She let the whip fly toward the cage, mesmerized as the stripes coiled about the bars before they slackened and fell to the floor. Something in her chest took flight. She pulled the lash back. Let go again. Heard it crack. She wanted to laugh, even as he let go a sob, she countered it with a snicker.
"Scared?" she said. "Of this little thing?" The lash whistled in the air.
He yelled at its peak, robbing her ear of the sound of its snap.
"Bastard," she yelled.
"Yes," he wept. "Yes. Bastard. Anything. Just don't strike my balls again. Please." This last said as one drawn-out sobbing shudder. He covered his hips with his hands and Theda felt revulsion fill her throat. She imagined Kat with Ami. Imagined Kat with this sick sack of filth.
"You deserve worse than that," she said, struggling her way past the words, past the fear that Ami was alone with a woman who would take a whip to a man's genitals, past even the belief that this man in front of her really did deserve exactly what Kat had inflicted. Damn him. He deserved it all.
"You're a piece of shit," she said.
"I am," he murmured. "I am."
"Tell me where I put the keys," she said. "And you better hope you were smart enough to pay attention because if you didn't..."
"I did," he said hastily. "I did. I watched you. You put them in the desk." His voice was almost too eager to please her, mollify her. It was sickening.
She pulled off the sunglasses and threw them on the bed. "Good little idiot," she said in Kat's best demeaning voice. "I almost had an excuse to pull out the cattle prod."
"But there's no reason," he said. "I knew where it was. You don't need to use that again."
She went for the keys; there were only two on the clip. She supposed one was for the door to the cage, and the other was for the handcuffs on his wrists. A fifty-fifty chance of getting it right were pretty good odds in her book, and fortunately she got it on the first try. She yanked the door open.
"Come out."
He cowered in the corner. "But I told him what I was doing with her. I was just holding her until--"
"You think he believed that?"
"It was true. I wanted to scare her. That was all. I knew he was coming for her. He told us all. She was on the promo."
He meaning the Beast; she meaning herself. It made sense now. The Beast hadn't let him go unpunished after all; he'd known the councilman had every intention of snuffing the life from the woman the Beast was working so hard to apprehend, had known and had let the councilman believe he was forgiven. And the Beast obviously sent Kat out to recover the traitor, bring him here, and punish him for his insubordination.
Half a grin stole her mouth.
"She has a pretty remarkable gift," Theda said, testing.
He nodded. "It is remarkable. So vivid. I told him that. It almost made me feel ashamed, but then I remembered that what she was doing was ruining the world. His world. And I kept my head."
"Not for long," she said. Really. What was the use of delaying this any longer? He was filth. A waste of flesh and bone. A waste of the energy it took for his heart to beat.
She threw the whip to the floor and turned toward the bed. One shot. That's all it would take. Except one shot would be too fast. It was too good for him. She would take her time. She would take her time, no one would assume it was anything other than the general interrogating her witness, and she had the right to do that. She'd bought this man as far as anyone was concerned, and she could do with him whatever she pleased.
"There are no rules here in the den," she said. "Anything goes. You know that better than anyone."
She reached for the gun with purpose. She remembered all of the terror she felt, remembered poor Salima and how she'd ended up sacrificing herself so that Theda could escape, remembered the way Ezekiel had let himself be worked over by his own men in order to save her.
It was nothing for her to point the gun toward the man in the cage. It was nothing to watch the way the shudders took over his body. It was nothing to smell the fear and his sweat.
It was nothing and it wasn't enough.
She wanted to see his eyes as she hurt him, dammit. She wanted to smell his sweat, the acrid stink of his urine as he pissed himself. She charged the cage, letting lose a shriek as she ran, stumbling into the door with the gun held aloft and pointing at his knees.
Except her damn finger wouldn't obey her mind and then he was cowering with the blanket pulled over his face and the cloth was shaking so violently that she thought for a second he was having a seizure and couldn't keep her eyes focused.
And then the banging started.
It took two full heartbeats before she realized someone was at the door.
All she could think was that it was Sasha because Sasha knew everything that went on in his den.
And then she fell to a shuddering, slobbering mess on the floor.
Chapter 23
She had the vague sense of a long bolt of cloth cascading over her head and sweeping down her body. There was the stench of unwashed skin and sweat, the odor of feces. Bare feet sounded, slapping the tiles as they carried the escapee past her and through the room. She knew the councilman was fumbling with the door, shouting. More than that, she didn't care to register. Nothing within her mind could form itself into coherent thought. It had one purpose: to funnel the fear into one cohesive ball. Live the ball. Create the ball. Be the ball.
She thought she heard someone else shout, made out the pounding of booted footsteps. Hands groped for her shoulders, trying to tug her forward, lift her to her feet. She resisted. She wanted the ball. To be the ball. Nothing else mattered.
"Theda." The hands became more insistent, shaking her. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
She couldn't do any more than bawl in response to the masculine voice. Her vision was nothing but a wash of tears.
"Who was that?" A hand went beneath her knees, scooping her up, cradling her close against a solid wall of muscle. The scent of him was comfortingly familiar. "Did he hurt you?"
A tiny evolution within: the wailing changing to manic cackling. Imagine. The councilman hurting her. She thought she was sniggering, but it sounded too peculiar. It still sounded like howling.
She sailed across the expansive room in his arms. Cain. That's who was speaking. She got that now. That's who had lifted her, carrying her across the room to settle on the bed with her on his lap. But she couldn't stop laughing or crying or whatever the hell it was she was doing. His palms cupped her face, making her look at him.
"It's okay," he murmured. "The shell has cracked. You're on the other side." He smeared her tears with his thumbs as he attempted to catch her eye. "You're safe."
She tried to shake her head, but his hands kept it captive. "You are. Tell me you are."
"I'm okay." She shuddered, meeting his demanding green-eyed gaze, willing herself to calm down, but having to struggle with the heaving of her chest as she tried to paralyze the tears.
"You're okay," he repeated. "He didn't hurt you."
"No." A hiccup. Another shuddering inhalation. "No. He didn't hurt me." The admission threatened to break whatever dam she'd managed to build around the tears, and she nearly lost sight of him as she welled up again. "I'm okay."
At that, he crushed her to his chest, enfolding her in his arms, wrapping his arms all the way round her. Just the feel of his tight, protective embrace was enough that she really let go. She wailed as she wept, stuffing her open mouth into his shirt, clinging to him, tasting the faint perspiration in the material. Her arms wound about his neck, snaking behind, trying to claw her way into his skin, beneath his bones, find some place inside of him, disappear.
He rocked back and forth with her, hushing her and crooning. "It's all right, Theda. You're all right. I'm here. I'm here."
She felt his breath on her neck, noted how erratic his heartbeat was as it pounded against her. He was afraid. Cain. The immortal man, marked by the god. He was terrified. Realizing it stopped up the tea
rs more effectively than his concern did. She eased away, seeking his eye. When she met it, she found she wasn't prepared for the anxiety in them. It could only mean one thing in her mind.
"What is it? Is it Ezekiel? Did you find him?"
He shook his head, extracting himself from her, trying to push her onto the bed and off his lap, all the while busily avoiding her eye.
"Cain?"
"It's nothing."
"It's something."
She reached for his arm, but he shook her hand off and strode toward the cage, fiddled with the door. She swiped the back of her hand across her nose, watching his reaction, trying to ferret out the reason for the anxiety she read in his demeanor.
"You're scared," she said flat out, daring him to deny it.
He rounded on her. "Scared? I see you curled in a ball on the floor, wailing like you were dying, a naked fat foul-smelling BASTARD streaks past me before I can catch him because I'm so damned worried about you that I can't think of anything but getting to you, saving you--" He choked on whatever he was planning to say next and ended up glaring at her. "What the fuck, Theda?"
She winced at each perfectly enunciated word.
"I told you I couldn't come back here." The plastic sheet twisted in her fingers as she realized she'd have to defend herself.
"You told me, so, yes. But I didn't expect to see that."
"Don't be mad."
His brows furrowed together. "I'm not mad." He sighed and she watched his gaze linger on the spot where he'd found her.
She pushed herself to her feet, taking a deep breath. "It was Councilman Prusser," she said, surprised her legs would hold her weight. She had to hold onto the headboard until she was certain her knees wouldn't buckle.
"Prusser?" He let go the cage door and faced her as though he was making a very deliberate decision to engage her. A real soldier in action.
She edged closer. "Prusser. The naked fat foul-smelling bastard. He...he bought me. Before." Her fingers snaked together as she waited for his reaction.
"Fuck."
"Yeah," she said. "Last time I was here. He very nearly tortured me to death. If it hadn't been for the Beast--"
"The Beast?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "You're trying to tell me that the Beast saved you from that filth?"
She nodded. "He wanted--well, you know what he wanted because he still wants it--and Sasha, ever the shrewd businessman, figured he could earn a few thousand before he turned the councilman in." She chuckled darkly, remembering the double cross that Sasha played that put money in his pocket while at the same time keeping him in the Beast's good graces.
"Ezekiel saved me from the Beast after that." She shrugged pointedly. "And then you--well, you know the rest of that story too."
"So the Beast had the councilman imprisoned here."
"Appears that way. Left to Kat's idea of torture." Her mouth twisted in revulsion as she glanced at where she'd dropped the whip. "That chick has some issues."
He followed her gaze. "She was punishing him, then."
"Yes."
"And now he's escaped."
She chewed her lip nervously. She didn't like his tone. It held something that made her spine straighten defensively.
"Did he recognize you?" Cain bent to pick up the whip and let the tails of it trail through his fingers. Theda watched him, trying to decide how much to tell him.
"Theda?"
"I'm thinking."
"Not a luxury we can afford right now. Did he know you?"
She found a fraying bit of skin on her bottom lip and worried it. "I don't think so. He was pretty out of it."
She didn't miss how visibly he relaxed at her admission. So he had been scared. That unnerved her. She wrapped her arms about her waist, trying to keep calm.
"I'm glad you're here," she said. "At just the right time."
He shrugged. "Of course I'm here. That was the plan, remember? I followed the maître d' and waited a respectable amount of time down the hall. Like we planned. I didn't expect you would have company."
"I got lucky, I guess."
"I wouldn't call what I saw lucky."
She took the whip from him and threw it on the bed. "That's because you didn't see it all." She thought she could spare him the grisly details. She sighed, miserable because now what would they do?
"I thought for sure he'd be Ezekiel."
"I know, but he is here."
"He is? And you're just telling me now?" She was already spinning on her heel as he spoke, fully intending to bolt for the door. Ezekiel. Here. She didn't need to hear anymore. In disguise as the Red General, she could stride down any hallway and demand to be let in every room. Forget that. She could demand to be told where he was.
Cain gripped her by the elbow and hooked her backwards.
"Hold on. You don't even know where he is."
"Tell me where, then?" She glared at him. "Now, Cain. Time. Not exactly a luxury right now."
"Neither is chasing about half-cocked." He let her go, but stayed close. She knew he didn't trust her to stay still. When he studied her face, she willed it to remain composed. Satisfied, he said, "I'm not sure exactly where he is," he confessed. "But I know he's here in the den. I caught bits and pieces from overheard conversations."
"What bits? What pieces?"
"None of it makes sense." He began to wander the room, examining one device after the other with his fingers. "I've been here enough to know what goes on, but there are still some things..."
This was going nowhere. Was he trying to torture her? "What did you hear?"
He spun to face her, holding a pair of handcuffs he'd thoughtlessly picked up. "A couple of patrons seemed pretty excited about a new spitter. Someone large. Someone pretty damned unique for this place."
Theda had a hard time keeping excitement from her voice. "Someone unique. Most of the spitters here are just shadows of their former selves. It has to be someone new to the drug."
He nodded. "That's what I thought. But they weren't sure he would be offered into the regular rotation. That was what they were most worried about: that he would be far too exclusive. That even if they could afford it, they wouldn't be allowed anywhere near him."
"Ezekiel," she said. "It has to be."
As excited as she was to realize that the patrons had to be speaking of Ezekiel, she was just as concerned in case it was true. Sasha had a history of serving himself and pretending that the service was in the Beast's best interest. She'd experienced it firsthand when Sasha had, knowing full well she was the religion-monger the Beast was after, put her on the auction block and sold her to the councilman for a tremendous sum, only to let the Beast in to the torture room at the prime moment. What was to stop Sasha from doing the same thing with Ezekiel?
"We have to find him," she said, scouring the floor for her boots and, finding one of them, jammed her foot into it. "He's already been here too long."
"I know." He picked up the other boot from beside the bed and tossed it to her.
She was already wracking her memory, trying to think of all the ways Sasha might use Ezekiel until the Beast was ready for him. The Pale Rider certainly wouldn't be useful in the general population; even if he did somehow ingest enough godspit to make him compliant, Sasha would never risk them being recognized. And if the regular patrons were worried that the new spitter would be too exclusive, then there was only one place Theda knew of where Sasha might risk it.
"Did you overhear anything else?" She swallowed down a sudden flood of water, hoping Cain's answer would prove her wrong. "Did they mention leaving a bid?"
"You mean for the auction block?" he said, and held his hands up in surrender when she glared at him. "Just because I know all about the auction block, doesn't mean I've bid on anyone." He stepped backwards, deftly avoiding her swing. "If they mentioned it, I didn't hear it."
"What did they mention?"
"I told you: it didn't make much sense. Something about wax and a lizard king and a dozen
dead queens."
Theda fell backward onto the bed. Why couldn't it have just been the auction? Why couldn't she just have had to return to that room with its dais and manacles and bright, showcase lights? She could take that. She might even have found some catharsis in it. But no, she supposed the universe was out of gifts. Now it was time to pay for its favors.
"I know where he is," she said.
"You don't sound as thrilled as I would expect."
It felt as though something had lodged itself in her throat. She couldn't swallow, no matter how hard she tried. She didn't even have the energy to look for his reaction. She told him the news without even a trace of emotion.
"He's in the boutique."
Chapter 24
"The boutique," Cain repeated, but strangely enough, Theda didn't hear any sense of recognition in the words.
"The boutique." She rolled over to her side, facing him. "Sasha's specialty boutique."
He gave her a blank look.
"Think snuff," she said.
His dusty brows furrowed. "Snuff. That stuff went out generations ago."
If Ezekiel wasn't in such dire conditions, Theda would have laughed at Cain's naiveté. As it was, she felt pretty defeated.
"Not that kind of snuff. For a man who's lived since the beginning of creation, I would think you'd have run into a few heinous habits."
She groaned her way off the bed, running her fingers through her hair to make it stand up again. She could do this. If she could face the councilman and the fear he instilled deep into her very cells, then she could do this. If she could go days without a smear, if she could kick that habit in the face of danger, if she could get through the visions of her mother, face her demons in that laboratory closet, then she could go back to the boutique. She'd survived it. She would survive it again. Either Kat had brought Ezekiel there so the Beast could punish him or Sasha had stashed him there to in order to make a little extra money on the side, behind the Beast's back. Either way, she had no choice. This Red Rider doppelganger had to convince whatever burly henchmen Sasha had guarding the boutique that Ezekiel had done his time for betraying the Beast. She was breaking him out.
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