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Sammy was intimately familiar with terror. It lived deep in her bones. In flesh scarred since the tender age of fifteen. Somewhere in her soul, where she would never really be able to get it out.
She knew fear of all kinds. The electric burning of a predator in close pursuit, constricting her chest with the knowledge that one false step would be the end of everything. The quiet, gnawing dread of isolation; everyone she cared about miles away and her texts going unanswered, never knowing when her next real conversation would be.
But this, right now, topped everything. This was a special kind of hell.
How could we have left Yaz behind?
She wanted to be angry. At Darius and Kenji for not seeing her. At the boats for not moving fast enough. At Zayna for not letting them travel by land. Mostly, at herself for not trying harder to get Yaz on her boat instead of just leaving and trusting that things would work out. But the anger came and went in waves, while the terror remained a constant pain in her gut and chest.
Did she find somewhere to hide?
What if we don't get to her in time?
Is she even still there?
Where do we look if she's not there?
What if I can't find her?
Sammy didn't even want to think about that last one. If she couldn't find Yaz after leaving her alone with two huge, aggressive animals, she knew where her mind would go, and she needed to keep it from that place for as long as possible. She couldn't panic yet. She couldn't grieve preemptively. Not until she knew for sure. Until then, Yaz needed her, and she couldn't afford to fall apart.
Darkness had fallen by the time the boats, with their sluggish motors, made it back to familiar surroundings. The rest stop wasn't far now, and Sammy leaned forward over the front of the boat, hoping for a glimpse of something. Yaz running toward them, or waiting for them, or any sign that she was alive and okay.
Instead, when the rest stop finally came into view, she saw a massive, bloody hippo carcass by the riverbank, and no trace of her girlfriend. She gripped the edge of the boat tightly, her stomach churning.
"Where's the Suchomimus?" Darius whispered.
"There." Zayna gestured up ahead, a little ways off to the side of the bar, where the beast had curled up to sleep under a tree. In the dark, Sammy had briefly mistaken it for more foliage.
They killed the engine so as not to make any sound and let the boat drift slowly to shore. Ben and Kenji did the same in their boat, and together all five of them climbed out onto solid ground.
"Maybe Yaz is hiding in the bar," Kenji murmured. God, Sammy hoped so.
"Let's split up," Ben decided. "Kenji and I will look outside, the rest of you check inside. Do not wake the Sucho."
Under different circumstances, perhaps there would be more reluctance to sneaking around a sleeping dinosaur that had already tried to eat them multiple times, but with Yaz's safety on the line, it wasn't even a question. Sammy, for her part, split off immediately without waiting for Darius or Zayna. In all honestly, she didn't care whether anyone followed her. All she could think of at the moment was Yaz, terrified and alone.
What must she be thinking? Was she furious with the group for leaving her behind, or was she just in survival mode? Had she even hunkered down here to wait for help, or simply fled?
Please be here, Sammy thought desperately. I came back for you, darlin'. Please be here.
The wood creaking beneath her feet seemed painfully loud as she entered the small, open building. The place was a mess of broken dishes and overturned chairs, and she remembered belatedly that there was still a body in the back. She wanted to think that Yaz would have steered clear, but if her life depended on it...
Don't do that to her. Sammy didn't pray much these days; after everything she'd endured in her life, it was hard to believe there was anyone listening anyway. But there in that bar, creeping toward where she'd found Sullivan's body not even an hour ago, she prayed harder than she had in years. She's got it bad enough tonight. Don't make her hide next to a dead man too.
Being alone with an aggressive dinosaur for the first time in years already had the potential to do some unpleasant things to Yaz's mental state and all the progress she'd made. Add in the psychological impact of forced proximity to a corpse, and Sammy would be just about ready to say there definitely wasn't any God, because none could ever possibly be so cruel.
But when she finally made it, fighting nausea and a strong instinct not to look, she found no sign of Yaz. Relief and frustration hit her together as equals.
She made her way back toward Darius and Zayna, who had also come up empty. The bar wasn't large, and between the three of them, they could definitely say by now that Yaz wasn't here.
So, where the hell was she?
Sammy risked a glance at the Suchomimus through the open side of the bar. Still sleeping. Still unaware. That was all she really meant to check, but something in her peripheral vision caused her eyes to shift slightly, and that was when she noticed it.
A hand sticking out from the foliage, not far at all from the sleeping dinosaur. Sammy's blood ran cold.
NO, NO, NO!
Before anyone could stop her, before they could even begin to realize what she'd seen, she broke into a run. She didn't care what else she was sprinting toward. The dinosaur didn't matter. The risk didn't matter. The rest of the world might as well have stopped existing.
Shaking and breathing hard, Sammy stepped around the side of the bush and immediately fell to her knees. Her arms lunged forward, frantically grasping at the prone form, her mind stuck in a one-word loop.
Yaz, Yaz, Yaz, Yaz, Yaz, Yaz, Yaz.
Yaz wasn't moving. Even as Sammy pulled her close and instinctively began to shake her, she remained limp and still. Though the lack of any noticeable blood did quell some of the more gruesome images that had been plaguing Sammy's thoughts, one side of her face, from the eye to the forehead, was noticeably darker. Sammy had never seen a bruise like that before.
She'd hit her head. She'd hit her head, and she wasn't moving.
"Yaz!" Sammy screamed at full volume, still shaking her even as it occurred to her that maybe she ought to keep the head still. "Yaz, wake up!"
"Sammy!"
Someone was shouting at her, but she didn't care.
"Come on, come on," she continued, fighting tears and the urge to sob. She cradled Yaz in her lap and, for lack of anything else to do with her antsy hands, began frantically sweeping hair out of her bruised face. "Come on, baby, talk to me. Look at me, please."
"Sammy!"
Nothing. Not even a twitch or groan. For a single, heart-stopping moment, she wasn't even entirely sure Yaz was breathing.
"SAMMY!"
Finally, she looked up in the direction of the yelling, but Darius and Zayna were looking past her, their eyes wide with horror. Sammy's gut twisted with some vague realization as she turned her head to see behind her.
She'd woken the Suchomimus. Of course she had. She'd probably woken half of Senegal with all her screaming.
The beast loomed over her, blinking sleep from its eyes even as it pulled its lips back in a snarl. Sammy pressed Yaz to her chest as if to take her and run, but with the additional burden, she knew the chances of even getting to her feet in time were slim. In the end, it was Ben and Kenji that saved their lives.
"OVER HERE!" they shouted in unison, throwing rocks and sticks and whatever else littered the ground around them.
The Suchomimus shook its head in irritation as they pelted it with anything and everything they could reasonably grab and throw. With a deep snarl, it abandoned Sammy and Yaz and whirled around to pursue its new attackers, who quickly turned tail to flee. With the precious time they'd bought her, Sammy hauled herself to her feet with Yaz in tow and immediately kicked off into another sprint, this time toward the boats.
She thought, or maybe hoped, that the others were following, but she didn't have the bandwidth to check or slow down. The majority of her focus was still on Yaz, dead weight in her arms, head bouncing lightly against her chest. Oh, she hoped that wouldn't make anything worse. All this movement of her head probably wasn't good for the concussion Yaz certainly had.
"SAMMY, STOP!"
Sammy didn't even know who said it, but she trusted the voice instinctively. She stopped dead in her tracks, very nearly falling over from the momentum, and waited.
Something else was stepping out of the tree line, into the space between Sammy and the boats. Had she not stopped when she did, Sammy probably would have run directly into it, and as her mind caught up with her eyes, she realized that her life had just been narrowly saved for the second time.
Majungsaurus.
Are you fucking kidding me?
It seemed more interested in the hippo carcass than her at the moment, but she didn't trust that its focus would remain there long enough to slip by it. She started to back up, glancing over her shoulder to check where the Suchomimus was.
At the same time, Kenji grabbed hold of Ben's arm and yanked him to the side before long, wicked jaws could snap shut where he'd just been. Frankly, Sammy could've done without the brief heart attack that occurred in the moment before his narrow escape.
A sharp whistle split the air; Darius trying to get the dinosaur's attention on him as he frantically shooed Zayna toward the relative safety of the bar. Unfortunately, he caught the wrong dinosaur's focus, and the Majungasaurus decided it preferred fresher meat.
Heart pounding, Sammy dove into the nearest foliage and hit the ground, throwing herself over Yaz as the Majungasaurus thundered past them. Something in her chest urged her to give chase, to do what she could to protect the others, but she couldn't leave Yaz defenseless.
Though she burned with indecision, she hunkered down where she was, crouched protectively beside her prone girlfriend. She would just have to hope Darius was fast enough. That Ben and Kenji could help him. That they wouldn't need saving themselves, with that Suchomimus still on them. That poor, young Zayna might avoid detection.
This wasn't fair. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be safe on her ranch, with Yaz uninjured at her side and her friends out of harm's way. Why had she agreed to get on that stupid boat? She should have insisted on returning to Texas or accepted Yaz's invitation to Wyoming when she'd had the chance.
Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. Maybe something else would have come along and killed them anyway, but at least they wouldn't be here.
"Please, not like this," she murmured, unsure of who exactly she was talking to. God, maybe, if there was one. All she knew was she didn't want any of them to die this way. Not so far from home. Not scared in the dark. Not like Brooklynn had.
Miraculously, through divine intervention or just plain luck, the Majungasaurus did not make a beeline for Darius, or any of Sammy's friends. It stomped right up to the Suchomimus and roared in challenge, inadvertently rescuing Ben and Kenji from its furious pursuit.
The Suchomimus spun around to confront its new rival just as the Majungasaurus charged head-first into it. They threw themselves into vicious combat; biting, scratching, shoving, crushing everything in their wake. No doubt, the victor would win the right to continue hunting the group, but this distraction may be enough to allow for a quick escape.
"This way!" Sammy hollered over the Suchomimus's agonized howl as its opponent's teeth raked its face.
Zayna crept out of the bar, slowly at first, and then sprinted back to Darius's side so they could make their way to the boats together. Kenji and Ben followed, arm-in-arm.
Satisfied that they were on their way, Sammy hoisted Yaz into her arms, hauled the both of them off the ground, and ran like absolute hell.
She reached the boats first and boarded immediately for Yaz's sake. Under other circumstances, she might have waited in case one of the others needed her double back, but with her girl on the line, she knew her priorities.
Fortunately, everyone made it in one piece. Kenji gave Yaz and Sammy's boat a firm push into the water and dove in beside them. The rest piled into the other, winded and terrified but otherwise unharmed.
They hit the water not a moment too soon. The Suchomimus let out a long, horrible shriek as the Majungasaurus clamped down on the back of its neck. Sammy shifted her gaze back to Yaz so she wouldn't have to see the blood spilling down the poor creature's body. The thud when it finally hit the ground, however, could not be blocked out so easily.
Nor could the footsteps of the victor, wandering back to the water's edge to claim its prize.
"It... can't swim, right?" Ben asked from off to the side in his boat.
"No," Darius replied, though the tremble in his voice did not give Sammy confidence.
She looked back, still holding Yaz close to her, as the Majungasaurus considered the drifting boats. They'll been so panicked that no one had started up the engines, but they floated further into the river all the same. To get to them, it would have to wade at least up to its hips, and for a creature that couldn't swim, that seemed an awful lot of trouble for just a few mouthfuls.
The hippo carcass would do after all. The beast sent them off with a displeased roar, then turned to pick over its fallen rival's leftovers, leaving the group to themselves.
Sammy all but collapsed in relief. Somehow, they'd all survived. She hadn't lost anyone else.
Kenji knelt beside her and quickly shattered the illusion that things were okay by reaching for Yaz.
"Is she...?"
Fuck.
Sammy looked over Yaz's bruised face and found her expression shifting. Her brow furrowed deeply as it sometimes did in the morning when she didn't want to wake up for her alarm, as if all those awful noises had just been another call to get up and help Sammy feed the chickens. What Sammy wouldn't give to be on the ranch feeding chickens with her right now.
"Chickpea?" Sammy tried softly. She turned Yaz over in her lap and gently patted the unmarred side of her face to rouse her.
Yaz sucked in a sharp breath and began to whimper. Sammy teared up instantly, never one to be able to stand the sight of her love in pain.
"Oh, sweetheart..." she keened. Her thumb caressed Yaz's cheek. "You're safe now. I've got you."
Yaz's face twisted into a grimace as her hand came up to massage her bruised temple. After a few seconds, her eyes fluttered open, staring blearily at nothing in particular.
"Yaz?" Sammy prompted, waving Kenji away so as not to crowd her.
It took a moment for Yaz's gaze to find her, and longer still for a dull spark of recognition.
"Sammy...?" she croaked.
Sammy didn't know exactly who or what to thank, but her heart soared to the sky to deliver the message anyway. Unable to hold herself back, she pulled Yaz into a tight hug.
"I was so scared!" Tears streamed freely down her face. "I'm so sorry. I should've stayed with you. If I'd know this would happen, I never would've left you there."
She would have stayed there, squeezing the life out of her partner and apologizing until she went blue in the face, if not for one thing. Yaz wasn't reacting. No response, no returned hug. Sammy pulled back to look at her.
Finally, Yaz's eyes seemed to focus fully. Still groggy, still slow, she smiled up at Sammy.
"You came back," she murmured weakly.
"Of course I did," Sammy replied. "Did you think I wouldn't?"
In truth, Yaz probably didn't know what she thought right now. Hitting her head hard enough to leave that mark, being unconscious for that long... it was sort of a miracle in itself that she was even talking. She definitely needed medical attention, though Sammy had no idea when or how they were going to manage that.
For now, she was just grateful things weren't as bad as they could have been.
"I'll always come back for you, Yaz," she said softly. "You hear me? No matter what happens, I will always come back for you."
Yaz rested her head against Sammy and managed a quiet, "I love you."
"I love you too." Sammy, finally with her wits enough about her to think to do so, began to gingerly prob the back of Yaz's head for additional injuries. "Don't sleep yet, alright? I'll be shocked if you don't have a concussion."
"Okay..."
"Good." Sammy pressed a kiss to the top of Yaz's head. "You just stay with me now."
"Not going anywhere." Yaz seemed to summon a bit more strength to put behind her words. "Never again. I promise."
Sammy let out a small, relieved sigh. She could work with that promise. On this creaky old boat, in this unfamiliar place, surrounded by these deadly predators, it might just be the best thing she'd get for a while.
Yes, she could work with that.