Kelly. Carla gritted her teeth.
“Bryce,” she said, “this is Kelly Grassle. She’s one of the researchers here.” Bryce nodded toward her, and as he did so Carla noticed his eyes lingering on her lavishly displayed cleavage. On her left breast was a tattoo of a snarling dragon, drops of blood falling from its fangs. Lovely.
“Kelly, this is Bryce Betts. He’s a friend of mine who had planned on visiting just for the day.”
“Nice to meet you, Bryce,” Kelly murmured as the two shook hands. “I take it your plans changed after the storm?”
“I can’t get out,” Bryce explained. “So it looks like I’m stuck here for a bit.”
A coy smile crossed her lips. “Well, we can always find something for you to do around here.”
An undercurrent of sexual tension passed between the two of them as Bryce gave Kelly a smile back, and Carla was relieved. If Bryce’s attention focused on someone else, all the better for her.
“Bryce, I need to see what I can do to help around here,” she said. “Can you find your way around?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kelly answered for Bryce. “I’ll help out your friend.”
“Ah, yeah. Okay.” Carla turned to leave. “Thanks, Kelly.”
“Don’t mention it.”
The researcher had all of her attention focused on Bryce, so Carla made a quick getaway. She left the building and walked around to the back, by the circuit room, wanting to find Jackson and ask if she could help. An empty room greeted her when she entered. She walked around the property, picking her way through the debris, but she couldn’t find him in any of the other buildings, either. She began getting worried when she spotted Cheng Li. He removed twigs and branches from around one of the outer buildings, trying to clear the path.
“Cheng,” she called out to get his attention as she approached.
He looked up and gave her a polite nod. “Hello, Ms. Carla,” he said, continuing to collect branches.
“Cheng, have you seen Jackson?”
“Mr. Jackson came here a few minutes ago,” Cheng confirmed.
Carla’s face lit up. “Did he say where he was going?”
“He’s going to go into the cobra holding facility. I will join him shortly, as soon as I can get into this building and gather supplies. We are very concerned about the gravid female. She is weakened due to long periods of time sitting on the nest, and she needed to exert much energy protecting her nest from the storm. The camera closest to her was broken by the storm so we are unable to monitor her. We must enter the enclosure to check the female and fix the camera.”
Carla’s heart sank and she trembled with fear. The back enclosure held over one hundred king cobras, and Jackson was about to walk directly into it. On top of that, he wanted to retrieve a nurturing female whose mate, close by and standing guard, would not be receptive to her being disturbed.
“It’s so dangerous. Do you really have to?”
“Yes. We must ensure the female and her unborn hatchlings survived the storm.”
He finally had the path cleared enough so he could enter the building, and with a polite parting nod he was gone. Carla turned and raced back to building eight.
The first thing she noticed upon entering was the generator problem had been fixed. All the screens were running as Lisa tapped at the keyboard, bringing up various angles of the enclosure. The second thing she noticed was Jackson, in with the snakes.
The camera picked him up as he made his way through the strewn branches and high natural grasses in the enclosure. He protected himself with thick boots and leg chaps that wrapped around his calf and knee, and he walked slowly but with confidence, ever mindful any given step could put him directly into the path of a king cobra.
Carla dashed over to the nearest monitor where Lisa operated the console.
“He’s all right so far,” she said in relief as Lisa pressed a button and brought up a different angle.
Walking into the picture of one of the cameras was Cheng, who’d accessed the enclosure from one of the outside entrances. He, too, walked carefully through the debris, mindful of the snakes but moving as quickly as possible to catch up with Jackson.
“Yeah, Jackson’s fine,” Lisa confirmed, but her expression remained serious. “What we’re concerned about are the cobras, especially Mariah.”
“But it’s stormed here before, right? And everything has been okay?”
“Of course. But this was a bad one. I heard on the radio the wind gusts were tropical storm strength. They said something about the low pressure intensifying unexpectedly and causing a lot of damage.” Lisa clicked on to another camera angle. “All I know is, I want those cobras to be okay.”
“Me, too,” Carla replied, meaning it. This place and everything about it — the mission, the people, even the snakes — had become important to her. But right now all she could think about was Jackson.
For the rest of the time Jackson and Cheng were in the enclosure, she stayed glued to the monitors. She could tell by his body language the damage was bad; luckily the nest and eggs seemed to be all right. It didn’t take long for them to fix the downed camera. Over the two-way Cheng said Jackson replaced a blown out bulb, and as soon as he’d completed the work the men jumped into view from that camera onto the monitors back at base. But then, just as Carla heaved a sigh of relief, her heart leapt into her chest.
The camera picked up Drew, Mariah’s partner, dangerously threatened by the presence of the two men. The cobra raised himself high, well over two feet, and the ribs around his neck flattened into a hood. The men were aware of it and were backing away, but not fast enough to satisfy the threatened male. With a flash quicker than lightening he struck, head streaking toward his prey, and his fangs sunk deeply into Jackson’s thigh.