Escape From Dinosauria (Dinopocalypse Book 1) (5 page)

Mike bit his bottom lip.

Jordan winked at her.

“We’ll make sure you won’t get fired,” she said.

Mike finally gave in, and they all got out of the ambulance and posed for a picture together, taken with Mike’s cell phone. Jordan’s eye had swelled into a puffy bruise, but that didn’t stop him from showing off his million-dollar set of perfectly white and straight teeth.

While they took the pictures, Jamie couldn’t keep her eyes from wandering to the massive structure that towered over them. The famous hotel resort that served as the destination for all the mega-rich families who could afford the trip. A modern masterpiece of glass and steel that could have melted cars from the sun reflecting upon its surface; a blinding spiral of windows, rows upon rows of windows. Dinosauria Retreat was a sprawling compound with several additional buildings—most of them appeared to be towers overlooking walled-in structures.

Birds flapped their wings overhead. Jamie inhaled the smell of earth and foliage. The humidity threatened to keep her from savoring this brief moment in the sunshine, a moment in which she didn’t think about fighting or love or machine guns or money or the public. These moments were few and far between now, and they were all the more special because of it.

The sky was bright and clear, and the sound of thunder caused her to search for clouds.

It wasn’t thunder.

A shiver ran down her spine.

“That sound,” Jordan said, his voice unable to hide the awe.

“Probably the
T. rex
,” Mike said. “You guys enjoy your stay, okay? Get yourselves cleaned up. You know where you’re staying and everything.”

Jordan didn’t seem to hear him. He looked back at the complex, his mouth half-open, his head tilted so he could hear the sound again. “A
T. rex
,” he whispered.

“We got it covered,” Jamie told Mike. “Thanks for everything. We’ll be sure to put in a good word for you.”

A part of her felt compelled to grab Jordan’s hand. He seemed to want some measure of comfort, some confirmation that he was alive and the world around him was real. Everything he had said on the plane about his boyhood obsession with prehistoric monsters was the truth. Unrattled by a hostage situation in which his life had been in jeopardy, he couldn’t tear himself away from the idea that dinosaurs walked the earth.

“He said it was a
T. rex
,” Jordan said.

“He did.”

“I have a good idea what they have here. I’ve done a lot of research on this place.” Jordan eyed the complex as if appraising everything he knew about it. “I thought I knew what to expect. Like it would be just another story. But from the start, it was different. Everything is different.”

He meant a lot by those words, and she couldn’t rise to the bait. She needed time to think. She was being overwhelmed by everything. He was right:
everything was different.

Jordan snapped back to reality. “Our crew’s already checked in. But I’d like to take a look around, and then head on up and get ready for a dinner I’m going to have with Mr. Tanaka.
Boss
Tanaka. He runs the place. He invited me here, and I thought…I thought you would want to be part of it. I thought you would want to know the truth. It would be easier if you just came with me. If you want nothing to do with—”

“Just stop,” Jamie said. “I want a shower and a beer. I’m not thinking beyond that right now.”

The primal roar touched the clouds again, and Jamie shivered, despite the humidity. The tropical trees that surrounded the complex swayed gently in a breeze she did not feel.

6

Wayne met up with Jordan and talked outside of the hotel. Phone calls were made while Jamie waited in one of the limos. The camera crew milled around the front. Jordan had explained to her that she couldn’t be seen in public covered in blood, and neither could he.

Now she was officially dragged into one of his journalism adventures. She was nothing more than a sidepiece, a beautiful trophy girl whose relationship with the Pulitzer-Prize winner had caused a week of abuse from internet news sites and social media. He was an older man. Why wasn’t she dating another athlete? Or a movie star. Or a politician. She was just using him, or he was using her. It was a publicity stunt, not a real relationship.

She was a walking time bomb. When would she lose a fight? When would she dump Jordan Vance? When would she get pregnant? When was she going to get married? When would she pose for
Playboy?
When would she have a sex tape?

All inevitabilities that kept her fists clenched at night. All inevitabilities that came with the territory and she didn’t have to accept a single one of them as truth.

Wayne, not Jordan, opened the limo door and brought her a fresh set of clothes and alcohol-free, fresh-scented wipes to clean the blood off her face.

“Sorry about earlier, Ms. Rock,” he said. “You doing okay? Anything I can get you?”

“Where’s Jordan?”

“On the phone. He asked me to check on you and bring you the clothes.”

“You can tell him he can go fuck himself. I’m not doing any of this bullshit. Not in the mood.”

Wayne laughed. “Yeah, I understand. I’ve been through this with him before. He’s crazy, and I think it’s rubbed off on me a bit. You know, one time we were in Afghanistan and our chopper was hit. We made an emergency landing, and it was pretty clear we were about to go into a firefight. He told me to make sure the camera was ready. It was just us. I still think about that day. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen blood.”

Too many times, she had let anger dictate some regrettable words. She hadn’t talked to her father in two years, since the day he got pissed and broke the new John Deer tractor she bought him. The press often relied on her terse replies to create silly social media memes with her pissed-off expressions.

“Give me a minute,” she told Wayne. He closed the door and she did her best to clean up. The slogan on the T-shirt Jordan passed onto her brought a smile to her face: EAT ME. The shirt plunged a little low down the neckline, but this came with the territory.

And almost pissed her off just enough to convince her to storm into the hotel without him.

“Feel better?” Wayne asked her when she stepped out of the car.

“Like brand new. Jordan done calling his mom?”

Wayne laughed. “He’s coming.”

She stood with him for an awkward moment. “This was nothing new to you? Being shot at by terrorists? They killed a man.”

“Jordan and I have done a lot together. I used to get mad at him. Call him an adrenaline junkie. I even quit once. Came right back.”

“I’ve been called an adrenaline junkie before.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe I am. Maybe Jordan is. It’s one of those things. My shrink used to say I was trying to get away. I never really understood what he meant by that. I mean, I didn’t get it ‘til later. I got two grandkids now, four and two years old.”

“Oh yeah? Boys? Girls?”

“Two girls. They’re the best thing that ever happened to me, but I can’t stop doing this. I suppose we all got a way of trying to get away from things, but we need to know what we’re trying to get away from.”

“And you figured it out?”             

“For myself. Here’s Jordan.”

She had heard that line of talk before. A couple ex-boyfriends had thrown words like that at her while trying to rationalize breaking up with her; her relationships were so emotionally confusing they often became nothing more than a distraction and she didn’t want to have the conversations that most men seemed to want to have. They gave up on her because she didn’t give them enough. It wasn’t sex she couldn’t provide, but it was something she didn’t understand, something they couldn’t describe to her.

Jordan looked as if he hadn’t been shot at. Brand new suit and tie freshly-pressed and a million-dollar smile scratched across his jaw. She looked at him and then turned away quickly as if she had looked straight into the sun. She was embarrassed; she really didn’t want to see him after she laid into him in the ambulance and going through the series of fake smiles while parading through the hotel was another event that delayed her getting her shit in order. As well as he knew her, he didn’t know her enough to realize she needed some time.

It wasn’t every day that she was attacked by terrorists at a dinosaur-themed resort.

He could still sense her need to be away from him. He spoke to Wayne. “We’re going in. Security is tight. It’s situation normal around here. Nobody has a clue what happened, and we need to keep it that way. We’re going to take a look around. Lots of action in the main lobby. Not many people stick around the hotel during the day, so we have it to ourselves. I told everyone else in the crew to take a break, get some rest. Might fly them all back tomorrow. Just us from here on out, I think.”

“Sounds fine,” Wayne said.

Jordan’s eyes locked with hers for a moment, then he looked away.

7

The last time Jamie had been to a shopping mall, she had been on a date—this was in junior high—and when she caught Mike Richards on his phone with another girl while she was inside GNC, she waited until he went to the men’s room, stalked in there after him, and shoved his head into a toilet. She was banned from the mall after that, which was a shame, because it was an outdoor mall and she would have gone back.

The lobby of the hotel reminded her of the mall. A wide-open, sprawling mega center of loiterers who sat on benches or browsed aimlessly in stores.

“This,” Jordan said, motioning at a pet shop with animals wandering around in display windows. They moved quickly over straw bedding, scampering and climbing over plastic trees. Scaly and lizard-like, moving on strong hind legs with arms that were half the size, jaws outstretched, beady eyes roaming around the cage, head tilting as if they were attempting to catch a distant melody from a concert being played far away.

“Baby raptors,” Wayne said.

Jamie looked at him. “You mean like in
Jurassic Park?”

“I think so.”

“That’s just a movie. And those things…”

Two weeks ago, Jordan had mentioned he wanted her to come along on a trip to Dinosauria, a brand new vacation resort that was nearly as expensive to visit as a trip to Mars. Cloned dinosaurs? Sure. Whatever. There was mention of a
T. rex
at the airport. Instead of a
T. rex
, they had been greeted by terrorists. Now, she wanted to see one.

This was real.

Fucking dinosaurs.

“How is this even possible?” she asked.

Jordan tried to answer her. “That’s what we’re here to find out. And a few other things. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

“Those babies are going to grow up and bite someone’s head off.”

“No. They’re…wired somehow. I don’t know for sure how it’s done. And I don’t think they grow up to be as big as the ones in the movie. I’ve read a few summaries and reports on how they do things, but it’s a bit over my head.”

Great. He was oblivious, or holding things back. He seemed to have an idea they might find something like this here. Either way this didn’t help his cause much.

“This is some kind of big joke or scam, right?” she asked him. “And that’s why you’re here. To expose it.”

“If you’re wondering about the dinosaurs themselves, they’re real. As real as it gets. But if you’re wondering about conspiracies or what I’m here to do, then I have to wonder why you’re so interested all of a sudden.”

Jordan had never pulled his reputable cold comment on her; she had heard him do it over the phone and had seen him do it in interviews, but never to her. Staring at him, standing there. Doing nothing. Saying nothing.

Round one goes to Jordan Vance.

Or was it round two? She had been trained to deal with physical disorientation but had always been in control. Every fight, crowd roaring in her head, sweat crawling down her back. She was in control. Every time. She didn’t need to know what round it was. If she wanted to know, then she was in deep shit.

How she handled arguments with lovers: she didn’t.

Wayne stepped in. “Look at these brochures. This has been a long time in the making.”

DINOSAURS AND THE NEW CONSUMER ECONOMY

THE NEW WAVE OF GENETICS WILL FEED THE HUNGRY

ANTI-AGING TREATMENTS AND AUGMENTATIONS

THE CURE FOR CANCER IS A RAPTOR AWAY

FOOD REPLICATION AND HUNTERS’ RIGHTS

CARE AND FEEDING OF YOUR NEW FRIEND

LEGALIZING AUTOMATIC WEAPONS: THE LATEST IN MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT

Jamie picked up the last one and flipped through it, scanning pictures of smiling people with huge guns standing over dinosaur corpses. She stopped on a picture of a man wearing a Carhartt hat with his arm around a little girl’s shoulders. Both of them wore camo gear, and at their feet was a very large dead dinosaur, long red tongue hanging out of its mouth.

She carefully closed the brochure. It felt heavy in her hands.