Javier (Alpha Heroes #12)

Chapter Thirty

Missy

As Javier opened the bamboo screen, I stood there, petrified, watching death slithering at my feet. Wearing only his sweats and a T-shirt, he pulled out his gun and braced at the threshold. There was nothing between his naked feet and the snakes’ fangs, and only a thin jersey between his legs and those same deadly fangs. If he came within range of the vipers, he could die.

Barely moving my lips, I mouthed a warning to Javier. He shifted his weapon from one creature to the next, but I knew what he was thinking. There were too many. Shooting one would result in the others striking out blindly.

His eyes met mine, acknowledging the dangers but projecting an eerily cool calm.

“Hang on, baby,” he formed the soundless words. “I’m gonna get you out.”

No , I pleaded with my eyes. I couldn’t bear the thought he might get bitten.

He took a slow step back and then another. He kept his weapon at hand as he began to do something on the other side of the door. He also kept checking on me, on the snakes shifting inside the enclosure, flickering their forked tongues as they moved about. I closed my eyes and willed myself to breathe.

My nerves were shot. I felt so cold and brittle I feared I might shatter into tiny pieces. Darkness fringed my vision. Anytime now, I was going to faint.

You will not faint. You will not faint. If you faint, you will die .

A wrenching crack echoed in the shower. I snapped my eyes open. The snakes writhed and scattered. The closest viper to the door coiled up.

God help us.

Javier peeked out and waited until the reptiles settled down. I could almost hear his mind working as he considered the open sky beyond me, wondering how on earth this had happened.

One moment I’d been rinsing the conditioner from my hair. The next moment I’d sensed movement above me. I’d peeked up and spotted a silent drone hovering some fifteen feet above. The blinking green eye revealed a camera. I had no time to react. The drone dropped a burlap sack into the outdoor shower.

The sack had thumped on the stone floor. The corners burst open, releasing a tangle of twisting snakes. They shot out to the edges of the shower, lightning fast. The agitated creatures cut off my path to the door. A look at their yellow chins told me I was trapped with a deadly species. The scene was eerily familiar; it materialized directly from my dreams.

Droplets pounded on flat stones. Snakes. Many of them, some coiled, some slithering, some hissing. A viper, rearing up to strike. The flash of a fang. A streak of blood.

For the last fifteen minutes, I’d been shivering under the shower’s now-cold water. It was a miracle that the snakes hadn’t attacked. I fought to stay immobile in an effort to avoid bringing about the last part of the dream, the part I wanted to forget, even though it kept flashing in my head.

“We’re running out of time,” a familiar voice yelled.

“Please,” someone whispered, a soul-wrenching plea. “Don’t go. Stay with me.”

The snakes looked as alarmed as I was. They were likely to strike at the slightest provocation. I’d be in a pissy mood, too, if someone had packed me up, flew me out, and suddenly dropped me on a hard surface in an unfamiliar environment. Too bad they didn’t suffer from syncope like I did.

My empathy for these creatures was not enough to temper my terror. I’d thought that, if I stayed still, they might calm down and allow me to slowly make my way to the bamboo door. But they were still too agitated, newly disturbed by Javier’s knocks, movements, and sounds.

My knees wobbled.

Keep it together, Missy . Whatever you do, don’t faint.

A quieter crack announced a new development behind the door. Before my very eyes, the shower door separated from the limestone wall. I had no idea what Javier was up to until he backed up a few feet and crouched down. Bending the wires, he hooked the bottom rim together, stepped inside the circle, and wrapped the bamboo slats around his body.

“No,” I mouthed again as he eased into the enclosure. “Don’t!”

Moving slowly, pressing the metal edges to the stone floor, he advanced into the stall. The bamboo screen covered him up to his chest. He looked like a man rising from a wine barrel. With one hand, he held the upper edges of his improvised construction together. In his other hand, he kept his gun at the ready.

My heart pummeled my ribs so hard I could barely breathe. The light flickered and darkness lunged at my senses. My knees buckled, and I fought to lock my trembling legs. My vagus nerve wanted to take charge.

Javier shook his head ever so slightly and mouthed, “Don’t faint, baby.”

Breathe in, breathe out , I ordered myself. Find the calm within. Work your diaphragm . Connect with what brings you peace .

I focused on his luminous eyes. I drew strength from his confidence and courage from his bravery. If he was willing to walk into a viper pit, then I could ground myself and get out of this shower, alive, conscious, and on my own two feet.

Javier inched forward then stopped to watch the snakes. He especially kept track of the big one to my side, the one perched on the soggy burlap. Bit by bit, he opened a path with what amounted to a mobile wooden fort. His approach was systematic. A few inches forward. Pause. Let the riled-up snakes settle down. Scoot forward again. Repeat.

He made his way slowly, until he stood in front of me, partly beneath the shower’s flow, his face dripping with water. “Ready?” he mouthed.

Terror paralyzed me. My bones were locked in place and my muscles felt frozen. I wasn’t sure if I could manage movement.

“You got this.” He formed the silent words and flashed me his cockiest grin. “On three.”

I glanced around the shower. The smaller snakes slithered against the walls, but the big one, the one closest to me, reared up in an S-coil.

Hail Mary, full of grace, don’t let him die, don’t let me die …

“One,” Javier mouthed. “Two…”

A shot echoed in the shower. The deafening sound ricocheted in my skull. Before I could blink, the bamboo screen opened and shut around me faster than a viper’s strike. Then I clung to Javier’s solid body, enclosed in the bamboo fortress he’d improvised to fetch me out of my living nightmare.

My ears still rang from the loud crack. My body trembled so hard that I had to brace on him to keep my feet. Rap, rap, rap . The random knocks announced the strikes of fangs on wood. I couldn’t see what was happening at our feet, but I had an idea.

“Easy,” Javier murmured, tightening his hold on the rim, making sure the edges overlapped and we were both inside the relative safety of the circle. “The big one’s gone. Give the others a moment to settle down and we’ll reverse our course.”

“This is crazy,” I rasped against his chest, basking in his warmth. “You’re crazy.”

“Yeah. I am. Crazy for you.” He blinked off the water from his face and flashed me his cocky smile. “There’s nothing in this world that I won’t do to protect you.”

I snapped my head up. In reply, he flashed me a ferocious grin.

“With me, Angel,” he murmured. “Moving out.”