The Venus Contract

By WarriorLoverInc

Chapter 10: Super Belt

Tom stood frozen in the doorway, lungs clenching due to his negligence to breathe in his shock. What should he do? What should he do…? What should he do…?

He should wake Alex; he'd know what to do. He was the spy after all, he'd have a solution to save himself, Tom hoped so…

As Tom took another nervous step into the room, apparently mastering his paralyzed body, the snake seemed to sense him. Rearing its head, it gave and long, ominous hiss and tightened its grip on Alex. It was gigantic to say the least, perhaps sixteen feet long. Recalling a lesson in school, Tom remembered that serpents were mostly composed of powerful muscle and those that didn't posses highly toxic venom were perfectly capable of strangling their victims to death.

Tom sucked in his breath quickly and backed away from the serpentine threat. The boy in its grasp shifted slightly and mumbled something about Jack. All Tom could do was watch helplessly as it kept tightening its grip.

Why wasn't Alex waking up? He usually had nightmares all the time and was generally a light sleeper. If he awoke screaming during one of his terrifying dreams while the snake was still on him… Tom didn't even want to entertain the ghastly thought.

Abruptly, Tom turned on his heel, careful to do so slowly so as not to provoke the snake, and walked out the door. The moment he was on the steps however, his somewhat composed alarm crumbled and gave way to blind panic. Dashing down onto the ground and breaking in to a harried sprint over the mushy Welsh mud, he searched for somebody, anybody! Where was everyone?

Behind him and out of his sight, in J-Unit's cabin, one of the men appeared on the steps, dangling a small ruby, black, and gold striped snake by the tail in disgust.

"Not funny, guys!" he retorted to the laughter echoing behind him. The snake was carelessly thrown to the ground, where it immediately began to slither into the underbrush of the surrounding wood.

Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod…! I've gotta' find somebody! Tom was panting heavily, scuttling madly around camp, not meeting a single person. In desperation, he veered towards the bathrooms, hoping someone had to use the loo before they tucked in for the night.

Turns out he was in luck, if you put it in perspective.

The panicking boy slammed quite unexpectedly into the unyieldingly solid form of Wolf as he left the bathroom, startling the man as much as himself. To keep himself from falling, Tom clutched onto the surprised man's clothes as he gulped for air, clutching a stitch in his side.

Wolf scrutinized the black haired kid before him. Vaguely his mind registered him as the new one that a Suit had dumped on them. Again.

"Hey you're that…" he snapped his fingers, struggling to remember the boy's codename. "Pup!" he exclaimed. "You're the—"

"Snake..!" Tom interrupted when he was able to gasp coherently between his panicked breathing.

Wolf gathered his wits immediately, thinking Tom meant his teammate. "Why?" he snapped, shaking the kid off, "What's happened?"

Tom exhaustedly gestured in the general direction of K-Unit's hut. Leaving the boy without a second thought, Wolf hurried to their cabin, intent on finding out what was wrong with Snake. When he reached the hut, noticing the silence and lighted interior, he cautiously climbed the steps and peered inside.

"I swear, Eagle, if this is another of your pranks I'm gonna'—" he stopped talking the moment he discovered the problem however. Cub lay on his cot wrapped in the largest snake he had ever seen. His Snake was fine. Cub, however, was a different story.

Creeping into the cabin, the threatening hissing of the creature raised his hairs and made his skin crawl. He really wished the rest of his Unit weren't so slow at wash-up, he wasn't sure how to handle this without getting Cub crushed to death.

"Psst!" he hissed, two yards away from Cub's cot, the snake's unsettling bottomless eyes drawing his gaze as it stared unblinkingly at him, its tongue darting in and out, tasting him. "Cub!"

"Hissssssssss!" the snake raised its ugly head threateningly and Wolf quickly backed away. But it seemed he had succeeded in awaking Cub, the sound of a quick intake of breath echoed across the room and the boy on the cot stirred slightly. Sensing the movement of its victim, the snake forgot about Wolf and tightened its coils even more.

…

Alex was walking through the park. Strolling leisurely along, not caring that it was midnight, and feeling free as a bird the teen spy had the momentary comfort of forgetting past events. Fresh earthy smells indicated spring, and the warm winds tousling his hair seemed to laugh with his delight.

A park bench was cast into light by a streetlamp on a nearby sidewalk. For some inexplicable reason, Alex stopped to watch it. Seated upon the bench was a woman, seemingly in her late twenties. Tangled carrot orange hair framed a round boyish face that was open and cheerful. She carried a large blue backpack and wore an olive colored travelling coat.

In that moment, Alex felt his breath squeezed out of him. It was Jack.

Forcing his legs to obey, previous attitude forgotten, he dashed to her side. All the memories and emotions he had been suppressing since her disappearance months ago rushed to the surface, and he felt hot salty tears of happiness well up behind his eyelids. Blinking them away, he faced his lifelong sister figure and smiled. He had found her at last! They could go home! Things could go back to normal! Well, as normal as the life of a teenaged spy could be.

"Jack…" He reached out to hug her, surprised when fast as a viper she slapped his hand away.

Jack turned her head to Alex, raging fire in her eyes to rival that of the hue of her hair. "Alex," she began, "see what you've done to me?"

Alex, confused and disbelieving, mutely shook his head. Jack gazed hatefully at him for a few seconds more before continuing.

"You've lost me." She stood in a challenging way, glaring down the button nose Alex knew so well at her charge. "You've lost me, and now I've got to go it alone, Alex.

"You should've said 'no.' You just can't say 'no!'" she threw down her backpack to punctuate the last word, he face contorting in righteous rage. "I wouldn't be doing this if you'd just let them send me away when your Ian died, let them send you to the orphanage! At the very least you could have prevented this whole mess!"

Alex gazed with stunned brown eyes at his guardian, his seemingly friend turned enemy. "Jack…"

A finger was thrust into his chest. "You'll never be 'Jack'-ing me again, Rider. Too many times I've been up at night waiting, too many times I've been in the dark and left worrying when you go on your little adventure trips, too many times I've been used! By you and your uncle."

She glowered down at him. "I don't even know you anymore. You used to be a schoolboy with a secluded uncle. Now," her countenance displayed intense distaste, an emotion that twisted Jack's features into that of an ugly gargoyle's. It wasn't an expression that suited her. "Now all I see is a murderer, a liar, and an outsider trying selfishly to fit in.

Jack glared through him, as though seeing every imperfection, every faded drop of blood, every false truth he'd ever uttered. Alex suddenly found he didn't possess the strength to stay standing and dropped his knees to the cold hard pavement. He knew he must look stupid, kneeling on the roadside bus stop, his mouth hanging open, staring at a woman at least a foot taller than himself in disbelief and hurt. But what others saw didn't matter to him, only what Jack glimpsed. And obviously what she witnessed was less than satisfactory.

With a deafening roar a large lighted night bus pulled along the curb and opened the doors. Jack turned on her heel from the blonde and slipped on the blue backpack she had dropped earlier. Stepping up to the bus, she didn't even glimpse back as she paid the driver and found a seat somewhere out of sight.

As the bus drove out of view, tears began pouring down Alex's cheeks. No longer were they tears of joy, but tears of hurt and betrayal. The only family sans Tom he had left had just ridiculed him then abandoned him on the dark sidewalk with metaphorical salt festering in his wounds.

He couldn't deny anything she had said, because it was true wasn't it?

He couldn't stop Jack, it was her choice, and it was better this way too wasn't it?

Crouched on the sidewalk, saline water trickling from his eyes like a leaky faucet that no-one had bothered to fix, Alex allowed himself to cry. The world quieted, as though sharing his grief. The sorrow of all those who had died, those who had left, those who ignored, those who oppressed, and those whom he had tainted with his legacy.

Still, his chest painfully clenched the breath from his lungs.

Through his anguished choking sobs, he heard someone. Cub, they said. Cub…

Suddenly, Alex remembered. He was at Brecon Beacons, Jack was missing, Tom was there. And he, he was asleep on his hard cot in the hut. This was a dream. With this revelation, he realized his chest was being crushed, he hadn't been imagining that part of the dream.

Alex's eyes snapped open to be greeted with the sight of a peeling wooden wall. Never before had he been so glad that Brecon Beacons was reality. Jack hadn't really said all those things, it was just another nightmare.

The teen took stock of the situation, something like a thick rope was wrapped around him and slowly crushing his lungs and throat. How could he not have noticed that before? He must've been really tired to sleep so heavily. Especially if he could still have a nightmare.

The lights were on, which meant that someone was or recently had been there. Hopefully for them they were allies. Alex didn't feel like fighting after his latest nightmare.

But first, the bonds. Slowly as he could, Alex's hand inched for the belt of his combat trousers. With every move the entrapments became tighter and tighter, until Alex was sure they'd break his ribs. Even as that thought occurred, a sickening splintering noise echoed around the hut, and a gasp could be heard from behind him, somewhere near the door. Pain shot around Alex's torso and a warm liquid—most likely his own blood—began to seep from the epicenter of agony in his side.

With a last surge of strength, Alex grabbed the plastic buckle and ripped it out of the belt. Attached to one side of the buckle was a three inch razor sharp plastic blade, undetectable in airports (or anywhere else for that matter) yet a deadly backup weapon when needed. He had first had a copy of this belt during his Snakehead mission, but due to his traitorous godfather Ash, had never been able to use it. Wielding the miniature dagger with admirable strength, he struck out and up along his body and cut through four loops of the thing binding him.

Warm, sticky, and foul tasting liquid gushed out of the thing, and as Alex leapt up and away from what had been holding him captive, he finally saw what it was. A gigantic green snake went through its final death throes on the floor of K-Units hut, hacked into several neat pieces with Alex's knife. Then, it abruptly stilled.

Silence gripped the hut for a few seconds, then there was a low whistle from the door. Alex glanced that way and saw Wolf staring from him to the snake and back again, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The thought made a smile break out on Alex's face, a totally inappropriate expression considering the situation.

Wolf turned uncertainly to his fellow Unit-mate. Alex's smile was creepy at the least. The teen was covered in blood, holding a wet knife, and smiling like a madman. To anyone it would have seemed a little… uncertain.

"You okay Cub?"

Alex looked down at himself and felt his world sway suddenly as he began gasping for breath to feed his oxygen deprived lungs and quell the pain from his obviously broken rib. Strong arms caught him before he could taste floorboard, and he looked up to see Wolf holding him upright with a concerned look on his face.

Shouldering his support away, Alex replied. "Fine."

Tom appeared in the doorway, recovered from his mad dash around camp and worried about his friend. The moment he witnessed the gore lying on the floor from the snake, and Alex covered in blood, he paled considerably.

"Oh, Alex," he said, as though conversing about the weather. Then he fell backwards down the steps in a clean faint.

. . . .

Authors Note: This one's a bit longer than usual, and more poop if you ask me. Either way, here's your update.

K-Unit find out more about Alex soon, and coming up (eventually…) we learn the whole story of Jack's disappearance. *Wiggles eyebrows*

Tell me if there are any grammar mistakes or typos, I was half asleep when I wrote this. Been home sick all day.

Enjoy! I loved all your reviews last chapter, especially yours RealGirlsHaveCurves!

6 Reviews!