Chapter eight

I hug my arms to me as I step down the cold, early-morning streets of the tourist town. I'm looking for a police station, somewhere to go for help. The stores are just opening and there are few people around.

My thoughts keep turning back to that Velociraptor.

What on Erathia had happened to him? The Sable I saw on my last visit to DinoLand was cute and little, albeit a little violent. This thing that kidnapped me was tall and frightening...what caused that kind of drastic change? Some sort of mutation from the cloning process, perhaps?

It doesn't matter now. I'll probably hear about it on the news. Jeez, I'm probably front-page story, and the people of DinoLand are no doubt very, very nervous.

My thoughts turn once again to what a cloned dinosaur thinks about. Does he know that I am gone? Is he angry, is he searching? Does Sable seek me like so much meat, or like one of his Pack that has gotten lost and needs his help?

Probably. He still thinks like a Velociraptor, but with Elven intelligence fueling it, that much is for sure. If he's not angry that I left him all by himself, he's ticked that I ran and probably convinced I went to find my pack and tell them where he's at.

I sigh, shaking off the previous days' images. I try to forget the flashing teeth and the glistening scales. Sable's gone now, I don't have to worry about him. By the time he finds me, I'll be watching his creator carry him away in a metal cage. I swear I'll laugh when they do.

For a second, the image flashes through my mind. Sable crouches in the metal cage, his piercing blue eyes locked on mine. There is so much sorrow, so much pain locked in them that they sting.

I gasp and shake them away. Sable's just an animal. My kidnapping proves that.

There is no one on the streets. It is barely light out. I am cold and wrap my arms tighter around me. My feet hurt from walking all night long, and I would stop and sit down, perhaps even fall asleep, if I didn't have the insane paranoia that I was being stalked by a 'raptor anthro on the prowl driving me. I just hope someone looks out their store window and sees me, my messy hair, tear-stained face, and miserable expression and asks me what happened.

Preferably from that fudge shop over there. Yes, chocolate would be really, really good right about now.

I swallow hard, my throat dry and sore. My pulse pounds against my ears. I'm so tired I wouldn't be surprised if I just passed out right now, on my feet, like when people in ROTC lock their knees.

Never lock your knees unless you like the taste of the ground.

I yawn, moving endlessly forward. You would think that a tourist town would have a police department someplace noticeable. At least when the shops finish opening, I can walk in and ask for a phone. No doubt I'm front-page news.

"Tourist Girl Kidnapped by Scaly Monster". Oh, yes, DinoLand is facing the BIGGEST lawsuit in history and I hope that I own their great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren's souls, and all the money any of them will ever have...ever.

I stretch a little, then freeze, my arms in the air and my back muscles tight. I haven't done my exercises since we stayed the first night in the hotel, and I am starting to feel very stiff. Sitting in a car for a whole day straight and then walking all night hasn't helped.

My so-called friends, do they miss me? They were supposed to be my best friends, we were supposed to be tighter than two strands in a rope. But they didn't love me enough, or possibly respect me enough, maybe both, to not go into the 'raptor center. Granted I whined the entire day, but I saw Sable's pack eat two guards and try to escape. Didn't that deserve just a little bit of understanding on their part?

Nope, guess not. But that's democracy for you. The majority rules, but the majority has no idea what the minority wants, or care, and the majority is usually stupid, anyway.

Better than a dictatorship, I suppose.

That's the way it always is. The smart one goes ignored by the stupid ones, because we are always outnumbered by them ten to one. Look at poltical elections! "I'm for Bob Greening of the Earth because he's for education!"

Who isn't? What, is he going to get up there and go, "I'm not for education. Voters should be stupid, that way they're more likely to vote for me."

Okay, so he's for education. What is he going to do about it? That's what I wanna know. Does anyone else? No one outside of my immediate family, most days.

I smile and hold my fingers up to the rising sun, milky in its pale, soft bedding. I smile and yawn one more time, glad to finally be going home. As soon as I can keep one dang thought strait long enough to find a telephone and/or police station.

Sleep deprivation: A Triceratops, a Velociraptor, and an Elf...OOH! Shiny object! So, anyway, why was six afraid of seven?

I smile again, stretching my tight muscles. Then I freeze for real...the only sound in the dawn is a car coming up behind me...and a big one.

I look. It is a big, black, shiny new pickup, full of camping gear in the backseat. I almost break down in tears on the spot. It pulls right up beside me, far enough away that the door can swing open without hitting me. And it does.

And guess who's inside, glaring at me with an expression like the hero of a movie gives the girl that quite literally stabs him in the back and leaves him to die?

It sure ain't Arnold Schwarzenegger of the Stone.

Sable glares at me, fresh tears drying on his scales. He scowls and glowers, raising his lizardlike lips, and growling at me like a dog when I do not immediately get into the pickup with him.

The two of us stare at each other for what must be an eternity. The look of pain and sorrow in his eyes is so strong I can taste it in Elven senses long-since diminished from when legend says we sacrificed our magic for the ability to use tools. His eyes burn into mine, searing into my soul.

I am hypnotized by them, oddly beautiful, not quite spherical orbs. They are shaped like a lion's eyes, but blue instead of gold. The corners point more than an Elf's, but the scales instead of fur keep the edges thin and crisp.

I want to turn and run, but I am too tired. He'd catch me without effort or hesitation.

I reach my hand forward, preparing to climb into that car with the scaly monster. I don't know if I'll make it back out again. I don't know if Sable will let me live, now that I have shown how deceitful I can be.

I make a silent prayer, hoping that my family won't suffer too much more than me.

Sable grabs my hand, pulling me in almost on top of him. His scales feel warm and cool at the same time, like the air chills what his body warms. In one fluid motion, he reaches over me and slams the door, locking it tight.

His clawed talon stomps on the gas, driving away into the dawn. No one sees.

I sit back in my seat, buckling up tight and mindful that Sable has no idea what the "flat sound" on the pretty red hexagon means (and if it's not a hexagon, I'm a little stressed out right now!!), assuming he knows that red is a color at all. Sable is perfectly silent, not even growling at me anymore, even though his eyes twinge in my direction and his lips twitch like he wants to growl.

Nervously, I glance down at his feet (talons?). His right one is leaking blood on the pedal, not a lot but enough to be annoying. It looks like somehow he cut the flesh under his sickle-claw on something.

I look back up at his muzzle. The scales on his nose are tinged purple and looked a little bruised. His nose is crusted over with dried blood.

"Look, you hurt yourself!" I say gently, reaching up with a napkin that had been sitting on the armrest between us since the monster stole the car.

Trying to be nice at a moment like this never works. Ever.

Sable growls at me, slapping my hand away hard enough to bruise it. I press myself silently against the car door as Sable growls at me, clearly ticked beyond cracking. His feet shift under the dashboard and the car begins to slow. He pulls off the side of the road and whirls on me.

All I see is a flash of blue scales, then an immense, burning pain on my right cheek. My upper lip splits open with the force.

I hold my cheek, silent tears falling off it and bathing the bruise in a salty bath. When I can process vision again, Sable's opening his door and walking toward me, but I'm out and running before he crosses the bed of the truck.

I have no idea what I'm thinking. I'm just running as fast as I can, hoping stupidly that I can outrun an anthro Velociraptor.

Stupid. Those animals are built for running, anyway.

Sable's feet strike my back, knocking me into the dirt and the air out of my lungs. I gasp for breath, my lungs seizing in pain. Sable's clawed hand presses my cheek into the dirt, twisted at the perfect angle for me to see his left sickle-claw.

That claw.

Even if the geneticists had known he was blue, they probably would have named him "Sable" anyway, because of the shiny, gleaming black of his claws. They shine silver, like hematite, glistening brightly along the smooth, round top and twinkling like stars on the deadly point.

I watch him set his foot just above the midpoint between my shoulder and elbow, resting that claw against my long-sleeved shirt. I squeeze my eyes hut, bracing myself for-

My shirtsleeve rips, sending blood pouring freely down my arm and staining the light-colored gravel beneath me. If I could breathe, I would be screaming, but Sable keeps my ribs still.

He reaches down and grabs my hair, pulling my head up. Sable bends low, putting his head near the open gash. I watch his silver-blue muzzle part, revealing rows of pearly-white teeth, as perfect as the inside of a shell in a gift shop. His pinkish-red tongue slides out of his mouth, running across my arm and leaving a sticky, glistening trail of dinosaur spit, which burns when he laps up my still-warm blood.

He then leans in close, whispering into my ear. His breath is hot, sending waves of steam against my unblemished cheek.

"This one has the taste of that one's blood now," he hisses in my ear, making me cringe. "There is no place that one could go that this one could not follow. There is no place he cannot track her now. Do not try to run again."

I'm through with fear. I feel hot, red anger building up inside me. It wells inside my chest, like blood dripping freely from a wound. My fingers grasp in the dirt and gravel, picking up handfuls of it.

"This one," I growl. "This one...THISONETHISONETHISONE!"

I heave my body upward, startling Sable so much he teeters off. When I turn over to get up, I heave a fistful of sand in his eyes, and then stalk off into the woods, not caring if he follows.

"'I'" I scream at him over my shoulder, watching him rub his eyes and growling softly at the gritty iritation. "'I'! Jeez, if you're gonna kidnap me and drag me out to the middle of nowhere because of fledglings that don't exist, the least you can do is talk right!"

My slight southern accent thickens with anger, bleeding through more fiercely than ever. I don't even care. I wouldn't care if a flying ice cream truck fell on top of me. I just want out and away from this place. I don't care if Sable runs me down and the next cut is in a vital organ instead of just my arm; I just don't want to have to put up with the scaly monster for another moment!

I turn around, putting my eyes on the pathless direction. But then my vision fills with silver-blue, making me jump backwards.

Velociraptors are very fast. In their natural form, they can only run flat-out for a few seconds before they have to take a breath. Not Sable, it seems. Sable is a lot more enduring.

He stands in front of my, barring my way as his arms shooting up and grasping my shoulders. His pale, ice blue eyes burn into mine, but there is no hatred this time. There is only fear and confusion. He is an animal cornered, and I have the gun. He is every bit as frightened of me as I am of him, so those eyes tell me.

"Then teach this one," he says, his reptilian, slitted eyes brimming over with tears again. "This one does not want to be alone anymore."