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The sharp CRACK of a branch made her let out a small gasp, followed by a quick hand over her mouth to cover up her mistake. It seemed to have been a few tenths of a second too late however, for next thing she knew Yaz was staring down the length of a spear.
Wait, spear?
“Ben?” she said, not even bothering to cover up the incredulity in her voice. Or the relief. Or the disappointment.
She was so sure she had been the only one to know about this little corner.
“Geez Fadoula, warn a guy next time!” the boy said, setting down his makeshift weapon and wiping his forehead with a sigh. Turning his back on her, Ben returned to his spot by the side of the creek and resumed sharpening it, seemingly having forgotten all about her.
Yaz bit her lower lip in indecision—what was she to do here? Why was Ben sitting out here all alone, with neither Darius nor Mae nor Firecracker to be found? Has there been a fight between them? Was she intruding on Ben?
Wait, intrude? The nerve! She found this place first!
Which she then promptly told no one about, of course. She was big, strong, mysterious Yasmina. She deserved to be alone to brood every now and then, thank you very much.
“You okay?”
Ben’s voice snapped her out of said broodings, and she gave a shrug and flapped her scrapbook around nonchalantly in a well-practiced motion, Track Star smile out in full force.
“Yeah. Just wanted some peace and quiet, that’s all. All that running and babysitting’s not doing my creative juices any favors, you know!”
Running. Screaming.
Her frantic cries only drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in her own ears.
If Ben noticed any of her slips, then he didn’t show it. The younger boy simply shrugged and returned to his work. “Well, by all means. I’ve been told by very reliable sources that I’m the perfect partner for chilling next to.”
Yaz could not help a chuckle of her own as she made her way to the rocky shore and sat down next to him. “And would any of these sources happen to be human?”
And just like that, Ben’s entire demeanor changed. It was like clockwork: his rhythmic movements paused and fell out of sync, his eyes grew large and unfocused, and a tiny dopey smile formed on his lips; the kind you liked to have privately to yourself that you hoped the other person wouldn’t catch on. All of this, because of…
“One of them may be.”
Darius. Of course. Yaz would never admit it under pain of death, but it was the most endearing thing she had ever seen. But she was still Yasmina, so naturally she punched him on the shoulder, right where his scar was and delighting from the outraged yelp she elicited out of him. “You’re beyond help, Pincus,” she said with a snort, pulling out her pencils and eraser and settling to her work.
“Like you’re one to talk.”
For a while nothing interrupted the two as they were engrossed in their respective activities. Two sounds—stone against metal and graphite on paper—that would normally have no business being anywhere close to each other now found themselves adding their own notes to each other’s little duet, just like the circumstances that have brought their patchwork family together.
A shadow loomed over Yaz’s sketch, and she lazily looked up expecting to swat Ben’s curious face off for messing up her lighting. What she saw however, made her freeze on the spot.
It was the blue raptor.
“B—Be…”
Her voice lodged in her throat and her body refusing to cooperate, Yaz could do nothing but helplessly watch as the dinosaur bared her teeth and let out a blood-curdling screech. She felt trapped inside her own head, banging on a glass pane and screaming at her body to move, to warn Ben, to do something. Instead, her pencil slipping out of her frozen fingers and clattering onto the stones was the only sound she could make.
The raptor lowered her body and tilted her head, looking Yaz up and down as if judging whether or not to take her on. Finally, seemingly satisfied, she let out another horrid screech, and pounced.
“Hey, what gives?”
Ben’s face suddenly appeared right in front of her, cutting off her vision of the raptor and putting himself directly right on its path. His expression showed no signs of alarm or danger though. If anything, the younger boy looked… displeased?
“Okay Fadoula, I know it’s been a good while seen we last saw Bumpy, but her bump was on her left side, not her right,” Ben said, voice barely audible over the sound of the charging predator behind him, “And could you do something about Darius’ eyes?”
To her continued fear and frustration, Yaz could not do anything but watch as the raptor leaped high into the air, claws raised like deadly sickles as they soared through an arc that led straight for the blond’s head…
And vanished the moment they made contact.
“Ha… what?” she finally managed, causing him to look at her with his patented ‘bitch face’.
“Come on, have you not been paying attention at all? Darius’ eyes are way more expressive than this. And you forgot his necklace.”
“If I paid any more attention to him I may have to fight you off. Which I will win,” she retorted with a smirk of her own, hoping it didn’t look as shaky as she felt. Ben, to his credit, simply rolled his eyes and stood up. He dusted himself off right on top of her, prompting her to punch his shin in retaliation.
“I’m heading back,” he said, slinging his spear horizontally across his shoulders and placing one hand on his hip. “Make sure you don’t miss dinner. Sammy will never let us hear the end of it.”
Sammy. Heartbroken and grief-stricken, because it was Yaz that drove her away.
Sammy, paler than death and spasming on the ground, and no matter how hard Yaz tried she just couldn’t be fast enough, strong enough…
Sammy’s face, swallowed up by the ashen water as their ship crumbled to pieces…
“I’ll probably beat you to it,” she told him with a jerk of her chin, and he just shook his head with a chuckle and walked off. Alone now, she shakily picked up the pencil and checked her drawing again. There was a dark smudge at the edge of the page where her vision had messed it up, but nothing she couldn’t fix—
“One more thing.”
The sudden return of Ben’s voice almost made her jump, but whatever curse she was about to fling at him died at his next words.
“I see Bumpy all the time after we got here.”
“I… huh?” Yaz managed intelligently. What was he on about? Bumpy?
“I see her everywhere. In the mirror, in the water, heck, sometimes I’d wake up swearing I still feel her hide digging into my skin. It happens.” The younger boy shrugged, but there was a hidden intensity in his eyes Yaz had not noticed until now, wrapped up in her own grief as she was.
It never occurred to her that that grief could be felt by someone else too.
“And all I’m saying is… well, it helps if you talk about it to someone. Probably not me though, but… someone. Someone who understands. Someone you trust.”
Their eyes locked, a clash of brown and blue. And for the first time, Yasmina had to look away.
Staring down the Scorpios was easier than this.
“Hasn’t Sammy been through enough?” she whispered, reaching out one hand to dab at the corner of her eye.
“Haven’t you?”
Blast it. When did he get so bloody good at feelings?!
“I… I’ll think about it. I can’t promise more.”
“Mhm,” he replied with a gentle smile and, just like with that disastrous misunderstanding in Mae’s kitchen, followed it up with a soft pat on her shoulder. This time though it was far more sincere. “I used to think Darius wanted me to stay on Nublar too, but when I saw his hand reaching for me from the ship I— I realized something.”
He let go of her and moved to palm the back of his neck bashfully, color flooding his cheeks. Yaz couldn’t help a small giggle at the sight—this was the Ben she knew.
“That when you love someone, you don’t make their decisions for them.”
He turned to look at her one last time, saying, “Let Sammy in, Yaz,” and then was off.
Yasmina just stood, breathing in and out slowly, evently. She was alone now, in every sense of the word: no dinosaurs, no visions. Slowly she brought up her sketchbook once more and flipped to her unfinished work, only to find no Bumpy nor Darius that Ben had so adamantly demanded her to fix.
It was just a single portrait sketch. Far from complete, but the subject was unmistakable.
“Benjamin, you little DINGUS!” she half-yelled, half-laughed, causing a tiny flock of birds from a nearby bush to flee from this sudden cackling creature. Bolting after him now with a spring in her steps, Yasmina grinned from ear to ear as she contemplated all the different ways she could strangle him once she got home.
Home. Because that was what she was headed. It followed her from one dinosaur-infested jungle to another, from gyrospheres to ziplines to cruise ships.
And it would continue to follow her—as long as she followed Sammy.