Something Wild

by Anna Martin

  His phone was still in the pocket of his cargo shorts. While Dizzy ate and his pizza cooked, he gathered up his clothes from the past few days and took them to the laundry room down the hall in his building. There was a washer free, thank God, and he shoved it all in together with extra detergent and a color-catcher sheet.

  Dizzy was using her litter box when he got back, which he celebrated as a victory. He plugged his phone into the charger in his kitchen. It had died during his nap.

  It was close enough to 5:00 p.m. that he decided he wasn’t going over to his office this afternoon. There wasn’t anything in the trunk of the car that couldn’t wait until the morning. He deserved a few hours to chill and start on his reports.

  As it came back to life, his phone buzzed with a series of messages. From Kit, naturally, and Logan grinned as he thumbed his pass code to unlock it.

  He skimmed through the first few messages, sent while he was still away. The last one was sent after he’d told Kit he was home, a simple Can I come over?

  Awake now, he sent. Then made a <3 heart and sent that too.

  Kit’s response was almost instantaneous. OMW.

  Logan laughed and pulled his pizza out of the oven. He liked Kit a lot, but he wasn’t going to share his pizza.

  KIT ARRIVED just as Logan was done cleaning up.

  “Hey,” Kit said when Logan opened the door. He was grinning like a fool. Logan was sure he was too.

  “Hi. Come in.”

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Kit leaned up and pressed his lips to Logan’s cheek, then his chin and his lips.

  “Miss me?” Logan teased.

  “No. Not at all. Kiss me.”

  That took some time. Logan was very serious about kissing and doing it right, and Kit’s hands on his arm and the back of his neck felt too good to ignore.

  Kit pulled away and knocked their noses together. “Dizzy?”

  Logan whistled and she clattered out of the family room and wound her way around Kit’s ankles, nudging her head against his legs happily.

  “Oh.”

  “Come and sit down and I’ll tell you,” he said.

  They ended up tucked into the same arm chair, all three of them—Kit half on Logan’s lap, his legs over the arm of the chair, Dizzy flopped against Kit’s belly. They made a strange-looking family.

  “So the herd didn’t accept her back?” Kit said, petting Dizzy until she went all languid and boneless.

  “No. A couple of the adults were actively hostile. The other juveniles just ignored her.”

  “How did she react to them?”

  Logan gently rubbed the back of Kit’s neck. “She was really curious. You know how she gets. I got some footage on my phone, actually; I’ll show you in a minute. She was sniffing around them, but they weren’t interested in her. I probably took her away from them earlier than I should have, but it was a little heartbreaking.”

  Kit kissed the edge of his jaw. “You’re the best foster mom ever.”

  “Shut up,” Logan laughed.

  “I’ve got stuff I need to tell you.” Kit’s tone had gone serious, and Logan was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like what came next.

  “Oh?”

  Kit tipped his head onto Logan’s shoulder. “Johansson cornered me the other day. Got me into his office.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yeah. He knows about Dizzy. I guess we weren’t being as stealthy as we thought we were.”

  “I’m stealthy,” Logan protested.

  “Sure you are.” Kit leaned over and kissed his cheek again. “Anyway. He knows about Dizzy, and he wants to bring her in so our colleagues can study her too.”

  Logan nearly burst out of the chair with his anger. “What the fuck?”

  “I know,” Kit said, petting him back down. “I know. I told him no. Obviously. He’s offered a compromise.”

  “I have a feeling I’m not going to like it.”

  “No. He wants to start safari tours.”

  “Motherfucker.”

  Logan knew it was coming. He was hoping it would be a few more years, to give him time to build up a decent argument against it or secure a job back in Africa, depending on what his situation was.

  That wasn’t really an option anymore. He had Dizzy, who couldn’t leave the island, and Kit, who probably wouldn’t even if Logan did. He wasn’t arrogant enough to fool himself into thinking he had options.

  “So, what’s the deal?” Logan asked. He worked his jaw; it was aching where he’d been clenching his back teeth.

  “You agree to run safari tours, and they’ll let us keep Dizzy.”

  “Do I have to do them myself or just oversee it? Does he even know what sort of infrastructure changes we’d need to put in place to make that happen? This is going to change everything, Kit, absolutely everything.”

  He buried his face in Kit’s shoulder, and even as much as Kit wanted to laugh, he understood. He really did.

  Life on the Archipelago wasn’t predictable. Even in the time he’d lived here, he’d seen new conveniences built, the viewing platform introduced, funding for his role had piled in, then been pulled again the next month. Kit had gone from the Dinosauria Genome Project to studies in dinosaur hormones, then an in-depth project on genes and hormones, depending on what the suits wanted from his team. That was one of the reasons why he loved his job—one piece of research threw up a bunch of results they weren’t expecting, and Kit had the freedom to seize on those results and start new projects.

  Everything was in perpetual motion. They’d been lucky that there hadn’t ever been a demand from the public that they be given access to the dinosaurs. Around the world, people had united behind the idea that these animals were precious, and even though there was scope to study them, the scientists’ first priority should be conservation and protection.

  Kit had stood proudly behind that priority for his whole career here.

  “The best person to lead this is you,” he said, tucking his chin on top of Logan’s head. “I can’t think of anyone better to set up a project that’ll put the animals first, put their safety above profits, who has the power and knowledge to challenge the suits to make sure it’s done in the right way. Accept the things you cannot change, change the things you cannot accept.”

  Logan sighed heavily. “Yeah.”

  “I have so much faith in you. The only thing that scares me more than this happening is it happening in someone else’s hands.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll have to figure it out, then.”

  A FEW weeks later, Logan was out on the North Island, working his usual patch, when the call came in.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, boss man, it’s Tony.”

  “What can I do for you, Tony?”

  “So, uh, you know how you told us to keep an eye out for poachers?”

  Logan put the truck in Park and reached over to pet Dizzy, who was fussing around in the footwell of the passenger seat.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, uh, we found one.”

  Logan hesitated for a second. “You found one?”

  “We found what’s left of one,” Tony clarified.

  Holy shit.

  “Who’s with you?”

  “Jenna,” Tony said, and his careful choice of words suddenly made sense. He was clearly trying to not upset their intern. “And Darren.”

  Darren was Tony’s regular partner and pretty good in an emergency.

  “You’re all in the truck, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Keep the windows up and the doors locked. Move a safe distance away from the body, but not so far that you can’t find it again. Send me your coordinates, and I’ll make my way over there now. You’re in quadrant five?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m in seven. Shit. I could be more than an hour away.”

  “That’s fine. We’re set here.”

  That meant they had decent supplies. Tony wasn’t an idiot; he wouldn’t get out
of the car unless they were well out of the danger zone.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Gotcha.” Tony ended the call.

  It took a little under an hour to get to quadrant five. Logan made a stop around halfway there to let Dizzy get out and do her business. It wouldn’t be safe for any of them to be out of the car around a carcass, especially since they had evidence of oviraptor activity in that area.

  Fortunately, after eating and pooping, Dizzy was happy to settle into her third-favorite activity and sleep for a while. It seemed the rumbling of the truck’s engine was soothing to her; she often fell asleep when they were out.

  Tony had potentially anticipated the route Logan had taken over to find them, as he’d parked his truck in a prominent position in a large clearing. They would be immediately visible to any animal approaching them, which was good. Often even the sign of the vehicles was enough to scare most dinosaurs away. It also meant Logan could easily find them.

  He pulled up alongside Tony’s truck and held up his hand, both in greeting and to tell Tony and the others to stay put.

  Instead of getting out of the car, Logan called Tony.

  “Hey.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yep.”

  Logan could see Tony and the others through the truck’s windshields. They all looked calm enough.

  “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. I need Darren and Jenna to get into my car to keep an eye on Dizzy. Then me and you are going back to figure out what happened.”

  “I’ll let them know.”

  Logan nodded. It only took a moment for Tony to relay the message, and it meant Jenna was only outside for a second while she changed vehicles.

  “You okay?” Logan asked her as she slid into the back seat. He felt sorry for her; she was only in her early twenties, and she was still pretty green.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I was a bit shaken up earlier, but I’m all right now. Tony made me write a report. That helped.”

  Logan nodded. “I need you to look after Dizzy for me. She’s eaten, so she should be fine for a while, but if she wakes up, keep her calm for me, okay?”

  “I can do that,” Jenna said. She grinned. “Your dissimosaur is gorgeous, Dr. Beck.”

  He laughed at that. “She is. Thanks Jenna.”

  Darren was poised and ready to switch places, so Logan moved quickly to minimize the amount of time they were both exposed. He waited until he heard the locks click and the familiar hum of the electric defenses fire up before shutting the door.

  “How much ammo do you have?” Logan asked.

  “Plenty. Darren’s been through it all, checked the rifles and reloaded while we were waiting for you.”

  “Great. Let’s go.”

  Tony already had the car in Drive and pulled smoothly away.

  “How far away from it are we?”

  “Less than ten minutes. I needed to get Jenna away and calmed down.”

  “She freaked out?”

  Tony shook his head. “She found him, boss. It’s not pretty.”

  “Poor kid.” Logan sighed.

  “What happens now?”

  Tony had been a ranger for longer than Logan. He was a stalwart, no-nonsense, heavyset man of fifty who had spent most of his career wrestling crocodiles in Australia. He could easily have applied for Logan’s role, probably would have been given it too, no questions asked. For all of his good qualities, though, Tony wasn’t a leader. He was happy to sit back and take direction and do his job well.

  Logan admired him immensely.

  “I don’t think we can transport the body back,” Logan said. “Not safely, anyway.”

  “We’d be taking it through several major predator territories.”

  “Yeah. So we take video, photos, gather whatever evidence we can find.”

  “It’s been scavenged, boss. There’s not a lot left if you’re looking to identify him.”

  “That’s not my concern,” Logan said. “Right now I just want to prove that he was here, and what he was here for.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.”

  Tony pulled through a tight bend in the jungle and killed the engine. They were close to one of the small rivers that ran plentifully through the island, cutting good paths through the dense vegetation if one was stupid enough to take a boat through them.

  Apparently someone was stupid enough and had paid for their mistake with their life.

  “Over there,” Tony said, pointing to an area not far from the edge of the water.

  Logan couldn’t see much through the undergrowth, and wouldn’t have guessed there was anything worth seeing if not for the excess of flies.

  “Cover me?”

  Tony nodded.

  Logan took a deep breath and opened the door.

  THE MAN was light-skinned and looked young. Maybe in his late twenties. His hands showed distinctive defensive wounds, though it was most likely that he’d died from being shaken. His neck was definitely snapped.

  Most of the lower part of his body was missing. Logan gagged at the smell and forced himself to breathe through his mouth.

  It was hot here, away from the coast, a thick, humid heat that did nothing to disguise the smell of rotting flesh. Logan could already feel the sweat starting to bead at his neck and run down his back.

  He ignored it and pulled out his phone to start filming.

  “My estimate is that the body has been exposed for at least two days. Evidence of scavenger activity.” As he spoke, he zoomed in on particular points of interest. He was sure this footage would be analyzed over and over in the coming days.

  He left the camera running as he turned to Tony, who had his rifle cocked and ready to fire. This gun didn’t contain tranq darts; if anything came toward them, he’d shoot to kill.

  “I’m going to check for any forms of identity on him.”

  Tony shook his head. “Don’t touch it.”

  “Tony—”

  “It’s not worth it, Logan. Don’t touch him.”

  Tony was right. “Okay. There’s no signs of any weapons in the vicinity, nor a backpack or any transportation. We’ll circle out from here and see if we can find anything. This guy didn’t just drop out of the air, though. Someone brought him in and left without him.”

  The forest here was dense, and a detailed search of the area would take hours. While they were clearly in the area of an animal that had already attacked and killed a human, Logan wasn’t eager to hang around. They spiraled back to the Jeep, Logan kicking his way through the thick grasses and plants, hoping to find something—anything—that might help them identify the man.

  Logan had spent plenty of time in the jungle of the North and West Islands since he took the role as head ranger, and even after being attacked himself, he’d never felt spooked by the quiet rustling through the trees and the soft calls of the birds who lived here.

  Hell, he camped out at night on the North Island and proudly recounted the story. But now, with the image of a dead man waiting behind his eyelids, Logan wanted nothing more than to escape.

  Another soft cry echoed through the trees… and this was not a bird call.

  “Let’s go,” Logan said.

  They were back at the truck within seconds, and Tony pulled away, heading back to safety.

  THEY CAUGHT back up with Darren and Jenna, swapping vehicles again so Jenna could drive back to base with Darren while Tony rode in Logan’s car with Dizzy on his lap. Tony didn’t seem to mind—Dizzy had a way of charming even the most stoic of hearts.

  Logan gave Tony his phone and talked him through very careful instructions on how to upload the video to several places. Logan wasn’t going to risk someone trying to delete the footage or claim it didn’t exist. Even if he was sacked, he needed proof of what was happening.

  “What do you reckon? Troodon?” Logan asked.

  Tony hesitated. “They definitely got him,” he said. “I’m not sure wh
at was behind the initial attack, though. I don’t think a troodon could snap a neck like that. They’re not big enough, or strong enough.”

  “Who was with him? And why did they leave him behind?”

  “There had to be a team,” Tony said. He leaned back in his seat and held a hand out for Dizzy to nuzzle into. “If he was on his own, we would have found a boat.”

  “Right. And he didn’t have a gun on him.”

  “Do you reckon they would have been so cold as to take his gun away after he was dead?”

  “They’re poachers,” Logan said. “Fucking scumbags. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

  “What have they been taking?”

  “I don’t know,” Logan said honestly. “I doubt live animals—it would be too much of a risk. With everything we know about their metabolisms, we still get the tranq doses wrong more often than we get them right.”

  “You don’t get them wrong,” Tony pointed out.

  “I’ve been working with big game all my life. I can guesstimate.”

  Tony made a disbelieving sort of noise.

  “Plus, I have a lot of experience working with the dinos. I can tranq a dozen or more of them in a day if I’m out here working. I can guarantee even the most experienced poacher doesn’t know what sort of doses to use to knock an animal out, then keep it out while they get it off the island.”

  “So they’re killing them.”

  “I think so,” Logan said.

  “For sport?”

  “Maybe. For leather.”

  Tony snorted. “Be serious.”

  “I am. You didn’t hear? There was a statement from the press team about it. Dinosaur leather is being sold on the black market.”

  “It’s croc leather. Fuckin’ pikers.”

  “We don’t know that. Well, I don’t know what a ‘piker’ is….”

  That made Tony laugh. “Aussie-ism.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Tony was quiet for a few minutes. “What are you gonna do?”

  “Report it,” Logan said honestly. “I’ll take Jenna’s report, and yours and Darren’s when you have a chance to write them up, compile it with the video and photos and my suspicions, and take it all to Johansson.”