Jurassic World Dominion Read online

  Jurassic World Dominion © 2022 Universal City Studios LLC and Amblin Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  ISBN 9780593310632 (hardcover) — ISBN 9780593310649 (paperback) — ebook ISBN 9780593310656

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Photos from the Movie

  On a moonlit night, two hooded figures cut the links of a barbed-wire fence surrounding an industrial farm. They squeezed through the opening, stealthily crossed the yard, and slipped into a large metal barn.

  They didn’t like what they found inside.

  Claire Dearing stared angrily at the rows of baby Nasutoceratops crammed into small cages. Each Nasutoceratops resembled a baby rhino with a solid frill behind its head, a mouth like a parrot’s beak, and two horns. The creatures were cute but miserable.

  Zia Rodriguez immediately pulled out her phone and began filming the cages. “We’re inside an illegal breeding facility,” she narrated in a hushed voice. “The juveniles are raised in cages to keep down costs.”

  In a rolling cage, one of the Nasutoceratops groaned. MMMRRR. Zia checked its pulse and shined a penlight into its eye. “He’s not looking good,” the paleoveterinarian said.

  Feeling rage building inside her, Claire stated, “We can’t leave him here.” She started to pick the lock on the dinosaur’s ankle cuff.

  “Claire, no,” Zia protested. “We can report this.”

  “The Department of Fish and Wildlife takes days to investigate,” Claire argued. “We can save this one now.”

  Soon they were rolling the heavy cage down an unpaved road just outside the fence. Back near the barn, security guards with flashlights shouted something about intruders. The baby Nasutoceratops made a braying sound.

  “Shhh,” Claire whispered, trying to soothe it. “Okay, shhh.”

  A van backed up to them. Franklin Webb opened the rear doors from inside and saw Claire and Zia cradling the moaning Nasutoceratops. “This was not the plan,” he said nervously.

  Claire slipped into the driver’s seat and drove the van down the rough road as Zia and Franklin bounced around in the back. Zia tried to sedate the baby dinosaur. Spotting a pickup truck coming after them, Claire hit the gas. “Hang on!” she cried. VROOM!

  Turning off the road, Claire crashed through a gate and drove across bumpy ground.

  “It’s okay,” Franklin told the Nasutoceratops. “Just going for a little ride.”

  THOMP! The dinosaur thrashed and kicked. The van shook and the back door flew open! The truck was right behind them, driven by a woman who looked furious at having her valuable property stolen. A man leaned out the passenger window and fired a shotgun, aiming for the van’s tires. He hit the bumper instead. BLAM! TINK!

  “Claire, we’re gonna get shot!” Zia yelled.

  Dead ahead, Claire spotted a full-grown Triceratops and swerved around it. The truck tried swerving, too, but tipped over and landed on its side. WHAM!

  They got away, and Zia finally managed to inject the sedative. “There you go. Nap time.”

  “Everybody good?” Claire called back from the driver’s seat.

  “NO!” Franklin and Zia shouted in unison.

  * * *

  By sunrise, they were driving down an empty road with the baby dinosaur peacefully sleeping in the back.

  “Okay,” Claire said. “So I think we should get this one to safety and then hit that facility again.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Franklin said, shaking his head. “Look, we’ll get this one to the Department of Fish and Wildlife and make sure she’s safe. But after that, we can’t do this anymore.”

  “You’re quitting?” Claire asked, surprised.

  “Quitting what?” Franklin asked. “This isn’t an actual organization anymore.”

  Claire looked disappointed. She still felt terrible about her role in the disaster at Jurassic World. Trying to save the dinosaurs that had escaped into North America and the world was the only way she knew how to make up for that.

  Zia understood how Claire felt. “Look,” she said. “You’re responsible for something that hurt a lot of people. You want to fix it, but this is not the way to go about it.”

  “But they need us,” Claire pleaded.

  “Are you saving these dinosaurs because they need us?” Franklin challenged. “Or are you saving them to absolve yourself?”

  Claire ignored his question. “A lot of people want these animals dead.”

  “Yeah,” Franklin agreed. “And if people like us are in jail, they win. Last week I got offered a real job, something I can do to effectively change things. I’ve got to take it. I’m sorry.”

  “Claire,” Zia said gently. “I know you want to do right by your past. But this isn’t about you anymore.”

  Claire slowly nodded. She knew Zia was right. But that didn’t make it any easier.

  * * *

  In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a herd of juvenile Parasaurolophuses thundered across the open range, kicking up powdery snow. A man on horseback rode alongside the dinosaurs, rounding them up.

  Owen Grady.

  A woman named Rosa and a man named Shep rode nearby, helping drive the herd. Shep whistled, keeping the dinosaurs moving.

  Suddenly, a Parasaurolophus broke away from the other dinosaurs and ran off on its own. Owen galloped after the rogue dinosaur, drew his lasso, and roped the runaway. But it kept on going, stomping down a rocky slope. Owen had to slide off his horse, holding on to the rope. He managed to wrap it around a tree stump and pull it taut to stop the Parasaurolophus.

  “There you go,” he said to the dinosaur, trying to calm the frightened animal. “Shhh. You’re all right.”

  The creature was bucking wildly, but Owen kept speaking in his soothing voice until it settled down. Soon he was able to bring the Parasaurolophus back to the herd and slip the lasso off. It fell in step with its fellow dinosaurs, a member of the pack once again.

  As the sun started to set, Owen, Shep, and Rosa led the herd across a shallow stream. Through the trees, Owen spotted a man on horseback. And then another. He could see shotguns in their hands. They whistled to each other. Soon four men on horseback had cir
cled the herd of dinosaurs.

  Owen frowned.

  Owen looked up to the top of a hill and saw a pair of pickup trucks and more men on horseback, watching, ready to come down and help.

  The leader of the four riders, a man named Delacourt, told Owen threateningly, “Poaching gets you three to five years in prison. You know that. Looks like we’ll be taking this herd off your hands.”

  “On what authority?” Owen asked.

  Opening his trench coat to show a patch sewn inside, Delacourt said, “Department of Fish and Wildlife.”

  “That’s funny,” Owen said, “because my friends here know all the new recruits.” Rosa and Shep flipped their wallets open to show the gold badges identifying them as special agents with the Department of Fish and Wildlife. “Did you see these guys at orientation?” Owen asked them.

  “Nope,” Shep said.

  Owen turned back to Delacourt. “So what’s the going rate for Parasaurolophus bone powder now? Thousand dollars an ounce?”

  “I’d say more like six or seven.” Delacourt smirked.

  Owen whistled. “So I’d say we’ve got about five hundred grand worth of dinosaur right here. But if it weren’t for poachers like you, we’d let ’em run wild.”

  Delacourt pulled out a shotgun. Shep and Rosa drew their revolvers. “Hold it!” Rosa warned.

  Up on the hill, Delacourt’s men took aim. “How y’all want this to go?” Delacourt asked. “Your bones ain’t worth nothing to me, but don’t think I won’t rip ’em out of you.”

  Delacourt’s right-hand man, Wyatt, locked eyes with Owen. “He’s not lying.”

  Owen knew they were seriously outnumbered and outgunned. He made a hard decision. “Take ’em,” he said. “Go on.”

  Grinning, Delacourt and his men herded the dinosaurs up the hill to the trucks. “See you around,” Delacourt called back over his shoulder.

  When the rustlers were gone, Shep said to Owen, “Never seen you walk away from a fight.”

  Several conflicting feelings flashed through Owen’s eyes, but he only replied, “I got obligations.”

  * * *

  Thirteen-year-old Maisie Lockwood finished stacking firewood alongside a mountain cabin. She hopped on her bike, popped in her earbuds, and rode off through the snow toward a small logging town.

  From the woods, a Velociraptor watched her pedaling fast down the road. The raptor was named Blue. Years earlier, she’d been named and trained by Owen. She watched Maisie ride by but left the girl alone.

  At the town’s bait shop, Maisie set lures, fishing hooks, and a flashlight on the counter. As the store’s owner rang up the items, she asked, “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “It’s fine,” Maisie assured her. “I’m homeschooled.”

  “That so,” the owner said skeptically.

  Heading back home, Maisie cut through the lumber yard. Work had stopped because a pair of huge, gentle Apatosauruses had wandered into the mill. The workers didn’t know what to do. Maisie made a suggestion to the foreman. He took it, telling one of his workers to light a flare and climb onto the back of a water truck. The foreman drove the truck away, and the dinosaurs followed it out of the mill. Work resumed, thanks to Maisie’s insight into dinosaur behavior.

  When Maisie got back to the cabin, Claire was outside burning her clothes and a blanket from the raid on the industrial farm in a steel drum. She wanted to get rid of any evidence that she, Franklin, and Zia had broken in and rescued a baby Nasutoceratops.

  “Hey,” Claire called to Maisie, spotting snow on her jacket. “Where have you been?”

  “Nowhere,” Maisie fibbed. “What are you burning?”

  “Nothing,” Claire said, telling a fib of her own. “Just some old blankets. You sure you didn’t go past the bridge?”

  “Nope,” Maisie said. “You sure those are old blankets?”

  “Yep,” Claire claimed. The two looked at each other, each waiting for an admission.

  “That’s the look you get when you think I’m lying,” Maisie said.

  “Are you?” Claire asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re kind of looking everywhere but here.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Yeah, you’re completely avoiding eye contact.”

  “I said I didn’t go past the bridge!” Maisie barked, grabbing a piece of firewood and stomping off into the cabin.

  Claire followed her in and found Maisie adding the log to the cabin’s woodstove. “Can we start over?” Claire asked. She hadn’t meant to make Maisie angry.

  “I know, I know—there are people who will do anything to find me,” Maisie said, having heard it a thousand times.

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do fun stuff, like—”

  “Feed the goats?” Maisie asked, interrupting her. “Mix compost? These things are not fun.”

  “Hey, I’m not angry,” Claire said. “That means you don’t have to be angry.”

  “I’m not angry!” Maisie insisted, slamming the stove’s door shut. CLANK! “I want to go out for pizza. And bowling. Why can’t we do that?”

  “You know why,” Claire said quietly.

  “So you’re gonna hide me here forever?” Maisie asked. “Watching the same six DVDs over and over?”

  “We’re trying to keep you safe,” Claire explained.

  “I can take care of myself, Claire,” Maisie said, storming into her room.

  Claire followed her. “It’s okay for us to depend on each other,” Claire said. “That’s what people do.”

  Maisie wheeled around to face Claire. “How should I know what people do? The only people I’ve talked to in the past four years are you both. I’m not a real person anyway.”

  Claire looked shocked.

  “What?” Claire asked.

  “I’m not…me,” Maisie said. The unspoken truth was that Maisie was a clone, created from the DNA of Benjamin Lockwood’s daughter. Though she knew it wasn’t strictly true, Maisie still thought of Benjamin Lockwood as her grandfather, and she missed him and her old life.

  “Oh, honey,” Claire said, her heart breaking at Maisie’s statement. “You’re the only one who ever was.”

  Maisie tried not to cringe, but Claire knew she had gone too far.

  “That was corny, wasn’t it?” Claire asked.

  “It was super corny,” Maisie said as the tension dissipated.

  “Please don’t tell anyone,” Claire asked.

  “I can’t promise that,” Maisie said, smiling. Headlights flashed in the window. Maisie’s smile got even bigger. “Owen!” She ran out of the cabin to greet him.

  As Owen closed the truck door, Maisie hugged him. “Hey, kid,” he said affectionately. He hugged her back. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Maisie wrinkled her nose. “You smell like horses.”

  “Mmm,” Claire said, agreeing.

  “Do you like that?” Owen asked her.

  “I do,” Claire said. As she and Owen started to kiss, Maisie quickly slipped back inside the cabin, saying, “I’m gonna make dinner.” She had no interest in watching her guardians kiss.

  “Everything good?” Owen asked.

  Claire’s lips tightened. “She went into town again.”

  Owen furrowed his brow. “You talk to her?”

  “I tried,” Claire said, shrugging.

  * * *

  In the pine forest, the raptor named Blue watched Owen and Claire. Then she took off through the woods, nimbly darting between trees and bushes, making her way back to an abandoned school bus covered in moss. The bus had been rusting away in the same spot for fifty years.

  Blue entered through a gaping hole in the side of the bus. Inside, an old tire lined with dirty rags held the broken shell of a dinosaur egg.

  A four-foot raptor cautiously e
merged from its hiding place in the bus. She looked exactly like her larger mother. Blue screeched and led the way out of the bus. Her daughter followed her.

  Snow fell in the woods. Blue and her young offspring stalked a rabbit. Just as they were about to pounce, a wolf exploded from the bushes and ate the rabbit. Blue screeched, and her daughter lunged at the wolf, biting its shoulder.

  BLAM! A bullet hit the snow inches from the young raptor. She scrambled away, confused. Blue spotted two game hunters wearing white camouflage. One cocked his gun. CLICK.

  Blue leapt toward them. BLAM! The bullet landed just behind her. The raptor made quick work of the two hunters. They never stood a chance.

  Owen looked toward the woods when he heard the gunshots, concerned for Blue.

  “You okay?” Claire asked.

  “Hunting season,” Owen said.

  * * *

  Later that night, Maisie, Owen, and Claire sat outside the cabin, enjoying a roaring campfire. Owen sharpened his knife while Maisie whittled a stick with hers.

  “How old were you when you got your first knife?” Maisie asked.

  “Older than you,” he said. “Always cut away from yourself.”

  Maisie gave him an annoyed look, feeling as though he was being overprotective again. Owen noticed and decided to shift gears. He flipped his knife in his hand.

  “Come here,” he said. “Remember what I told you about fighting with a knife? Get your forearm up. Target the weak spots.” He made quick stabbing motions. “One, two. Then, while they’re bleeding out, say something cool like ‘Wrong girl, wrong time.’ ”

  “Wrong girl, wrong time,” Maisie said, trying to sound cool.