The good news was that the Carnotaurus hadn’t detected them—and the chances of it doing so unless they acted stupidly or impulsively outweighed the possibility that it would. The bad news was that the predator was too close to where they needed to enter, like some unpaid guard.

  Luca’s eyes sharpened as a plan formed in his mind. Rory was known for its aggressive nature. If it saw them, it would attack without hesitation. Unless, of course, there was something bigger to distract it. A shame it seemed the coast was clear—including the entrance to the habitat on the other side of the predator.

  They needed to circle the building—and the predator lurking on that side. Maybe, with a bit of luck, they could—ah, why not…? Yes, that could work.

  Luca gestured with his head for Nagato to start moving, using the cover of the trees. It wasn’t exactly fun crawling through the bushes, but at least the mud would mask both their scents—especially Nagato’s. Poor guy, thinking hiding his smell was a joke.

  They moved carefully, their movements slow and deliberate, hidden under the persistent rhythm of the rain and the occasional thunder.

  When they reached the last bush, Luca paused, his sharp eyes scanning their surroundings. The Carnotaurus was no longer in sight, but that didn’t mean they were safe. He looked toward the front of the Administration Building, where the outline of the enclosure loomed in the darkness, and then at the building itself, particularly the windows. They didn’t have bars—and one of them was open.

  He turned back to Nagato. "We need to get to the building. There’s a window we can use."

  The other guy’s expression was a flawless presentation of the phrase ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ "How do we get out if that thing comes here…?" He frowned then. "What if it tries to attack the building?"

  Luca shook his head. "Don’t worry about that. Let’s go." He stood up, peeking through the bushes, and took one last look at the enclosure before crossing the street. He felt slower than he would have liked and wasn’t sure whether to blame it entirely on the rain—and being soaked to the bone—but he finally managed to reach the window. Nagato followed closely behind.

  Shining his flashlight inside, Nagato revealed an empty office, left in disarray.

  "Get in," Luca murmured, knowing the other man didn’t have any buff to hide his presence. It felt like standing next to a neon sign.

  Nagato grimaced but leaned on the window and climbed inside. The moment he crossed, the window slid shut and locked with a soft click, leaving Luca on the other side with a frozen expression. Nagato turned and tried to open it from the inside, but it was impossible.

  Luca gestured toward where the main entrance was and mouthed, "Main entrance."

  'Good luck,' the other man mouthed back with a grimace, holding the flashlight with a trembling hand.

  The sound of the Carnotaurus made Luca press himself against the wall and move cautiously toward the "front" of the building, feeling like he was playing a dangerous game. He rounded the end of the building, still with his back against the wall, looking toward the enclosure—the open entrance looked like a wolf’s den—and continued walking, searching for an open window—no luck—or another entrance.

  He found a door, but any sense of relief vanished when he noticed it was locked.

  Letting go of the knob, he listened carefully to the noises and decided to try his luck with the main entrance as he’d told Nagato, reaching the end of the building. According to what he heard, the Carnotaurus was now on the other corner of the building, and when he peeked, he noticed a faint shadow of the animal around the corner from where he was trying to go. Fortunately, the building was large enough that it couldn’t see from above—not even the Giganotosaurus or the T. Rex could.

  Luca breathed carefully and began to move forward, making sure to be as quiet as possible. The drops blurred his vision a bit, so he had to rub his eyes, but he still didn’t stop, wanting to get there as soon as he could, before—

  A massive head appeared less than ten meters away, first the snout, then the teeth, and then a reptilian eye—

  Luca pressed himself against the door, flattening himself, only his hand moving gently to open the door. He was fully aware that the predator could notice his presence at any moment, but he trusted his advantage and moved his hand cautiously, slow, slow, to grab the knob.

  He could hear the Carnotaurus sniffing the wet air. Its footsteps.

  0/0, not recommended.

  A blinding flash of light behind him made him take the risk, and he timed the thunderclap to hide the sound of the door opening. He slipped inside in one fluid motion, almost throwing himself in, and closed the door behind him. The noise was worse than he wanted, but he didn’t care. He was inside.

  He was inside.

  And alone?

  Luca glanced at the reception area—there were three doors he could take. Nagato should be in the one on the left, right? He approached it, grimacing as he heard the predator’s movement outside. The Carnotaurus was at the same spot where he’d been a moment ago. But fortunately, they seemed to have been "trained" not to break buildings.

  It feels like a game, Luca thought, with monsters lurking and safe zones. Shawn had liked these kinds of games, he remembered. And so had he—though he hadn’t had much time in years to dedicate to it. Maybe when he got out of this mission…

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  But first things first.

  There was no one in the hallway on the other side—everything was quiet and dark.

  Luca closed the door gently.

  The sound of familiar footsteps reached his ears then. Another door opened, revealing Nagato. His black hair was a mess—as if it had been crushed by the rain and then shaken by a hand—and he had more mud on him than Luca himself, which was really a surprise.

  The flashlight’s light almost blinded him, but Luca put a finger to his lips with his eyes closed, pointing toward the outside. When he opened them, he was met with Nagato’s unimpressed gaze.

  "Let’s go," Luca said, blinking, and gestured with his hand toward the door on the other side of the room, "the other lever should be there."

  For a moment, it seemed like Nagato was going to say something, but he held back and nodded, still with the expression of someone who had eaten sour yogurt for the first time.

  Nagato’s shoulders grew tenser and tenser as they approached the door—perhaps not because of the idea that there was something similar to the creatures they’d encountered before, but because of the noise coming from outside. The walls didn’t seem that thick, or at least they didn’t have good soundproofing.

  It felt like they were walking alongside the predator, to be honest.

  "We shouldn’t take long here," Luca murmured, distractedly, opening the door (he’d been doing that a lot lately, hadn’t he? At this rate, it seemed like he was being paid as a Door Opener) and peeking inside.

  Nagato just snorted.

  "All clear."

  The break room seemed to have been abandoned without a second thought.

  Luca turned his gaze to his companion when he heard the sound of plastic. His eyebrow rose as he saw him open a pack of cookies he’d taken from the counter and waited for him to take a bite before saying, "You know everything here is dead, right? Not just the people."

  To be honest, he was impressed the other man could eat in this situation.

  Nagato paused for a moment before swallowing. "You’re making shit up," he said finally, frowning. "Are you going to tell me everything here is made of—dinosaur bone dust or something?"

  Luca shrugged.

  Both of them continued their way—from that room, they found a hallway full of doors leading to other offices and a staircase at the end, which they took to go three floors down.

  "When did you memorize the map?" Nagato asked in a whisper as they stepped into another hallway, this one with only a few doors scattered around. "Don’t you need to… look at it again or something?"

  Luca felt like it was about time he asked that.

  "I had some time after finishing the tour," he replied simply, and it wasn’t exactly a lie. "This way," he murmured, and both of them took one of the doors to pass through a simple office connected to another hallway… with more doors, all identical.

  "I hope we don’t get lost…"

  "Did you lose the Sharpie?"

  Nagato didn’t respond.

  They took one last door that led them to a narrow, dark hallway—this time, it didn’t have any marks, nor were there any ominous metal doors waiting for them. This one was made of carved wood with a golden sign that read ‘Dr. Johnson.’

  —but this door led them to a special office. If it could even be called that when the first thing they saw upon entering was a paperweight in the shape of a deformed T. Rex. Its features seemed to have a demonic tint, with exaggerated ugliness.

  The rest of the decorations shared the same style—not even the carpet was spared, and Nagato stepped on the image of the creature almost without thinking.

  "What a monstrosity," Nagato muttered. "Whose place is this?"

  "The park owner’s—Doctor or Director H. Johnson."

  "Really? I wouldn’t have guessed."

  Ignoring the sarcastic murmur, Luca looked at the painting on the other side of the desk. Although it occupied a "place of honor," it was especially horrible: it was a version of the park seen from above, with all the dinosaurs looking up with monstrous faces. Luca moved it aside, revealing a safe with a digital panel, and before Nagato could complain about the lack of a code, he crouched and opened the drawers, searching.

  "The code might be in the painting," Nagato suggested, and he grabbed the painting and laid it on the desk.

  Luca found the key in the third drawer. The lever was inside the safe—and something else. Luca glanced at Nagato and noticed he was absorbed in the painting, so he stretched out both hands. With one, he grabbed the lever, and with the other, he took the syringe.

  Good! Relaxing his shoulders, he let out a sigh of relief as he turned around, sliding the syringe into his back pocket. Two out of three—he could already feel the freedom. And see the numbers in his account (at least for a couple of minutes before sending it to Victor, but that didn’t count).

  "Hey," the other man said suddenly, his voice strangely restrained. "Did you see this…?"

  Nagato was staring at the painting with a blank expression, and when he noticed Luca was paying attention, he pointed at the Administration Building—right where they were at that moment—directly at the deformed face painted there.

  It was human and yet not.

  It was pale as a corpse, with small, pupil-less yellowish eyes, while the holes of its nose were too big for the size of its face. Its mouth, without lips, was stretched from one end to the other in a "smile" full of sharp teeth. The visible part of its neck was just rolls with a pattern of dark scales.

  So this is the third piece, Luca thought.

  "Let’s get out of here," Nagato hissed, "before we run into 1rst Place for Most Hideous Freak Show."

  Who would argue with that?