Authors: Nicola R. White
But they could.
As Jackson pulled up beside me on his Harley, I looked up at the clouds. “If anyone up there is listening, I’ll get you for this. You have pissed off a Fury, you hear me?”
“Nice outfit,” Jackson drawled when he cut the engine, taking in the fishnets and short shorts.
“Mind your business,” I snapped at him. “I don’t need your help, so get lost.”
I wheeled around to walk away with my nose in the air, but I turned too fast on the unfamiliar height of the platforms and had to wave my arms in circles for balance. My face heated as Jackson laughed and I shot him a dirty look over my shoulder.
What exactly was his problem? He’d made it clear in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested in me, so why was he here now? I shook my head in frustration. Had he showed up uninvited just so he could make fun of me? I could not figure the man out. With Nora and Ruby, he was a dedicated, selfless protector.
While with me, he was male chauvinism personified.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I demanded.
“I called him,” Alex said, waiting with a hand on her hip for me to catch up. “Nora said he had some pretty decent first aid training from his time in the Navy. I figured we could use some backup if something goes wrong.”
I rolled my eyes. I could read Alex’s true intentions like a book. She was trying to play matchmaker, convinced the signals she’d picked up on back at the house just needed a little encouraging.
“We don’t need his help,” I told her through gritted teeth.
Jackson ignored my protest, dismounted his bike, and gestured toward the entrance. “After you, Morticia.”
I growled deep in my throat and stalked away. We didn’t have time to argue, and I didn’t want to cause a scene in the parking lot of the zoo. Our plan was stupid enough as it was.
“Just think of him as our backup in case anything goes wrong,” Alex suggested. “Our last resort.”
“Not even if he was the last man on Earth,” I muttered, just loud enough for Jackson to hear.
He smirked at me, but accepted his role in the background, lingering behind us as Alex and I entered the reptile house.
Once inside, we made a show of exclaiming excitedly over the snakes and lizards that populated the pavilion. I glanced around surreptitiously until I saw a door marked
staff only
, handily situated right next to the viper tank, and signaled to Alex. I hoped it would lead to a back room that opened into each tank for cleaning and feeding.
The only hitch in our plan so far was that there was no geeky reptile guy around for Alex to distract. I waited a few minutes to see if anyone would turn up, praying he wasn’t already in the back room, but as the wait dragged on and no one appeared, the suspense grew to be too much for me.
“I’m going for it,” I murmured to Alex as we pretended to watch a cobra. “If there’s someone back there, I’ll just say I was looking for the washroom.”
It wasn’t much of a story, but what was the worst that could happen? Getting caught and being banned from the zoo would be humiliating, but it was a necessary risk. Besides, I’d already been embarrassed as much as was humanly possible.
I took a deep breath. If I was caught, surely no one would bother calling the police over a little thing like interfering with deadly, poisonous animals—right?
I started off toward the ‘staff only’ sign, but just as I approached, the door swung open and an attractive brunette in a khaki uniform emerged. I veered off course toward the next room full of animals.
“I’m going to check out the crocodiles,” I called over my shoulder to Alex, hurrying away as fast as I could on my platforms. Jackson followed at a distance.
“I’m sorry,” the woman called out after us in a British accent, “but we’re closing now. You’ll have to come back another time.”
I ignored her and ducked around the corner. Jackson followed suit and the woman mumbled disgustedly under her breath, then approached Alex to give her the same warning. I peered around the corner to see her tap Alex on the shoulder.
Damn it
. The plan hadn’t accounted for a
female
reptile keeper. We had just assumed the staff person stationed at the reptile house would be some nerdy guy who would fall all over himself to answer Alex’s endless questions. Much as I hated to admit it, maybe having Jackson along would serve a purpose, after all—he could distract the cute, British snake handler.
My gut twisted at the thought of seeing him flirt with another woman, but I straightened my shoulders. I had to stop being such an idiot. He’d made it clear there was nothing between us.
“What are you waiting for?” I whispered at him, gesturing at the other woman. “Get over there!”
“And do what?” he whispered back. “I’m just backup. You don’t need me, remember?”
Ugh. He was insufferable. I opened my mouth to argue, but he pointed to the woman, now engaged in conversation with my roommate. “Besides, Alex is handling it.”
I looked over to see that Alex was discreetly gesturing at me behind the woman’s back to get on with it. It was now or never, and I needed that venom. I slipped off my shoes and shoved them in my oversize purse.
“Wait a second,” Jackson said. “What are you—”
But I didn’t wait to hear him finish his sentence, walking quickly and silently behind the zookeeper’s back into the large room that housed the reptile house’s main exhibits. I glanced back to see Jackson fuming next to a dwarf caiman as I reached the door marked
staff only
. I hoped it hadn’t locked automatically when the woman exited it.
I tried the handle. I was in luck.
I spared a final peek back at Alex and her companion to reassure myself that no one was looking before I slipped through the door. Alex was hair flipping for all she was worth, and I realized we hadn’t made an error in banking on the snake keeper’s attraction to Alex, after all. It just turned out that
she
wasn’t a
he
. And judging from the way the woman leaned into Alex’s every word, my roommate was well on her way to getting the zookeeper’s number.
I stifled a laugh. If anyone could turn a mission to milk a viper of its venom into an opportunity for a date, Alex could. And if something romantic came of our subterfuge, so much the better. Though she was equally interested in men and women, it had been months since anyone had really captured Alex’s attention.
I pulled on the thick, yellow, rubber gloves I’d grabbed from under our kitchen sink and pulled a sponge out of my purse before approaching the snake tank. Since it was made of clear glass on all sides, I could see through it to where Alex and the zookeeper flirted over a boa constrictor. I would be visible from the other side as well, and the next couple of minutes were crucial. If the woman’s attention wavered and she looked in my direction, we would be in serious trouble.
Turning my gaze back to the viper, I focused entirely on the snake in the glass enclosure. Either Alex would distract the woman or not, but it wouldn’t matter if I let the snake escape. Or worse, bite me. Rachel had guessed that the snake’s venom wouldn’t kill me if I was bitten, but we couldn’t be sure. Based on the changes I was undergoing, the possible consequences of a bite ranged anywhere from no reaction at all to horrible pain, death and disfigurement.
I wasn’t eager to find out which it would be.
Cautiously, I slid the glass door of the tank open just wide enough to fit my hand and forearm inside.
Chapter 17
I tossed in the sponge. The snake didn’t move.
I gathered my courage and reached in to poke the sponge closer to the animal. Still nothing. “Come on, snaky, snaky,” I crooned. “Bite the sponge for Mama.”
It stared at me.
Alecto
, I thought,
a little help? You’re the resident snake expert here.
It has no desire to bite us,
she answered.
Can you not feel its mind? Can you not feel all of them? These creatures know that we are one of them.
Oh, great. I rolled my eyes. I really
was
the snake’s mama, at least as far as it was concerned.
Can’t you tell it to bite?
I thought at Alecto, exasperated.
I can
, she answered.
But I will not.
I brushed a stray piece of hair off my forehead with my upper arm and felt a bead of sweat trickle down my face.
What’s the problem?
I snapped at her.
We can’t stand here like this for much longer. We’ll be caught.
The clock was ticking.
You
must tell the snake what to do
, Alecto hissed.
You must learn to control our powers as well as I. It is only together that we will be strong enough to defeat the coming darkness.
Wonderful. Just what I needed. Some kind of Jedi motivational speech from the Fury in my head. Yoda, she was not.
‘The Man from DeVille’ was kind of catchy, though. Maybe I’d use that as a chapter heading if I ever wrote a memoir.
I waited for clarification on how to tell the snake what I wanted it to do, but Alecto ignored me.
OK, fine
, I thought at her,
be that way
. I would do it on my own, but I didn’t want to hear a single word out of her if we got caught. She was the one who would waste away without the ambrosia, after all.
Anyway, how hard could it be to tell one measly snake what to do?
“Bite the ssssponge,” I whisper-hissed at the viper. “Bite the ssssponge!”
It continued to stare at me.
Exasperated, I prodded the viper gently with one yellow, rubber-clad finger. Still nothing.
I thought about how Alecto and I communicated. Maybe I needed to translate that into something this snake could understand? Although Alecto used words, she also transmitted her moods through a swirling jumble of color.
I searched my mind for a nice, non-threatening hue and settled on lavender.
Lavender
, I thought at the snake.
Lavender. Lavender
. I projected the color at the viper and pictured it biting into the sponge I held out.
It twitched its tail. Was that interest in its eyes, or impending death by viper bite? Sweat dampened my palms and I thought at it harder.
Lavender
. Another twitch. Now we were getting somewhere.
Lavender
, I insisted.
Finally, it clamped down on the sponge, striking so quickly I let out an involuntary squeak and nearly toppled over backward. I forced myself to stay calm and pictured the snake biting again, for good measure. It chomped down a few more times, and I sent happy, sunny yellows its way. I pictured it sunning itself on a warm, flat rock so it would know that I was pleased. The viper slithered around dreamily for a second, then coiled up into a sleepy, contented wreath. I hoped my thoughts would send it happy dreams.
I withdrew the sponge and slipped it into the large plastic bag I’d brought with me, careful to seal it tightly. Alex and I had watched online videos of venom collection before heading out, so I knew I would have gotten more usable snake spit if I’d collected it in a container, but the sponge had seemed less risky.
A
lot
less. To harvest venom in a glass jar, the snake had to be grabbed at the base of the head and held fang-first over the container—not something I was interested in attempting. And I didn’t even want to think about what we would do when we needed more venom. We could hardly expect to keep sneaking around unnoticed at the zoo, and I really didn’t want a pet viper of my very own.
I glanced through the glass and saw Alex gesturing at me behind her back to hurry up, so I closed the tank securely and slipped the baggie and gloves into my purse. I exited the back room as quickly and quietly as I’d entered and slipped back into the other room to strap my shoes back on.
Jackson grabbed my arm as soon as I rounded the corner where I’d left him. “Are you insane?
That
was the big plan? Stick your hand into a tank with a poisonous snake and hope for the best? Alex told me you two needed to steal some venom, but she didn’t mention you were going to do something
that
idiotic.”
I shook him off. “What do you care? You shouldn’t even be here.” Now that I’d made it back to safety, I was wobbly and light-headed from adrenaline and nerves. I was in no mood for a lecture.
“I shouldn’t be here? What were you going to do if that snake had gone after you? Somebody with some medical training sure as hell needed to be here in case you got yourself bitten.”
“Yeah, well, thanks so much for all your help.” I refused to look at him. “I especially liked the way you stood around and did nothing.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who just rushed off half-cocked. I would have gone in with you if you’d waited a minute. You could have gotten yourself killed!”
“So what? It’s nothing to you what happens to me.”
We stood toe-to-toe, yelling at each other in heated whispers, and I had to look away. Jackson’s eyes were intense, full of anger and something else I couldn’t name. I wanted it to be concern for my safety, but I knew better. He just didn’t want anything to happen to me in case I held the key to finding out who was after Ruby.
But still, the wistful, sappy side of me that was infatuated with him, even after the hurtful things he’d said back at the house, urged him to prove me wrong.
Tell me you care,
something small and vulnerable begged inside of me.
Tell me it matters.