He gave a disgusted snort as he realized what she was saying. "Even worse than a mung. A spitter. Just my luck to pull your shit on my shift."
She didn't have it in her to argue; the sweats racked her body so fiercely all she could do was moan and do her best to curl into herself. How long had it been since her last smear? A day? Longer? The last time she'd gone longer than 24 hours, Ezekiel had got her through the worst of it. Ezekiel. She felt like spitting and sobbing at the same time.
"Stop your snotting and snarling," the orderly said, rubbing a coarse wet cloth over her face and neck. She gasped at the shock of cold that put her skin into shivers and tried to twist away from it. He gripped her by the jaw and yanked her back to face him.
"I don't get paid enough to clean up shit like this." He held his forearm to his nose as he scraped the rag over her skin. Each motion became a strip of flesh torn away, leaving a stinging trail that made her sob harder.
"Shut your yap," he said and backhanded her. It was such a surprise that she did exactly what he said until the next cramp rode across her stomach.
"Please," she managed.
His hand fisted her hair, pulling strands of it straight up for inspection as he dropped the wash cloth into a basin. "Please, what?"
She peered at him through blurred vision. Her misery must have been making her confused; she could swear she saw a pair of black handled scissors in his hand. She wasn't sure what he was asking and offered the answer she thought he wanted, thinking it would mollify him into leaving her alone.
"Please, sir?"
He laughed. "You stupid idiot," he said. "I'm not asking you to be polite. I wanted to know what you are asking for. Stupid mungs. Stupid spitters." She could see him shaking his head almost as though he couldn't believe his bad luck. She didn't want those scissors coming any closer to her hair than they already were. Despite the pain, she managed to gather enough courage to ask: "Please can you get me a smear?"
"Do I look like a filthy spit dealer to you?"
She shook her head vehemently back-and-forth. "Of course not. But you look like a man who doesn't want to spend the next 12 to 36 hours tending to a sick addict."
He didn't answer right away, but at least he put the hand with the scissors on his hip. Thinking, she hoped. Contemplating his next 24 hours.
"What makes you think I need to tend to you anyway?"
"The bed bath," she said.
In truth it wasn't much of a bed bath. Cold water and a few cursory, if painful, strokes across her face, cleaning up what she hoped was most of the vomit. She had the feeling he didn't get it all. She could still smell the sourness, and imagined that if it wasn't in her hair, it was beneath her on the sheets.
"You're right," she said to him. "You shouldn't have to clean up this mess." She had to pause long enough to take a bracing breath as the next cramp stilettoed across her stomach. It was the gurgling in there that put flapping wings of panic into her chest, but she couldn't think about that.
"Unbuckle me from this jacket and I can clean myself up. You can leave the room for 20 minutes. Come back and check on me, if you like. I won't say anything. I'll clean myself up really nice." She tried to smile for him but she knew it was feeble at best.
"Twenty minutes," he said. "I'll give you twenty. But when I come back you'd better be good and clean and the gurney stripped."
"I promise"
For a long moment, she thought he would change his mind. She would have considered panting and moaning even louder if she thought it would force the issue, but she didn't need to act. Those things came of their own accord whether she wanted them to or not. He swore beneath his breath, and then she felt his hands fumbling beneath the sheets, shoving her onto her side and fiddling with the buckles. She would've enjoyed the feeling of release as the sleeves slackened around her, but the shivers made her draw her knees up even tighter to her chest. She had to grit her teeth against the wave of spasms that clunked their way up her spine as though a rocking chair was creaking over every vertebra. She fell back against the gurney, exhausted, and looked up at him, panting. She waited until the tremors settled enough that she could make one more plea for a smear. "Just half one. Even a quarter. I'll come down much easier. You won't have to deal with any of this."
He lifted one shoulder coldly. "I don't have to deal with it anyway. You're on your own for the next 20 minutes. You do what you promised. We'll deal with the rest of it after that."
He clomped his way across the floor and closed the door behind him, locking it, and leaving her alone. She supposed she could be grateful for the solitude. She supposed she should be even more grateful that she was released, but she couldn't feel anything except the misery that swam over her skin and dug beneath her tissues to poke at each organ with burning hot needles. She shook off the sheets, peeled her way out of the jacket, and touched her feet to the floor. Cold. Blessedly cold. She crouched down on the tiles and curled up on them. She'd clean the mess up later. She just didn't have the energy right now.
She might have lain there for hours, letting the floor turn her into a puddle of useless misery, except she kept thinking about the last time she'd felt so sick from withdrawal. Ezekiel had drug her ass out of the capital building after murdering the mayor, and he'd cared not one whit for her misery. He'd forced her to throw one foot in front of the other until she couldn't move one more muscle. At some point, she'd given in to her body and ended up waking in his arms in front of Bridget's. He'd washed the sick and vomit off her, too, just like the orderly had. But Ezekiel had been strangely tender with her, he'd let her see his own body as repayment for the vulnerability of her nakedness.
She caught the sob before it escaped, but the sting of tears came just the same, and it was the way the memory burned in her skin that drove her to her feet. He had a beautiful body for a soldier. No marks. Just lean sinews and ropes of muscle. She stared down at her shaking legs, recalling how they fit around him, tightening, straining with all their strength to pull him closer. Her legs were mush now, trembling, ravenous for nothing but the release of bliss.
It was a wonder she could stand; she wanted to laugh out loud at the sheer joy of it. She took a shaking step toward the counter. It felt like pins were stabbing her soles, that gravity was greedy for her weight. Twice she stumbled, the dizziness inking out great splotches of her vision, stealing the oxygen from her thighs. Each time it did she steeled her gaze on a spot just inches out of her reach. She would do this. She would make it through this, and she would find that bastard who made her chest ache more than the hunger for godspit ever did.
The solidity of the counter was an oasis. She fell on it, splaying her arms across as she laid her cheek on its cool surface. Every tendon and cord shrieked with life; little fire ants buzzed beneath her skin, setting pyres alight with each pinching bite. Her bowels twisted, her heart thudded in her ears, her lungs squeezed and groaned for air.
But sweet shit, she'd made it. Despite all that, she'd made it. She'd got her sorry ass up off that floor and fought her way step by step all the way to the counter. She was a warrior, by Jesus. A Boudicca, a Joan of Arc, a real and true fucking Zenobia. Imagine, the sheer audacity to say fuck you to her own body.
The smile that cracked her lips might have stayed there, giving her time to relish the victory, but the door groaned open and the orderly who had given her freedom stood in the gaping maw of door-jam with a look of fury. His gelled hair bristled at her.
"What the fuck?"
"I did it," she said, thinking even as the words spilled out that they were stupid. They sucked all the victory out of the air like a vacuum cleaner.
"You did sweet FA is what you did, you stupid mung." He slammed the door closed behind him.
"But I will do what I said I would," she announced. She could do anything. Even wipe up her own sick. "I made it here, didn't I?" She grinned at him.
"It's not Mars, honey," he said. "A couple of fucking steps. A toddler could do that." He grabbed for t
he sheets and flung them at her. The weight made her legs wobble.
"I think I need to sit down," she said, searching for a place to collapse, knowing her legs had given up, finally. She ended up in a heap next to the cupboards, her hand clinging to the handle.
"Get up." His face was a deadpan mask of careful complacency.
"I can't. I need more time."
Her scalp burned even as she protested, and it took half a heartbeat to realize he had her by the hair and was trying to pull her to her feet. She crawled as best she could to her knees, to get some slack in the grip, but when she'd found some, he dragged her backward, toward the gurney.
"Clean. Up. That. Disgusting. Mess." He pressed her nose to the floor the way one might a dog that had soiled a carpet. The smell of puke made her stomach recoil and her mouth flood with water. She tried to twist away, but he pushed her face closer. "If you have to lick it clean, you'll clean it; do you hear me?"
She attempted a nod, and thankfully, he understood.
He eased off the pressure enough that she could back a few inches away. She had to tell herself the flood of water in her mouth wasn't because she was going to be sick; it was just because she was gathering spit for his shoes. She kept repeating it to herself until she was able to stem the tide and swallow without her mouth refilling so quickly. He pushed her aside and she fell to her knees, supporting herself on one palm. As she looked up at him, he flung a wet rag at her, then went back to the sink and filled a plastic bucket with hot water. This he carried over and plunked down beside her.
He twisted her chin with his knee, making her face him so that she could see the niggardly expression he wore as a companion to the sober line of his mouth. The bastard meant business. "Make it quick," he said. "You're going to have a visitor."
A visitor? No one even knew she existed except Ami and Ezekiel: Ezekiel had left her here, and according to him, Ami was dead. She hastened to clean up the sick on the floor, dipping her rag repeatedly into the bucket and spreading water across the tiles as she considered who the visitor might be. A lump collected in her throat when she realized that the visitor could easily be Sasha. She might end up back in the spitters'den, or worse in the boutique, slaving for demented patrons in return for a dose of godspit day after day, living in a drug-induced miasma.
She watched her fingers as they sank into the suds of the bucket again, and thought maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Perhaps it would even be preferable to being here, brought to justice so Blanche had said. But that just didn't fit with Ezekiel's attitude, why he'd sat with her as he waited for her to wake. She bit her lip, thinking about Ezekiel. She didn't want to hope. Didn't want to imagine that rugged face, those green eyes, the way his hands ran over her skin.
It was entirely possible that the guilt he'd shown had been exactly because of that, because he'd betrayed her. And if that was the case, she needed to keep the fire of fury alive. Needed to keep the drive to kill him strong enough that she could escape this place. Without it, with nothing but the discouraging thought that she might end up in the spitters'den again with Sasha, she wouldn't want to live more than a day.
She heard the door open behind her and the orderly hastened to his feet, grabbing the rag from her and pulling her to a trembling stand. Too late, she hadn't got all of the mess cleaned up, and already her visitor was here. She twisted around, gripping the orderly's leg for support.
And she needed it she discovered, once she'd got all the way around and saw who the visitor was. Not Ezekiel. Not even Sasha.
Her visitor was the Beast.
Chapter 4
The Beast wore a white shirt and jeans. If he was dressed more casually than their first meeting, Theda was no less afraid. He strolled into the room with one hand in his pocket, the other swinging free: a careful, purposefully non-threatening act, she thought.
"Theda," he said. "You're looking well."
He didn't wait for her response, but nodded at the orderly. "Sal," he said, extending his hand. "I'm so pleased to see you here with her; your supervisor told me you are one of our best."
Sal whirled about so quickly that he made Theda stumble, and she had to reach out for the counter to steady herself.
Of all things, of all people to invade her day, especially today, when she'd come alive after god knows how long of a fix, when Ezekiel had left her, when she found herself in this humanity-forsaken place. The Beast. Of all people.
"I thought you were dead," she said, although she knew from Ezekiel that he wasn't. It just seemed the best accusation to fling at him.
His brows lifted a fraction and a short smile crept across his lips. "Did you now?" He said. "I do have a nasty habit of breathing. As do you," he said and pulled out the chair Sal had previously been sitting on. He settled into it with all the gentility of an old world gentleman. He crossed his legs primly.
"You may leave us, Sal," he said without looking at the orderly, but waving him away with a short flutter of his fingers. Sal picked up the bucket and, without much more than a sour look at Theda, left the room and closed the door behind him. Theda felt like she'd been dropped into a snake pit.
"You look tired," he said to her.
"I thought you said I looked well."
He pursed his lips. "Niceties. They're important."
"I look like shit, is what I look like," she said in return.
He chuckled. "True enough. You're not surprised to see me, Theda."
She shrugged. "You know what they say about bad pennies," she said. She took a step toward the gurney, reaching for the edge. She hoped he wouldn't see the way her legs trembled, but she needed to sit down. And she'd be damned if she'd let him see her sit on the floor.
"No doubt my Ezekiel informed you why you're here."
"Your Ezekiel told me nothing."
"Not even why you're still alive?"
"At this point I don't care whether I'm alive or whether I'm dead."
He checked his watch. "But I do." He uncrossed his legs and stood. He'd obviously seen how much her legs trembled, because he offered her the chair. She shook her head.
"You care about as much for me as that chair."
"But you're wrong. Alive you have some use; dead you create trouble." He quirked a manicured brow.
"Then why the threats back at the boutique?"
"You could say I didn't realize your full value."
"Meaning Ezekiel wouldn't kill me."
"Oh, he would have killed you. Eventually. He does everything I say in that regard. He has no choice." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "He even takes some pleasure from it."
It hurt, hearing that. Theda's chest ached as she thought of Ezekiel standing by her bedside, waiting for her to wake. The relief in his voice when he saw her open her eyes. He wouldn't have done all that, told her that she was the only one he refused to kill, if the Beast had that much power over him. The ache in her chest made her realize how badly he had hurt her. How badly the Beast was hurting her again.
It made her stubborn, spiteful.
"You're lying,"
"Am I?"
"He was full of blood when he was here," Theda said. "The blood of a dozen other people. He told me all about that. He told me how you made him kill everyone there; he told me how he took on every one of your soldiers. He told me I was the only one--"
"Is that what he told you? That he killed to save you?"
She nodded. What other reason could there be.
The Beast's chuckle this time was filled with actual humor. "He's an interesting one, that Ezekiel." He stepped toward the counter, reaching up to open the cupboard and extracting a paper-covered glass. He ran it under the tap, filling it. He took several swallows before he put the glass back down and turned to Theda. "He killed everyone because I told him to. Not to protect you. But because I ordered it."
"Again. Lies."
"You think so? Do you remember Armageddon, Theda?"
She refused to answer, but he wasn't swayed by her silence.
"Hundreds of thousands of people dead. All at his hand as much as the god's. Each life taken was like seizing a dragon by the tail and stuffing it head first into his veins."
"Stop," she said. She didn't want to hear this.
"Such a perverse addiction, my Ezekiel has. Not like any other. I'm sure part of him thinks he bargained for you. I know that's what he told you. But a bigger part knows better. Catching the dragon is only as good as the chase, you see."
She glared at him, willing him to shut his disgusting mouth, but he just kept on.
"Those soldiers he killed, those dozens of men streaming into the room at my bidding were nothing but spitters from Sasha's den dressed up in horsemen garb. Painted with a veneer of glamour thin enough that he would believe what I wanted him to believe. And yes, he killed them all; what choice did they have? Miserable spitters with nothing to live for except their next fix. Can you imagine what a terrible existence that must be?"
He ran a lean finger against the throat of the glass, eyeing her beneath hooded lids. She watched as he brought his gaze to hers finally, drilling into them with the surety of someone who knew things they shouldn't.
"I imagine he freed them from all that," he said and spun on his heel, extending long fingers toward her in invitation.
Instead of taking his hand, she fell into the chair.
"Much like your existence, I gather."
There was no condemnation in his statement, but she felt it all the same: the patronizing, the accusation. The back of the chair bit into her shoulders as she strained away from him.
Acting oblivious to her reaction, he spun with his arms outstretched, as though to indicate there was no safer haven than where he stood.
"If we've learned anything over the centuries, it's that martyrs set to light claims that should remain as puffs of smoke. Here, you will be treated no differently than any other religion monger. Treated like any other criminal. Nothing special." He grinned so widely, Theda could see his gums.
Theta Waves Box Set: The Complete Trilogy (Books 1-3) (Theta Waves Trilogy) Page 21
