A/N: Sorry the first chapter was so long, but needed to introduce the players. Trying to do shorter ones now, so you can read them quickly.
Thanks for reviews and thanks Betherday Babe and IceMenace for Beta.
Emmett opened the doors to a well-lit laboratory. The right wall contained a large window that showed a room on the other side with at least a dozen snake cages. There were two sterile hoods for working with samples in the clean room and... Oh God, don't look! Watching Rusty and Heather, who was holding a long black snake in her hands, milk a snake was more than she could take. Turning quickly toward the left wall, which housed racks of various small rodents, Beth watched the furry creatures scurrying in their cages.
"What's with the rats and mice?" Walters asked.
Rodents Beth could deal with, and spiders and most other creatures that terrify people, but not snakes. "Breakfast, lunch, dinner…" she started.
"And second breakfast," Emmett chimed in.
"Don't forget afternoon tea," Beth laughed and smiled broadly at Emmett. "Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite movies." His ability to relax her was uncommon to the physicist, as she never remembered meeting anyone so easy to relate to before.
"Mine too and I love that scene," Emmett said smiling as well.
"You know, I didn't come here for a course in Flirting 101," Sharp spat out. "Let's get a move on Doctors."
Beth was positive she turned scarlet as she looked away from Emmett, her gaze passing quickly over the snake cages on the other side of the room. Some of the smaller ones were on tables and others were on the floor. Her eyes saw a large black snake with its head raised almost to her height in a cage in the back. Must be a cobra of some type. Oh, I can't go through with this.
Turning to her left so the rodents filled her vision, she glanced past Walters to see the door some distance away. What am I going to do? I've humiliated myself and now I'm panicking. Her breathing began to quicken once again.
"This way," Emmett said coldly. A moment later the sound of beeping filled the lab.
Beth glanced back at Emmet and saw the scientist punching a code into a keypad next to a large door that looked like a bank vault. Once it swung open she saw that it was at least a couple feet thick. What's in there? Fear and panic once again threatened to overwhelm her normally logical mind as Sharp walked quickly past her as Walters drew even with her.
"Are you coming or staying here with those guys?" Walters motioned toward the cages she tried hard not to acknowledge.
Without a word, she stepped forward into a large circular room. The center was several steps below the level of the door. In the middle of the depression was a large table that looked like it was an operating table surrounded by overhead lights and several monitoring stations. As she looked around the room, Beth saw a round door directly opposite the entrance.
Emmett was already at the door on the far side and punching a code into the panel. "You're gonna to want to stay close when we go in."
"A lot of security for a snake," Walters laughed, a bit of fear creeping into his voice.
The idea that this man was afraid gave Beth just enough courage to move behind Emmett. He looked back at her with a wink and a smile.
"Come on Walters. If our consultant can do this, you can too," Sharp growled at his partner.
"Just saying its a lot of security," Walters said walking over to stand next to Sharp as they waited for Emmett to turn the handle on the door, which was truly like a vault. "There are at least a dozen cameras in the ceiling and the walls."
"What do you use Betty for?" Beth asked. She pressed herself against the wall as much as she could, trying not to look like she wanted to climb it.
Once Emmett turned the handle and the door released, a gust of hot, dry air washed over Beth causing her to step back. Four red beams became visible inside of the doorway once the vault door swung away. A red glow filled the large chamber beyond. Rocks and nothing else could be seen. Emmett stepped back to the keypad in front of Beth to punch a code, which made the beams disappear.
"Lasers?" Walters said sounding impressed.
"As long as you don't make any extreme movements, you'll be fine," Emmett said, then turned to Beth. "Betty won't hurt you. But if you think you might get startled, you should stay by the door."
Realizing the guys must have told him what a wimp she was about snakes; the fact that they continued to find ways to humiliate her gave her strength to nod and step closer to Emmett. "Lead the way." Her voice didn't sound confident, but her brown eyes held his blue ones for just a moment.
Emmett smiled and nodded. I've obviously fooled him into thinking I'm not afraid. He walked into the room, a desert recreated, and reached down in the rocks to pick up a large snake. It coiled itself almost gently around Emmett's wrist and arm.
Beth paused in the doorway only to be pushed, none too gently, by someone. "Don't just stand there! Get inside!" Sharp hissed.
At Sharp's touch, she quickly stepped away and glared at him. Walters stepped between them leaving a gap behind him and the door that Beth could slip through and escape if she needed to. The sound of Emmett's voice and his explanation kept her still.
"I use Betty, to answer your earlier question, Beth..." he paused, looking directly at her and smiling, "to produce anti-venom."
"How do you do that?" she asked.
"I put venom in smaller snakes and feed them to her," he said holding a three-foot long constrictor in his hands.
"Won't it kill her?" she asked.
"There's not enough to harm her, but enough for her to produce the antibodies I need," he explained.
Beth thought she was going to pass out. She had been staring at his face, but when he lifted the constrictor to make his point, it passed into her vision and its head rose slightly to look around. She leaned back against the wall and her knee bumped into something. Glancing down, she noticed a large rock. No, not a rock. It looks like a bumper around the edge of the room. It's even painted to look like a snake. The fact that Emmett would decorate a room he kept this snake in made her smile. Like the folks who put clothing on their dogs, I guess.
"This was a waste of our time," Sharp said. "That snake's smaller than some I've seen at the zoo."
"What? This isn't Betty." Emmett smiled scornfully. "This is Betty's dinner." He looked at Beth who had now almost climbed on the bumper next to her.
Forcing a tight smile and continuing to look at him standing on a couple of rocks in his tight black t-shirt and faded jeans like he walked out of the Australian bush with a snake to eat, Beth found the courage to stay.
"Okay, So where's Betty then?" Sharp asked with a bit of trepidation in his voice, which made Beth smile more, until Emmett spoke and held the snake out at arms length to dangle in front of him.
"She's... around," he said with a cocky smirk that Beth had not seen before. She liked that look. It made her breath catch in her throat.
"Around... where?" Walters asked as a sound filled the room.
It was a sound like sandpaper moving over wood. Something bumped into Beth's leg and she looked down to see the bumper along the wall moving.
Terror unlike any she'd ever known rose in her. She felt ice cold, like when she got caught sledding too late in the evening in a Wisconsin winter. The sound intensified and filled the room. It was the slither of a snake, a large snake, and it was a sound that made the hairs all over her body stand on end. A new sound was heard and it was the last sound Beth heard before the natural instinct of fight or flight kicked in, the hiss of a snake.
Betty finally made her appearance and she was something out of the irrational nightmares of a small child or terrified adult. Tears filled Beth's eyes as she felt her long-ago lunch return to the back of her throat. A scream bubbled up ahead of her lunch and left her lips. The sight of Betty's massive head almost the size of Emmett was the final straw. The terror took control. When the snake opened her mouth, Beth lost it and ran. She shoved Walters out of the way, running and screaming back the way she had come.
TBC
