jeep get picked up like a child’s toy by the mighty waves. We ran toward the nearest house and it was only then that I realized that my parents were in the jeep.

I didn’t have much time to react as the two ornitholestes broke down the door to a random house and sprinted up the stairs just as the house groaned and shuddered as the wave hit it. My vision started to cloud as I began to panic.

“Mom, Dad,” I said, trying to run down the stairs as Death Strike held me back. I started to sob and punch Death Strike in the snout.

“Let. Me. Go.” I said, punching Death Strike with each word. “My. Parents. Are…”

I didn’t even manage to finish the sentence because I broke down, crying harder and harder every second. Why did this have to happen to me? Why? Did anyone even care?

I sat there and cried for who knows how long when I heard screaming coming from inside the house. It was obviously a female from the pitch of the scream, and in that moment I decided that even though I couldn’t necessarily help those that I loved, I was still going to help those that I could.

“We’re going to go get her,” I told Death Strike firmly as I got on his back. The water downstairs was already up to Death Strike’s hips and rising quickly, so he had to swim. I was amazed how he looked like an alligator when he swam, using his body as a raft, his legs the motor. Though I could also tell that he hated it because he kept lifting his head above the water, gasping for air.

After what seemed like forever, we found the lady and I hoisted her onto Death Strike’s back and we got her to safety.

Once we were on the top floor, I started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and with every breath that I gave, I grew more and more worried she had gone.

Cough.

The lady started to cough up water onto the floor and I hugged Death Strike in relief. She was going to be okay. She looked up at me and seemed surprised to see a kid was her hero. She started to cry and tried to hug me.

“Thank you so much,” she said, starting to cry, and I gently pushed her down.

“Get some sleep,” I told her. “We are going to go see if there are more people to rescue.”

Death Strike and I ventured down the stairs and ended up swimming right out the front door that had been pushed away by the waves. Outside looked like a war zone. The water hadn’t really receded at all, so I couldn’t get a full idea of how much damage had been done, but I could tell it was bad. Cars were strewn every which way, trees knocked down, and certain houses had chunks missing from them.

The water was filled with broken glass, strange liquids, and all sorts of things that should not have been in the water. I was about to tell Death Strike not to go in because it was too dangerous, but he flung himself in, swimming through the current. The waves seemed to have more control over Death Strike than he had over the waves. We were thrown about like toys, and eventually we reached a house.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail of every house that we went into so you aren’t emotionally scarred, but I will tell you about one house that would really change how I looked at life and death.

It was one of the first houses that we went into, and I remember when I first went in the chilling silence that ran down my back. I heard somebody sobbing upstairs, so I urged Death Strike to go up.

A woman was lying on the floor crying and crying and crying. I approached carefully, not wanting to make her any worse than she was.

Her bloodshot eyes looked up at me and fresh sobs came out of her mouth.

“I can’t,” she said. “I won’t go down there.”

I looked at the woman, confused at first, but then it made sense.

“I won’t do it, I won’t, I won’t, I won’t,” she sobbed as I slowly got out of her that both her daughter and husband had perished on the first floor. I don’t know what was going through my head, but I decided that I was going to go check it out.

My heart beat stronger than usual so I could feel the beat in my hands and feet as Death Strike turned the corner into the first room—nothing. We went into the other room—nothing. The next—nothing.

We turned the corner to the next room, which was a kitchen, and I almost passed out. I will spare you the details and will just tell you that a man, who I would later learn was the woman’s husband, was dead, floating in the water by the kitchen sink.

Faint sobs wafted from somewhere nearby and I started to cry myself onto Death Strike’s back. I couldn’t do it. Why was it always me who had to see these types of things? I never asked for Death Strike to be brought into my life, but once he was, it seemed like life got harder. Why me?

Death Strike nudged me, and I was glad for his consolation, but when he kept nudging me I looked up, horrified at what I might see.

A little girl was poking her head up from somewhere at the top of the cabinets, tears streaming down her face. I started to cry myself as I carefully got the little girl down from her perch and reunited her with her mom. We all cried together until our eyes ran dry, and then I pulled myself together to go help other people.

I would later find out that the dad had rushed downstairs to get the daughter as the wave came, and as the house filled with water he put her on top of the cabinets just in case. No sooner had he done that than a surge came and knocked his head against a chair and he fell unconscious into the water where he… I can’t even bear to say it after all this time.

After I had saved everybody that was left in the neighborhood, I was glad that I had given so many people a chance to live. The only death had been that man who had saved his daughter.

Once I knew that everybody in the houses was going to be okay, I went back to the lady’s house who had caught the ornitholestes on camera to check on my friends. As Death Strike ran up the stairs of the house, I realized that I was going to have to tell my brother that our parents were most likely gone. Nobody would’ve been able to survive that kind of tidal wave.

Tears sprung into my face as I saw my brother running up to me to give me a hug. I cried into his arms as he hugged me.

“Are you okay?” he asked as Raydawn and Tamara hung back awkwardly. I shook my head at him and saw recognition dawn in his eyes.

“Where are Mom and Dad?” he said, a sudden sense of despair entering his face. I just shook my head again and started crying harder than ever. We both started to sob together, our little group huddled together. We would get through this together, but for now we had to face it: my parents were gone.

Chapter 9

The man with the dark hood sat upon a throne in that same shady room in Los Angeles while another poor soul lay out on the ground, bowing, hoping he would live.

"How is our progress going?" the man with the hood said, slowly polishing his gun.

"All is well, sir," the lesser man said. "We have sold the Komodo dragons, and in their place we have smuggled or stolen five hundred ostriches, both male and female, so we can keep the profit of the dragons for ourselves. We have started the genetic work, and by the end of the week, we will have five hundred to a thousand impregnated eggs that will birth your army."

The man in the hood looked pleased.

"I will give you a pay raise," the hooded man said. "Tell the working men that once the eggs are laid, Magnus Destructor will give them an ostrich feast."

Magnus Destructor would let the man live for now. He was helpful.

Chapter 10

The rest of the time we spent in Florida was rather uneventful, so I won't bother you with all the boring details.

The death of my parents had really gotten to me. I was struggling. At this point I was just tired and wondering why in the world I had decided to come to Florida in the first place. I kept blaming my parents’ death on myself, and to be fair it was partially my fault. I had come to Florida even though I knew a storm was about to hit the state.

The only thing that had me still going was my brother, Raydawn, and Tamara. They were constantly comforting me, saying that there was still hope that Death Strike would find my parents’ scent once the floodwaters receded, telling me that I couldn’t have possibly known the storm would be that bad. If there was any consolation they didn’t tell me, I would be shocked.

This encouragement helped me to look after the people who had survived, going to and from their houses on Death Strike, nursing wounds and hearts. Because of my friends I was able to monitor Death Strike and the new ornitholestes more closely to make sure there wasn’t any aggression between the two of them.

The time of being stranded was kind of beautiful, to be honest. I got to spend time with people that I loved, and I got to know them in a way I never would have been able to know them otherwise. We laughed at each other, cried with each other, and even had embarrassing moments together.

Finally, the water retreated all the way, and Death Strike and I went outside straight away. Some of the people from the houses were peeking their heads out too, and they smiled at me and Death Strike. Everybody had been shocked at first, but after a day had accepted the fact that dinosaurs existed.

I sat on Death Strike’s back apprehensively, but after waiting for half an hour I came to the conclusion that the floodwaters had wiped away any trace of my parents’ scent. I went back to our home base to share the news with my brother.

Ryder took the news bravely, and I decided that it was time to get out of here. At this point the rescue crews had been here days ago to make sure nobody was in need of emergency services. If you weren’t, you were given food and told to hang tight, so now that the waters were gone we were going to make our way to the plane and take off as soon as possible.

The jeep was long gone, so one of the neighbors volunteered to drive us in his car. I don’t know how it was still able to drive, but the elderly man was able to start it up and drive along at a painful speed.

In due time we were all transported to the jet where we then learned from the staff at the airport that our plane would not be able to fly for a couple of days. With that great piece of news we settled down for the long haul. It was even more time to get to know my friends, and we took full advantage of the time to enjoy each other’s company.

During this time, Raydawn and Tamara were getting calls from their family members now that they had cell service, and it was heartwarming to see them reunited even if it was over the phone. While they were talking with their families, I talked to Zoe about how the coelurus were doing. She said that the eggs hadn’t hatched yet and that some renowned university professors had come out to study and document the coelurus. I panicked a little bit as I thought that people were in the habitat with the coelurus, but then I was assured that the coelurus were completely oblivious to the fact that they were being watched.

The professors, however, had found some very interesting things about the coelurus. One of the most fascinating things, Zoe told me, was that the females would never leave the nest, even when the pack hunted, and that when the pack hunted they had the smallest of the pack stay—in this case Runt—while the other males would scavenge for a carcass to eat. The purpose of this was to guard the females and keep the eggs safe.

The only thing that Zoe was curious about was what would happen if we fed them live prey. Apparently, the professors wanted to see what would happen too, so I would have to figure that out as soon as I got home. Zoe really didn’t seem to care that I had gone through a tragedy.

The last piece of news from Zoe was very good. She reported that the coelurus were pregnant with eggs again. She and the scientists could tell because they had a slight bulge and had gained weight just like a mammal did before giving birth.

Finally, the last thing that happened during my time on the plane was attention from a news station. I had a pretty thorough interview and was quickly aired live to the world. I could tell by the news on my phone that I, along with Death Strike, had become a sort of hero to a lot of people. This was both good and bad. Good because now the vast majority of people viewed dinosaurs as creatures that saved human lives; bad because the company was bugging me all the time to see Death Strike. I had to keep him and the ornitholestes in the holding pens because the paparazzi kept knocking on our door and Raydawn would keep letting them in. Though it was all annoying, I was grateful that nobody had caught wind of a second ornitholestes yet or that would’ve been a disaster.

In the end we sat at the airport in my plane for four days before we got the all-clear to get out of there. However, just before we were about to go, I got a message saying that a search and rescue team had found the jeep my parents had been in.

I immediately put our flight on hold and told the others that I had something I had to attend to before we could head out. I started to hope as I pulled Ryder aside discreetly, asking him if he wanted to go check out the jeep and see if Death Strike might be able to find our parents if they were still alive.

He agreed, and I went to go get Death Strike from his pen. At this point if the news company outside clipped him I wouldn’t care; all that mattered at this point was finding my parents safe and sound.

I showed Ryder how to get up onto Death Strike, and he clung on to me as we rode to the location where the jeep was supposed to be.

“Do you think that we will actually find them?” my brother asked me.

“I think that if anybody has a chance, it’s this dinosaur right here,” I said, patting Death Strike’s side. “He has the best tracking skills of any creature I have ever seen.”

To be honest, I was just trying to comfort my brother. Chances were that Death Strike would have picked up my parents’ scent at the site where they were taken away by that wave, but then again I didn’t know how water affected Death Strike’s tracking skills yet, so maybe there was still a chance that my parents were still around. It was time to start praying.

“I hope you’re right about that,” my brother said, jolting me from my thoughts.

I HOPE YOU’RE RIGHT ABOUT THAT TOO, I thought to myself as we neared the spot where we would have to go off-road to get to the jeep.

“Time to start praying,” I said as we plunged into the swamp where the car had been washed to. I could feel my brother clinging to me tightly, his hands shaking as we got closer and closer to the jeep.

After what felt like forever, I spotted the jeep through the trees and I jumped off of Death Strike, not caring if my pants were soaked. Ryder got off right behind me and we combed over that car so thoroughly looking for any trace of our parents.

I was so shocked that one flood could carry a vehicle this far. The jeep had ended up half a mile from its original location. That was just crazy to me, but it also discouraged me, as their chances of survival probably got slimmer the farther they had gone because of all the things they would have hit. Right off the bat, we had seen the large dents bashed into the side of the car. If the wave had carried the car this far, I could only imagine how far it would be able to take my parents’ bodies, dead or alive.

Hope plummeted the most for me when I realized that Death Strike wasn’t picking up any scent.

“Death Strike isn’t smelling anything,” I told Ryder, and his eyes started to well up. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and told me,

“I’m not giving up hope until we at least search the area.”

I agreed to this, and after an hour of searching we were still empty-handed. It crushed my heart to say it, but if my parents were alive, Death Strike would have found them by now. It was time to let go and accept the fact that they were most likely gone.

“We’re leaving,” I told Ryder as I directed Death Strike to the road. I half expected my brother to burst into tears, but he remained stubborn and brave. I was the one who broke down and cried into his arms.

The flight home was rough on me because I kept considering one question: Why didn’t Death Strike find the bodies? By the end of the flight I just shrugged it off and assumed that if the bodies sank under the mud, Death Strike wouldn’t be able to smell them. Why did they have to die in a swamp of all places?

Once I was back at the preserve, I quickly went into my element, turning into full-on caretaker mode. I was so busy looking over the logistics of taking care of the coelurus, talking with the professors, or planning out how I would safely integrate the new ornitholestes with Death Strike that I was thrown off guard when Ryder approached me while I was watching the construction of a smaller paddock I was making for any dinosaurs that would need a temporary home in the future.

“Hey Kolin,” he said hesitantly. “What would you think about me joining the staff here?” he said, gesturing at the construction of the new paddock. “It seems like you could use the help wrangling all the dinosaurs. Some of my experience on the ranch should help you out. Plus, it would be good for us to stick together. I would be afraid that you would just ignore me if I left. You never even told Katrina that our parents died. I had to do it.”

I hated to say that he was right in every possible way. When Ryder said that I hadn’t even talked to my sister after our parents’ death, I felt guilty. I was going to have to reach out to her.

Heck, even just that thought made me feel guilty. Just the idea that my sister was one more thing to do was horrifying to me.

I WILL NEVER PUT DINOSAURS OVER THOSE THAT I LOVE, I thought to myself in that moment. Even though these incredible beasts were a big part of my life now, I couldn’t let them take over my life. Having my brother be part of my team here at the preserve could be monumental for me.

“You are more than welcome to join our team,” I told my brother and felt a wave of relief wash over me, which reaffirmed my decision to bring him on as part of the team.

“Thank you so much,” Ryder said. “If there is anything you need help with, don’t hesitate to reach out. Also, real fast, where do you want me to live?”

The question threw me off for a second. What did he mean, where would he live? With our parents as usual... But then it all came back to me all too quickly. We would get the old house in our family’s name, which meant that we would most likely sell it and split the profits, which meant that Ryder would have nowhere to live.

“Are you comfortable living in the home that Mom and Dad lived in while they were here?” I asked Ryder. He nodded his head a little bit reluctantly.

“You don’t have to if you don’t feel comfortable with it,” I told him. “I can find you other accommodations.”

“No, I’ll be fine,” he said stubbornly. Now that that was all figured out, I realized with a smile that I would be able to use him to move Opportunity into her new home once it was done. Now all I had to do was wait until it was time to move her in. Joshua said that it would be a day or two until the holding habitat was done, so until then I went and hung out with Ryder, showing him the ropes of the preserve.

After two days, the holding area for the new ornitholestes was done, and it was time to move it in.

I was waiting outside of Death Strike’s enclosure with our truck. I had figured out a way with the construction company to make a special gate that would be able to hook onto the truck. That way I would be able to lure the ornitholestes into a cage in the truck and then remotely close the gate with a remote from the security quarters.

The plan was easy enough, but I still wanted to have Death Strike on scene just in case anything went south, so I went and got him from the spot where he was napping under a random tree far away from the new ornitholestes.

If you are wondering why I was keeping them apart for the time being, it is because of standard zoo protocol, and for both of the dinosaurs’ well-being and safety. Usually in zoos, when two animals are being introduced to each other with the intent of turning them into a pack or something, the keepers will slowly introduce them to make sure they are happy with each other and that there is absolutely no aggression between the animals before they are released into a larger habitat.

The beauty of the ornitholestes was that I already knew that they liked each other, so the process should be relatively easy. So I got right to work now that Death Strike was with me.

First, I put a big chunk of smelly meat into a pen in the truck and made sure to open the cage so that the ornitholestes would easily find its way in. Then I opened up the back of the truck and Joe backed the whole truck into the entrance of the gate. After a bit of trial and error, I got the reeking truck to fit into the slot that had been made for it in the fence.

The final step was to go wait in the security room with Death Strike until the ornitholestes came. I had planned for it to happen quickly, but as time went on, I got quite bored waiting. I hadn’t really thought it through that the dinosaur could be anywhere in the acres of space that were usually Death Strike’s. Plus, the truck was beginning to smell horribly, the carcass I had put in there beginning to rot. Even worse was the fact that Death Strike had probably been able to smell the dead animal the whole time, but now that it was getting stronger, it was more and more unbearable for him to be so close to it and not get any. He looked so hungry that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he broke down the door to get the dead animal.

I was just about to quit and be done with the whole thing because the smell was that bad when I came up with a brilliant idea: Why didn’t I just have my brother sit here and watch until it came? I had hired him to do my dirty work after all.

“Could you come help me out?” I said to my brother over the phone. “You could call this your first job.”

Ryder quickly agreed to come, and soon enough he was sitting in that chair watching the cameras with rapt attention. I had made a good choice. If anybody would take their job the most seriously here, it would be him.

Now that I had somebody in there, I hopped on Death Strike and we got the heck out of there. My plan was to check some cameras to see where the ornitholestes was and then go riding with Death Strike for an hour or so around his habitat before coming back to see if Ryder had caught anything.

This whole process reminded me of fishing. You set the bait and then you wait. I hate waiting.

We fell asleep. By the time that we had gone out riding, I was beginning to get tired, so I took a “quick” nap that turned into me falling asleep for the night. I figured I would be safe with Death Strike, but then the most wild thing happened in the night.

I woke up in the middle of the night because Death Strike was nuzzling me. I looked up and was surprised to see that it was pitch black out and I couldn’t see a thing. If you know what it feels like to wake up in a hotel for the first night and feel disoriented because you thought you would wake up in your house, that is exactly what it felt like. Now imagine there is a bear in the room when you wake up.

At first I took the bear for a rock or something, but then I realized that it was a massive grizzly. For the first time in a while I felt fear in my heart. Not a lot of things would be able to take down Death Strike, but a pissed-off bear would be one of them.

The bear seemed chill though, for the time being, or at least it hadn’t moved yet. My heart beat fast as I thought to myself: What did it say to do again if you saw a bear?

I only vaguely remembered to make some noise, but at this point I just felt like noise would scare the bear into attacking us.

I put my hands on Death Strike’s side and realized that his heart was beating just as hard as mine. I also felt that his leg muscles were taut. He was ready to attack, and if he did, I would be almost certain he would sacrifice himself for me.

“Don’t do it,” I whispered to him quietly as I got up and started to climb on his back, being careful not to make any noise.

Snap! A twig broke under my feet. In an instant I jumped onto Death Strike’s back.

“Go! Go! Go!” I yelled at him, and we shot off. Death Strike sprinted as fast as he could go, leaving the startled bear in the dust. On second thought, I hadn’t had much to worry about, and after a hard run we were back at the truck where hopefully we had captured the ornitholestes.

“You still in here?” I called into the truck, bringing Death Strike with me.

“Yeah,” my brother said.

“And…?”

“She came in here about an hour ago, and I clicked the button to trap her. She’s still eating the carcass though.”

“Who ever said it was a she?” I asked Ryder.

“Elena came in when I called her up to tell her I caught the ornitholestes. She said it was a she.”

I hugged my brother. The news that the ornitholestes was a girl meant that she and Death Strike could have babies and give their species a whole new chance at survival, but I couldn’t get too excited. First I had to get them in the same habitat without any issues coming up.

“You are good now,” I told my brother. “I can probably take it from here.”

My brother gave me a thankful nod, and he was about to get up and leave when I stopped him and told him about the bear story. He listened thoughtfully and then told me something quite shocking.

“I just don’t know how you saw a bear,” he said. “I’ve never heard of bears in this area of California.”

At the time I was too busy to care for this little tidbit, but later it would come back to haunt me.

“Thanks for listening to me,” I told my brother. “You are good to go now. I just had to tell somebody about that.”

Once he had left, I went into the room where the ornitholestes was waiting for me, locking Death Strike up in the room behind me. I didn’t want them to be officially introduced quite yet even though they had already been through so much together.

The room was dark since the lights had yet to be turned on, and I couldn’t help but shiver at the silence of the room. Something wasn’t right.

Suddenly, I felt something hit my chest and the air was knocked out of me. I let out a scream before the weight of whatever was on me pushed the air out of my lungs. I felt claws dig into my skin as I gasped for breath.

Then the door burst open and Death Strike came rushing in, barreling into his duplicate. I took in a breath of air and scurried to the door, turning on the light as I went.

I looked back to see the two ornitholestes tearing at each other. They both had wounds in multiple places. I wasn’t going to lose Death Strike that way.

“Stop!” I yelled at the beasts, hoping they would act like dogs and immediately become friendly again. They did no such thing.

Bodies hit the sides of cages as the two of them ruthlessly fought. Then Death Strike was being pushed onto the floor, the larger ornitholestes’ jaws around his neck…

I turned around, unable to watch, when a gunshot rang out, hitting a bar on the cage where it ricocheted off, almost hitting the other dinosaurs.

Death Strike took the moment to get out from under the other ornitholestes and move to the door before it could react. Just as he did, I slammed a button on the vet’s computer that locked down the room. Metal bars slid over the door, and I heard a humming as electricity flowed through them.

“Are you okay?” my brother asked me right as I passed out.

Chapter 11

When I woke up, I found myself in an unfamiliar room with all sorts of medical equipment buzzing around me. I was in the hospital.

I also noticed two slumped forms in the room, and I saw that they were my brother and sister. I tried to get up and then felt my body groan in complaint, so instead I lay back down.

"Whaa happened?" I asked, and my sister perked up.

"He's up," she said, poking my brother in the side, which prompted him to get up himself.

"Why am I here?" I asked my siblings.

My sister stood up angrily.

"The reason you are here is because you have been messing around with some very dangerous animals, and one of them escaped and injured you to the point that the doctors thought we might lose you because of blood loss." My sister started to cry. "You have to stop doing this, Kolin. Each day you put your life at risk. I don't want to lose anybody else. Your shenanigans already killed our parents. I don't want them to kill you too."

I looked at her blankly and then faded back into unconsciousness.

When I finally came back around for good, I hardly remembered my sister’s statement to me. All I clearly recalled was the deep sense of hurt and guilt I felt after that interaction. It was my fault that my parents had died, and my sister blamed it on me.

"I hope you're okay," my brother said, and I twitched in surprise. I hadn’t even seen him in the chair next to my bed.

"I also hope you understand how your sister feels about this, though. You almost died, you know." My brother looked into my eyes and then started to cry. I was confused for a moment, but as he explained his story it all became clear.

"I was the one who forgot to turn on the gates," Ryder said. "I forgot to turn on the lights, I forgot to check the cameras, and I forgot to turn on the electricity to the pens. If those electric fences were on, she would never have been able to climb those things."

I looked at my brother. He was a wreck, but I knew I would feel that way if I made a stupid mistake that almost killed him.

"And then the worst part is I didn’t even tell our sister it was my fault," he said.

"What was the full story?" I asked, ignoring the fact that he had not only almost killed me but had also been deceitful about it.

"I thought I had done such a great job, but then when I left the truck, I heard you scream only seconds later. I came rushing back in and you were bleeding everywhere while the two ornitholestes were tearing each other to shreds," my brother shuddered as he recalled the moment. "You know what happens from there. After you blacked out, I rushed you to the hospital. The staff here was pretty suspicious of the whole thing, but I ended up convincing them you had run into a bear while hiking in the dark."

I was immediately thankful for my brother for covering up what had really happened. If anyone caught wind that something had nearly escaped, I would be shut down in no time.

"Your future looked pretty bleak there for a second." My brother started to cry again but pushed through. "But after I knew you were going to be okay, I went to check on the dinosaur, and I was curious to see the footage of what happened."

"It was scary, really. According to the timestamp, right after you set foot in the truck with Death Strike, the ornitholestes climbed over the fence and waited right by the door for you, in a spot where she would be hidden in the shadows if you were to open the door."

"The way she attacked you was weird. It was hesitant—you could tell. I think it was just her way of threatening you, but she didn’t know her own strength. Then when Death Strike came in, she really started to fight."

As I thought about what Ryder had said, it scared me quite a bit to know how intelligent the creature actually was and how, if it had wanted me dead, I would be dead right now.

"Is she still contained?" I asked Ryder.

"Of course," he said. "Plus, she was in the smaller pen eating, so I trapped her in there too."

I was satisfied with his work, but I still had one more question.

"Is Death Strike okay?" I asked him, hoping he hadn’t been horribly injured... or worse.

"He was pretty beat up, but Elena took care of him. He is making a speedy recovery, but sadly he has to live close to Elena so she can check on him easily. I helped Joshua design a new area for injured creatures. There is space for up to ten injured dinosaurs. I figured you would approve of this."

I nodded my head. That was exactly what I would have done. Now I just had to hope it was a good design.

"How long have I been out?" I asked Ryder, realizing that building a new habitat must have taken quite a bit of time.

"Three or four days," Ryder said. "I lose track with everything going on."

I almost threw up. Three to four days?! That was way too long. I had stuff to be doing, and here I was rotting in bed? I couldn’t believe it.

"When can I get back to the preserve?" I asked. Ryder balked.

"You have to recover. You have a reopened wound in your calf, large cuts in ten different places on your chest and abdomen, and a cut across your stomach. You didn’t even take any time at all to recover after you got mauled by the coelurus, and look what happened: that same wound reopened."

Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t given my leg a second thought after it had gotten a chunk taken out of it by the coelurus.

"How’s this for a deal," I told my brother. "I will give you full permission to put me in a wheelchair until I am well, and you will do everything remotely dangerous."

Ryder still didn’t look happy about this, but he hesitantly agreed.

"How soon do you want to get back to the preserve?" he asked me, and I told him as soon as possible. In the end we made a plan to leave the following day, and that was totally fine with me.

"Don’t forget to tell Katrina that me almost dying was your fault," I said to my brother as he walked out of the room. He nodded his head and was gone.

The next day I woke up to Ryder and Katrina standing over my bed with a wheelchair.

"I can’t believe I actually agreed to that thing," I groaned.

"If it will keep you out of trouble, then so be it," Katrina told me with a smirk. I was glad to see that she was acting normal again, though she was avoiding eye contact with Ryder, not really talking to him. She still hadn’t forgiven him yet.

"Fine." I said, and a nurse helped me into my chair. It was quite comfortable if I do say so myself. The back supported me in a way I wouldn’t have expected from a wheelchair.

The thing that hurt, though, was where the wounds were supposed to be. It ached incredibly badly, and when I got into the chair the pain was extraordinary. I had been in so much pain the night before that the nurse had to bathe me. (It was awkward.)

At the end of the day, the wheelchair wouldn’t be that bad, but as soon as the doctor said I was clear, I was getting out of it as soon as possible.

On the drive to the preserve, Katrina and Ryder were quiet, so I fell asleep pretty quickly, and when I woke up we were pulling into the front gates of the place I had built and crafted with my imagination. But soon I noticed something was different.

There was a massive wall where there used to be a large clearing. What had my brother done?

"What is that?" I asked him as I was helped into my wheelchair. I stared up at the walls, a little scared to see what my brother had done. The walls were twenty feet high, for goodness’ sake.

"That is the dinosaur recuperation facility. You should check it out. I have an elevator that goes up to the top."

Ryder kept wheeling me around, and I looked closely at the structure. I knew I was missing something. Parts of the wall were open, with large steel beams blocking the way out and the sound of electricity coming from them. Plus, I noticed there were large metal disks in the ground every foot or so.

We got in the elevator and rose to the top of the structure. Looking down, it all started to make more sense.

The walls enclosed a very large open space about the size of two football fields side by side. Death Strike was sleeping down below in a corner, the beams on the sides of the walls holding him in.

"Have you given him a checkup recently?" I looked down at the dinosaur, concerned.

"No, but the beauty of this whole thing is that I can easily transport him anywhere he needs to be with the click of a button," Ryder said as he pulled an iPad from a backpack I hadn’t noticed until now.

I watched curiously as Ryder clicked some buttons. Nothing really seemed to happen, and I wouldn’t have noticed anything unless he pointed it out.

"If you look at the gate in front of us, you’ll see it’s down." I looked at the large opening in the wall.

"So what are you gonna do? Just let them all out?" I asked, still confused. Ryder said no and started to push me back toward the elevator.

We exited the building, and Ryder pushed me around until I saw more of the pillars rising up from the ground, electricity pulsing through them. To my delight, I saw Death Strike between them.

"Death Strike!" I said, sticking my hand through the bars to show him I was there.

"Put down the bars," I commanded my brother, and he did so obediently. Death Strike ran over to me, and we had a warm embrace. I felt tears run down my face as I started to cry. I couldn’t believe he had almost died to save my life. I would never be able to repay him for that.

"We need to get him to Elena," I said, wiping away my tears as I looked at the dried blood on Death Strike’s side. You’d think my brother would have done a better job taking care of him, but between watching over me in the hospital and trying to comfort Katrina, he probably didn’t have the time.

The walk to the vet was short and solemn. It was entertaining watching my sister look at all the things around us.

"It feels like some type of dream," she whispered. I couldn’t blame her. The sounds of the coelurus weren’t far off, and the wildness of the whole place made it feel like the wilderness, where danger lurked around every corner.

Once we got to the veterinary building, I found Elena.

"What happened to you?" Elena said, shocked to see me in a wheelchair. I was surprised Ryder hadn’t told anybody anything, but I filled her in anyway. When I was done, she sat down in a chair, stunned.

"I had no clue," she said. "Your brother has only been here a couple of times in the past few days, rushing in and out, grunting when I asked him how you were…"

"It’s not your fault," I told her. "Where has Zoe been, by the way?"

At her name, Elena frowned.

"Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen her around for a while. I think she was busy with the coelurus and the professors. If I may be honest, I think she has the hots for them." Elena said, and I laughed at her sarcastic comment. Leave it to Elena to lighten the mood.

"Well, I better go take care of that too," I told her, wishing her luck with Death Strike. Once we were out of the room, I asked my brother if he had moved the other ornitholestes into her new habitat.

"No," he said, not meeting my eyes. "I totally forgot she was in the truck. The poor thing is probably starving right now."

"We’ll get to that," I said. "But first, I want to get Zoe so she can help us out if anything goes wrong."

Ryder nodded, and we took off toward Coelurus Canyon, where I figured she would be. Sure enough, when we took the elevator down to the bottom floor, I heard Zoe talking on the phone.

"Do you have the money?" she said into her phone. I felt bad eavesdropping, but something was brewing, and to be honest, I loved snooping—especially when it wasn’t my business.

"Why don’t you have it?" Zoe said. "Last I checked, you said you would pay me a couple of days ago."

The caller said something unintelligible over the phone.

"That’s doable," Zoe said thoughtfully. Then the person spoke again.

"You want me to do what?! How on earth would you want me to get a gigan—"

She suddenly stopped, as my brother stopped the elevator doors from closing, which set off that stupid beeping noise. Come on! Why did that always have to happen? Whenever a juicy secret was about to be uncovered, something ruined it.

"What was that phone call?" I asked Zoe, rolling over to her.

"It… it was just a call to the construction company… I was trying to get a refund," she stammered, her face turning red.

"What are you trying to get in that’s gigantic?" I asked, and she turned pale.

"It’s just… one of those big beams. They had to ship in a replacement," she tried to clarify. I nodded, still a little suspicious, but it wasn’t my business after all.

"Can you help us out with something?" I asked her.

"Of course, what is it?" she said, curiosity piqued. I gave her a quick rundown on how we were going to transport the ornitholestes, and when I was finishing up, she asked,

"So we’re moving Death Strike again? Why?"

I looked at her in disbelief. Had she forgotten the new ornitholestes already? Regardless, I filled her in, and she nodded, saying it had all come back to her and that studying the coelurus was getting to her—lack of sleep, apparently.

With that aside, we decided to get to work. After some investigating, we decided that the backup generator in the truck could have run out of fuel, so it wouldn’t be safe to go in there. That meant we would have to move the entire truck somewhere we could safely open the doors and let the ornitholestes escape on her own.

Sadly, we would have to move her to her intended habitat in two stages. The first stage was what we were going to get over with as soon as I had Zoe, Joe, Jaxon, and Ryder together by the truck.

It took a little time to gather everyone, but once they were there, I explained the plan.

"Joe, you are going to get in the van and drive it into the new creature rehab center—"

"Rehab center?" Ryder interrupted. "Why would you take her into the rehab center?"

"You’ll see," I said, annoyed at the interruption. "You have to let me finish my sentence."

"Anyway," I continued, "after Joe drives the truck in there, somebody needs to undo the hatch at the back of the truck without getting eaten. Ryder will be lowered down on a long rope via the helicopter, and he will open the hatch."

"Isn’t that, like… incredibly dangerous?" Ryder said meekly. That was the one thing that ticked me off. If only I had made that back door automatic, the whole thing would have been way safer.

"I can do it if you want," I told him, and he quickly said he would do it. Funny how that worked.

"Sweet," I said, glad that was settled. "Now Zoe, you’ll be in the helicopter, and when you feel a hard tug on the rope, Jack will fly straight up as fast as he can so Ryder doesn’t get mauled."

The team nodded. It seemed like a good enough plan to them. Honestly, it seemed like a terrible plan to me, but I couldn’t think of any other way to open the latch.

So with no other option, we began the process of getting Ryder into a harness, hooking the harness to the helicopter, and driving the truck into the paddock. I was proud everything was going smoothly—until we realized Ryder didn’t have a mic on him, and by this point he was dangling hundreds of feet in the air.

I was such an idiot. In our haste, I forgot that we even had mics. My stupid, old-fashioned brain thought that if he tugged the rope, that would work. A mic would have been safer. And worse, I had forgotten to grab the iPad that controlled the metal poles that would keep the ornitholestes contained. I really was such an idiot. By this point, it was getting dark, and we had to shut the whole thing down because it wasn’t safe to fly the helicopter so close to the ground in the dark.

I went to bed that night feeling really stupid. I had let a lot of people down and wasted their time.

The next morning, when Ryder went up into the air, we hadn’t forgotten a thing.

"Can you hear me?" he asked over the intercom.

"Loud and clear," I said. "Zoe, is everything good to go?"

"Yes, sir," she said. "The gates are up, the copter is in working order, and Ryder is in place."

"Sweet," I said, excited to finally contain this ornitholestes. "It’s go time."

I watched from my wheelchair as the helicopter lowered Ryder until he was directly above the latch he needed to open, the helicopter rotors making it hard to hear anything.

"When I say now, bring me into the air," Ryder said, and I watched with bated breath as the latch on the truck opened and everything happened at once.

The ornitholestes lunged out of the truck straight at Ryder, grazing his leg just as he shot into the air. I heard him scream for all he was worth, and then—finally—our mission was accomplished.

As soon as Ryder was out of his harness and on the ground, I rolled up to him, ecstatic.

"That was the most thrilling thing I have ever done in my life," he said. When I hugged him, his heart was beating a million miles an hour.

"You feel like you’re going to have a heart attack," I joked.

He grinned and then lifted his pant leg. When I saw what was there, I couldn’t help but gasp.

He had one deep cut in his calf, about six or seven inches long.

"We need to get you to Elena," I told him. "She should be able to patch that up. If she can patch up dinosaurs, I’m sure she can patch up humans." I rushed him to the vet’s office, where Elena was more than happy to help. She even shooed me out, claiming she couldn’t work with someone else in the room.

Now that Ryder was taken care of, I went to see if the ornitholestes had ventured out of her truck. Not gonna lie—I was nervous she’d stay in the truck, scared to come out. But when I rode the elevator up the wall and rolled out, I was pleased to see her sniffing around the edge of the recuperation area.

Then she caught a whiff of something and stared me dead in the eyes. The look she gave me was sharp and calculating, sending shivers down my back. That dinosaur was not happy about being stuck in that car for so long without food. It looked like she was thinking about revenge.

Regardless, I was glad I was in full control now.

I pulled out the iPad and clicked the pen activation that would lock her into a smaller space without the truck. It was perfect; the space was designed by Ryder to house ten different dinosaurs in separate enclosures, but you could split it up into larger pens too.

I won’t bore anyone with the rest of the day, but we got the truck out of the enclosure so we could use it elsewhere, and I started planning with Zoe how to reintroduce Death Strike and the ornitholestes together. That night, I went to bed both hopeful and nervous.

The next day, I woke up so excited to start the reintroduction that I forgot to eat breakfast and called everyone down to where the ornitholestes was being held for a quick briefing.

The whole team was there, as well as Katrina, who wanted to help—though I suspected she was monitoring me to make sure I wouldn’t do anything stupid or get killed.

After explaining how everything was going to go, I figured it was time to give the team a morale boost by naming the ornitholestes.

"What do you think we should name the ornitholestes?" I asked.

"Emily?" Joe said first. "She was this beautiful girl I knew back in my glory days. She had the most—"

"We get it," Ryder cut him off. "Do you think Lady Death Strike sounds good?"

I shook my head. I felt like I had already heard that somewhere.

I was about to name her myself when Katrina suggested the perfect name.

"What about Opportunity?" she asked. It was unanimously decided that that would be her name. As Katrina said, Opportunity was a new female of her species that gave her species a new opportunity. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

With the dinosaur named, it was time to work. First, we needed to get Opportunity out of the recuperation facility and into the place we designed for her and Death Strike to be reintroduced.

The plan was to load Opportunity into a new truck I had commissioned just for transporting larger dinosaurs. It was completely enclosed and made of titanium alloys—nothing fancy beyond strength and security. It had a door that automatically closed via my phone. Other than that, it was just a sturdy box on wheels with a cab.

We put a carcass in there and drove the truck into the main recuperation area. After everyone left, I lowered all the bars containing her from my phone. We watched as Opportunity ripped the carcass apart, unaware she was being trapped in the cage.

Once that was done, I double- and triple-checked that the cage was secure and lowered the other gates on the property. Now that I could go anywhere I wanted without the gates in the way, I rode the elevator down, where Death Strike was waiting for me outside.

Together, we went into the heart of the facility and approached Opportunity’s cage.

She snarled at us, warning us not to get closer. I could tell there was a primal hunger in her—this was probably her first meal in a long time.

Death Strike even tried clicking at her, but she only growled back. It was obvious what it meant: I don’t trust you.

To be fair, I’d feel the same way if someone locked me in a truck without food for days.

Regardless, I had to deal with these mistakes myself. The trust that had been lost wouldn’t be easy to regain. The first step was getting Opportunity to her new temporary home.

Once Joe drove her over, we connected the cage to a special hatch that would release her into the new environment. The space was simple: a fenced area like Death Strike’s, but smaller for easier monitoring. There was another open area where both dinosaurs could be released for observation. Finally, there were heavy-duty gates and mechanisms for the introduction process.

After lots of hard work, we finally started the first introduction between Death Strike and Opportunity. The moment was more nerve-racking than you could imagine. We placed both of them in pens side by side, with only a gate between them. The fate of the first known breeding pair of dinosaurs rested on the moment I clicked a button on my iPad.

I could physically feel my hand shaking. A million disastrous scenarios went through my head, but in the end it was time.

I pressed the button.

Opportunity immediately rushed at Death Strike and snarled. I truly thought I had messed up the whole thing as she rammed herself against the bars. I was about to turn on the power to protect Death Strike when he did the most unbelievable thing.

He lay down in a posture of humility. He didn’t even dare look at her. I couldn’t help thinking: what the heck is he doing?

But then something miraculous happened.

Opportunity came over and clicked something at him. And Death Strike clicked back without moving.

Then he finally made eye contact with her—and she climbed up the fence with ease.

I started freaking out from the observation wall.

She was going to kill him—that was my only thought as she tackled him to the ground and stared him dead in the eyes. I barely heard one click come out of her throat.

Ryder had his gun out, aimed at Opportunity, and I knew he could fire at any second. I slowly extended my hand to push the gun down. Something was happening here—something no human would ever uncover or understand.

At last, the female ornitholestes climbed off Death Strike, and the two sprinted together into Opportunity’s enclosure.

"Turn on the electricity so they can’t get out," I told Ryder, wiping my brow. What I had just witnessed was the most nerve-racking encounter of my life. Or so I thought. (Sorry for breaking the moment—I just saw a great chance for foreshadowing.)

That night we transported the two to Death Strike’s normal habitat, where they immediately started hunting as a pack, as I saw on the cameras. We had planned to make the introduction last weeks, but in the end, it wasn’t us who controlled the dinosaurs.

It was the dinosaurs who controlled us.

And there was nothing we would ever be able to do about that. Maybe we could sway them or manipulate them, but humans throughout history would never truly control them.

Chapter 12

The next day was full of excitement, watching Death Strike and Opportunity interacting with each other. Even them doing basic things like brutally killing the deer that I had released into their habitat, or Death Strike doing what I assumed was showing off to Opportunity by catching a squirrel. (That was especially entertaining.)

But after all the fun, I was getting ready to go take a nap when Elena came rushing up to me with news that would change the course of human history.

“The eggs… are… hatching…” she managed to get out, out of breath from the sprint over to me. I ran with her to the Coelurus Canyon, completely abandoning the wheelchair for the first time, ignoring the excruciating pain all up and down my body, as I pushed on to see those eggs hatching.

The whole time I kept thinking about how I would be the first person to witness this event in thousands of years. This was also a milestone, because if dinosaurs could still breed, they could have a chance of repopulating the earth into the numbers that they used to be in.

After the running, we finally arrived at the Coelurus Canyon. I sprinted down the stairs and almost tripped getting to the cave, but when I saw what was there, I almost started to cry.

Alpha and Survivor were around a nest with eggs that had cracks in them; in some I could even see snouts beginning to poke out. But the thing that really caught my eye was the lizard the size of a robin, running around on its hind legs. It looked just like its parental counterparts, its size and large eyes giving it the most adorable look of any lizard or dinosaur that I had ever seen.

I almost melted right there, with my face leaving smudge marks on the glass, as the little guy snatched a bug of some sort out of the air and wolfed it down.

It really was crazy how it looked like a lizard. The type that it really reminded me of was a basilisk but without the frill on its head. I legitimately would never have known that it was a dinosaur if it was something random I stumbled upon in the woods or something. It made me think how many smaller dinosaurs could still be out there in very remote places of the earth.

As my heart rate started to go down and I unstuck my face from the glass, I noticed that Zoe was right next to me watching the creatures with the same magnificent look on her face that I had on mine.

“You know what’s incredible,” she said dreamily. “The little guy you see running around right now is just under an hour old, and yet it is a fully functional being, capable of avoiding predators and eating by itself.”

“That really is magnificent,” I mumbled to myself as I gazed at the creature. “I don’t know many creatures that can do that.”

“That is the other amazing thing,” Zoe continued. “Only certain reptiles are known to be able to do that, and I don’t know of any mammals that can. It just backs up the theory that dinosaurs are a type of hybrid of both species. They have qualities from birds, reptiles, and mammals.”

I nodded my head. It was all so true.

As Raydawn and Tamara showed up, hours went by as we watched the dinosaurs and joked with each other. Not one thing escaped our eyes as we pointed out every insect kill, trip, or new hatching from a shell. Before I even knew it, it was time for me to be going to bed to prepare for the long day tomorrow.

I woke up in the morning to Ryder shaking me awake, completely forgetting about my wounds.

“What the heck…” I mumbled, still half-asleep. Why the heck would he be waking me up this early in the morning?

“Dude, they’re everywhere. One of the little rats even woke me up,” Ryder said, but all he got out of me was hazily looking up at him and saying,

“Rats?” I yawned, barely believing it.

“The baby coelurus have escaped. All sixteen eggs hatched last night and they are running rampant. Those canyon walls did absolutely nothing to hold back the agile little guys,” Ryder said as fast as he could.

I literally rolled out of bed and threw on some clothes that were sitting on my floor. As I did, I saw those little dinosaur lizards dart past my window in a flash. I would have guessed that they were running around in groups of seven or eight.

“What else can you tell me?” I said as I struggled to pull on my socks as fast as I could.

“Zoe checked the footage about ten minutes ago, and they got out around six A.M. this morning. Apparently we all slept through the alarm that went off,” Ryder said.

The last thing he said made me concerned. If we hadn’t heard the alarm and Opportunity got out and had a death wish for us, or even if the coelurus escaped and we hadn’t heard the alarm, I would guarantee you we would all be dead in our beds.

However, that wasn’t the most pressing thing at the moment, so I put it into the back of my brain to fix the alarm and addressed the matter at hand.

“Okay, those little guys are small, so they are going to be hard to contain. For the time being, I am going to let them roam free around the preserve while I put together a plan I have in mind. The walls should keep them in, but both me and you should still tail a pack to make sure we can intervene if something drastic happens.”

At this point my socks were on, and I had yanked on my shoes, so we started to run down the hallway that would get us out the door as fast as we could.

Once we were actually out the door, I spotted a pack running through the bushes.

“I want that one,” I told Ryder, pointing at the fleeing shapes of the dinosaurs. He nodded his head and ran off to find the other half of the hatchlings, as I took off to chase my hatchlings.

After a couple of minutes of hard running, I figured out that I was so out of shape it was concerning. My legs hurt and were cramping up so bad, each breath I took was searing my lungs, and better yet, those creatures that were only a day old were so far ahead of me that I couldn’t see them!

I abruptly stopped and turned around. It was no use chasing them. I was just going to lose them anyway, but I did know somebody who couldn’t lose them as far as I was concerned.

The run over to Death Strike’s enclosure was not easy, but once I got there, I hollered for him at the top of my lungs, and sure enough I got lucky he was nearby, because he and Opportunity came rushing up to me by the gate, side by side.

I shook my head at the two of them as I manually shut down the power to a section of the gate and let Death Strike through. I was a little bit worried about Opportunity, but Death Strike did his weird clicking thing and she stayed in the cage just as I wanted her to do.

As Death Strike tracked the coelurus hatchlings for me, I got on my phone and told Joshua the exact dimensions of a cage I would be needing for the coelurus. As I heard him writing things down on the other end of the phone, I was worried that this thing would take hours to build that I did not have, but after I was done explaining what I wanted, he told me it would only take him thirty minutes to make and he could bring it over right away.

The tracking of the dinosaurs was interesting for small bits of time when they actually did something interesting, but when they just ran around, it got really boring really fast.

Probably the highlight of the whole chase was when my group took down a squirrel somehow, and I took a twenty-minute snooze under a tree while they ate their kill nearby.

Finally, Joshua and the cage arrived, and I set it up with a dead raccoon in it. Just like clockwork, after thirty minutes both of the packs were eating that raccoon, and all I had to do was click a button on my iPad to contain them, and walk over to the cage like I owned the place — which of course I did.

As I got over to the cage and looked down at the dinosaurs cowering within, I had a genius idea.

“Tell all of the people that work for me to come to the viewing area of the Coelurus Canyon,” I told Ryder. “And tell them to make it snappy. I have an idea.”

Once I had everybody at the viewing area and the coelurus were at my feet, with their parents behind the glass behind me, I started to speak.

“Why, may I ask, do we even bother to care for these nuisances?” I said, the people around me crinkling their noses at the smell of rot coming from the cage at my feet. Arthur raised his hand.

“Because we love them,” he said automatically.

“Yes,” I said, exasperated. “I get we love them, but why? Why do we love them?”

“Because they are—well, some of them—are kind and loving, and one of them, Death Strike, has saved people’s lives,” Zoe said. I nodded my head at that. It was good, but not quite what I was looking for.

“Because they make us a bunch of money,” Joe said, getting some people to chuckle.

“Also partially true,” I said. “But what I am trying to get at is that I believe that whoever created this world wants them to exist.”

Zoe started to disagree, saying something about evolution, but I cut her off.

“Don’t even try to argue with me that evolution is still a thing anymore. According to that dumb theory, the creatures behind me should be extinct right now. If this world was created, then whoever or whatever made them made them for a reason, and if any are still alive, I think they deserve a second chance. Are you with me?”

People nodded their heads thoughtfully. Even if they didn’t start to chant anything, like I kinda wanted them to do with my pep talk, I knew that them nodding their heads thoughtfully meant nerds getting amped up.

“Then we have to hit the grind,” I finished, talking to the people around me. “In one month, the people who give me money, which then allows me to pay you, come, and I want everything to be perfect. No escapes and I want everything to be perfectly clean. It’s time to get to work.”

Chapter 13

Magnus Destructor was sitting on his throne in the shady room in Los Angeles, polishing his gun as a mere girl of about twenty stood below him.

"Hello, Magnus," the girl said, holding her head high, making eye contact with the man. She wasn't scared of him.

"Hello… Nyah Ashcroft," the man acknowledged her. "What do you want from me?"

The girl went on to tell the man something that made a shocked look come upon his face, and slowly an evil look entered his eyes as a sinister idea entered his brain.

"I can't believe you did it…" he said. "The only person to do it besides that boy."

"Thank you," she smiled. "I found her deep in the Amazon. The locals tried to do everything in their power to conceal the location of her den. All I had to do was kill a child and all the information came out."

The woman said it like nothing had happened, and to her it probably seemed like nothing happened, because assuredly she had done things like that before.

"How did you take her down? How did you know it was a her, for that matter?" Magnus’ last sentence was less of a request but more of a command.

"The locals referred to her as a girl, if you must know, and the way we captured her was genius. As much as we fired our guns, our bullets could not penetrate her skin, but we knew that she loved food, so we slipped a drug into her food," Nyah said. "After that we found her passed out in her lair, so we loaded her up and brought her here."

"How much are you asking?" the man with the hood asked.

"Ten million," Nyah said. "After all, she was the most deadly living thing I have ever encountered."

"Deal," the hooded man said.

As Nyah was walking out the door, she randomly turned around and told him,

"Don't forget to tranq her every hour," and was gone with a smile.

Magnus Destructor smiled. He had a great plan for that beast, and he was going to kill that Nyah girl as soon as he had his hands on the beast and take back his money. If she really thought she would cheat him out of his money, she was a fool.

Chapter 14

The next month was a flurry of activity. Habitats had to be prepped, nooks and crannies cleaned, and signs put up as well as making sure that all of our security measures worked perfectly. After the month of feverish work was up, it was time to finally welcome all the rich people to our preserve that were funding everything that we currently had. This idea that if even one of these decided to back out of our agreement then it could mean I'd have to shut down the preserve. So as you can imagine, I waited around that morning worrying about all the things that could possibly go wrong: the biggest one being that I was not rich at all, so how was I supposed to talk to them and act around them?

The worst part to me is that I was a kid, and if they didn't treat me like an adult, I personally would not treat them very well and could even lash out at them. This was probably an issue with myself, but I knew that I was trying to solve it and that was all that mattered. Regardless, as I stood in front of our opening gate in a suit, I was so nervous my hands were shaking. Conrad Blackwood, Josephine Hernandez, Richard Ike, Joseph Miller, and Carlos Wrangle were all going to be arriving to come talk to me and see my dinosaurs in a couple of minutes, and one of the world’s richest people, Armo Esity, was coming to see me and my dinosaurs. That was nuts to me.

The first person to arrive was Carlos, who cordially shook my hand and we made small talk for five-ish minutes until Richard showed up. So far it hadn't been bad, and Carlos had a genuine interest in what I was doing, but when Richard showed up I felt things might go downhill. He pulled up in a limo and when he got out of his car, he deliberately stepped on a lizard, killing it. I gulped as he walked up to me and instantly asked how he would make a fortune off of my dinosaurs. What a rat.

The next person to show was the news company that saved me from my conversation with Richard. All we really did was talk about camera angles with the crew, who usually filmed wildlife on the African safari and stuff, and you could tell they had a real passion for animals. After them, the next person to show was Josephine Hernandez, who was a very young, very pretty pop star that was wearing a very flashy outfit. She only talked with me for a couple of minutes and then started to flirt with Richard. That was fine with me.

Next came Conrad Blackwood and Joseph Miller, who arrived in the same limo because they were best buds, which was news to me. They also greeted me and made small talk. At that point, all I was waiting for before I was going to start my tour was the one and only Armo Esity. This man had started his career as a kid too. His parents were drunkards and had little to no money, so he had to work his way up in the world, becoming one of the richest individuals on the planet. What he told me is that now he was an older man who had more wealth than he knew what to do with, and that he wanted to do something meaningful with his cash.

Armo showed up fashionably late and I formally introduced him to our party, and he started to talk with me, so I very stealthily hinted to him that we should start the tour to respect everybody’s time. With that little detail taken care of, I started to walk the billionaires down the path to Coelurus Canyon.

“This place reminds me of something I’ve seen in a movie,” Carlos said, gazing at the wild jungle path we were walking on. I agreed with him, and as we turned a corner, I caught a glimpse of Ryder carrying a shotgun hurrying around us just as an extra precaution.

“Don’t all the dinosaurs escape in that movie and kill everyone, though?” Richard said nastily, aiming the question right at me, which brought up the conversation of whether this place was safe.

“This place is safer than anything you could possibly imagine. In our history we have only had two containment issues and both of them happened in the process of transporting creatures, and only staff personnel were on the property,” I said, trying my best to comfort the billionaires.

“You aren’t transporting anything then, are you?” Conrad joked.

I shook my head no. At that point we had arrived at the point where I would start to yap about things that we had built, so I stopped the crew.

“This here is a brand-new state-of-the-art design,” I said, gesturing at the stairs ascending up behind me, a tall metal fence crackling with electricity on either side of the entrance of the bridge going as far as the eye could see, and there was a bare area on the other side of the fence where trees had been cleared away so that nothing could climb the trees and get over. “It is a way to walk through the heart of the infant Coelurus’ habitat. All this is, is a wild space around Coelurus Canyon, which holds the adults, with a large bridge going over to get to the canyon. The whole place is surrounded with a secure fence.”

“Our plan when we were building this was to make a space for the infant Coelurus to thrive. We have found that after the babies hatch, they leave their nest and exit the canyon—we think because the parents would cannibalize their young if the young didn’t leave. This is one of the reasons we think this genus of dinosaur went to the brink of extinction.”

I then led all of the gasping billionaires through the electrified door onto the walkway that went above the baby Coelurus. After letting them ooh and ahh at all the things, which were just trees, I ushered them down to check out the real deal.

“Welcome to the belly of the beasts,” I opened my arms to display the room around me. “You all are about to see creatures that haven’t been seen for quite a long time. These creatures are in a setting where you can see them up close in their natural environment that no other zoo has done with their animals.”

I then led them to where you could see the pack of Coelurus in their glory. All of the rich people had a moment with those dinosaurs that showed to me that they were no different than you or me. The fascination was still alive and thriving, something that I hoped would never leave an individual.

After I had let them wander around the Coelurus paradise for quite some time, I introduced them to our staff and showed them the behind-the-scenes of the other habitat that we had made and designed. Everyone was impressed, but it was nothing like when they saw the Ornitholestes habitat. That was something they would never forget.

We had decided for this experience that since both the dinosaurs were turning out to be pretty chill, we would just take the billionaires all in one Jeep to check the Ornitholestes out. The first ten minutes, I grew very nervous. The main attraction, I guess you could say, was nowhere to be found. It even got to the point that I was going to call the whole thing off when Death Strike and Opportunity came rushing out of the trees.

Both of them had a terrified look in their eyes, and they were running as fast as they possibly could, something that I had never seen either of them do. My heart started to beat like crazy as Death Strike came right up to the van and the celebs screamed for all they were worth as Death Strike yanked me out of the car and pulled me on his back.

“It’s all part of the—” I tried to say show, but before I could even get it all out, Death Strike was running to the gate as fast as he could.

“What the frick are you doing, you stupid animal?” I said as I looked behind me to see Armo getting the same treatment with Opportunity.

Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Crack.

I hit my head on Death Strike’s head as he jolted to a stop and turned around abruptly. Opportunity joined us and I finally saw the thing that they were running from.

“What the **** is that?” I said as a creature larger than I thought things could grow emerged from the trees.

In that moment, I didn't get a very good look at it, but this was what I thought I saw: a type of theropod standing on two feet, rushing at the Jeep full of innocent people. It was substantially larger than a bus, probably the size of two or three elephants. Its top coloring was similar to Opportunity’s, with green on the top, brown on the bottom.

I gasped in horror as it made its way straight to the billionaires. You would have thought that something that big would make a ton of vibration and stuff, but nope. All the rich people were still watching me, confused as to what was happening, oblivious to the fact that their life was about to end.

Its mouth opened up and I realized that its head was eight or nine feet long, its teeth the size of my hand. The beast honed in on the van and bit down on it. Everything inside crumpled like a pancake as I looked away. Those people were gone. The whole thing was over in a second.

Death Strike and Opportunity brought us to the main gate that they climbed over with ease.

“Why the **** is the power not on?!” I screamed at the world, urging the two dinosaurs to the power control station.

Armo started to cry at one point—I can’t remember now—and Opportunity and he vanished off over a fence to somewhere in the preserve. Then it was just me and Death Strike racing to the power room before the horrible beast could escape.

My heart pounded in my chest as the air whipped past. At any time it felt possible that Death Strike would trip and we would go flying. If I fell off at this speed I knew in my heart that I would die, but it was either this or being mauled by a dinosaur. Only this way had a chance at survival.

When we got to the power generator, the door was propped open. I jumped off of Death Strike’s back and ran into the room, tackling a man to the ground who was messing with the switches, turning everything off and on. The man struggled with me and ran out the door, but not before I caught a glimpse of his face.

It was Arthur, the guy who was working with the genetics. I was going to kill him.

First, though, I turned on all the power in the joint. Lights turned on and I realized with joy that I was safe. I ran over to Death Strike and hugged him as hard as I could. I was safe at last.

Thud.

The ground trembled and my ears exploded as alarms started to whirl. I jumped on Death Strike and urged him up the stairs, but for whatever reason he would not go out the building.

“You stupid animal!” I said, slapping him in the face. This was not the way I was going to die: stuck on a wretched dinosaur that I had found that led to my own demise.

Suddenly, the walls crumpled all around as a gigantic head came down at us. Death Strike sprinted away for all he was worth, saving my life when I thought he was about to end it again.

Death Strike kept running as I turned around. The theropod behind us was mere feet away, about to tear us to pieces. When I turned back around, I screamed as the brick fence circling our preserve came into view.

I covered my face, waiting for my last moment, when Death Strike cleared it in one leap just as I heard a deafening boom as the theropod went straight through the brick, coming straight for us.

A gunshot rang out and I saw the dinosaur waver for a mere second before coming straight back at us. At this point, we had cleared a little room. I was about to take a deep breath, because we were far enough ahead, when Death Strike started to slow down. He was getting too tired for this. And the theropod was gaining at a rapid pace.

THIS IS IT, I thought to myself, looking up to heaven. At least I could get to see my parents there. Maybe Death Strike would be in heaven too.

Then the air was split apart from the sound of gunfire. I looked behind me as Jaxon was firing the helicopter for all he was worth. The ground was flying into the air, trees had chunks get taken out of them, all the while the theropod was getting very ticked off at the helicopter.

At this point, we were far enough away from the beast, so Death Strike stopped and turned around to look at what was happening just as the monster jumped ten feet in the air and hit his head against the side of the copter as hard as he could. Both of the large, dangerous things hit the ground and the helicopter exploded in a ball of flame.

Finally, it was over. I was just beginning to think to myself as something emerged from the smoke. That horrible demon came out, blind from the smoke but still alive, stumbling away into the woods where it didn’t come back.

Chapter 15

My first priority was to get everybody that was still alive in the area out before that monster killed them. Then I would come back for the dinosaurs if the larger beast was still out of the area.

Normally, something like this would be a super daunting task, but good for me, the neighborhood only had two residents that lived nearby. Everything else was wild forest all around.

Me and Death Strike limped back to the preserve after having double-checked to make sure Jaxon hadn't perished in the crash for some reason.

When I went to check on him, I didn't have much hope, and sure enough he was dead. I bent my head over the wreckage of the helicopter. I would forever be in his favor. He died valiantly.

"Let's go, Death Strike," I said as I jumped on his back. We had to keep moving before that monstrosity came back because I wouldn't be able to fend it off a second time, not that I had fended it off the first time — I had just run away.

As we approached the wreckage of what used to be my precious preserve, I couldn't help but gasp.

That first wall that I had gone through was completely decimated. Rubble was all over the ground, and Death Strike winced as some of the larger chunks tore at his feet.

After we got past that wall, and I saw everything that had happened, I grew more and more devastated. Buildings had parts of them crumpled to pieces, rubble strewn everywhere. It looked like a war zone.

At one point I passed the fence to Death Strike's habitat and there was a large piece of metal torn out of it. The metal that I could see was warped and twisted so that it looked like whatever had done it had only been cutting through cheese.

The part that shook me up the most, however, was the large piece of metal that was strewn on the ground. It was horribly bent and disfigured in a way that no animal should have been able to do.

I shivered as Death Strike continued until we got to where the veterinary was. He went inside without much hesitation and we quickly found Elena. She was crying in a corner, hands covering her eyes for some reason.

"Just make it fast," she wailed.

"Elena!" I said, making her look up. "Elena, it's me. Everything's going to be all right. We just have to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Oh," she said, caught by surprise. "I thought you were the big, terrifying beast coming back to finish me off... just like he did to all those people..." She started to cry again in torrents.

"Elena," I said sternly. "I need you to pull it together. People depend on you."

She tried hard to gulp down her tears and once she seemed coherent, I asked her,

"Do you know where Zoe is?" I asked her. She shook her head.

"Joe?"

"I think he was just in his truck as usual," Elena said, trying to wipe away tears. "But I don't think that monster went by his truck. At least I hope not..."

"Joshua?"

"I think he was still in the Coelurus Canyon with Zoe."

That was the last name I had to check off of my mental list.

"Let's go, Death Strike," I said and started to climb on his back when Elena blurted something out,

"Have you seen Jaxon? Or Ryder..?" Elena said, wiping her bloodshot eyes with the sleeve of her shirt.

"Jaxon's gone," I said. "He died trying to take down that monster. And Ryder... I think he tried to shoot at the thing. He's still alive somewhere. I never saw him get eaten."

Of course, that was just what I was telling myself, so I didn't break down into shambles. If Ryder was dead I wouldn't know what to do and I would break down and become a horrid wretch.

At last, me and Death Strike were out of there and riding towards Coelurus Canyon, where we would supposedly find two of our crew waiting for us.

Sadly, when I first got a glimpse of the gate that led to Coelurus Paradise, I wanted to turn back. The gate was completely gone. It looked like the monster had just swallowed it or thrown it somewhere far away.

That also meant that the first dinosaur infants that had been reproduced naturally in front of humans had probably disappeared, and I would never see them again. If I was lucky, they would hunker down somewhere and become part of this forest's ecosystem in the near future.

We swiftly went through the gate into the canyon and down the stairs to the viewing area where I found Zoe talking with some mysterious girl about my age. She had black hair and piercing green eyes that looked at me maniacally. Those eyes had seen things that no person should ever see; I could tell.

"Hey, Kolin," she said as she walked up to me and started to walk around me pacing. It was only when her back was turned that I saw she had a rifle strapped to her back.

"Who are you?" I asked, still very confused as to what was going on and who this girl was.

"Most people call me Nyah. Nyah Ashcroft," she said turning towards me as she did her loop. As she did, I saw something in Zoe's eyes flash as she jumped on Nyah's back and tackled her to the ground. I started to back up towards Death Strike, still very unsure what was happening, when Nyah grabbed the gun that was on her back and tried to shoot at me.

I felt something go whizzing by my head and hit the glass behind me.

UH, OH, I thought to myself as the glass between us and the coelurus shattered as Zoe barely managed to wrench the gun out of Nyah's hands before she could fire it again.

Of course by that time, we had other problems on our hands.

"Zoe!" I yelled. "Get over here."

She got over to me in the nick of time and I pulled her onto Death Strike's back as the coelurus rushed into the room. One of them started to approach Death Strike but then backed away before heading to Nyah, though I didn't see any more because Death Strike was booking it to the stairs.

Boom! A gunshot rang out as we got to the top of the stairs, but I still urged Death Strike to go higher up. I figured that if I got to the lookout tower I could see anyone coming that might have evil intentions in mind, either man or dinosaur.

"What was that all about?" I asked Zoe, concerned about what that girl had done to her.

"Oh, Kolin," Zoe said, trying to hold back tears. "I can't not tell anybody anymore."

"Tell what?" I said, missing something.

"I'm a mole, and a saboteur," Zoe said. "But I don't have much time to explain all that. I have some urgent news I have to tell you unless I die."

I was startled by that statement. Why would she die? I started to shuffle around uncomfortably. She knew something was coming that I didn't. I could tell.

"For the amount of time I've been doing research on dinosaurs in the modern-day world," Zoe said.

"One of the things that I noticed was that Death Strike is drastically bigger than what some people say an ornitholestes should have been, and now with that theropod I feel that my theory has been confirmed.

"All the dinosaurs that we are finding are bigger than what science said they were. A lot bigger."

"So what does that have to do with anything? Maybe scientists found juveniles of the species or something," I said.

"So you're saying that they never found the adult skeletons of not one, but two different species of dinosaur? I find that hard to believe," Zoe said and I nodded my head.

"And that's not it. Because I was curious I looked it up and you wouldn't believe the conspiracies I found. One website claimed that when settlers first came to America there were still some very robust populations of dinosaurs that existed, right? So after they were all killed off for meat and stuff, just like species of bison and whatnot, they covered up their true size so that nobody would try to bring them back and use them as a weapon."

"Why not just cover up that they existed to begin with?" I asked, liking the theory but not how this didn't quite add up.

"Because there was plenty of evidence that they existed in Europe, but when the Europeans came to the new world, somebody most likely trained one of the dinosaurs as a killing machine or something and they knew they had to put an end to it, and they couldn't just cover it up altogether since people would wonder why they found dinosaur fossils on every other continent besides the Americas. And even then they surely would miss something from time to time."

I nodded my head. Her explanation made sense.

"And that's not all," Zoe continued. "Do you remember the lost city of Roanoke? An entire city in America went missing. Every. Single. Person. Gone! And they found one word written on a wall saying 'Croatoan'. Most people just thought it was a disease or something, but what if it were dinosaurs? I think the last man standing was trying to write out a desperate, last-minute description of the beast, but he only got out the name 'Croatoan'."

"I never even considered that..." I said thinking to myself. This new tale was an interesting development.

"The point that I'm trying to get across here," Zoe said. "Is that these creatures were killed off by humanity because humanity knew that they weren't ready for them. Kolin, we made atomic bombs and thought they were ready to drop on Hiroshima and Nagasaki!"

I understood her point. On one side my brain was thinking,

"Oh, this is so cool!" But my gut was really telling me,

"Dinosaurs are cool and all, but doesn't the fate of humanity matter more?"

And when I really started to think about it, certain species of dinosaurs I could still save and they could live in peace on a preserve. I just had to agree with Zoe: some things were meant to disappear off the face of the planet.

"Kolin," Zoe butted into my thoughts. "You really have to stop this obsession of yours. Listen to this last thing. I was doing research and a holy book came up that talks about dinosaurs from time to time. It talks about them living in the water, being able to fly, and having the ability to breathe fire. This book that I looked at is known as the most accurate historical document of all time. It has never been disproven! The book literally describes them as the playthings of gods. You're playing with the playthings of a god, Kolin, and I don't know how any good can come out of it. The only reason you feel invincible is because you have a weapon on your side," she said pointing at Death Strike who had perked up about something. "If you don't have that weapon or that weapon turns against you, you WILL die."

I looked at her, shocked at how truthful that was. Maybe it was time to hand over my money and retire with it all.

A BEACH HOUSE REALLY WOULD BE NICE... I thought just as Zoe collapsed and stopped breathing.

Death Strike sprinted up to me and I jumped on him as I heard Nyah's voice cut through the air,

"Don't move or I'll shoot your precious dinosaur."

"You heard her, boy," I whispered to him, patting him on the side to calm him.

We stood there for five minutes before Nyah calmly stepped into view, her gun trained right on us.

"Pleasure meeting you again," Nyah said, kicking Zoe's body as hard as she could. She saw I was watching her do it.

"Just making sure she's dead," she said shrugging her shoulders. "It's better safe than sorry."

"You're a monster," I said, snarling at the girl. Who would even do such a thing?

"Of course I am," she said smirking at me. "You think a girl that killed Indians' children just to find the location of a dinosaur isn't a monster?"

I recoiled. What the heck? She had freaking killed a child and now she was bragging about it to me? I was going to give her a sentence worse than death; life imprisonment.

"Plus, I'm about to get that dinosaur to swarm your cute, little preserve," Nyah said, pulling a button out of her pocket while she kept her gun aimed at me with her other hand. "As soon as I click this, a drone with a red light attached that is flying over the Giganotosaurus will turn on its light and come and hover right over that cute little head of yours. The Giganoto will follow the light and you will become dinosaur chow."

Nyah clicked the button. Hopefully that whole thing was just a very good bluff.

"In the meantime, I'll shoot you and your dinosaur in the foot," she said aiming her gun. "So you don't get into mischief."

Her finger clenched on the trigger, gun aimed at me, just as I heard a snarl and something leaped through the air, slamming into the evil girl, tackling her to the ground.

It was a coelurus that had escaped that was now tearing at Nyah's hands as she tried to bat the dinosaur off.

"Move it!" I yelled at Death Strike, leaving Nyah to fend for herself. I wanted to get the heck out of here if the dinosaur that Nyah claimed was a Giganotosaurus was really coming my way.

It was only when the drone with a flashing red light appeared above my head that I realized it was too late.

"Get out!" I yelled as the Giganotosaurus barged into the clearing. It was too late.

Death Strike stood stock still as the beast ignored the drone for some odd reason and bolted to the stairs that went up to the lookout tower.

"What..." I said, confused at what I was seeing. The Giganotosaurus couldn't fit in the opening for the stairs so it was ramming into the side of the tower, making the ground shake.

Death Strike was slowly backing out of there when I heard a girl screaming at the top of her lungs. It was Nyah at the top of the tower.

Death Strike went into a sprint as I watched the Giganotosaurus make more and more progress on the tower. It seemed to be knocking down one support beam at a time and finally it broke one too many and the entire structure came crashing down opposite of the beast.

The coelurus sprinted out of the wreckage into the bushes, but the giant didn't seem to care. He was headed straight toward Nyah.

HE WANTS REVENGE, I thought to myself as the monster's colossal mouth closed around her frail body. I looked away before the beast crunched down.

Tears immediately started to flow down my cheeks. Why did this always have to happen to me? People getting killed by people and then killed by dinosaurs. I couldn't do it any longer.

Still, as the wind whipped by my face because Death Strike was going so fast across the land, I knew I had a job to do: make sure those casualties didn't happen again.

That meant I had to go find Joe and get the truck off of our property so we could drive it to the nearest airport and get the heck out of here. I whispered my instructions into Death Strike's ear and with the occasional nudge of my foot we made it to Joe's truck.

The place looked generally undisturbed to the point that I highly doubted any dinosaur had been there besides Opportunity, who, as I thought about her, was still nowhere to be seen.

I jumped off of Death Strike's back and knocked on the door sharply, three times in quick succession.

"Who is it?" I heard a voice say gruffly. "If you're Kolin or one of his colleagues speak up because if you open that door and it's not, I'll blow you away."

GEEZ, I thought to myself. It looked like Joe was really defending himself all of a sudden. I didn't even know he knew how to work a gun.

"It's Kolin," I said. "And I have the ornitholestes Death Strike with me so don't be alarmed when I open the door."

I reached my hand for the door, slowly easing it open. Sure enough, Joe was in the driver's seat of the vehicle, gun in hand, aimed right at my face. When he saw me he quickly put it away.

"Sorry about that," he said hurriedly. "You can never be too safe, especially with that..."

"Giganotosaurus," I said dryly.

"Yes, that giganotosaurus running around," Joe finished his sentence. "My apologies for threatening you."

"You are totally fine, Joe," I praised him. "If anything I applaud you for keeping yourself protected and alive because I wouldn't have anyone to get us out of here if you were dead."

Not gonna lie, I felt I could have been able to drive the truck but I didn't tell him that. In my life I had seen that giving someone a sense of worth boosted their confidence. Even if you didn't think they were rubbish, it would boost even the confident person's confidence. (That was a mouthful.)

"Thank you, sir," Joe said, beaming at himself just as I had hoped would happen.

"Don't get too overconfident," I warned Joe. "You might have to do some risky driving to get us out of here if that giganoto comes after us."

"Giganoto," Joe mumbled to himself. "I like the sound of that."

"Joe," I said, getting his attention back from his word-play. "I need to know this and then you can attend to your rig. Do you know where anybody else is?"

"Elena, the rich guy, and that other dinosaur of yours is in the back," Joe said. "Elena told me she was going to try to send out an SOS to get all the staff to the truck so that we can take off."

"Thank you for your help," I told Joe. "If you could stay here and be ready to take off at any second that would be great."

Joe nodded his head and I went into the back of the truck where I heard some very annoyed human being cursing out my vet.

"What the frick is going on here?" Armo asked. "You let a fricking giant out to kill some of the richest people in the world? You know the entire economy could crash because of this and yet you still have one of these creatures in the room with me as you speak."

I thought it was the time to step into the room.

"Armo," I said, trying my best to put on my business tone of voice. "What do you want?"

"I'm just telling your vet how you have so much faith in these dinosaurs that you let the biggest one loose because you think it will play puppy around us or something. But oh no, no, no! It comes and kills half the economy in one bite and then smashes through the fence that your harebrained team forgot to turn on!"

"Shut up!" I yelled in the man's face. "This was not an accident. It was sabotage!"

The old man looked startled but he had got me started and I wasn't going to stop.

"I met the person that did it today on the preserve. She even attempted to murder me. Heck, she did kill Zoe who apparently was working for her and then that giganotosaurus came in and murdered her. I had to see this all! And I am telling you right now: I do not want to mess with some billionaire who thinks he owns the world because right now it doesn't matter to the dinosaurs how much money you own. They will still kill you all the same."

I took a deep breath and looked at the man's face satisfied with my handiwork. I turned to Elena.

"Do you have any more news?" Elena nodded her head.

"I've been trying to communicate with everyone via their phones. Everyone that is still alive is currently in this truck except for Ryder and Joshua the construction man. Ryder is on his way here as we speak and Joshua is alive, but stuck on the second level of the coelurus canyon."

"Thank you," I said, glad I finally knew what needed to be done. "Why is Joshua stuck?"

He was going to be my first priority; Ryder was going to make it as it was.

"Let me give you the rundown," Elena told me. "He is on the second level of the coelurus canyon where he has been hiding from someone called Nyah. He claims that Zoe told him to hide because it was his best chance of survival. He is now boxed in because he had to crawl into a vent and shut it because the coelurus are running rampant."

That did not sound good at all.

"Ok," I told Elena. "My first priority is Joshua, though I think I'll wait until Ryder gets here so I can have his help."

I lowered myself onto a couch. You wouldn't believe how much it hurt.

"That sounds like a great plan," Elena said. "As long as Joshua isn't in any immediate danger he should be fine. He said he actually designed these vents with this situation in mind."

I shook my head laughing to myself in spite of the situation. Who knew what that construction genius had worked into his builds on my property that I didn't even know about. It was small little things like this that pulled me through situations. Though to be fair, this time the small little thing was doing a very big thing: saving a man's life.

"You know how far away Ryder is?" I asked Elena as I stroked Death Strike's scaly back trying to calm myself before I had to get right back into the action.

"He should be here in about five minutes," Elena smiled. "It looks like he didn't withstand any injuries either so that's good."

I smiled back at her relieved. Having Ryder in one piece would help me more than anything else.

"Where's Opportunity, by the way?" I asked, just realizing I hadn't seen the dinosaur anywhere.

"I didn't want the beast around me," Armo jutted into our conversation. "She was acting strange so I booted her into the other room."

I glared at the man, my hatred growing the more I heard him talk.

"You 'booted' the dinosaur that chose to save your life out of everybody else in that Jeep," I said, looking into Armo's eyes. It didn't seem to faze him, though I did manage to get him to shut up.

I walked over to the door and let Opportunity in the room. Chances are we would be needing her quite soon and I didn't want to have her disgruntled when we were trying to work together to get through this thing.

"You guys here?" I heard a familiar voice call from outside the car. Ryder was finally here. I opened the door to the driver's area where Joe was leveling his gun.

"Let him in," I told Joe. "It's Ryder."

I flung open the door and ran out to hug my brother. After a long embrace that almost had tears in my eyes I backed away and sniffled. As long as I had my brother everything would be fine.

"Are you okay?" I said, looking him up and down for any injuries. There were none that I could see.

"Yes," Ryder said grinning despite the situation. "That giganotosaurus cared as much for me as he cared for a fly. Heck, I even shot him in the side. Didn't faze him a bit. He's bulletproof."

I stared at Ryder. There was no way that was possible. A bulletproof dinosaur? What type of world was I in? Some hellish fairy tale?

"You are joking, aren't you?" I said, but he shook his head. I was at a loss for words. What was I even supposed to do? How was I even supposed to fight such a thing?

"Let's go inside," my brother said. "So you can give me a rundown of what we need to accomplish before we get the heck out of here."

Once we were inside, I explained to Ryder what the deal was with Joshua and shared the plan with everybody. It was a simple plan. Elena was the person that would be our eyes and ears, Joe would be our getaway man, Ryder would be the person saving Joshua, and I would be the bait as usual.

Once I was done explaining the plan, Elena stood up and started handing out earpieces.

"These are connected to all the other mics so that we can stay connected. Make sure you don't all talk over each other and you should be fine. If you need silence to focus on something you can double tap the earpieces. It should do the trick."

"Dang," I said surprised. "Why didn't I ever think about using these? Where did you get these anyway?"

"I've had these for a while now," she said smiling.

"You really are something, aren't you?" Ryder said, making her blush. I kicked Ryder in the shin as hard as I could. No getting distracted right before a mission. Especially with women.

"Okay then," I told the team. "We are a go."

I led Death Strike out the door where Opportunity quickly followed. Once Ryder came out too I turned to him.

"How do you feel about riding a dinosaur?" I asked him. He looked hesitant right away but I knew I had to convince him or it might not play out the greatest for him. He just didn't have that type of speed or the intimidation factor in order to keep the coelurus at bay.

"Would I ride Death Strike?" he asked, approaching him hesitantly, reaching out his hand. I slapped it away.

"Nay, he's my dinosaur," I joked. "You should ride Opportunity, get to know her. You never know — you might become great friends."

I watched, ready to leap into action, as Ryder cautiously approached her and put his hand on her side. She glanced at his hand, seeming relatively undisturbed.

Ryder looked stoked at the sense of trust he got from the creature so he jumped up on her. Apparently that was not the right thing to do because she butted Ryder off immediately, sending him flying through the air.

"You okay?" I said, walking over to him.

"Yeah," he said, so I held out my hand, pulling him off the ground.

"You've got to be more careful next time. Just jumping on her isn't the right way to do it. When I first got up on Death Strike he bent down for me to climb on," I told him. It was an easy mistake to make, especially when he saw me jumping on Death Strike all the time.

"I will," Ryder said, brushing himself off. "Don't you worry. That hurt."

I couldn't help myself but laugh at him stating the obvious. Sometimes when he did that I just cracked up. No duh, it hurt to get bucked off a dinosaur.

"You want to try again?" I asked him and he nodded his head.

"Don't forget," I told him. "You don't get on her unless she lets you."

With that I watched as Ryder petted Opportunity and she slowly grew accustomed to it, though the whole process was taking too long. When I glanced down at my watch, almost fifteen minutes had passed. I didn't know if Joshua still had that long.

Death Strike seemed to feel my angst and did some clicking, prompting Opportunity to bend down and let Ryder climb on. As soon as Ryder had made himself comfortable he pulled out his shotgun and loaded it. We were ready to go.

"Hold on tight," I said as I patted Death Strike on the side giving him the all clear. It was go time.

As quickly as the dinosaurs would go, we ran through the forest to the coelurus canyon.

"Is everything going as planned?" Elena asked us over the earpieces.

"Yes, we are good to go. We will be approaching our target in T-minus three minutes," I said. Sometimes when we were doing things like this I couldn't help but act like a child. I had always loved pretending I was on an important mission and I would always use special words that I thought people in the army would use, and that is what I found myself doing now. Because, hey, this was a mission with high stakes, wasn't it?

At last we got to the point where Death Strike and Opportunity slowed down and we could just barely see the sleeping giant through the trees. The beast was conked out on the tower he had knocked down, and I could see the entrance to the canyon just beyond him, mostly untouched by the rubble of the tower.

"You stay here, while I go to the other side of the giganotosaurus, so I can be our distraction, and while I'm doing that you can get Joshua to safety," I said, being careful to whisper to my brother so as not to disturb the giganotosaurus that was asleep only a couple hundred yards away.

"Good luck, brother," Ryder said, putting his hand on my shoulder right before I patted Death Strike on the shoulder, nudging him now and then to keep him going in the right direction.

Once we were facing the opposite direction of Ryder I got Death Strike to step into the clearing where the giganoto slept.

"Wake up!" I yelled at the monster who opened one of his eyes. I was probably only a fly to him, merely a minor annoyance that he could take out in an instant if he wanted to.

"I said wake up, you big bundle of fat!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, but all the creature did was turn his head my way, making me feel oddly concerned that I wasn't at all a threat to him.

A couple more times I tried to yell at the beast but nothing seemed to get him to stir, so I pulled out one of the three flares I had in my pocket.

"You want it?" I said, lighting the flare. "Then come and get it."

I threw the flare at the giant, hitting him right below his right eye. In moments the beast was on her feet, thrashing her head around in agony. Death Strike was already running and when I turned around I saw the giganotosaurus right on our tail.

Chapter 16

Ryder made his way into the clearing as soon as Kolin had gotten the giganotosaurus chasing him off into the clearing.

He had ditched the ornitholestes at this point because she never seemed to go where he wanted her to go, but went where she pleased. How Kolin controlled his dinosaur was a mystery to him.

As Ryder looked behind him, he was at least satisfied to see that Opportunity was following him.

"Let's go," he whispered hoarsely as he ducked into the ruined stairway that led down to the lair of the coelurus with his gun held out in front of him. You never knew what could happen when it came to dinosaurs.

THE UNPREPARED ARE THE ONES THAT FIND THEMSELVES IN THE GRAVE, Ryder thought to himself grimly as he made his way down the stairs. He hated how it was hard to see anything with the power off. Anything could be lurking in the shadows and you wouldn't even know it was there.

FOCUS, Ryder reminded himself before speaking into the earpiece lodged in his ear.

"Where exactly is he again?" Ryder asked Elena, who he knew was on the other end of the phone coordinating the whole operation from the safety of a truck.

"You'll find him on the second floor down. The whole place should just look like an empty room because we never finished making it into a dinosaur museum," Elena said. "I'm texting him now to come out. All you have to do is shine a light in there. The more lit it is, the better. We don't want the coelurus lurking in the shadows and surprising anyone."

Ryder nodded his head, turning on the light on the scope of his gun and looking behind him, making sure Opportunity was with him before he turned into the room.

Everything was still except for the steady stream of air steadily flowing down the stairs. Opportunity let out a snarl from behind Ryder.

"What's in there?" Ryder said, peering into the mist with the scope of his gun. Nothing appeared to him right away, so he kept moving into the darkness.

"Joshua said he's unscrewing the vent now," Elena said over the earpiece. "You need to make your way over there to make sure the coelurus aren't waiting to ambush him."

At the urging, Ryder started to walk through the building rapidly until he saw the vent he was looking for. It was quivering ever so slightly. Joshua had to be in that one.

Ryder slowly bent down to the grate and whispered,
"You in there, Joshua?"

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Just be careful. They are still out there."

Ryder went to stand back up when something hit him hard. He fell over and felt claws digging into his side when something even larger lifted the coelurus off of him and flung it to the ground.

Ryder scrambled to his feet, holding his side as blood seeped through his shirt. He only barely caught a glimpse of the creature that had mauled him dash into the darkness. There was no way he was bending down again. It seemed the second he let his guard down they attacked.

The only reason he hadn't fled at this point was because Opportunity was standing guard over him. He was eternally in her favor for saving his life from that coelurus.

At last the grate fell aside and Joshua came scrambling out from his hiding spot. When he stood up, he noticed Ryder clutching his side as the blood dripped to the floor.

"What happened?" Joshua asked with his jaw open.

"I'll explain later," Ryder said as he made his way back to the stairwell with his gun sweeping back and forth for any threats.

Each step felt like torture to Ryder because he knew that if he missed something rushing at him, he probably wouldn't be as lucky as he was the first time.

Twenty-three steps later he had made it to the stairwell where he quickly ran up the stairs as fast as he could.

Once they were in the open air, he knew Opportunity could take over. They were free and the operation had been a success, although Ryder was wondering how Kolin had fared with the giganoto…

Chapter 17

I could feel the heat of the giganotosaurus's breath on my back as Death Strike was pumping his legs, trying desperately to get us out of our predicament. As I look back I'm not going to lie, I made a mistake with the diversion thing. Sneaking into the coelurus canyon would have been a much safer option. Anyway, back to the action.

I was running away from the giganoto, or rather Death Strike was running away and I was on his back, when we suddenly took a sharp turn around a tree, going all the way around it and going the same direction we had been going before. This got the giganoto to stop dead in her tracks, crash through the tree which brought her to a stop once again, and then start chasing us.

We kept up the sprint for a couple more minutes that really pushed Death Strike to the edge before we repeated the exact same maneuver. It made my hair stand up on edge as the giganotosaurus tried its best to crane its head around the tree and snap off my head. The teeth were inches from my head.

Still, we made it out safely and continued our sprint through the forest. At one point we did the maneuver again, but this time on a larger trunk, so it was relatively safer for someone being chased by the most deadly animal known to mankind.

I gasped as I saw the wall that lined our preserve. It was crazy to me how fast the land went by when you were on a dinosaur running for his life. I was quite sure that my life was going to end as Death Strike soared over the wall before hitting the ground so forcefully I felt my bones grind against each other.

Crash! The giganotosaurus broke through the wall, sending a spray of rubble our way.

Pain erupted all up and down my body as little shards of the wall dug into my skin, propelled by the force of the giant’s collision.

I looked behind me after the pain stopped and saw that the beast had stopped in its tracks and turned around. It seemed to think that it had run the pest off of its property. Great. Now I knew I would never be using that land as a preserve in the future.

"Are you okay?" Elena said over the earpiece, making me jump. I had totally forgotten that she was even there.

"Yes, I should be fine," I said. "Did you guys successfully recover Joshua?"

"Yes, the mission was a success," Elena said, and I whooped into the air for joy. I was glad that all my hard work wasn't just for nothing.

"I'm glad to hear that Joshua is okay," I said into the air. "The last thing I need you guys to do is get the heck off of the property. That giganotosaurus could be headed your way. Meet me at the Clarks' residence."

Elena said that they would be on their way, so I double tapped the earpiece. I needed a break from all the chaos.

The Clarks were a sweet old couple that lived not too far away from what used to be my preserve. From what I had heard they had owned a farm in the hills of California ever since they had inherited the farm from their parents, who had inherited it from numerous members of the family that went as far back as anyone could remember.

According to what I had heard there were only a couple of acres between my property and theirs, so it wouldn't take too long to reach them. All I really did was nudge Death Strike in the right direction from time to time and we soon entered a grove of some sort.

I stopped Death Strike for a second and picked an avocado from one of the trees. It seemed a shame that all this fruit was just going to go to waste.

I shoved the avocado into my pocket and climbed back on Death Strike, urging him to travel the well-worn paths through the avocado trees until we made it to a big house on a hill overlooking the orchard.

Sure enough, the van was there waiting for us. I stepped up to it and double tapped my earpiece.

"I'm here guys," I said into it, prompting the front door to fly open. Joe was aiming a gun at me as usual.

I ignored the gun and strolled in.

"Have you guys gotten the Clarks yet?" I asked Elena, who was at the desk getting all the things done, and behind her was... Ryder.

"Oh my gosh," I said as I saw his blood-stained clothes. "Are you okay?"

Ryder grunted at me and I panicked. I was not going to lose another family member to my stupid games. I grabbed Ryder's hand and squeezed it. I would not let him go.

"That really hurts, you know," Ryder told me, smiling at me. I quickly jumped back, surprised.

"How are you still conscious?" I said, shocked. It looked like he had already lost a ton of blood. Way too much than the normal person could handle if you asked me.

"Elena already patched me up," Ryder said. "I'll be fine. The bleeding's already stopped. All you see is the blood on my clothes when that stupid coelurus first bit me. The one thing you forgot to pack on this rig was extra clothes."

Ryder shook his head like he was deeply dismayed at my life decisions.

"Anyway, to answer your question, no, we have not gotten the Clarks yet. I was too busy patching up your brother here. Plus I figured that they would react better to you than to me," Elena said, reminding me why we were here.

I got out of that van and rang the doorbell to the Clarks' house. The sound of the bell echoed through the entire house and I waited on the doorstep for quite a while before a very old man answered the door.

"Are you Mr. Clark?" I asked the man, extending my hand in welcome, but he completely ignored me because his eyes were fixed on Death Strike. He stared at him for such an awkward amount of time that I thought he was having a stroke or something.

"Where did you get that?" Mr. Clark said, pointing a shaking finger at Death Strike, his eyes wide with wonder.

"It really is a long story," I told the man. This wasn't an abnormal reaction to dinosaurs as far as I could tell.

I watched as the strange old man waved me inside his house into his living room. It was an old place with deer heads on the walls and an ancient recliner by the roaring fire, but that wasn't what caught my eye. It was the painting above the fire on the wall.

"My ancestors painted that when they were some of the first people ever to cross into lower California. They settled in this exact place. Somewhere so remote in the mountains that the Native Americans didn't dare go there because they thought it was cursed," the old man said, shaking with every word.

On the wall was a painting of a dinosaur that looked identical to Death Strike.

Chapter 18

"Where did you get that," I said, pointing at the old man. This was not good at all. Random paintings of Death Strike showing up in some guy’s house had to mean he had been spying on me or something.

"It was an old heirloom, passed down from generation to generation," the old man said, smiling at me. "My ancestors called the creature 'silent death' because of the way it would hunt, sneaking up on its target before pouncing on it. Its prey never saw it, or heard it, coming."

I started to talk and then stopped. What if this guy wasn't a spy and by yelling at him and getting angry at him I made it so I would never be able to use the information he could have.

"Sorry for being rude," I told the man. "But we really have to get out of here. A giganotosaurus was let loose on our property and it could come here at any moment. I'm afraid we can't do anything to stop it either."

The man looked at me in shock.

"Giganotosaurus?" he whispered quietly, more to himself than to anybody else.

"Yes, it is a large dinosaur the size of a truck that is very destructive," I told Mr. Clark. "Because of this, we need to get you out of here right now. There is no time to wait."

"I'm not leaving here," the man said quietly. "You young people get out of here before it is too late. I've lived here my entire life and I don't plan to abandon this place any time soon."

I clenched my fists, annoyed at him. This was not the time to get all emotional. For all I knew the giant could be outside the house right now, waiting to eat us all out of spite.

"Sir, you can come back to your property once the beast is contained," I tried to convince him. In reality I didn't know if the giganotosaurus would ever be contained.

"Okay, but who else is going to stay here to defend our crops if the giganotosaurus, as you call it, does come here? Heck, how do I even know you are telling me the truth?"

"You don't know if I am telling you the truth," I said. "But I'm telling you that no matter what you do, if the giganotosaurus wants to destroy your crops, she will destroy your crops. Plus, I will drag you out of here if I have to. I don't need another dead man on my conscience."

I started to seethe at this man's audacity to question me. If he had known what I had gone through he would be on his knees trying to console me the best he could, but instead he was just one more roadblock in my way. I had seen dinosaurs kill, I had seen them rip people to shreds, and I had seen someone shot right in front of my face, and I was not going to let one more guy die because he loved his land that much.

"Okay," Mr. Clark finally said, defeated. "I'll go grab my wife and pack a quick bag. We'll be out by your truck in five minutes."

I told the man thank you and left their house. Five minutes later they were ready with only a suitcase and a backpack between the two of them.

"I'm Kolin Perez," I said as I grabbed their luggage and guided the couple into the truck. "I'm sorry we have to meet under these circumstances, but it’s good to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, honey," the older woman said, giving me flashbacks about Zoe. Even though she had been a traitor, I was going to miss her.

At last we were all in the truck and Joe took off. It was only when we were on the main highway going sixty miles an hour that I took a deep breath. Nobody else was going to be hurt and each minute we were driving was another mile between us and the giganotosaurus.

We were all sitting down on some chairs in the truck when Mr. Carter spoke up.

"Where did you get the 'silent death'?" he said, so I told him the story of finding Death Strike in the gutter in California, and how I came to start the preserve, and finally why we assumed a massive theropod was wrecking our preserve.

"That's quite the story," Mrs. Carter said quietly, once I was done talking.

"Yeah, I've definitely been through a lot." Ryder put his hand over my shoulder as I was saying this. It felt comforting to have him around. His arm around my shoulder made me feel safe and secure.

"You know," said Mr. Carter. "When our ancestors first came to this part of California, even the Native Americans were scared of this canyon."

Mr. Carter paused for a second, unsure of whether he should continue or not. I urged him on, eager to hear what his story was.

"They ignored the warnings of the Native Americans and ventured into the canyon hoping to find gold, but instead they found what they called 'giant lizards.'

"Our family had always thought that the giant lizards were just a thought of imagination, but they were mistaken: they were very much real.

"You see, according to the things that my family documented, what we now call dinosaurs still thrived in that little canyon when they first arrived, and the best part of it all is that they documented each and every one that they saw in a journal where they would put drawings, notes, and facts of what they saw."

I stared in wonder as Mr. Carter pulled an old, old notebook out of the little backpack that they had brought. I watched as he handed it over to me and told me it was okay to take a look. I opened it up to a picture of some type of triceratops or something with the name "rock lizard" on the top of the page.

Page after page was full of detailed pictures of these beasts, complete with facts about them. I estimated that there were about 75–100 different illustrations.

"That's incredible," I said, reverently handing back the book to the owners.

"It is, isn't it," Mr. Carter said, putting it back in their bag.

"Quick question," Ryder said, butting into the conversation. "Why exactly did dinosaurs only survive in that one little part of America?"

"Ah, very good question," Mr. Carter said. "Our ancestors said that they asked the Native Americans that very question and they were told that the whole continent was full of them, but the herbivores were very slow and full of meat. Easy to kill, so the Native Americans' ancestors killed them. Each time they needed a meal they would kill one of the magnificent beasts. Eventually, when all the giant lizards became scarce, the Indians changed their ways.

"They started to make use of the whole kill instead of just tossing away what they didn't need. As the dinosaurs started to dwindle they became a myth, a legend passed down around the fire until in the few places that they still roamed became forbidden.

"I personally think that one of the big reasons that people who went into those areas were never able to spread the word is that they were killed."

I thought to myself about what Mr. Carter had said. It made sense to me. Herbivores would have been easy to kill off, but what about the carnivores? That was what I asked Mr. Carter.

"Another excellent question, one of which the answer to is mostly speculation," Mr. Carter said. "I think that most large carnivores started to starve when most of their food supply was taken away, and most of them took out each other, and the few that remained were killed by the first colonists of America."

It made sense to me. If you took out the food source, you took out what ate that food source, which paved the way for other species like buffalo and stuff to become dominant while the dinosaurs faded into the background.

At this point it was getting late and we were all yawning, so I told the Carters that we should probably go to bed and discuss this fascinating topic more in the morning.

I woke up in a sleeping bag on the floor next to the cage that Death Strike had slept in. I rolled out of it to feel my back was incredibly sore, pain aching up and down my back.

I quickly got out of bed and went to go talk to Joe, who I assumed had to be awake driving us to wherever we were going. Sure enough he was sitting in the driver's seat with bloodshot eyes, blearily gazing through the front window into the seat.

"You okay up here?" I said, making him jump.

"Yeah," he said in the Midwestern accent. "I have my Red Bull to keep me awake, and a good radio station on, so I've been fine."

I chuckled at his remark. I never could get enough of this guy.

"Where exactly are we going anyway?" I asked him, since we had to be far enough away from the preserve by now. We could probably hunker down in a hotel until I figured out what we should do next.

"I've been driving us down to Mexico as it is. Just been trying to avoid the cops and all that. I changed the license plates sometime last night, so we should be fine," said Joe nonchalantly. This was sure news to me. Never once had anybody mentioned that we were running from the cops, or why we were running from the cops for that matter.

"Why exactly are we running?" I asked Joe. I had missed something that was pretty important. Joe wouldn't just run from the cops because Joe wanted to run from the cops.

Joe passed his phone over to me. What I saw on the headline on the news company on the phone startled me:

TEENAGE MURDERER SETS DINOSAUR LOOSE ON INNOCENT PEOPLE

I read on as it talked about how I had set the giganotosaurus loose, killing all the billionaires in cold skin, and how Armo Esity, the famous billionaire, had barely escaped with his life, sneaking off of the "preserve" by secretly hitchhiking with the enemy. Apparently, Armo was now in full possession of my property and he now owned the giganotosaurus and the baby coelurus, although I never saw mention of the adults anywhere. He claimed that he was going to make a zoo for the dinosaurs so that any normal person could see the magnificent beasts.

"That's outrageous," I spat. "All that man is, is a... a... a conniving little monster."

"I would agree to that statement," Joe said. "He asked to get off at a gas station, the first stop I made of the night. Said he had a limousine waiting. Only an hour after that things started to appear in the news, so I changed the license plates and headed towards Mexico."

"That's crazy," I said, both shocked and appalled at the events that had transpired. "I guess you should head to my property in Mexico. We can figure things out when we get there."

Joe nodded his head, so I went into the room where Elena was already on her computer, a worried look on her face.

"Look at what the news is saying about you..." Elena said, starting to turn her computer around to face me, but I cut her off and explained everything that I had learned from Joe. Once I was done, Elena just looked at me, shocked.

"Wow," she said. "I can't believe this has happened."

That was exactly what was going through my own head. What in the world was going on and where were we going.

It was then another thought popped into my head that I should've been doing before, but I might as well ask Elena now that I was thinking about it.

"Are you sure you want to go over the border with me?" I told her. "Because once you do, you are basically a criminal and if you come back to the USA you will be arrested."

I felt bad saying it as soon as I did. Elena's face went white at the prospect of being a criminal.

"Don't they know that I work for you though?" she said quietly. I thought about what she had said for a second and then came up with a solution I didn't want to give. Losing Elena would be losing a valuable part of our team.

"We could drop you off at a gas station and you can say you barely snuck out with your life or something along those lines."

Elena nodded her head and then asked a question that I had not been expecting,

"Do you think your brother Ryder will be going with you?" Whoa... Ryder had a girlfriend? I did not see that coming, not at all. That really had me reeling there for a second, but the thought did bring up a genuine concern... Was Ryder going to cross the border with me or not?

"I haven't exactly asked him yet," I told Elena. "But I can go ask him now."

I started to open the door where Ryder was sleeping on the floor next to the ornitholestes as Elena blushed furiously.

"Yo, Ryder," I said, nudging the lump on the floor that I knew was him.

"Whaaa?" he said, groggily ending his statement with a yawn to end all yawns.

"Are you going with me across the border to Mexico?" I said, knowing that this would get Ryder off of his bum. As they say, curiosity killed the cat.

"Why would we possibly want to go to Mexico?" Ryder asked as he scratched Opportunity on the head.

"Elena will tell you after you get dressed. She's in the other room waiting for you," I ended my jest with a little smile, looking for a reaction from my brother. His face was stagnant. If those two were a couple, they were doing a good job keeping it a secret, that was for sure, but at the same time I was probably just making a mountain out of a molehill.

I left Ryder to take care of his business and walked by Elena. She looked at me curiously but kept doing whatever she was doing as I walked past to the other room.

There used to be four people sleeping in the room designed for the security guards: Armo Esity, the Clark couple, and Joshua, but Armo had booked it.

Everybody seemed to be awake, but they were all on their phones with the screens’ brightness turned all the way down.

"You guys do realize that you're all awake, right?" I said, startling the lot of them. They all looked around, startled.

"Oh," Mrs. Clark said. "I only saw my husband was awake and I didn't want to wake up the nice gentleman below by getting out of bed."

"That's what I thought too," Joshua said laughing. "I didn't want to wake the sweet old lady above me."

"And I just stayed in bed because my wife was staying in bed," Mr. Clark said as we all started to laugh at the irony of it all. I loved when things like this happened; it showed me that the world was human, and it gave me a good laugh. It made me wonder how long they would have sat in bed if I hadn't walked in.

"Are you guys aware of what happened on the news?" I said, figuring that they had already seen everything on their phones.

The two men in the room nodded their heads, while Mrs. Carter looked genuinely confused.

"I was going to ask you about that," Mr. Carter said. "You don't seem like the kind of person that would murder someone in cold blood, but I still want to know what in the world is going on."

"Ah, yes," I said, understanding why he would want to know why the entire world thought I was a murderer. I would too in his situation, so I went on to explain the whole story and everything that had transpired.

"So you say that that giganotosaurus has been contained then, yes?" Mr. Clark asked me thoughtfully. I told him yes, it was no longer an issue.

"Then I would very much like to return to my home, if it does not bother you very much," Mr. Clark said, making me sort of sad that I wouldn't get to hear his tales about dinosaurs anymore, but I knew that if he wanted to go, we were going to let him go.

"Here is a thousand dollars cash," I said, handing over a wad of twenty-dollar bills I had grabbed from Elena's desk. "I wish you guys well on your return journey home."

The old man thanked me very much and then handed me the old notebook with the dinosaur information in it scrawled all over the pages.

"Here is this," he said, smiling at me with a twinkle in his right eye. "I hope you put more use to it than I have."

A tear dripped down my eye as I thanked the man profusely. Having this book would be a tool that would be used and consulted over and over, and nothing I could do would be able to replace it. Once I had controlled myself, I turned to Joshua and asked him to come talk with me.

"Do you want to cross the border with me and become a criminal?" I asked him. He was the only wild card I had as I didn't even know that much about him. Even the thought that he had just been a tool to me that I wanted to keep sent a jolt of regret through my body.

"To be honest, it doesn't sound great at all living out in the bush. I have kids, you know. Kids that are homeschooled but still, they are kids."

My heart started to sink. I didn't really know where in Mexico I was going to find a construction man just like Joshua.

"Although," Joshua started to say. "If you could let me make a house for me and my family, that would be pretty cool..."

My heart jumped and I said something that would cost a lot of money but would pay off for me in the long run.

"If you come to live on the preserve I will be making, you can make a little village with a bungalow for all my employees that are single and you can design a house in any way you want for your family," I said, beginning to warm up to the idea of it all. "You can even fortify it however you want so you can be sure your family will be safe from any dinosaurs."

Joshua nodded his head, considering my request, making me hold my breath. I wanted him more than anything in that moment.

"If you don't mind, I would like to talk to my wife for a moment and talk this over with her," Joshua said, pulling out his phone. I left the room to give him some privacy.

I'm not gonna lie, that ten minutes was pretty nerve-racking for me, and when Joshua walked out of the room with a smile on his face, I didn't know whether to get excited or sad.

"We're going," he said, sending relief coursing through my body. "If you don't mind paying for a moving van that would be great. You can drop me off at the next exit with the Clarks and I'll hitch a ride to my house to pack everything up. I'll shoot you a text asking for the address to the property when we're on the road."

I said yes to all his requirements, of course, and gave him a hug, leading him out the door of the car now that Joe had finally stopped at a gas station, and when we left there, I pulled out feeling oddly satisfied at what I had accomplished.

The next couple of hours were us driving off-road to a place that Joe was certain "the cops won't creep up on us," and we all pretty much tried to sleep in the empty bunk beds since neither me nor Ryder had slept a wink on the floor with the dinosaurs next to us.

Although, I did get confirmation from Elena that she wanted to stay with us, wanting to "start her own life." (I was pretty sure she had been living with her parents for the last couple of years. She was still very young.)

Regardless, by the time we all woke up from our naps, Joe was in a deep slumber in his seat at the front of the car, so we all decided to let him be until he woke back up. Hopefully, he would be able to drive us straight to Mexico after that.

One thing that did have me a little bit confused was the fact that it was taking so long to get to Mexico, but Joe kept saying how if we took the route through California we had a higher chance of being attacked by drug cartels. The busier route that went through Texas was a wiser option.

In the end we sat in a standstill for a whole day until we were finally able to take off again. Of course, as soon as we did, things started to get interesting again.

Chapter 19

It was surprising Ryder this time that brought the news, not Elena. I was chilling on the couch when he walked up to me and showed me something on his phone.

"A plane crash-landed at the Lisbon International Airport," Ryder told me. "According to my sources, after the rough landing, strange creatures were caught on camera running away from the plane into the city."

I looked at Ryder's phone and saw a video of large lizards that looked suspiciously similar to the Coelurus running away from the fallen airplane.

"The most interesting part about it is the people flying the jet were wanted smugglers that specialized in animals. They even confessed, saying that they were flying through Lisbon on their way to India where they would illegally sell the animals. They claim the animals were taken off a fallen 'dinosaur preserve' with a simple bait trap."

As I listened to Ryder, everything suddenly clicked. That's where the adult-size Coelurus had gone. They hadn't run into the hills but were snatched by smugglers. Interesting—maybe I would be able to recapture them from Lisbon.

"When's the next flight from here to Lisbon?" I asked Ryder, formulating a plan in my mind.

"One leaves from LAX tomorrow at 3 PM," Ryder said. Perfect. Just what I needed.

"Are there three business-class seats available?" I asked Ryder, who said yes. "Then book them," was my only response. This was going to work out splendidly.

"Are you sure about this?" Ryder asked me as he adjusted my mask that I had on to cover my face all the way.

"For the last time, Ryder, I'm sure," I told him. If he couldn't tell by my face, I had already made up my mind.

"Okay," he said, giving me a hug. "I hope you stay safe."

I stepped out of the truck onto the asphalt. It was time to go conquer the world.

About an hour later, I was riding in an Uber farther and farther away from Ryder and Death Strike, the two people who I could count on to keep me safe, but I was excited about where I was headed: to my old neighborhood.

The plan that we had formulated was very simple. While I was in Portugal rescuing the Coelurus, the rest of the team would be setting up shop on the property I had bought forever ago in Mexico, in New Baja California.

If you are wondering who I would bring along for the ride that I trusted with my life and would be a helping hand, that was easy: Raydawn and Tamara. I was almost positive they would love to go on an excursion to a new country, especially on a hunt for dinosaurs.

When I stepped into my old neighborhood, I started to cry. For some reason in my brain, this was a place of what was lost. I had lived with my family there, but now I never saw my sister and my parents were dead. I used to see my good friends all the time, but now I never saw them anymore.

Most importantly though, it was the place where I was only ever oblivious about dinosaurs, the only place where I felt like I could be a kid and relax. For good or for bad, I had a job to do, a new purpose in life that I felt I had to do, whether for good or bad. I felt that I was a type of ambassador for these dinosaurs.

Regardless, this didn't take away the fact that I was a kid who should still be a kid, and that was exactly what I planned to do now.

I walked up to Tamara's house, took off my mask, and rang the doorbell.

Sure enough, when the door opened, Tamara stood there in the doorway, her mouth dropped wide open.

"I can't talk here," I told her. "Meet me where I first found Death Strike."

I figured that at one point I would have told her the location, so I shut the door in her face and left.

The reason our interaction had been so short was because I knew her mom trusted the news sites, and she would 100% call the cops on me if she even caught wind that I was in the city.

WHATEVER, I thought to myself as I walked to Raydawn's house. IT IS WHAT IT IS.

Although, this thought still bugged me; I didn't really know why. It was probably just my childish conscience kicking in.

The next place I was going to stop at was Raydawn's house. I knocked on his door since his doorbell never seemed to work, which made a loud screeching sound reverberate throughout the house. I wish I could have heard what it said, but it was too muffled to understand anything.

Eventually, Raydawn answered the door.

"Who the heck is it..?" he said as he answered the door. Then he saw me, and his jaw dropped.

"I'm going to go hang out with Tamara, Mom!" Raydawn yelled up the stairs, and I heard that dreadful wailing again.

"He killed your father!" Raydawn's mom screamed. "He killed your—"

Raydawn slammed the door before she could say anything else. I stood there shuffling awkwardly. I didn't know what to do. Raydawn's mom never acted like that.

"Is everything okay?" I asked my old pal, looking at the worn-out look on his face. This was the kid who was always hyper, fidgeting with something, but today he was still and quiet.

"Yeah," Raydawn said. "Ever since we got the news that Dad died in whatever you were doing at your preserve of yours, we've been hysterical."

I recoiled at the anger in his voice, but at the same time I was a little ticked off at him.

"Your dad was the traitor," I said accusingly.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you had to kill him with that Ornitholestes of yours," he said, defeated.

"My Ornitholestes didn't kill your dad," I said. "A creature that your dad let into my preserve to sabotage me ended up killing him."

Raydawn took a seat on the porch, his hands shaking as he did. I watched him as tears started to run down his face.

"I knew my dad was a bad person," Raydawn said, starting to sob. "But I never thought he'd try to kill anybody."

I put my hand on his back as he cried. Sometimes just being there for someone was all they needed. Sure enough, after waiting for him to calm down, he stopped crying.

"Why are you here anyway?" Raydawn asked, sniffling. "Surely, you didn't come all the way out here just to comfort me about my dad. You're a criminal for goodness’ sake. Coming out here had to put you in a bunch of danger."

I was sad to hear his reaction. It hurt me to think that I had abandoned my friends so much that they were bitter toward me.

"I'm sorry I've been ignoring you," I told Raydawn, hoping he would accept my apology. He forgave me, so I cautiously kept talking with him.

"Would you like to walk with me to the old riverbed?" I asked him. "Tamara's waiting for us."

Raydawn nodded his head, so we started the long walk to where I had first met Death Strike and where this entire story began.

"What do you want from us?" Tamara asked me, narrowing her eyes after I had finished catching up on life with my friends in our hiding spot.

"I don't want to ask anything of you guys," I said, but Tamara was still looking at me, waiting for the 'but'. "But... I was wondering if you guys would like to come on a trip to Portugal with me."

My friends just looked at me, dumbfounded.

"Why Portugal?" Raydawn asked me, but Tamara cut him off.

"Does this have anything to do with the strange creatures that escaped off of a plane into Lisboa not too long ago?" I smiled guiltily. Busted. I nodded my head.

"We would go there to have some fun but also attempt to capture the Coelurus that were being smuggled but got loose," I said, hoping that they would come.

"I'm in," Raydawn said with no hesitation. "I'd do anything to get away from my mom."

Tamara looked confused.

"Why would you want to do that?" she asked before I could cut her off. Raydawn started to sniffle but then pulled himself together.

"My mom has been yelling at me a lot since we found out my dad died. Lots of tears in our house because of that, and sometimes she'll do other stuff to me too..." Raydawn said uncomfortably. Tamara seemed like she wanted to flush out what 'other stuff' was, but Raydawn didn't seem like discussing it.

"I'll go too then, I guess," Tamara said hesitantly, so I went on to explain the game plan of how I would sneak my friends out of the country.

Basically, I would hire a private jet to take us to Lisboa, and we would stay in a hotel there until we found the Coelurus or until my friends wanted to take off.

"And we'll be doing this without telling our parents?" Tamara asked me, cringing at the thought.

"If you think you can convince your parents to let you go, then be my guest," I told her, secretly hating to be the one who would put her in so much trouble once she got home.

"Let's do this."

The flight over to Portugal was very easy. I hired a man to fly us over. He agreed to stay quiet if I paid him enough.

We ended up taking an Uber, which I also bribed, over to the small airport that we were going to be flying out of.

Our plane ended up being a luxury jet of medium size, and we slept the entire flight because the pilot had warned us that if we didn't, our trip to Lisboa would be absolutely miserable.

We touched down in the Lisbon airport and got the heck out of there, avoiding all the security and border patrol. It was pretty easy because the pilot had claimed he had no passengers on board and was just stopping in the airport to refuel. Sneaking into the city was as easy as hopping into one of the food trucks that stocked the flight, jumping out at a warehouse, and walking the distance until it was safe for us to get an Uber.

It was so interesting because I couldn't find very many rides for Uber, so when I googled why I couldn't, I found out that the main form of transportation in Portugal was something called Bolt.

Sure enough, when I got the app, we had a driver in no time.

"Take me to the city center of Lisboa, please," I told the driver, and within 30 minutes we were standing in a bustling city center. It was one main road, and I could see a large clock tower of sorts at the end, with cafes and small shops filled with tourist trinkets inside.

"This is spectacular," Tamara mumbled under her breath as she gazed at the scene. I too marveled at how everything seemed so peaceful here. It wasn't like big cities in the US where everyone was rushing from one place to the next, but it was more calm. People would stop to admire artwork and sit in a chair and look across the Atlantic. The cafes were packed with tourists trying the local food, and so were the chestnut stands lined up in the street. Everything seemed equally as busy.

"Can we go to one of these cafes and grab a bite to eat?" Raydawn said, eyeing a cafe we were standing next to. "I didn't eat anything that whole flight and it isn't easy looking for dinosaurs on an empty stomach."

I smiled at his joke and led my friends to the cafe. We dug in, eating ourselves stuffed. My favorite thing was these little egg-filled pastries that tasted unlike anything I had ever had before.

As we got up from our seats, I handed the waiter more than what she was asking. That cafe deserved it. What a meal.

"Where are we going to start looking for the Coelurus anyway?" Tamara asked as she craned her neck to look down a cute alleyway.

"When in doubt..." I said. "Ask the locals."

Raydawn and I said it in perfect unison, laughing at each other. It was a line from a TV show of ours that looked for strange creatures, and that was the guy's punchline.

Tamara just shook her head at us and tapped a guy on the shoulder.

"Sir," she said. "Have you happened to see a dinosaur running around? Kinda like the ones in the Jurassic Park movies but smaller and colored differently?"

The man looked at us like we were crazy.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

"No," Tamara said, looking at the man with a straight face. "I'm dead serious."

The man just looked at her and told her to have a nice day before walking off. Me and Raydawn started to crack up.

"The look... on that guy's... face," I said, trying to stop laughing. Tamara just looked at us like we were hypocrites or something.

"You told me to ask the locals," she said, crossing her arms over her chest before she started to crack up too.

"I was just messing with you guys," she said, lightly punching me in the arm. "You fell for that hook and sinker."

Me and Raydawn looked at her, and we all fell to the ground laughing.

"You guys are in no shape to go dinosaur hunting today," I told the two of them as I tried to pull myself up from the street where I had been laughing. Tamara pointed at me.

"Says you."

In the end, I booked an Airbnb without too much difficulty. I got one with two separate living spaces: one for me and Raydawn, one for Tamara.

After we had been chilling out in our rooms for a little bit, Tamara knocked on the door.

"You guys want to go do some exploring tonight?" she asked us through the door. "I sure would too."

We all agreed to go check out the city at night, and we were out the door in minutes. We had lots of fun going down one street that was so packed with people that cars couldn't get through, and once you started to walk with the group one direction, it was very hard to break off into a side street.

Doing that was fun, but once when Raydawn almost wandered away from us, we decided that sitting down at a fancy restaurant would be a great idea.

We found this pizza place that had some great food, but that was only part of it. The place had one of the greatest bartenders of all time. This guy was flipping full bottles of alcohol, spinning them around, balancing them on his elbow, and doing all sorts of stuff.

Each time he was done making a cocktail, he would do a little bow while we would clap for him. At one point, Raydawn even pulled out his phone and asked him for a show, and some of the things that man did, I didn't even know were humanly possible.

We ended up leaving the place with both our bellies and sense of wonder filled.

Our group headed straight to our Airbnb and crashed in our beds. It had been a glorious day.

The next morning when we woke up, we ate at another cafe while I told Raydawn and Tamara my game plan.

It was fairly straightforward: walk around and go to some of the local restaurants and ask if anybody had seen any strange creatures lately. Surely, in a big city like this, somebody had to have seen something.

Then, if our initial search didn't give us a lead, we would go to the airport and ask the people that had seen the actual incident. Surely they would know something.

"You guys ready then?" I asked Raydawn and Tamara once we were all done eating. They both nodded their heads.

"My belly's full and I'm good to go," Raydawn laughed.

We paid the bill and got the heck out of there and started in the direction of the airport, where we would begin interrogating random people on the streets.

Once we got to the arranged position, I walked up to a lady and started talking with her.

"Have you seen any large creatures running around Lisbon in the past day or two?" I asked her, holding a clipboard in my hands. The lady looked at us blankly, so Raydawn handed over his phone that had a translator pulled up and ready to go. I repeated what I had said into the translator.

"No, I have not," is what the translator said back to us. "Why do you kids ask anyway?"

"It's a survey for our school," Tamara said, going along with the plan we had set in place. "We were told to do a survey for our class, and asking people about seeing large animals in the city seemed interesting."

The lady nodded her head and told us good luck. That was how things went on for quite a while, the only interesting thing being one man clarified how big "big" was because the peacocks at the castle were quite large, and we told him the size of a peacock or above. He didn't have any sightings except for peacocks.

We were about to give up and head closer to the airport to ask some of the people that worked there when one man seemed to have seen something.

He was one of the Middle Eastern people who hawked their wares on the side of the streets in their little shops, and he seemed fired up about how a large lizard had tipped over a stand he had set up outside. He claimed it all happened yesterday, early in the morning, when not many people were out and about yet.

"Wasn't that interesting," I said to Raydawn and Tamara as we exited the little shop after buying something off of the man as a courtesy.

"It was," Tamara said, getting excited that we had found something. "I wonder if the cafe next door caught any footage on their security cameras."

I too was enthralled by this proposition. It made sense that if the Coelurus had run through the square, something else would have picked them up on their security footage.

"I just thought it would be nice to confirm that we actually have the right creature before we go on a wild goose chase," Tamara said, and we all agreed with her. I didn't think that bringing my friends was a bad idea—not for one moment.

Inside the cafe, the worker seemed perplexed at why we would need to check the footage taken by their cameras.

"Why exactly would you need this footage?" the lady behind the counter said. Her name tag said Alicia on it.

"We need it to identify a certain peacock that would have come by your shop just yesterday," I lied to her. "We are doing a school project tracking a peacock that is tagged to see if the data coming from it is accurate."

"What a lame school project," Alicia said sympathetically.

"Tell me about it," Raydawn said, doing his best sigh. "You know what would really help us get it over with? Handing over the footage."

The woman agreed to help us out and went back to the footage from the day before, but the memory only went back to 12 o'clock.

"Dang it," Tamara said. "Just missed the window of time we needed to check."

"Sorry about that," the lady said. "If you have time, I know the apartment next door keeps their footage for up to two days. Asking the owner couldn't hurt. He's a nice person."

We thanked the woman very much and were on our way to go and stand awkwardly outside of a random door to a random building on the street.

We easily sat there for two or three hours before anyone came, and when they did, it was a pretty girl that was probably only a handful of years older than us.

"Ma'am," I said, rushing up to the girl who looked startled at my sudden appearance. "Would you happen to know if we can talk to whoever controls the security footage at your apartment?"

The woman shook her head and said something about not speaking English. I held out my hand to Raydawn, who deposited the translator into my hand.

"Why would you need the footage?" the lady asked, suspiciously. "Is this just Tom and Adam sending some kids at me to get that footage of me kissing my boyfriend?" She narrowed her eyes at us. I shook my head at her.

"I have no clue who Tom or Adam are," I said, hurriedly giving her my peacock story. She fell for it, hook and sinker.

"Let me call my landlord," the girl said, pulling out her phone. "I'm sure he would be obliged to help you."

She talked on the phone for a couple of minutes and then hung up.

"He said he'll be here in ten or so minutes with a USB that has the footage you guys want," the college student said, letting herself into the apartment building. "Hope you guys find that peacock."

I high-fived my friends. Finally, we were getting somewhere with all this.

The man who owned the apartment building ended up being very nice and showed us the footage around the time that we were looking for.

"There," I said, pointing at something blurry running down the street. "That's what we were looking for." It was something that looked a whole lot like the Coelurus, and when the owner enhanced the footage, it was confirmed: we were on the right track.

"That's no peacock," the apartment owner said, peering at the footage. "This doesn't have anything to do with the accident at the airport that happened a couple of days ago, does it?"

The lot of us smiled guiltily at the man before thanking him and continuing on our way before he could question us any more. The less people knew, the better.

I led my friends up the path that led off of the little square the Coelurus had darted through. Based on what I saw in the security cam, this was where it was heading. Just to make sure, though, we made sure to ask some people who owned the shops along the narrow path, and a couple of people did say that they had seen a strange creature come through their little alley, although nobody seemed to have thought much of it.

We kept pushing on up through narrow walkways and alleyways where cars couldn't even go until the path of the Coelurus grew cold. We had asked every person in the area if they had seen anything, and they all said no.

"Where do you think they went?" Raydawn asked me, scratching his head. "They go halfway up my alleyway and then they just disappear."

"Yeah," I said, also confused. "Makes me wonder where they could have gone."

"Boys," Tamara called us over, where she was leaning over something in the wall. "Kolin, do you think a Coelurus could get through here?"

Tamara backed away and showed me a large hole that appeared to have been a window at one point or the other of some type of ancient ruin. That was definitely where they were.

"It seems to be quite expansive in there," Tamara said. "Looks like it is an old room of something that is now abandoned. I bet you anything the Coelurus are holed up upstairs somewhere."

I high-fived Tamara.

"Good job," I told her. "I would not have found that if not for you. Now it's just a matter of luring the little menaces out."

I ended up getting a big cage made from a shop with a trigger on the inside. First, I was catching a Coelurus to make sure they were even in there before I went all out.

The next thing to do after we had gotten the cage was to get some meat. I went to a fish market by the ocean and got the largest fish I saw. It was probably half my weight.

After we got that done, the last thing to do was to get a camera, which would hopefully catch anything if we didn't catch the Coelurus in our baited trap. Hopefully we would just catch the Coelurus and be done with it, though.

The next day we put out our little trap and then sat across the street at the cafe to wait.

"Do you really think anything is going to come out of there in broad daylight?" Tamara asked me as she slurped a cup of coffee. It was a good question. I had ended up deciding to try to capture a Coelurus in broad daylight, mostly because I didn't want there to be any footage being blurred because it was taken with poor lighting.

"I just figured we might as well try broad daylight, and if that doesn't work, we'll stay up all night," I told Tamara. She nodded her head.

We ended up sitting in that cafe way longer than we should have. One hour passed, then two, then three, and yet still nothing was captured. It got to the point that the sun was setting, and yet still nothing had shown itself.

"Let's go to the Airbnb," I told my friends, as I reached down and set an alarm on my phone that would alert me if the cage was set off. "There's no point in sitting here all night."

Beep! I groggily woke up at one AM in the morning to my alarm going off.

"Raydawn, get up," I reached my arm over and patted him where he was sleeping on the other bed. In minutes, we were both up and ready to go see if we had got anything.

"Tamara," I said, banging on her door. "Something set off the motion sensor."

Me and Raydawn sat there for five minutes before Tamara finally came out of her room. Her hair was all crazy like a rat's nest, and her eyes were bloodshot, but she promptly pronounced that she was ready to go.

I booked a Bolt on my phone, and in ten minutes I was staring at an empty trap, with no giant fish where I had left it.

"Come on," I said, ticked off that the Coelurus had learned to outsmart my traps. "Why do they have to learn these things once I set the traps?" I wondered aloud. Raydawn looked at me like I was crazy while Tamara yawned at me.

"At least you probably got the footage of them," Tamara said, suppressing another yawn. "I vote we go to bed and watch the footage in the morning when our brains aren't asleep."

I tried to argue against it, saying we should just get down to business right now, but Raydawn was on Tamara's side: sleep, then check the footage.

The next morning we woke up and ate breakfast at a cafe before getting out my little computer to see what those Coelurus had done. I put in the USB with all the info on it, and everything started to play out on the screen.

I sat there watching it for probably ten minutes before Tamara spoke up.

"Why don't you just speed up to when the Coelurus actually set off the motion sensor?" Tamara said, giving me her 'duh' face.

"Whoops," I said, feeling bad about the waste of time as I fast-forwarded to a couple of minutes before the motion sensor went off.

The first thing I saw after a couple of minutes was a blurry shape run by the cage before stopping to sniff it. Then, the camera became more clear.

"That's definitely the Coelurus," I said, excited that I had found the right creature.

"It sure is smart too," Tamara observed as the dinosaur cleverly extracted the fish from my trap without setting anything off. The whole process maybe took five minutes, so it would have been long gone by the time we showed up.

"Yeah," I said, ticked off. "A little bit too smart." My friends nodded their heads. Now we were going to have to go in and get them the hard way. I explained what I wanted to do with my friends.

"That sounds real stupid," Raydawn said. "There's like a million ways you could get hurt."

I knew that, but it was part of the plan. I didn't really know how else to get the Coelurus out of their hiding spot.

"Let's just get this over with," Tamara said, shaking her head as she got the trap set that we were going to use to capture the Coelurus. All we had was a fancy titanium cage that I had brought over from the States that would slam down the lid when a button on a controller was pressed.

I got on the electric scooter I had rented for the occasion. The company had told me to return it without a scratch.

"Okay, Raydawn," I said, steeling my nerves for what was about to come. "Blow it up."

I heard a loud explosion coming from across the street as the top floor of the building that the Coelurus were holed up in was blown away. We had already had the street cleared before we did that, but Tamara still had to duck as a piece of rubble came her way.

"There they go!" Raydawn shouted out as he saw the Coelurus darting off down the street. I revved up my scooter and took off after them, bouncing along the cobblestone streets.

The group really were agile, bolting past stands on the street, but with the pathway being so small that we were going along, they were still crashing into things occasionally.

People were screaming as I bolted past them on my scooter, but things seemed to be going reasonably well when the Coelurus ran down a narrow stairwell. I cursed.

The little guys were jostling with each other, though, which was good, so I got off my scooter and ran with it down the stairs as fast as I could before hopping on it and resuming my chase.

"I got one!" Tamara yelled at me, making me almost fall off my scooter. She was proudly holding up a closed titanium cage. One down, five more to go.

I was ticked off because the Coelurus were too far ahead of me to properly see where they were.

Suddenly, I saw a glimpse of one on the street parallel to mine through a narrow stairway. I skidded into a turn and then jumped down the stairs on my scooter, right on the Coelurus's tail. It was Runt.

"Frick," I said, realizing that this whole thing was a trap. When I looked behind me, the rest of the Coelurus pack was not too far behind and gaining quickly. They weren't happy about the loss of their member of their pack.

I turned up the speed on my scooter as fast as I could go and almost ran over Runt, who looked behind him to look at me, which allowed Raydawn to position himself with the large aluminum cage. Two down.

I looked behind me, and the other Coelurus were creating absolute pandemonium in the streets. I burst onto the smoother sidewalk by the ocean as a Coelurus jumped on my back. I hit the ground on my scooter and felt pain erupt all up and down my body.

Crack! I felt something hit the Coelurus on my back with quite a bit of force. The Coelurus went limp.

"Get up!" I heard Tamara tell me as I hastily got to my feet. Two of the Coelurus were getting shoved into cages by Tamara while I tried to get my bearings.

What a disaster that had been. We hadn't even gotten all the Coelurus, and yet all of us were seriously injured. What was I even doing?

"It'll be okay," I vaguely remember Tamara telling me in a hospital somewhere in Portugal, right before I passed out thinking about how stupid my life decisions were. When I woke back up, I was back on the preserve in my bed. Nobody was in my room. I went right back to sleep.

"You won't believe what happened," Ryder said, bouncing up and down by my bed, looking down at me with a craziness in his eyes.

"What? No—glad to see you're alive?" I was very confused. Last time this had all happened, my whole family was hovering over me asking if I was okay, and now nothing.

"Oh," Ryder said, his eyes falling. "We were super worried that you were going to die, but because you've been going in and out of sleep for the past two weeks, we've kinda gotten past that part."

"We?" I asked Ryder. Wasn't it just him at the preserve?

"Yeah," he said. "Your sis joined us on the preserve. She kinda invited herself onto your staffing team. I let her because she's really good with animals and stuff."

I was a little taken aback by the revelation. I had no clue that Katrina was an expert with animals. This made me think about how badly I was ignoring the people that I loved all because of dinosaurs.

"That's fine with you though, right?" Ryder said hesitantly. I nodded my head. Katrina would be good at whatever she did. She was just great like that.

"So what was the big deal about?" I asked Ryder. What he said had me more shocked than I had ever been in my life.

Chapter 20

"Opportunity laid a bunch of eggs while you were asleep," Ryder said.

Shock. That was the first thing I felt rolling through my body. Then joy. Then jealousy. Then disappointment. I started to cry at the abundance of emotions that were coursing through my body.

I was so happy for Death Strike, but at the same time I was sad that I hadn't gotten to see the eggs being laid and jealous that Ryder probably had gotten to see the eggs being laid.

Then Katrina entered the room.

"I take it you heard the news?" Katrina asked me, a smile on her face. She was just as excited as I was. "It really is incredible just how far you have come. You've accomplished your mission of giving Death Strike a new chance. A life."

I was shocked at the praise from her, surprised I wasn't getting a speech about how I had abandoned my family for dinosaurs.

"You did all that and yet you never looked at your bank account," Katrina said, her voice growing colder. "You merely have a thousand dollars saved up. That's not even enough to support yourself, let alone all the people here that depend on you."

I was about to argue against her, but I stopped myself. That was true. I did need to make some more dough.

"Get the cameras fired up," I told Katrina. "If I make a video for YouTube about the eggs that should get us enough cash to hold us over. At least for now."

Katrina gave me the still-you-better-have-a-plan look, before leaving out the door to go take care of my video.

"You could do that thing with the millionaires again," Ryder suggested once Katrina was out of earshot. I nodded my head. I was sure something like that would have to be arranged to give the preserve more long-term sustainability.

"We need to get the preserve ready for that," I said. "Tell Katrina to cook something up for me. The rest of the team needs to start getting this place into tip-top shape." Ryder nodded his head and went to get things done.

For the next month, the lot of us worked very hard getting everything that needed to be done, done. I was astounded at the astronomical amount of things on our to-do list: hallways had to be swept, new viewing apparatus created, YouTube videos to be filmed for more money, and of course a whole bunch of eggs to be closely monitored.

That month we had many close scrapes with our budget, but between the YouTube videos and fundraising and the tickets bought for touring our preserve, we finally got out of financial difficulty.

Things were looking pretty good on the preserve too: I had let Joshua build that neighborhood just as he wanted, I had made a cool viewing thing for the ornitholestes, and I had practically recreated every other thing that had been at the old preserve here in Mexico so that everything felt like home — but upgraded.

At last, the day came when the billionaires showed up for their tour.

A bunch of rich people were standing in front of the entrance to Coelurus Canyon looking around curiously, making small talk with each other. I walked up to them, nervous, hoping this wouldn't be like last time.

"Hello everybody," I said, greeting the crowd. "I hope I found you all in good standing today because you are all about to see something incredible. Something that nobody thought existed until not too long ago. Welcome to what I call: the world of dinosaurs."

The billionaires nodded their heads, enjoying my flair.

SO FAR, SO GOOD, I thought to myself. NOW I JUST CAN'T MESS IT UP FROM HERE.

I led the coelurus down to the second floor of the Coelurus Canyon where I let the billionaires roam around a bit and read stuff. Wet their appetites for what was about to come. It was only when I felt the anticipation that I moved on.

"And here," I said, leading the richie-rich down the stairs, "is where you will get as close to dinosaurs as you will ever be while still being safe. Welcome to the heart of Coelurus Canyon."

I turned the corner that revealed the coelurus tending to their new batch of eggs that they had laid during our month of hard labor. I was glad to see that the billionaires were more than impressed.

I saw selfies taken, live videos recorded, and even an emotional FaceTime call with a nephew. It really shocked me how much people connected to these creatures. When I thought about it, we were really quite the same: both creatures that were facing major issues in their day-to-day life, just trying to survive one day at a time in this world that they shared.

I probably ended up staying in the canyon for an hour, waiting for the billionaires to finish up with their business, but at one point I decided that we had to move on.

I led them out of the canyon and showed them a multitude of things, including the village that Joshua had designed, the holding cage for dinosaurs, and the sick facility that Ryder had designed without my permission.

They were all impressed by the work that I had put in, but it was nothing like their reaction to the ornitholestes.

I led the group through the building right outside the ornitholestes habitat and was about to walk up a stairwell to a new exhibit that we had made when I got a text from Katrina. It said:

I don't know if this is a good idea to do a drive-by of the nest. I tried to but Opportunity jumped up on the platform and seemed like she was in full mama-bear mode. I had to slowly back the vehicle away to prevent her from attacking. I sense the babies are going to hatch soon so I blocked off that part of the bridge. Make sure you put in your earpiece just in case.

At last I got done reading the long text and led my group up the stairs.

"At last," I said. "I show you guys what you have all been waiting for. This here is our ornitholestes habitat with a really cool feature to it. I've designed a ramp that weaves through the multi-acre inhabitant that can be ridden on with armored go-karts or walked along. The best part? The ornitholestes don't even know you are above them because the supports are camouflaged as trees."

I led my group onto the ramp and they all almost immediately took off walking or racing off in one of the go-karts.

I sat down on the side of the ramp as Ryder walked up to me. I felt oddly satisfied with how life was going right now: nothing seemed wrong and everything was going just how I wanted it.

"I hope nobody does anything stupid," I said, gazing at the racing karts in the distance.

"We can handle it if it really comes down to that," Ryder said grimly, but with confidence. Ryder sat down next to me and we sat with each other for a while enjoying the view from our perch.

"That kid," I heard Katrina's voice in my ear, making me jump. "The billionaire's son that we invited. He rammed through the dinky blockade that we had set up. Opportunity is heading his way awfully quickly."

I heard a scream in the distance as I was running towards a supped-up go-kart of mine that went extra fast in case of emergencies — just like this one.

"You take the other one, Ryder," I said as I fastened my seat belt. "Bring the tranq just in case."

I sped through the inter-networking bridge system that we had made, trying not to hit other karts as I sped past them.

"Opportunity just jumped up on the bridge," Katrina said over my speaker, making me almost crash into the guardrail. "She is approaching the kart slowly. As long as that kid doesn't make any sudden movements we should be fine. Getting on his com system in the kart now."

I said a silent prayer that he wouldn't do anything stupid. I didn't need another dead kid on my consciousness. It would wreck me.

I heard Katrina curse over the speaker.

"That idiot just hit the reverse pedal as hard as he could. Opportunity just jumped on the kart and is tearing away the reinforced metal."

I didn't take my foot off the gas pedal. I was not going to let this happen.

"Opportunity is to the last layer of metal," I heard Katrina say, right as I saw the makeshift blockade that we had set up. I whizzed through it and drifted to a stop, getting out of my car to face Opportunity as soon as I could.

"Stop!" I yelled. Opportunity looked up from the kart that she was sniffing curiously. I could have sworn she grinned at me.

"Get down," I said and started walking over to her. She bolted off the platform and into the woods. What a punk.

"Get everybody off the platforms," I said over the intercom. "I have the boy."

I approached the car, lifted the top off with the emergency latch. A kid about my age was trembling in the seat. I extended a hand and helped him out of the car.

"You okay?" I asked him, roving my eyes up and down his body checking for bumps or scrapes. There was nothing that I could see.

"I'm fine," the boy spat. "I had everything under control. It was just an overgrown bird."

I frowned at his reaction. I was used to overjoyed thank-you's, not whatever this kid was giving me.

"You can take that broken kart home," I said, laughing inside. "Hopefully it works."

I saw the kid turn green as I hopped into my car and shut the door. He ran up to me and banged on the glass in between us.

"What is it?" I said, opening the glass. "Don't want to walk?"

We ended up squishing into the same cart until we were safely away from where the ornitholestes were nesting. I dropped the boy off to walk the rest of the way. He needed to learn his lesson.

Suddenly, alarms started to blare, lights flashing everywhere.

"Get to command," I heard Katrina say, her voice trembling over the loudspeaker. Something big was going down, like nothing I had ever witnessed before.

Chapter 21

Magnus Destructor looked happy. No, not happy—thrilled.
"Have you released the first wave of our army?" he said, rubbing his hands together in glee as he looked down at his subordinate below. He was cowering in fear.

"Yes sir, the babies have been released," said the man who had orchestrated the whole thing. "The city has dissolved into chaos. The babies have been trained well."

"You taught them to kill?" Magnus Destructor asked.

"Yes, we've taught them to kill any living thing in a mile radius around their kill," the man said. "Nothing can escape their grasp."

"Then you are dismissed," Magnus Destructor said, turning on the news to see the bloodbath that he had orchestrated. Today was going to be a good day.

Chapter 22

I drove faster than I ever had to our main center of command. I could feel my body shaking, scared of what I was about to see.

When I burst into the command center, Katrina was looking at a wall monitor that had the news on. I gasped when I saw the headline.

STRANGE BEASTS ARE DECIMATING THE LOS ANGELES AREA. HUNDREDS DEAD. ALL COUNTIES SURROUNDING THE AREA BEING EVACUATED.

I looked at the screen, tears beginning to stream down my face, as I saw thousands of ornitholestes, juveniles by the looks of it, ripping innocent people to shreds.

"What is this?" I demanded, looking at Katrina. I was at a loss for words other than that. How could this even be happening? It was so random but felt so personal to me.

"The military want you to get down there with Death Strike ASAP. You can take the helicopter," Katrina told me, but I was already moving.

I ran right back out onto the platforms, past a bewildered group of billionaires. I jumped into my kart, ignoring their wondering cries of alarm. I slammed on the gas.

In minutes, I was back at the place where Death Strike and Opportunity were nesting. My legs were shaking with adrenaline.

I jumped over the guardrail without hesitation. Now was not the time to worry about Death Strike not being there with the eggs. Millions were dying all because I had found him in the first place.

I sprinted to the nest, but Death Strike got to me before I could even get there. He nuzzled me, but also sensed that something was wrong. I jumped on his back and urged him to get back to the base.

In no time we were there. I jumped off of Death Strike's back, my shirt already drenched in sweat, my heart pounding. Ryder was waiting for me by the helipad. I ran up to him.

"Have you heard," I said, giving him a hug. He nodded his head solemnly.

Within ten minutes we were all in the helicopter, with the new pilot, Mack, at the wheel. I expected that Katrina was going to come, but after we had Elena and Ryder I figured we were good to go. I didn't have time to wait for her.

The helicopter ride over to Los Angeles was one of the most stressful things I had ever witnessed. It was super hard for me to have to sit back and watch the carnage on the TV while I sat back in a helicopter waiting to arrive on the scene.

After an hour of flight I could see the great city in the distance. Already, I could see smoke rising from certain areas and helicopters flying everywhere, hovering above the carnage. My heart started to pound.

Within the next ten minutes we had landed the helicopter in a base that the military had set up. As soon as our helicopter came to a standstill me and Death Strike jumped out.

I saw men running around with bazookas on their shoulders, all the while explosions were going off in the distance. Even the air was hard to breathe because of all the smoke permeating the air. Los Angeles was a war zone.

"Stop where you are!" I looked for the source of the call and saw a couple soldiers aiming their guns at me and Death Strike. I froze.

"What's going on over here?" a military commander said, walking over. When he saw Death Strike, he stopped in his tracks.

"He won't hurt you, as long as you don't hurt him," I said slowly. I saw understanding dawn on the commander's face.

"You're that kid, aren't you?" he said. "The one that has one of the little demons tamed?"

I nodded my head. It wasn't exactly accurate but close enough. The commander stepped forward to shake my hand. He seemed relatively calm with all the explosions and whatnot permeating the sound in the background. My palms were sweaty in fear, making it an awkward handshake.

"I am the leader of the U.S. military," the general said. "My name is Roddy Laiz. If you could give us info about these creatures we will be eternally in your debt. Meet me in my briefing room and I'll tell you what is going on."

It was all business, no 'how are you?'. People were dying and we didn't have time for basic formalities. I felt my leg start to shake in fear of it all. This happened sometimes, when I was pushed to the brink of exhaustion and adrenaline started to take over.

I started to walk towards the main meeting tent when a specialist of some sort ran up to me and started asking me questions about the juvenile ornitholestes. I told him to talk to my sister, called up Katrina, and handed him the phone. I didn't have the space in my brain right now to talk technicalities.

I handed over the phone and kept walking as fast as I could. All around me I saw things that reminded me that the city, really the world, was in danger. Windows were shattered, shells from bazookas were scattered on the ground, and the moaning of the wounded pierced through the air, louder than the sound of sirens that were all around.

I finally entered the tent. The commander I had met was just starting to speak so I told Death Strike to wait outside and sat in the back, trying to be inconspicuous.

"We have finally gotten some intel about these creatures," the general said. "Our sources say that they are easily the most intelligent creatures on this earth. They have big claws and teeth, but the biggest thing that they seem to have in their favor is their large numbers. Right now, the majority of the horde is moving in on West Hollywood. Our team will start an offensive attack there."

Suddenly, something burst from behind the canvas and jumped on a man behind the general. The ornitholestes the size of a turkey killed him before anyone could react.

"Shoot him! Shoot him!" I heard somebody yell out as Death Strike ran into the room scaring off the juvenile.

A medic carried off the dead soldier, but Roddy seemed unconcerned with that. His eyes were fixed on me.

"Why didn't you tell me he could do that?" he asked me, annoyed.

"I didn't even realize that they were that small," I said, going on to say that where there was one, more would be on the way, so we should probably get out of there.

The base started to clear out, and I hopped on Death Strike urging him out of the base. As soon as I left the barriers between me and the disaster outside, I gulped.

Carnage. That was the best word for it. Dead bodies littered the street, where ornitholestes were feasting on their kills. Glass was everywhere littering the floor. Cars seemed to clog the streets, but most of them were empty, the owners having fled long ago. The whole thing was covered in the subtle smell of smoke, as a cloud of darkness descended from a nearby fire over the city.

Still, I was done sitting in the military base, giving info. I wanted to be out there saving people, even if it was at the cost of my own life. After a couple of minutes of hard running we reached a skyscraper that had juveniles running in and out of the building. Bullets were spraying over the whole thing, even though they didn't seem to be doing much.

The ornitholestes were just too numerous and too fast. I only saw a couple of dinosaur bodies lying on the ground. Not nearly enough.

"Cease fire!" I yelled as I ran into the melee. Bullets stopped flying as Death Strike ran after a little pack of ornitholestes, snatching up one of them, tearing off its head. All the while, I hung on for dear life, my heart beating faster than the spray of gunfire that had started up on the other side of the skyscraper.

I urged Death Strike into the building. Maybe we could save some people in there.

Inside the building the first floor was deserted, so I nudged Death Strike to the stairs where we promptly headed up. On the first landing a lady was getting eaten alive by the ornitholestes. Death Strike roared, scaring the demons off.

"Get to the military," I told the woman, my heart ripping apart because I knew that I couldn't carry her down the stairs. It would waste precious time.

I pushed up the stairs with Death Strike, chasing the ornitholestes up the stairs and out of hallways that they had managed to get into, all the while yelling at the top of my lungs to get heck out of the dang building.

I double tapped the earpiece the military had given me.

"Tell all the people in these buildings to get into the street," I said, panting, trying to hang on to Death Strike who was on his wild chase. "The dinosaurs thrive in small spaces. If we can get what we need to protect into the open we can see the dinosaurs coming."

I didn't bother to ask if they had gotten my message. I turned off the intercom. Right now I needed to focus on the task at hand.

Death Strike kept bounding up stairs, trying to catch up with the pack, while my heart pounded as I exerted myself trying to hang on to Death Strike, whose muscles were moving, jostling below my butt.

I craned my head up and looked ahead of us at the pack of coelurus. Something was wrong. I stared at the little pack for a few precious seconds before I figured out what it was. Little.

Where had all the other little guys gone?

Suddenly, I felt something heavy slam into my back so hard I was almost thrown off of Death Strike. I reached my hands around and punched the little menace right off of my back, but not before he slashed at me, making my shirt turn red with blood.

The pain was unbearable. My heartbeat that had been going ever so fast was beginning to slow down from the loss of blood.

Then another little devil dropped down from above and latched onto Death Strike's neck. Everything happened in slow motion as the ornitholestes started to dig his claws into Death Strike's neck.

"NOOOOOOO!" I yelled as I swung my fist down at the piece of vermin. Time sped up again as my fist hit him and the little demon went flying right off of Death Strike, but not without leaving his mark. Now Death Strike was bleeding profusely too.

I urged Death Strike to turn around and head down the stairs. In moments we were back out the door of the building.

Outside, hell was breaking loose. All the people that had evacuated the building were trying to get into cars and drive off, but with the ornitholestes everywhere, people were wrecking as the little beasts got into cars and mutilated people, making the cars wreck. It was horrible to witness.

Death Strike came to a standstill trying to catch his breath. I had never seen him like this before. He seemed defeated. Like all was lost.

The smoke was getting even thicker so that it was blocking out the sun, but with the last rays of light that we had, I saw a helicopter fly by the skyscraper that I had just come out of. Little raptors jumped from the top of the tower onto the water carrier, making their way to the cockpits of the helicopters.

"Get everybody away from here!" I yelled at the top of my lungs as I grabbed an injured lady and jumped on Death Strike. We ran for it.

I craned my neck behind me and gasped at what I was witnessing. The raptors had punctured the canvas of the water carrier and all the water was gushing out hitting the skyscraper. Windows were blown out, desks were thrown out those windows by the force of the water. All sorts of things flew out of the skyscraper hitting the people below, turning the area into a hit zone for flying objects. I even saw people thrown out of the skyscraper.

After the water stopped, I took a deep breath. Maybe we would be okay after all. Of course just after I thought that, the helicopter came back in for round two. From what I saw an ornitholestes got in the cockpit and killed the pilot. The helicopter careened into the side of the skyscraper. A massive explosion rocked my ears and the building started to tip over.

"Move it!" I yelled over the screams of terrified people. I turned Death Strike around to try to do something but there was nothing that I could do. People were running around hysterically. There was nothing I could do.

Then I saw a woman cowering under the shadow of the building, a baby crying in her arms. I stopped by her and she climbed on Death Strike's back.

Death Strike ran. He ran faster than I had ever seen him go, into a building that by some miracle had a basement. I jumped off of Death Strike as I heard more explosions erupting above us, and got all the people I had managed to grab under a large desk.

Then I remember the ceiling caving in making a very loud noise that nearly blew out my eardrums. Everything went black.

Chapter 23

When I woke up, I felt Death Strike's soft nose nudging me. I started to cry as I felt the pain radiating through my body. Still, I was overjoyed to be alive and tried to hug Death Strike. I couldn't.

My arms were pinned down under rubble from the fallen skyscraper. I heard a baby crying not too far away from me. Thank the Lord it had survived.

"Please... help..." I murmured into the earpiece that I could still feel in my ear. I heard shouting voices on the other end.

"Help is on the way," I vaguely remember hearing a voice say. "I'm tracking your coordinates from here. What is your situation?"

I worked up the strength to speak, though it was hard because I was so fatigued.

DO IT FOR THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU, I thought to myself. That baby deserved a chance at life. I couldn't give up now.

"I... am... trapped under a... fallen... building..." I managed to croak out. Somebody started to say something through the earpiece, but everything went dark again, and I was welcomed into the silent folds of darkness.

"I got him," I felt someone pull me out of the rubble. I tried to open my eyes but found that I couldn't do it. The energy was not there. I passed back out.

When I finally came around for good, I was in a hospital with my family huddled around me. The first thing I noticed, really felt, was how my body hurt. It felt like a thousand needles were poking into me and on top of that somebody set me on fire.

"Kolin..." my sister said quietly, tears streaming down her face. She moved over to me and held my hand.

"We were all so worried for you," Ryder said quietly. "That building that collapsed... and the time that it took to dig you out of the rubble."

Now it was Ryder's turn to start to cry. I tried to lay as still as I could in my bed.

"I love you," was all that I felt I could get out.

"I love you too," Elena said as she squeezed my hand. I tried my best to squeeze her back.

A whole month went by of me being held up in that hospital. A lot happened in that month. Friends visited me as did the staff from my preserve. At one point even Raydawn and Tamara came and we had quite the reunion.

Raydawn told me his story. Apparently he had been in the city when everything went down, only narrowly escaping with his life. As we recalled it, he even recounted how he had driven by the same fallen skyscraper that I had been trapped under.

As for the city of Los Angeles, it was only a shadow of what it had once been. All the world's powers got together and decided that it would be the end of humanity if ornitholestes got together and started to breed.

So, what I would call The Bombing started. The U.S. would go in and bomb the city wherever the ornitholestes would turn up. Still there were hundreds of them running free.

In the end a wall was put up around the city of Los Angeles so big and strong that nothing could get past it. It was a feat of technology that ended up becoming one of the wonders of the modern world.

As for me and my relationship with dinosaurs, I decided I needed to start putting my family and friends first, though I still loved my dinosaurs.

Even so, I found that the man who had started all this evil was still very much alive and lurking in the shadows planning his next assault.

Regardless of what evil was lurking in the world, when I got out of bed at last, I just wanted to go see Death Strike. I walked down to the habitat, jumping in a go-kart to go see him at the nesting site. When I got there, I couldn't believe my eyes. The eggs that Opportunity had laid so long ago were hatching.

I hastily got my family around, my staff, and even Raydawn and Tamara. At last I felt at peace as I watched a new generation of ornitholestes enter the world.

The End