Her lungs burned each time she drew in a breath.
And each time she sucked in fuel, her chest wheezed painfully as it tried to utilize each molecule of oxygen. Her lungs should be rationing each bit of air to send it to her muscles, to feed her brain. But they were greedy, so greedy those lungs, that they devoured the air before they even reached the middle of her chest. If only something inside of her brain would starve just enough that she would shut down that part that fully understood exactly how fucked she was. Maybe then she could calm down.
But it seemed the lungs were cruel as well as greedy. What air they didn't use, they sent straight to the terror region of her mind. Twice she had to clamp her teeth down on her tongue to send her brain a different message.
With the last painful clamp down onto the muscle, she remembered that Ezekiel's tank had a hole in one side. It wasn't big, but it had obviously been enough for him to breathe through. They had shoved her in with such deliberation, she could only hope that her head was on the right end. But which side? She couldn't see anything.
She ended up running her open mouth along the one side and then the other, inhaling and exhaling, testing to see where fresh air came in. She found the hole, finally, and squeezed her eyes shut as she focused on breathing. One draft. Two drafts. Three. She had to calm down. She had to focus. If she was going to get out of here alive, it wouldn't be smart to use of all of her oxygen to power her panic.
She could already feel her clothes clinging to her from sweat. If she wasn't careful, she'd end up dehydrating. There. She was thinking straight. The fresh oxygen was already helping. She felt a measure of zen just realizing it.
Ezekiel would be proud of her. Although she wanted to start crying all over again thinking about him, she willed the stinging in her eyes to retreat. She couldn't waste one drop of fluid. She had made it through the Apocalypse. She had made it through dozens of assaults. She had escaped the Beast and his henchmen and Sasha enough times to make her believe that she could get through this too.
She just had to keep a clear head.
As if in answer to that thought, her hand made its way to her stomach and found the square of smear that the Beast had dropped in with her. She played with the corner, flipping it up and down. He had obviously believed the initial panic would send her to use. He was wrong. She wasn't that person anymore. She would lie here as quietly as she possibly could just in case there was someone in the room reporting back to him everything they heard.
If she was quiet, no doubt they would believe she took that smear and would assume she'd be blissed out for several hours.
She'd fool them all right. She'd use it, but she'd use it when she had no other alternative. If they chose to torture her or send her to an incredibly painful death, she would take it then. She would find her end in a state of euphoric bliss and she'd rob them of her agony at least.
Not that it wasn't tempting. Even she understood that constant flicking back and forth of the corner would keep her mind on the fact that it was there at all, and how long could any addict hold out against the whispering of its favorite diversion.
At least she'd used long enough to understand how to prolong the gratification. When she used before, she'd had to eventually give in because her body required it of her, and the cramps and nausea would eventually drive her to lay the smear down on her tongue just to stop the pain and sickness. Now that she was clean of all that, there was nothing to drive her to use except her own lack of willpower.
In fact, she could be incredibly comfortable here if not for the heat and close quarters. If she kept her eyes closed, she'd really have no idea where she was. She could be lying on a really comfortable bed at night in a luxurious bedroom, pretend Ezekiel lay next to her. If she could forget about how much her finger smarted still from the rapping they'd received from one of the horsemen's guns, she could fully pretend that none of this was happening at all.
But they did hurt. They hurt enough that she stuck the two most offending digits into her mouth without thinking any more than to soothe them.
At first, she was confused at the coppery tang of blood that she tasted. But then she felt the dizzying precursor of freefall that always came when she was sinking into someone else's past life vision, and she realized that she had Ezekiel's blood on her fingers as well as her own. Ezekiel's. She had touched his bloody cheek. There must still be some remnant on her skin.
Her last thoughts before the landing was that at least she could be with him again, even if it wasn't presently real and then that thought got swallowed up in such a choking depth of revulsion that she could think of nothing else.
She recognized the spitters' den right away. There was a kind of smoky gloom to it that lent it a mist like quality not unlike manufactured movie fog. The antique bookshelves along one wall sported ropes of LED lights meant to make the hookahs and liquor bottles wink.
Ezekiel strode through the reception area, grimacing with disgust as he took in the dozen or so would-be debauchers waiting for their turns to make their way deeper inside of the den. Here, the action was tame. A couple of waif-like spitters stripped down to teensy thongs. The women pressed bare chests against the patrons as they served cocktails and hard liquor alike. The men cupped their balls through their underwear, brandishing them at anyone who would take notice as though theirs were the key to the ultimate sexual experience.
One particularly disgusting looking councilman with a stomach the size of a beach ball had shoved his meaty hand beneath the back of one spitters' underwear and was leveraging himself against the youth to work his finger up into the boy's dark crevice. He made no effort to hide his own erection as he pumped his finger in and out, and the youth strained against that fat stomach as though he was actually enjoying it. Ezekiel knew better. The glazed over look of the boy's face gave him away as a young man on the far edge of his high, sick with the need to use again.
"Fucking spitter," he hissed as he passed, and hearing it, the councilman strained his chin over the boy's shoulder and winked. Ezekiel didn't respond. Those that used the spitters like chattel were just as bad. Not quite as revolting as the mungs, but not far off either. If he had his way, he'd rid new Earth of every single one of them just like the Beast was exterminating the religion-mongers. With extreme prejudice. An unrelenting purge the Beast had called it. Fuck only knew why the mungs started to multiply like locusts all of a sudden, but he had an idea that Kat had extracted every piece of that information from her prisoner. Otherwise, there'd be no need to call in the Pale Rider. Any regular old killing could be done by anyone, sure. But if the Beast wanted it to be special he demanded the specialist. Kat for torture, the Pale Rider for the death blow.
As a second lieutenant to General Daniel, the nasty bitch was as effective at torture as the Red Rider General was at war-making. And she looked red, by damn. Carpet and curtain grew from the same fiery depths of the woman's enraged psyche. If anything should ever happen to General Dan, he had no doubt the Beast would elevate that esclove. At times he thought the Beast was sorry he'd given Daniel the red post instead of Kat, that he wished he could elevate the woman. Too unpredictable, though, and not of the true order of horsemen, either. From the wrong side of the tracks.
By the time he'd made it to the far end of the room that led into the more hard-core part of the den, he'd had to Taser three spitters who tried to accost him, all hoping to earn a few smears from him. He snorted at the last one who lay still spasming on the floor beside his feet.
"Why are you all so pathetic?" he asked of her. "You just saw me Taser your friend over there." He drove the toe of his boot into her temple. "You think you were going to get any luckier?"
She moaned in response. For good measure, he leaned over and gave her another jolt. "Let's see you bliss out on that, you fucken junkie."
Even as he watched her stiffen, his mouth started to water. Like Pavlov's dog, he knew, and he swiped the back of his hand across his mouth to mop it up. "Leave me be," he bark
ed out, his eyes glued to the way her limbs tried to reclaim control of themselves. He had to drag his gaze away.
"Just leave me be."
He put heat to his boots as he made his way through the rest of the den. When Sasha offered him a peek into the trunk, he made his head shake out his answer because he couldn't trust his tongue. Only when the lid closed again did he take a breath.
"I'm not taking anyone out today," he said. "Just here on business."
"Ah, yes," Sasha said not bothering to disguise his disappointment. "You must be here at the Beast's request. Eddie here will show you to the room."
They pushed through the double French doors, Eddie leading the way through another myriad of corridors until they stood in front of a hammered steel door with no handle.
"How do we get in?" he demanded of Eddie.
"The buzzer." Eddie pressed his index finger into a button that was all but hidden in the doorframe. No sound emitted from it, but within moments the door yawned open. Without hesitating, Ezekiel stepped over the threshold, taking the time to press his Taser into Eddie's rib cage as he went by.
Best weapon ever next to his knife. He'd had to use the unsatisfying method of assault weapons and riflery during the takeover and though it afforded him a glut of endorphins and an obscene level of high, it had left him afterward with a craving like a starved man. It had nearly undone him but for Bridget. She'd helped him through, and within a fortnight of his very painful recovery, he'd requisitioned less lethal weaponry for him and all his soldiers. He simply couldn't afford to see that level of massacre again.
Taser and knife kept him at arm's length from death. And, he had no doubt, arm's length from tipping back into the oblivion of addiction.
Now his rehab was over, it seemed. The Beast needed someone dead, some disgusting religion-monger, and the Pale Rider had been given the task. Anxiety whispered along his spine as he scanned the room in a heartbeat, taking in the bloody mess hanging from manacles attached to the ceiling.
"Really, Kat, you fucken esclove. He's a breath away from death as it is." He tapped the toe of his boot on the tiles as he watched the redhead pack up several Xacto knives. "Did you have to go that far?"
"She went as far as she could," said a shadow extracting itself from the far edge of the room.
"John," Ezekiel murmured, penitent. "I didn't know you were there."
"I had to be." The Beast sent a mournful gaze down the length of the pitiful being in chains. "I thought maybe if I was here..." He let the rest trail off in a way that made Ezekiel give the religion-monger a more scrutinous study. Realization struck him like a wash of cold sweat.
"Henrik," he murmured. "John, is that your son?"
The Beast shook his head in despair. "It is, General, it is. Spouting nonsense about souls and evolution. Threatening me."
"Why would he do that to you?"
"I don't know," the Beast said. "We tried everything to get him to recant, but he won't. He just won't."
Kat stepped forward then, wiping blood from her brow as though it was perspiration.
"Issa shame, really. Lasted quite a while, the lil puke," she said.
The Beast raised supplicating palms toward Ezekiel. "He's too far gone, now. He's just suffering. Can you put him down for me, Ezekiel? Put him down quick so he doesn't suffer anymore."
How could anyone ignore an entreaty like that. A father betrayed by his son, suffering as he watched his son bleed to death. Ezekiel didn't give it a second thought. He took the few last steps toward Henrik, pulling his knife free of his boot as he went. He looked into the swollen face, wondering how the boy could do such a foul thing as to religion-monger behind his father's back.
The knife was slicing across the boy's throat when Ezekiel caught his eye. What he read within the gaze was too chillingly similar to the look in a spitters' eye: bliss. Pure, unadulterated euphoria.
Seeing it sent a shiver down his spine.
Chapter 7
The Beast crossed the room to lay his palm against Henrik's ear, cupping his face as it hung to his chest.
"He did give us one piece of information we can use."
Ezekiel was uncomfortable with the way the Beast looked his son over. The boy was such a grisly thing that he expected more reaction from John. It was his son after all, a boy he doted on and lavished every possible thing you could in a world where little was available. He wanted to step between them, and push the Beast away. He did the next best thing: he asked for more information.
"So what did he tell you?"
Kat, ever the callous bitch, answered instead of the Beast, flat out ignoring the pain on the man's face. She stepped closer to the mess in front of her, gripping it by the hair and lifting the head so that Henrik stared out into the room with a vacant, pained eye.
"The little bastard went to a psychic."
Ezekiel cast an annoyed glance her way. "You do know the meaning of the word bastard, right?"
She shrugged, releasing her grip on Henrik's hair and letting his head drop. "He fits it."
"Not the way you use the word." Ezekiel wiped his blade on her sleeve, baiting her to take offense. The bitch was freakishly strong, but she'd have to be a lot more than a freak to intimidate him the way she did the rest of the horsemen. He'd welcome the chance to open a red grin in that muscled throat to complement the slimey one that always stretched across her face.
"A psychic, huh?" he said instead, stepping away from her to inspect the tip of his blade as though she'd ruined the edge with her coarse cotton jacket. What kind of idiot wore a jacket to a mutilation?
He shoved the knife back into his boot, looking her up and down. "Big deal."
"A big enough deal," the Beast interjected. "You've noticed the harem he's been collecting?"
Ezekiel swung his gaze from Kat to the man in a perfectly tailored suit. "Who wouldn't notice. Some pretty beautiful people there."
He heard Kat snort. "Issat so?" she said. "Nothing but he/shes so far as I've heard. Damned unnatural, not that unnatural is a prob--"
The Beast shut her up with a quiet stare. "Beautiful, indeed," he continued. "Henrik's taken the jet on multiple occasions. He traveled as far as India to add to his collection."
"I know, Bridget went with him to Australia."
Kat slipped closer like her feet were greased. "Yeah?" she said. "She a fucken he/she too? Not cause it's much of a problem for me. I do love freakish. Gets me all--"
Ezekiel reached out and gripped her throat, squeezing till her eyes bugged. "You will not speak of Bridget that way."
Kat swatted his hand away easily and smirked. "Careful, you're getting me hot." She waved a hand in front of her crotch. "That little boy over there just lit the match."
The Beast made a small humming sound behind pursed lips, but said nothing to explain the note of thought in it. Instead, he took in Henrik's mutilated body and sighed.
"I have informed the mayor that he's to step up his search of religion-mongers. Cursory investigations, you understand. We don't exactly need to know if it's true. Just a hint of heretical talk is enough to inflame the zealots that still remain."
He picked at a piece of skin that had been flayed from Henrik's naked torso, trying without success to stick it back in place.
"In the meantime, you will be the Mayor's main resource, General. He'll investigate those you bring to him, give you a nice payout, and if you believe you've caught the psychic, then bring her to me. Kat here can take care of the rest. Won't you Kat?" He looked up past his son's still hanging body to catch her eye.
Kat gave him a Cheshire grin. "I'll take care of the rest with extreme prejudice, Sir." She clicked her heels together and sent a stiff salute that reminded Ezekiel of a Hitler-esque Heil.
"Clear enough for you, General?"
"Absolutely."
Ezekiel turned and made his way back to the room, leaving them as he wound down the various corridors to where Sasha stood at the exit that joined the main den to the introd
uctory lounge.
"Can't I tempt you with a little treat from the boutique, General?" Sasha asked.
Ezekiel shook his head. He hadn't missed the way the Beast had hummed over mention of Bridget. He'd not given it much thought before, but his sister had been spending a lot of time with Henrik. If the Beast wasn't able to get the information he was looking for from his son, how long would it be before he thought Bridget might have it. Better he extract what she knew first than have the Beast decide he needed to send Kat to collect her. That way he could keep Bridget beneath the radar. She had a penchant for seeing things, and he'd hate to think that in the end they might start to believe that she had been the psychic Henrik had consulted. She was far from a religious fanatic, but with this new threat, a person could see the bogeyman anywhere if he looked at it just right.
He entered the porch of the house he shared with his sister half an hour later and found her rifling through the cupboards for enough canned goods to make a soup.
"Stuff is getting way too expensive," she said, her face still in the open cupboard. "You think he would give you a few loaves of bread for all your trouble."
"If I wanted something for my trouble, it wouldn't be stale bread," he said.
She harrumphed. "A few spitters on leashes no doubt."
He shrugged, knowing it would infuriate her. "Just half a dozen or so, but not high. They're too docile when they're spitting to give a man a good hit."
She turned to face him, and a look crossed her face that made him squirm. "You're disgusting."
He felt his mouth twitch. "I'm joking, Bridget. I'm off that shit. You know I am."
"Then where did you go?"
Again, he shrugged, this time to disguise from that eagle-eyed scrutiny the truth of where he'd been. She always read him as easily as a Promo.
Theta Waves Box Set: The Complete Trilogy (Books 1-3) (Theta Waves Trilogy) Page 41
