Python's Embrace (Bitten Point Book 3) (15 page)

“Parker goes after everyone who dares come sssnooping.”

Snooping? She’d barely even begun asking questions. “People are going to come looking for me, especially if I go missing again.”

“At this point, I don’t think Parker cares.”

“Because he and the rest of the people working for him have gone cuckoo.” How else to explain the insanity?

“Parker’s unfortunately all too sane, even though he’s played with some of the drugs they’re developing here. Merrill, on the other hand, is nutsss. Almost as nutsss as the other experiments.”

“Are you crazy?”

His steady gaze met and held hers. “I’m a man trapped in a monssster’s body. What do you think?”

She thought he avoided the question. “Where are you taking me?” If he said the kitchen for a dash of salt and pepper, she’d know the answer.

“You have to leave now before it’sss too late. Eventsss are about to escalate. People are going to get hurt.”

Matching her short pace to his longer one, Aria frowned as she asked, “Why are you helping me? Why do you care?”

An ugly chuckle rumbled from him. “I don’t care. But anything that fucksss with Parker and his sssycophants works for me.”

“Why do you stay if you hate them so much?”

At the end of the hall, Ace paused before a closed door without any markings. “Because where would I go? Monsssters don’t get to live in the real world.”

The door they went through didn’t require a keycard. The push bar creaked as Ace shoved it. On the other side, there was no elevator to use, just a long set of stairs that stretched upward. She eyed them with a groan.

“Is this the only way out?”

“The only way you stand a chance. If I take you out the main entrance, you’ll never make it out of here alive. Your bessst bet isss to get lossst in the swamp.”

The swamp? Again. “Why does that sound familiar?”

“Because that’sss how I helped you essscape lassst time. But then, instead of leaving town, you ssstuck around.”

Not her fault she’d lost her memory. She had time to mentally grumble about the prospect of once more crossing the swamp as she trudged up the stairs.

At the top, she huffed a little as Ace waited for her by the door.

Despite his admission, she couldn’t help a nervous query. “How do I know you’re not setting me up?”

Human eyes in a reptile face glanced at her. “You don’t. You want to ssstay inssside, then ssstay.” He released her arm and moved away as the door swung open at his shove. “But, if you ssstay, you’ll ending up wishing you’d died.”

With those final words, Ace turned on his heel and took the stairs down, two by two, the pointed ridge of his wings jutting above his shoulders. She spent a moment staring and realizing, despite his alien appearance, Ace remained a guy, a guy stuck between a rock and an even harder place. He was right. Where could he go that people wouldn’t hunt him?

She turned her gaze toward the open door, where the pungent scent of the bayou called.

Freedom? It seemed too easy. She took a step then another, emerging from the hatch set into a hillock, camouflaged from all but the closest inspection.

No strident alarms blared. She took a few more steps, clearing the doorway completely, and felt the cool pre-dusk air on her face.

It seemed she’d spent more time than expected in her cell. The colorful rays of a setting sun painted the horizon. A beam of sunlight crested the treetops, and its warm rays bathed her skin. Much like a blossom, she absorbed it, inhaled deeply of the life and vitality flowing all around her in the swamp.

Stop smelling the freaking flowers and get your ass moving.

A helping hand on getting out by Ace didn’t mean she should waste time. Who knew when Parker or Merrill would notice she’d gone? Once they did, the hunt would happen. She knew too much.

A tug on the door and the hydraulics kicked in, sucking the portal into its slot and sealing it shut. The greenery and rock stuck to the surface, and once closed, it blended in.

She wouldn’t be going back that way, which meant no going back now. Turning, she surveyed the area.

It seemed she stood on a bit of an island. Nothing really big enough to even mark on a map, but large enough for this secret exit and a ramshackle dock. While the dock boards rotted, the dock still served a purpose as a landing point for the two boats tied there. This deep in the swamp, it was the best way for landlubbers to move around.

Given the swamp was her escape, she didn’t want to make it easy for Merrill and his disreputable gang to follow. She quickly unlashed the blue boat, tossing the loose mooring rope into it before giving it a shove. Then she worked on the knot holding the other craft, a camouflage-colored, flat-bottomed fishing craft with a small motor at the back. Just as she tugged the last knot loose, it started.

A siren whirred to life, not loud or outside, but from within the compound itself. Its strident blast made the ground on the hillock hum, and that, in turn, vibrated the dock. Even the water nearby shivered.

It lasted less than a minute before stopping.

Odd. She took it as a sign she should get going.

Before she could step into the bobbing craft, the door in the hill cranked open and Merrill stepped out with a smarmy expression and an overtly cheerful, “Leaving so soon?”

O
nce the drugs
dissipated from his system, Constantine rose from the water, a sea serpent cresting the surface, pissed but alive. For some reason, people seemed to forget that his snake thrived in aquatic conditions. While a python couldn’t truly breathe underwater like a fish, he could, however, remained submerged for up to thirty minutes. All the time he needed to let the poison leach from his system and for the assholes who’d attacked him to take off.

How shoddy of his enemy to leave thinking he was dead. Not dead. Not happy. And not going to let them keep his woman. He also wanted vengeance for his dog.

You abandoned Aria and Princess.

The realization burned, then again, had he died in a futile battle, they’d have no one to come to their rescue.

As Constantine slogged from the swamp, his anger burned even hotter as he noted the destruction of his home. The rabid lizard seemed unhappy at the loss of its prey. Not a single window remained intact. The siding lay strewn across the lawn in a ripped and senseless mess. All the work he’d put into the place, all the money, all the love, destroyed because of a power-hungry bastard and his sick pets.

Speaking of pet, a sharp yip drew his gaze down, and he could have wept—manly tears of course—when he noted his little dog loping at him sideways, tongue lolling.

“Princess!” He swept her into his arms and couldn’t help but laugh as she lapped his face in excitement. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

Yip
. Translation:
I am going to pee myself I’m so happy you’re back.

“I don’t suppose Aria got away?”

Gruff.

“No, eh?” His lips turned down. “That blows because you know I can’t let them keep her. I have to go find her. But how and where?”

In his arms, Princess wiggled, her signal she wanted to be let down. He placed her on the grass and watched her dive toward a bush. She emerged with something in her mouth. She dropped it at his feet and sat, tail quivering, ears perked.

He knelt and whistled. “I’ll be damned, Princess. Where did you get a keycard for Bittech from?” Who cared? His dog might have given him the solution to rescuing his woman.

A smart man, the first thing Constantine meant to do before haring off to save his girl was to call for backup. Except his phone lay smashed on the ground, and his ma had long ago gotten rid of their house phone since they both had cells. This meant he had no other means of outside communication.

Fuck.

He could drive to find help, but every minute he wasted was a minute Aria spent in their grasp. Still, storming Bittech on his own was nuts. He’d have to make at least one detour to get the ball of attack rolling. He snagged his keys and headed out to his truck.

It shouldn’t have surprised him they’d trashed his vehicle, but it did hurt. He loved that gas-guzzling beast.

Another person might have given up at this point. Not Constantine. There was more than one way to get around the bayou.

“Wanna go for a swamp cruise?” he asked Princess as he stripped.

Yip-yip
.

Some people might have found it odd to see a giant snake, slithering through the watery marsh, a canvas sack clutched in its teeth but, strangest of all, would have been the little dog, standing atop the head, keeping her paws dry.

Mock him or his dog and he would hug you to death.

The afternoon waned as he moved, time passing more quickly than he liked given he’d had to take a watery route.

Arriving near the Bittech property, he slithered from the water with Princess leaping off once they hit solid and dry ground.

The change from snake to man took but a moment, the wet wipes in his waterproof sack cleaning most of the bayou from his skin and the clothes he pulled out dry and loose in case he needed to shed them in a hurry.

Somehow, he didn’t think slithering into Bittech or striding in naked and covered in mud would get him where he needed to go. The card Princess stole, he tucked into his pants pocket.

With long strides, he approached the building, Princess trotting at his heels. The parking lot was almost empty except for a large moving truck that rumbled as the engine idled.

As he approached, someone slammed down the roll-top door at the rear of it. In moments, the driver, a guy he didn’t recognize in a ball cap and visored glasses, got into the vehicle. It rolled off with a groan of a big engine and a puff of diesel smoke.

Ignoring the vehicle, Constantine approached the main building. The sun dipping deep in the west meant this side of the lot found itself bathed in shadow, yet he still saw a form detach itself from the building, the bright red tip of a cigarette marking its trajectory as it fell to the ground.

“Constantine, what the hell are you doing here?” Wes asked as he got closer.

“I’m here for Aria.”

“Your girl’s not here.”

She’s here.
His snake sense said so. He peeked through the glass doors to the lobby and noted it seemed stripped bare. Even the potted plants were gone.

“What’s going on? What was that truck doing here? And where is all the shit you used to have in the lobby?”

“Gone. Sudden orders from above. Some kind of inspection said the building was unsafe. Sinking into the bayou apparently. So they’re moving the operation.”

A convenient excuse that Constantine didn’t let slide. “Moving or going into hiding?”

Wes frowned. “What makes you say that?”

“Because the guys who attacked me at my house today were from here. And, if that’s the case, it makes me wonder if you’ve been bullshitting us all along.”

Wes tapped a cigarette out of his pack and slid it between his lips, but didn’t light it. “Bullshitting you how? I’m the one who has been saying for a while there’s something shitty happening here.”

“And yet, you haven’t found a clue.”

“Because there’s nothing to find.” Wes swept an arm behind him at the building. “What you see is what you get.”

“Is it?”

“Are you calling me a liar? Don’t believe me? Then be my guest. The place is wide open, buddy. Go and search it. You’ll see your lady friend isn’t there.”

“Aren’t you going to come with me?”

“Need me to hold your hand?”

Honk
. The horn prevented Constantine from answering.

Wes turned as a car rounded the building and flashed its lights. “Fuck. I gotta go. That’s my boss trying to get my attention.”

“I’m going in there,” Constantine warned.

“Knock yourself out. You won’t find anything on those floors.”

I know.
He recalled what Aria had said after one of her flashbacks. At the time, he’d scoffed, but now, fingering the keycard in his pocket, he wondered.

They’re hiding a whole secret lab under the building,
she’d insisted.

A secret lab that didn’t seem so farfetched since their discovery of old tunnels used by Merrill and his pet dog to move around without notice.

Upon entering the building, he noted no one was there to pay him any mind. The strip-down operation became truly apparent with only items that were truly bolted down being left behind. Even the chairs in the reception area had vanished.

As Constantine entered the elevator, he peeked at the buttons and found himself stymied by his lack of choices. B, 1, 2, 3. “It would really help if they labeled the dungeon lair,” he grumbled to Princess, who sat at his feet.

Despite the handy buttons, Constantine had to wonder if the elevator went anywhere else. He jabbed at the B button. The elevator went down and opened onto a utility area loud with the hum of machinery. He pressed all the buttons one by one. Then together.

He kept seeing the same floors over and over, but not a sign or scent of Aria. Nothing to make him believe there was anything else to Bittech.

Frustrated, he exited into the lobby. Now what?

He exited the building and went around it, noting as he moved, the sun truly dipping. Twilight would soon arrive, making his search even harder.

If I’m even in the right place.
The keycard in his pocket seemed to say so.

Hold on a second. He pulled the card from his pocket with the sudden realization he’d not used it once while inside. Of course, all the doors were open, wide open on empty rooms. Still, though, he didn’t recall seeing a place to use it.

That in and of itself niggled his suspicious side.

Moving around the building, he arrived at the back. The loading dock area proved empty but for one lone truck. A big, white cube truck with no driver.

Strange, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. Upon going around to the back of the vehicle, he sniffed.

I smell an alien.

Let’s go give it a hug.