PANIC ROOM • KENJI KON

X. Darius Comes Close to Punching Eva or Kenji, or Maybe Them Both

Chapter Ten: Darius Comes Close to Punching Eva or Kenji, or Maybe Them Both

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They walked for another hour through grass so long it tickled Eva's ankles. The heat beat down on them, the warm, humid air making it hard for Eva to catch her breath. She found herself breathing heavily with every step she took.

Eva had fallen to the back of the group, her hoodie now tied around her waist, and her hands shoved into her shorts pockets, her right playing with a loose thread. Her eyes focused on the ground, of where to step. Her head thrummed with every step, pulsing waves of pain flushing over her.

She tiredly watched Brooklynn clock Sammy's shoulder as she walked past. Yasmina whispered something to her, then continued past a large leaf that was in their path. Sammy stopped, mumbling, "Yaz, there's something I—" She pulled the leaf back and gasped.

Eva picked up her steps, stopping beside Sammy.

"The Indominus Rex was here," Brooklynn said.

Eva walked a few feet more into the small clearing the others were in, only to see a broken gyrosphere and a dead ankylosaurus. She stopped next to Brooklynn, and stared down at the dead dinosaur. Looking at the gyrosphere, she followed footsteps in the mud leading elsewhere.

Well, whoever it was, at least they got away...

"Predators don't kill prey and then just leave without feeding," Darius informed them. "This, this isn't right."

A low growling emitted from the bushes, causing the campers to gasp. Eva cracked her neck and raised her fists.

A hand latched around her right— Sammy— and she was quickly pulled behind the gyrosphere's edge. Eva picked up a nearby stick, gripping it tightly. She peaked around the corner of the gyrosphere and the stress in her shoulders instantly melted away when she locked eyes with the cutest baby ankylosaurus she had ever seen.

"Bumpy!" Ben exclaimed, running half way to meet the dinosaur.

"How do you even know that's the same dinosaur?"

"Her big head bump! Dr. Wu said she's asymmetrical, but he's wrong that it's bad. And so what if she is asymmetrical? There's nothing wrong with being different, or bumpy, or getting tired after reading an overly thrilling book! And maybe if her parents had listened to her, she wouldn't have come here and gotten attacked!"

Yaz whispered to Sammy and Eva, "Are we still talking about the dinosaur? Feels like we're not still talking about the dinosaur."

"As fun as this reunion is, shouldn't we keep moving south?" Kenji asked.

"I'm not spending another hour walking through the jungle, hoping that we don't run into that Indominus!"

"Well, what do you suggest, Super Star?" Eva asked, eyebrows raised.

"So, uh... we need to find somewhere safe close by," Darius talked slowly, at a loss for such a place. "If camp is that way, and the park is that way... Hey! Isn't Dr. Wu's field genetics lab near here? You guys went on the tour. Does this area look familiar?"

"You mean the jungle? The jungle that looks exactly like the rest of the jungle we were in twenty minutes ago?" Eva retorted. "Yeah, it looks familiar. Green, green, and green. Really a winner here."