“I’m not planning to kill it,” Faith replied calmly, moving forward toward George’s rocky platform as smoothly and carefully as she could. She didn’t want the snake to hear her coming and panic. “I’m going to use this forked stick to trap it. If I can get it just behind the head, it won’t be able to move its head enough to bite you, and you’ll be able to step over it safely.”
“What?” George sounded incredulous. “Give me a break, girl. Just find a big rock and smash the thing to kingdom come!”
“No, that’s not necessary. This will work.”
George glared at her. “Not necessary? It sounds like you care more about protecting the damn snake than saving my life! What’s wrong with you?”
Faith took a deep breath, doing her best to ignore his rather insulting tone. “That’s not true,” she told him. “This is the best way. It’s safer, and nothing has to get killed.”
George barked out a short, bitter laugh. “Oh, man. This just takes the cake, don’t it? You environmental types always think you know best…” He shifted his weight, raising his shoulders slightly and sending a couple of pebbles bouncing down to the ground. “I’ve got a better plan, sweetheart. You make some noise—beat that dinky little stick of yours against a tree or something—so the snake gets distracted. Then I’ll jump up and kick it away before it can bite me.”
“No!” Faith blurted out, alarmed. “You can’t do that. If we get the snake too riled up it’s likely to go after either or both of us!”
“Not if I get to it first,” George muttered, gripping the handle of the valise even more tightly. Despite his bold words, though, he suddenly seemed a lot less excited about trying his “plan.”
Faith sighed, so frustrated by his foolish bluster that she was ready to give up. Maybe it would be better to run to the beach for reinforcements. George might be more likely to listen to someone like Jack—a man, a natural leader, someone he respected…
At that moment George’s knee slid out from under him by a few inches, sending a few more pebbles skittering off the edge of the rock shelf. George caught his balance, but the Death Adder tensed and raised its head. Freezing in place once again, George stared at the snake with terror in his eyes.
Faith gulped. There was no time to run for help. George was too scared and too impulsive by nature; if she left, she suspected he was quite likely to try something stupid just to put an end to the terrifying standoff. It was almost a miracle that it hadn’t already happened. She had to be strong, to stay and try to help him, no matter what happened. If he panicked and did something foolish anyway? Well, she would just have to deal with it.
“Okay, listen to me,” she told George briskly, trying to copy his own businesslike tone as best she could. “We’re going to do this my way. You need to stay as still as you can until I give the word, okay? Don’t move, or try to get up and smash the snake with that suitcase, or anything else. If it bites one of us…” She grimaced slightly as the relevant statistics flooded her mind. “Let’s just say that without access to antivenin, our chances wouldn’t be that great.”
“Whatever,” he muttered, seeming mesmerized as he gazed at the snake.
She hesitated, watching him for a second or two. Could he do it? Would he stay still and calm until she gave the word, or would he panic and doom himself, and quite possibly her, too, to a nasty and painful death from snakebite? He clearly didn’t trust her or her plan. Could she trust him?
There was only one way to find out. She gripped the forked stick tightly and crept forward…
20
ARREGLO STAGGERED BACKWARD, CLUTCHING his chest. His face registered surprise, confusion, and pain. His mouth opened, but no sound came out—just a small bubble of saliva that hung on his lower lip for a moment. The syringe came loose and clattered to the floor.
Faith gasped in horror as Arreglo’s legs collapsed and he crumpled to the ground, his head bouncing painfully off the sharp edge of the modern coffee table. “Oscar!” she cried. “What did you—”
With three swift steps, Oscar was at her side. He grabbed her, covering her mouth with a hand. “Not a sound,” he murmured in her ear. “We totally lucked out with this crazy hotel suite—those guards outside shouldn’t hear a thing. Not unless you do something stupid, like scream.”
Her eyes wide, Faith shook her head. She wasn’t a screamer anyway—Oscar knew that. When she got really scared, her voice shut down, and the most she ever managed was a startled squeak.
Oscar loosened his hold on her mouth. “Promise? No screaming?”
She nodded, and he released her. She immediately dropped to her knees at Arreglo’s side. His eyes were rolled back in his head, and his chest heaved, his breathing coming in quick, ragged gasps. He appeared to be unconscious.
“What did you do?” Faith exclaimed, still not really comprehending what was happening. “Oscar, what—”
“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Oscar sounded pleased with himself and almost cheerful. “I thought you were supposed to be so smart, Ms. PhD.”
Faith’s gaze turned to the syringe, which was lying beside Arreglo’s shoulder. A small trickle of blood was pooling beside it, soaking into the pale fibers of the hotel carpet. “What was in that thing?”
“Snake venom.” Oscar grinned proudly. “Pretty appropriate, don’t you think?” He shrugged. “Well, okay, there was some superfast-acting tranq in there, too—didn’t want him fighting back or making a lot of noise while the venom did its thing, you know.”
Faith blinked. None of this was making sense to her. “But where did you get…? Why…?” Feeling her mind start to go numb with shock, she shook it off. This was no time to panic. “Never mind,” she said. “We have to help him! What kind of snake did the venom come from? We need to get some antivenin and—”
“No.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed firmly, stopping her before she could get up and rush to the door. “Wait. You can’t go out there—what do you think is going to happen to you if people come in here and see this?” He waved one hand at Arreglo, who was still gasping for air like a beached fish.
“What are you talking about?” Faith cried, her grasp on reality starting to slip a little. This was all too much—nothing in her life had prepared her for such a situation. For a second she had the eerie, unbalanced feeling that she was acting out a scene in a movie or something. “Oscar, I still don’t understand what’s going on!”
Oscar sighed, sounding more like his usual impatient self. “Get with the program, babe,” he said. “You can’t really be this dense, can you? Do you really think the IAL would pay all those expensive overseas plane tickets just so we could wave a few signs? No way—this is why we’re here.” Once again he indicated Arreglo. “The IAL wants to send a message to anyone who might decide it’s a good idea to compromise with Big Bad Business. We’ve been planning this since the day Arreglo made his big announcement.”
Faith put her hands to her ears, not wanting to hear any more. None of this made sense; none of it. She wasn’t the type of person who got involved in these sorts of things—she didn’t even like reading about them in the newspaper. And Oscar.…She stared at him, wondering if she really knew him at all.
She tried to breathe in and out to stave off the panic, but the air got stuck in her throat. In front of her, Arreglo’s body twitched and he let out a deep groan.
Oscar leaned down and grabbed the syringe, holding it up to the light. Faith could see that there was still some liquid sloshing around inside. “Oops, guess I didn’t get it all into him.” Oscar shrugged and glanced down at Arreglo. “Looks like it was more than enough to do the trick, though.” After sliding a keeper onto the end of the needle, he tucked the syringe into his pants pocket.
As the unconscious Arreglo struggled to breathe, Faith struggled to keep her wits about her. She was very aware of the seconds ticking by—seconds that might be crucial in saving Arreglo’s life. Somehow, though, she couldn’t seem to make herself act or thi
nk or do anything but kneel there staring in horror.
Oscar was still talking. “Okay, now we’ve got to get out of here,” he said, grabbing her windbreaker and shoving it at her. “Just follow my lead, and don’t do anything stupid. Those hired goons outside know I couldn’t have smuggled in that syringe—they checked me over pretty good, remember? So when they find out about this, they’ll know it had to be you.” He smirked, picking up his sunglasses and sliding them on. “Just keep that in mind as we’re leaving, babe.”
“But I didn’t—” she started to protest, then gasped, remembering how she’d noticed Oscar fiddling with her jacket after they came into the suite. “You put it in my pocket, didn’t you?” she accused, feeling the truth of it like a punch in the gut. “You made sure I wore my jacket because you knew they probably wouldn’t frisk me.”
“Bingo.” Oscar grinned as he slapped his hat on his head, pushing it down so it covered most of his forehead. “Now you’re starting to catch on!” He grabbed her by the arm, dragging her to her feet. “Now come on, let’s get while the getting’s good. We need to be far away from here before someone finds him.”
Faith’s mind was crying out against everything that was happening. It seemed to be frozen in the moment before Arreglo had extended his hand to Oscar, as if refusing to accept anything that had happened after that. If only reality could work that way, with some sort of cosmic rewind button.…She stood frozen in place, staring down at Arreglo. Oscar must have pumped a huge dose of venom into him. Maybe it was already too late to help him.
“Come on!” Oscar sounded really impatient by this time. “What are you waiting for? In case you don’t realize it yet, you’re a wanted woman now.”
That broke through the fog a little. “Me?” she cried. “But I didn’t do anything wrong!”
Oscar laughed. “Hey, that may be true,” he said. “But who’s going to believe it? As far as anyone outside this room will know, you’re an accomplice. You were the one who got us access to Arreglo, you were the one who smuggled in the venom—hell, you were even the one who got some of the venom out of the snakes, remember?”
Faith closed her eyes, flashing back to the extractions she’d performed the previous evening at the lab. She’d thought she was doing it to further the cause of cancer research. Instead…
Oscar wasn’t finished. “Besides, who will be there to bail you out of jail and help you find a decent lawyer?” he taunted, peering at her over the top of his glasses. “Nobody, that’s who. I’m all you’ve got, babe.”
His words seemed somehow crueler than anything else he’d done so far. Oscar knew she had no living family—no one to count on in a bad situation except herself. Arreglo had been the person who’d come closest in the past few years, and then Oscar himself, of course, or so she’d thought. Besides them, there was nobody else. Not anymore.
Feeling her whole world crumbling around her, she didn’t resist as Oscar grabbed her arm and hustled her toward the door. She walked passively down the long interior passageway and stopped in front of the outside door.
“Remember, just play along,” he hissed warningly in her ear.
Then he swung open the door. The guards, who had been slouched against the walls, immediately snapped to attention.
“Anything wrong, mate?” one of them asked. “You’re, uh, back sooner than we thought.”
Oscar’s chuckle sounded surprisingly normal. “Don’t worry, guys,” he said with a playful wink. “I won’t tell the boss you were slacking off.” He tilted his head toward Faith. “No, the little lady here just started feeling sick—she’s afraid of heights, and the big windows in there freaked her out, I guess.”
“Sorry to hear that, miss,” the guard said, smiling at Faith.
“Anyway, Dr. Arreglo asked us to give you a message on our way out,” Oscar continued, his voice still light and casual. “He wants to take a nap before his next meeting. So he said you should still keep anyone from disturbing him until it’s time to get ready for that. Okay?”
“No worries.” The guard shrugged agreeably. “He’s the boss, right?”
“Right!” Oscar laughed again, then gave the guard a friendly slap on the shoulder. “See you guys around, okay?”
Tightening his hold on Faith’s arm, he steered her down the hall to the elevator. The doors slid open only seconds after he punched the button, and he gave her a gentle shove to propel her inside the empty car.
She turned around to face the front, her feet shuffling as slowly as an elderly woman’s. Then she stared blankly ahead as the doors slid shut.
21
GEORGE’S EYES WERE WIDE and wild with fear as he stared down at the Death Adder. After giving him one last anxious glance, Faith turned her attention to the snake. She carefully judged the distance left between her and the edge of the rock shelf, then took a few careful steps forward. She was still worried about all the impulsive and stupid moves George might possibly make, but she was doing her best to push such thoughts out of her mind. She needed to focus and do what she had to do, come what may.
“Easy,” she murmured, though she wasn’t really sure whether she was talking to George, the snake, or herself. She figured it was probably a little of each. “Easy, now…”
Taking one more step, and then another, Faith eased forward until she was only about three feet from the front edge of the rock shelf. Due to its gradual slope from front to back, the front end was a little lower than she’d thought initially; the top was about even with her waist. Clutching her stick in both hands, she raised it to shoulder height and took one more step.
She was within striking range now. The Death Adder was still watching George, seeming unaware of or uninterested in her approach.
Faith paused, her stick held at the ready, wondering if she could really do this. Though she had a healthy respect for it, the snake itself didn’t scare her much—she had handled much worse in the past. What made her mouth go dry and her whole body tremble was the thought of what might happen if she failed. The possibilities flashed through her mind in full Technicolor. She could miss, the stick could break or skid off the rock…
It would be bad enough if the snake turned on her—thanks to her background, she knew exactly what she would have to look forward to if that happened. But if it struck out at George, perhaps sank its fangs into his face or neck, she wasn’t sure she could handle the guilt. It would mean another death on her conscience due to a bad decision.…For an endless second, it seemed better just to stand there, frozen in time, and do nothing rather than risk the possibilities.
Just then a colorful little parakeet-type bird flashed by, warbling tunefully, and snapped Faith out of her inertia. Blinking gratefully up at the bird as it disappeared from view, she then returned her attention to the task before her. She still wasn’t sure if she could trust George not to do something foolish. But that didn’t matter. It was far more important to trust herself. After all, that was the only thing she could control. The old Faith might not have believed that. But now she did.
Not giving herself a second chance to freeze, she lunged forward, jabbing the stick firmly down against the rock. The snake thrashed—once, twice, three times—flinging its body around so violently that for a terrifying second she couldn’t tell if she’d failed or succeeded.
Then it stilled for a moment before thrashing again, giving her the chance to see that she’d done it—the snake’s large, triangular head was being held firmly against the rock, trapped neatly between the branches of the fork at the end of the stick. She pressed down as hard as she dared. She didn’t want her hands to tremble and let the stick slip, but at the same time she didn’t want to push so hard that the branch snapped in two. It was a balancing act, a careful compromise between too much and too little.
“Now!” she called urgently to George, who remained frozen in place. “Go! Climb over it and keep going.”
But George still didn’t move. What was he waiting for? Ripping her gaze away from the
snake just long enough to glance at him, Faith saw that his eyes were fixed on the struggling serpent and his face was drained of all color.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
Her lunge and the snake’s violent thrashings must have overwhelmed whatever bravado he’d had left. It was clear that he was too terrified to move—even to save himself. Now what was she supposed to do?
“George?” she said tentatively. “Hey, George! Snap out of it, okay?”
He didn’t respond or move at all. She swallowed hard, being careful not to let up the pressure on her stick. The snake’s thick body flung itself from side to side, smacking her soundly on the arms and torso, but she barely felt the pain. She was frozen with indecision once again, trying to decide how to deal with this completely unanticipated turn of events.
But this time she didn’t allow herself to freak out. Glancing down at the rocky ground, she spotted an oval-shaped rock beside her right foot. It was about the size of an elongated grapefruit and solid—more than heavy enough to smash in the head of the Death Adder. It would be easy enough to stoop down and scoop it up while still keeping one hand on the stick. It would be even easier to use it to kill the snake while she had it trapped and helpless.
The thought made her feel queasy in the pit of her stomach. Why should this snake die for George’s cowardice? Her hands on the stick trembled as she remembered the pretty little spider he’d killed without a second thought. Then there were the countless creatures that must have been displaced by his developments back home—birds, reptiles, rabbits, deer, insects, spiders, fish, and many more. What about them? Had he spared even a momentary pang of pity or guilt over them? Had he thought about them at all?
She knew what Oscar would say she should do…
“I’m not Oscar,” she muttered fiercely, shaking her head as if to banish the memory of him. She did care about the snake, it was true. But she cared about George as well. Even after all that had happened. He was still a fellow human being.
Glancing down, she reached out with her toes and shifted the rock a little closer. It was there if she needed it—and she knew she would use it if she had to. She was strong enough to do what was necessary to save George’s life.
Lost: The Novels Page 13
