Assets Out of Containment |1| Nublar Seven Series

Chaos Theory

Warnings: mention of violence, injuries, blood, self-blaming.

Sammy and Darius, once again, tried to talk normally with us.

"We still can't hear you!" Brooklynn reminded them.

"Search for the sound button." I told them, and looked at the panel carefully. Next to Yasmina there were some switches with faded letters than looked an awful lot like 'security gates'. "Yaz! Hit those!" I pointed to her.

She smiled and did what I said. "Buh-bye security gates."

"I got the sound button." Ben announced and hit a white button.

Just like that, we could hear their voices. "...reason Mitch and Tiff know about the watering hole is because I showed them. I'm the one who didn't listen to Brooklynn. The dinosaurs are in danger because of me." Darius hunched his shoulders. "I promised you all that I'd get you home. And we... we already lost Ben." Darius choked on his words.

He was still blaming himself after all... he seemed fine after our last conversation, though. I mentally reprimanded myself for not paying more attention to Darius. He was blaming himself when he didn't need to, what happened to Ben was clearly not his fault. I glanced over at Ben, to see his reaction, but he had a stoic look on his face, a bit sad perhaps?

Kenji reached over and unclutched my hand from the armrest, where my knuckles were turning white, and took hold of my hand on his own. That startled me for a second, but I didn't move away. Instead, I raised a brow questionably at him, who was looking back at me with a serious look, which was a first for Kenji. Although his serious demeanor, he squeezed my hand lightly and I gave him a half-smile in return, knowing he must've figured out was I was thinking.

I urged to tell Darius that Ben was alright, that he didn't need to feel guilty anymore, but the words simply didn't leave my mouth. Even with Ben standing right next to me, I didn't feel like the guilt had disappeared; it was still there, crawling under my skin. Sure, he was alive, but what had him gone through because of me? If only I had held onto him...

I felt Kenji's eyes still on me, his hand squeezing mine as if asking 'Are you okay?'. So, I made sure to keep a blank expression. 'All good here.' I squeezed his hand back.

"Darius, that's not your fault." Sammy placed her hand on Darius' shoulder.

'Yep, it was mine.' I sighed.

He shook his head, as if to clear his mind. "Mitch said their boat is at the northwest dock. Get everyone together and get off the island now while Mitch and Tiff are busy."

"What about you?" Sammy asked.

"I have to make this right." Darius said confident.

"We got your back, Darius!" Ben finally said into the mic. "Forget the boat. Mitch and Tiff are going down!" He slammed his fist onto the panel.

"Ben?" Darius yelled at the camera, astonished.

"You're alive?" Sammy mouth hung open.

"Oh, right! You didn't know. Yeah." Ben said with a bored tone, but he had a faint smile on his lips. "Also, we found the sound button, so we can hear you." He paused. "And I defeated Toro." Ben proudly added. "I'm sure Bumpy would like to say hi, but she didn't fit in the room." Sammy and Darius stood frozen, mouths agape. "I think I broke them." Ben laughed.

Yasmina pushed Ben out of the way. "Yeah, Ben's alive, we're happy about it."

Now was Brooklynn's time to fight over the mic. "Point is, we're not going to let you do this alone. We're in."