The way he said it burned in her chest. She shook her head numbly, already feeling the stress of the day thickening her tongue, shutting down her synapses. She hugged herself, trying to catch Eddie's eye as Ezekiel pushed her toward the door.
"She's okay for now, Theda," Eddie said. "The smear you slipped her was enough to keep her down long enough that we had to send someone else in her place." He looked at his watch. "Jack only visits about once a month. You've got some time."
She wanted to tell him to look out for her, to try and get her safe, but she knew he'd risked enough already. And she just couldn't think anymore, she didn't want to remember any of what had happened here. All she wanted was to get out. She kept hearing Ezekiel's words rattling around behind her ears, and she wanted away from those, too. She needed air. She needed a smear or two.
They were at the door when Ezekiel paused.
"What?" She asked him.
He looked her up and down. "You can't go out there like that."
The costume. Of course.
"I thought you went to get me--"
His hands were on the bodice before she could finish the sentence. He ripped it neatly down the middle and pushed it off her shoulders. The entire gown puddled at her feet.
"The necklace too," he said. "And the shoes."
"I'm beginning to think you like your women barefoot," she said, trying to joke, but the thought that another girl had taken Salima's place, of the things that must have happened to her, made the smile twist into something that made her cheeks hurt.
"Don't think about it," Ezekiel said. "Don't think about any of it right yet." He stepped close enough to slip his arm around her back and pull her hips to his. The roughness of his jeans against her bare skin made her acutely aware that she would have to travel the entire spitters'den in nothing but her bra and panties.
"I can't do this," she mumbled.
"You can. I'll be with you the whole way. I won't let anything happen to you."
She nodded mutely and drew in a breath. She watched the pulse in his throat for a few seconds, counting the beats, focusing.
"Are you ready?" His voice was tender but urgent.
She moved to catch his eye, to let him know that she was ready, but his gaze was on her throat, lingering at that tender spot at the base. He seemed mesmerized for a moment before he shook it off and put his hand on the knob. He twisted, easing the door open as casually as a regular john would. Then in one deft movement, he lifted her into his arms, holding her beneath her knees and behind her back as he strode out into the hallway.
Theda didn't protest; she didn't think she could make her legs work anyway. She buried her face in his chest, not willing to see anything in the den anymore. She'd witnessed far more than she ever wanted to see again. If she kept her eyes closed, then none of it could touch her.
She felt his lips move against her hair now and then, almost as though he was trying to soothe away the thoughts within and when she clung to him all the more, he tightened his grip on her, walking ever more determinedly forward. By her measure, they had made it to the common room when he slowed his pace. Moans came from within, and shrieks of pleasure, enough heavy breathing to make a porn star blush.
"Almost there," he said into her hair. "I think you better walk from here." He eased her onto her feet, holding her gaze has he waited for her to steady herself. "You okay?"
She nodded. "Don't leave me."
His throat convulsed as she watched him, waiting for his response. She couldn't go any farther on her own. She would completely break down if he left her now. And yet something in his manner made her afraid that was exactly what he was planning to do.
"I won't leave you," he said huskily. It must've taken a great effort for him to agree because he looked away as he said it, unwilling or unable to keep her eye. Still, it was enough for Theda. She took a deep breath and stepped into the common room.
Before she was three steps within it, he had grabbed her from behind and was pulling her into his arms, one broad hand cupping her ass and the other cupping the nape of her neck, forcing her mouth against his. She lost her breath to his as he kissed her.
Chapter 19
It made no sense, but the tightness of her chest, the way her stomach fluttered, the way both of those things needed to be relieved couldn't be argued with. She melted against him, tangling her arms around his neck, letting her fingers creep up into his hair.
His lips broke from hers as he trailed kisses across her cheek to nibble at her earlobe.
"We need to blend," he said against her ear. "There's a henchman in here."
She nodded, feeling drunk from fear and a strange sense of heightened passion.
With an ease that surprised her, he pulled her along with him a few paces. She opened her eyes, watching him settle onto a chair just within the doorway and to the right of half a dozen people enjoying each other in ways Theda didn't. She was sure, before he pulled her down onto his lap encouraging her to lean forward, that she saw one woman's entire hand disappear into another woman's sex. Her eyes flew two Ezekiel's face, but his eyes weren't on hers, they were hooded and scanning the room carefully.
"You're doing fine," he said against her mouth as he claimed it again.
By now his hands were roaming her body, lighting her skin. The sounds around her, of the moans and begging for release only heightened her own need, except that beneath the primal sense of release was the very real threat of discovery. She wasn't sure which of those was the one that drove her hands beneath his shirt, stretching her fingers for his nipples, thinking to pinch each one, to thumb them to hard stubs, but she let them roam and do what they would.
She could feel his erection as she pressed closer, and the speed of his breath had shifted. It broke against the skin of her neck like waves battering the shore. His Palm moved beneath her bra and rubbed against her nipples before cupping them, lifting them, squeezing them.
"Almost there," he said into her ear and his voice was a tight, husky thing that pulled a moan from her throat. In another circumstance, she might think that it meant something different, but she was acutely aware of the danger moving about the room, hopefully doing nothing but a cursory inspection of the patrons.
One of the women in the group beside them took notice of Ezekiel. She leaned over, slipping her hand beneath Theda's bra and overtop Ezekiel's hand. She helped him squeeze harder, then let her fingers slip down Theda's torso, seeking entrance beneath the thong. This time it was Ezekiel who groaned and for one second his eyes met Theda's. She saw hunger in his gaze just long enough to believe that it was for her, but then the woman leaned in, blocking him from view, and plunged her tongue into Theda's mouth.
Ezekiel's thighs twitched beneath her bottom. She tried to close her eyes, to pretend to enjoy the kiss, but she was aware of someone behind her and knew in that moment that they were being inspected. She heard Ezekiel's throaty voice urging the woman on and had to force herself to remember that it was an act, that everything here was for show. That the show meant her very life.
"That's it, baby," he said. "Now touch your pussy for me, show me you like it."
Theda was paralyzed by his vulgarity, but thankfully the woman responded immediately, lending credence to the act. She withdrew her hand from Theda's thong and sucked at her bottom lip, pulling it into her mouth and licking it. Theda tasted each moan as the woman rocked against her own hand, each burying of her fingers forcing a new sigh into Theda's mouth. She thought she heard Ezekiel groan aloud even as she felt his hands urge her against his cock. Aware of the presence behind her, Theda ground into it, until he grasped at her from behind, yanking her from the stranger and claiming her tongue for his. Her heart raced hard enough that she could swear it would burst. Every inch of her body was on fire, and yet every fiber was alive with fear.
He cupped her face with both hands, twisting her face so that her ear was next to his mouth.
"We're good," he said. "He's moved on. It's time to go.
"
He might have thrown a bucket of water on her, but she did as he bid her. She got to shaking legs, working hard to force her muscles forward. He wrapped an arm around her waist, reaching with his other hand to take her fingers. They could have been longtime lovers, picking their way home after a much-needed night of debauchery and hedonism. She wasn't sure why her face was wet, or why her nose had clogged up so much that she could barely breathe, but she made the trek with him through the room, down the hallway, into reception with her eyes watching the floor at each step.
When the door opened and the frigid night air struck her skin, when she noticed that her crocheted blanket still lay in the corner of the gutter, she collapsed into a heap on the sidewalk and the sobs that tore their way through her lungs paired so nicely with the pain of dragging in breath to fuel them that she decided to let them dance as long as they needed to.
###
There were two kinds of freefall, if Theda had to name them: one was the sense that a girl was indeed finally free, dropping without constraint, letting the air caress her skin, taking joy in each millisecond. In the other, she had no control; she spiraled, like a paratrooper just realizing that the safety chute was tangled into the main. Both of them created the same physiological sensations in the body. For Theda, both of them required the normalizing power of godspit. And neither of them would be assuaged because she was fresh out of smears.
She was wrapped again in her Afghan, this time huddled on the sofa in a cigarette pack sized apartment where she could touch the cupboard doors with her toes from the sofa where she sat. She had no idea whose apartment it was, only that Ezekiel had the key. He let them in the hours before, letting her stare neatly off into space while he rattled about the tiny kitchen making tea, of all things. She had a mug of it in her hand, but it had long grown cold.
"You need to tell me why you brought me there," she said to Ezekiel without looking at him. She knew he sat next to her, barely touching her, but his presence was as electric as a live wire.
"I honestly thought you'd be safe."
"Safe in a spitters'den where wealthy men purchase addicts for either sex or death, sometimes sex and death, sometimes just death." She said the words without emotion, but each one that exited her mouth could've been a nail she was pounding into a coffin.
"I told you to stay put," he said.
"I'm an addict," she said refusing to look at him. "You put an addict in a spitters'den. You gave her money. You couldn't have expected her to just wait for you to come back."
"So it's my fault?"
"Hell, yes." She turned on him, letting him see her anger.
It looked like he wanted to argue, but he tightened his mouth closed, almost as though he was literally clamping it shut.
"Why didn't you bring me back to Bridget's? I was safe there."
"Safe enough that you were free to use, it seems."
"It was just the once. I didn't think it would be such a big deal. You both were so busy with brekkie and all."
He looked at her with a peculiar expression. "She was raided, Theda. You should have known that." His tone was almost gentle and she hated that, so she shrugged, trying not to show her concern because if he saw it, she would have to admit it bothered her.
"How would I know that?"
"You couldn't know. You couldn't know because you were busy using just that once."
"That's not fair; I had no idea."
She squirmed on the sofa, her skin itching. Without thinking, her fingers searched for pockets, seeking a smear in jeans she had left behind. He noticed and tugged at her hands, held tight to the fingers, twisting them, making her look at him.
"You want a fix right now," he said.
She did. She wanted to let the whole entire experience go. She wanted to forget even if it was just for a little while. Something inside of her, some energy, was driving her to flee, just like she had the night her mother had to protect herself from her father, just like the night she watched her mother ascend to the heavens and leave her behind, just like each and every night she couldn't forget she was left here on this putrid Earth, where her only happiness could be found by forgetting she was alive.
But she couldn't even indulge in that, at the moment. She had no smears. She'd used her only one on Salima before she'd been taken to that bastard and had to use her stupid trick to buy herself a little time. A magic beyond anything, she used to say when the god had first come and then left. The ride of a lifetime, she'd promised.
And what a ride she'd given that fat bastard. She needed that smear more than anything now because there was something more in the vision she'd offered him, something she didn't want to see. If she was honest with herself, that vision had been more about her than the john. It had bought her time, yes, but his re-vision had given her another glimpse back into the same lifetime she'd shown Ezekiel in the capitol building, back before she'd even known they were connected by a previous lifetime at all. And that glimpse unnerved her even more.
"I want a smear," she said without looking up. She heard the catch in her voice as she said it and had to hold back the sting of tears. Just post-traumatic stress, that was all, that's all this cascade of emotion was. It could be stemmed by one small smear, just one last bliss out to block out all the horror she'd seen in these last days, all the horror she suspected was coming. "You need to let me fix."
"I won't do that," he said. "You're stronger than that."
"Really?" she asked, locking onto his green eyes and holding them so she could stay suspended, so she didn't have to fall into the abyss that meant darkness worse than the pit of despair of being left here on New Earth. She held his gaze for as long as she could before she stared at the wall again, feeling the rush of spiraling out of control, trying to decide which kind of freefall she was experiencing, whether at the end of it she would care enough anymore to gather up the strings from the unfurling main.
"Really." His palm warmed her knee.
She snorted then, because he had no idea, and she was just now beginning to understand it all.
"You almost died. Do you realize that?"
She refused to let the shame wash over her. This was about him. This was about him bringing her to a place where temptation would've been far too much for her to resist. This was about him knowing what that temptation would have been like. It had nothing to do with Bridget or some raiders deciding they'd throw some addict out into the street.
She snorted. "I've been in worse situations than being thrown on the street by some--by some--"
She paused because she had no word to describe what the raiders might have been. No one in New earth cared about drug use. She cocked her head, thinking, but he answered the unspoken question for her.
"They were the Beast's men, Theda. They knew you were there."
The Beast's men; not simple bounty hunters for a regular old religion monger. She tried not to let go a gasp, but had the feeling it wasn't successful.
"Then, you told them."
"Not me. Not Bridget."
"Someone." She tried to imagine who would know, who would have seen them escape from the capitol building. It was futile; the only person she knew was Ami, and if Ezekiel was right, he was as good as dead because the Beast needed to keep the world religion free. She remembered Bridget's words: that Theda was on the promo. "Anyone," she said and tried to rid her throat of a lump that had started choking off her air. Instead, all she could manage was to stuff her fist into her mouth. It had to be as simple as that: someone had seen her on the Promo. That was all.
"She got out, as least I hope she did," Ezekiel said, misinterpreting her anxiety, and there was agony in his voice, as though he blamed her. "Don't you worry, she was more worried about you than she was about herself." His throat moved as he swallowed multiple times. "She made sure I got to you first."
"I'm sorry," she murmured around her fingers, offering that at least. "I'm glad she's safe. I know you care about her."
He nodde
d mutely.
"Why?" She wanted to add why did Bridget care about her, but she couldn't manage more.
"Don't you remember anything from the night I brought you there?"
She remembered plenty. She remembered his hands on her in the tub. She remembered sleeping in a bed for the first time in months. She remembered Bridget's quick acceptance of a strange woman into her home in the middle of the night.
"You said something to her: you said, 'it's her,'"
"I did."
"What did that mean?"
"I told you she's a lover; doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"I know what being lovers means."
He grinned at what her dry tone suggested. "That I've had my hands in her drawers."
She felt her face flush and he touched her gently on the chin, making her look into his eyes and hold his gaze. It was green and golden at the same time and she wanted to turn away from it more than anything.
"She's part of a movement," he crooned. "The Beast's son began it before his father made me kill him." He shifted on the sofa, taking her hand in his. "You changed him, Theda. You made him believe he could evolve, to find peace at his end, maybe even redemption."
They were both aware of the incriminating words, but left them hanging in the air, unchecked. Instead, Theda's mind went reeling to all the information she had learned, trying to connect it to all that had happened.
"That's why they want me," she guessed. "The Beast is afraid of what might happen if too many people become enlightened."
"Not just afraid of that, Minou. He's afraid of you. And he knows who you are."
The mug shook in her hand, spilling liquid on her thigh. She mopped it up with the edge of the afghan.
"Did you hear me, Theda? He knows."
She tried to sip at the edge of the mug; the chai spices drifted up her nose, but they smelled cold, not spicy and hot like they should. She grimaced.
"Theda?"
She looked at him finally, this man, this bounty hunter, this Beast's lackey, who had begun all this suffering. "You know who I was in your vision, don't you?"
Theta Waves Box Set: The Complete Trilogy (Books 1-3) (Theta Waves Trilogy) Page 13
