Panic! by Corinna Turner

Author:Corinna Turner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, action, family, dinosaur, catholic, youth, ya, dinosaurs, dystopian, jurassic
Publisher: Corinna Turner

JOSHUA

“Outage,” gasps the farmgirl, “did the raptor bite you?”

“Yeah...oh, no,” I correct quickly. “Not that raptor. I had a run-in with one a week or two ago, and the wound hasn’t been healing right. I guess I split it open again when I kicked that critter just now.”

“Are you...alone out here?” She tenses, clearly expecting a grim tale.

My shoulders hunch sheepishly, my cheeks heating. “Uh, yeah. And before you say anything, I know how stupid it is, okay? I’ve learned my lesson.” I gesture down towards my foot with my bloodied hand. “You don’t need to say a word.”

“So...nothing happened to your partners?” Her face relaxes in relief.

I shake my head. “Nah. My assistant skipped out on me last time I was in the city, left me in the lurch with contracts to fulfill. I couldn’t find anyone else, so I came out alone. Bad decision, yeah. I’ve been moseying around scoping out the prospects for my last contract while letting my foot heal, only it ain’t been cooperating. Infected. I was gonna cut it open later and drain it properly, but I think kicking that thing has taken care of that.”

“Well, come on.” She puts the dinky quadravian up onto her shoulder and steps to me, taking my arm firmly. “Sit down so I can look at it.”

Limping badly, I let her lead me to the chair her brother picks up from the floor and sets upright for me. They seem competent, these two.

“Where’s the medical cupboard?” She looks around—then seeing the red cross on a cupboard behind her, she moves to it without waiting for an answer.

I watch her inspecting the contents and selecting items with easy confidence. The last thing I really want is to let someone else mess around with my injury, but Dad always emphasized the importance of sizing someone up as soon as possible—regardless of how short a time you’ll have them in the ’Vi—and this is a good way to do that. Someone’s going to have to go outside in a minute, after all, and someone else provide cover. Anyway, looking after me is calming her right down, taking her mind off the awful loss they’ve just suffered.

“Okay.” She soon sets her choice of supplies on the table I didn’t stop to stow earlier when I saw their truck career off the road like that.

For the first time disquiet niggles at me. Did I do the wrong thing, giving chase at once? Should I have stayed up on the bluff and provided cover from there? Nah, one single gun at that extreme range wouldn’t have done enough, not against a pack protecting their nesting ground. Especially not since I’d been up there for three days and the raptors had been going about their business as usual for the last two of them, correctly concluding I wasn’t after them and keeping me well entertained with their family dramas.

“Oh, uh, I’m Joshua, by the way,” I say, as the farmgirl pulls two more chairs from the rack and unfolds them.

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