Chapter Twenty of the Story

Slowly, Zann opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor of a dark room. How had he gotten there? He squeezed his eyes shut tight and tried to remember. Lisa Clearwater captured him. Then—then—he frowned. What had happened then? They went to the air port. Right, he had struggled. So, some one, probably the nurse herself, had jabbed him with a syringe that was most likely filled with a tranquilizer.
Now he was here. Where was here? America? Spain? Russia? In answer, the lights flipped on, and Lisa Clearwater clicked in on her stiletto heels. He glanced around himself and froze. He was surrounded by cages. Inside the cages were snakes. Not just any snakes, but big, fat, reticulated pythons—the world’s largest pythons—and several others. He stared at them like a deer caught in the headlights.
“Ah yes. My friends. Do you like them, Zann?”
With an effort, he turned his gaze up at her. “Not particularly. Where am I?”
“Three thousand and one Connecticut Avenue, Washington, DC. Aka, the National Zoo. We are currently under the reptile house.”
“Ah.” He tried desperately not to look at the snakes again.
“You are terrified. Why?”
“Childhood incident.” He was looking at the snakes again.
Lisa laughed. “You haven’t noticed.”
Without looking at her, he asked, “What?”
“Zann, what language are we speaking?”
His head snapped around. “Russian! How—who—“
She laughed again. “Unlike you, I didn’t betray my country.”
“What? I’m working for the GRU. I’d say that’s rather patriotic.”
“That is not what our country is! Not this republic!”
“Whoa, Lisa, socialism is over. You aren’t even old enough to remember it that well. What is this all about, and how does uranium fit into this? In case you haven’t noticed, the Americans beat us to the Atomic bomb.”
“Does my name not have any meaning to you?!” she shrieked.
“Clearwater is English.” He paused and repeated it in his head. “Oh. Oooooh. You’re—you’re—“
“Yes, yes I am! It’s time you figured it out!” She glared down at him. “I am a true Russian, unlike you.”
Zann coughed slightly. “Technically, you’d be an USSRian.”
She stomped her stiletto heel close to his foot. “Enough you traitor! It doesn’t really matter. You will soon be dead, as will your friends and everyone else responsible for my pain.”
“Riiiight. And how are you going to manage that? I’m sure the Agency already knows your little plot.”
“Not if I understand Elliot. She will have an obligation to rescue you.”
“Will she now? And how will that help you?”
“Either she keeps my plan to herself or you die. It’s simple, really.”
“Like they’ll do that!”
“Precisely, my little assassin! They will attempt to rescue you and stop me! It’s brilliant, really. I finish off them, and my plan goes through.” She clapped her hands in delight.
“You’ve already underestimated them.”
The woman frowned. “How kind of you to remind me. Elliot is indeed the Agency’s best kept secret. It is quite a pleasure to have their top agents on my trail.”
Zann attempted to hold back a smile. She thought Elliot was not only a field agent, but one of the top ones, at that!
“Enough talk!”
She clicked over to the cage with the largest snake and opened the door. It slowly moved out. “This is Nagini. She hasn’t been fed recently, and she’s hungry. Maybe if your American friends hurry, they can join you for dinner.”
Zann knew the snake probably wouldn’t decide to attempt to eat him, but it was the fear of it that made him retreat to the opposite side of room. Lisa Clearwater unlocked a second cage and dragged a second snake out with a stick. She cackled and left the room, sliding the bolt into place. Zann peered at the second snake. It was smaller than the first one and brown and tan in color. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. He felt hope rise in him—until he heard the rattling noise. The red-haired Russian pressed himself farther against the wall. It was a rattle snake!
The words of his father echoed in his mind. “Son, snakes won’t hurt you unless you frighten or provoke them. Stay away, and they’ll leave you alone.”
Right. But snakes could smell fear right? He was reeking with it. Why was he so terrified of them? He thought back to that day.
He was a young boy, no more than ten years of age. He had been walking in his father’s field, minding his own business, bothering no one. Suddenly, a Eurasian pitviper—which is a relative of the American copperhead—slithered out of the grass towards him. He backed away, trying not to scare it. However, it began to chase after him. Young Zann ran as fast as his little legs could carry him, but the pitviper was wicked fast. It bit his wrist, its fangs burying themselves in his vein. The fever had been awful, but the part that scared him most was his worried parents.
Zann shook his head, attempting to clear his memory. Slowly, he slid back the sleeve on his right arm and eyed the twin circular scars there. He was terrified of snakes to this day.
Closing his eyes, he leaned his head against the wall. Part of him hoped Elliot, Jerin, and Sherlock were on their way. The other part hoped they were not. That part—the selfless part—hoped they had already told the Agency and they were going to stop that crazy woman. He could understand why she was doing it, but didn’t think she needed to kill thousands of intelligence and leadership people just to get her revenge. He had a feeling they would come for him. Elliot owed him, after all—and Jerin, too, for that matter. Like the typical American, she would want to pay him back. He really hoped his friends were on their way.

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Yay! I'm able to post! We're at the Outer Banks. Do you know how hard it is to find shark's teeth here? My brother and I have been looking for two days and we've only found two! At this other beach we go to we would have found at least twenty. The surf is so rough here. Speaking of surf, my dad rented a surf board! It's hilarious watching my brother and dad try to do it.
There you go, Holly! Your pythons in all their snaky glory. Cheers. Now we know why Zann's so afraid of snakes! He's such a cute little kid in my mind. Let's hope Jerin and Elliot get there in time to save him! Do you know how much research I had to do for this chapter? I had to search for a aggressive poisonous snake that lives in Russia. That was pretty hard.
Happy Forth everybody! I know it's the fifth, but I couldn't post yesterday. Yay America! I decided that instead of banging my head on the wall over the way the country is, I would think about the first fourth. I made it through without ending up joining Lisa Clearwater and her gang. (I had a little help from Elliot, Jerin, and Zann. They tied me to a chair and took turns giving me a lecture about being a good citizen.)
Oh! GREAT news! General Washington is out of limbo! He's alive! Yaaaaaaay! However, my main character got herself shot and is captured by the bad guy. Yikes! I case you don't know, that's from a second story I've been writing for several years now. I will finish it one year.
See you guys next week!