Theta Waves Box Set: The Complete Trilogy (Books 1-3) (Theta Waves Trilogy)

by Thea Atkinson

  She stopped just beyond Theda's reach and sidestepped until she towered over Ami's head. She gazed down at him with something that looked like affection, and it made Theda uncomfortable.

  "He's quite delicious, to be honest," Kat said before nudging him with her toe. "Maybe he does deserve a little break. He worked so hard, poor thing."

  Theda wanted to find some nasty retort but the bile rose to flood the back of her mouth, keeping her from speaking. Thankfully, Cain spoke for her.

  "Step aside, General."

  The general lifted her gaze to the son of Adam without so much as a light of surprise. "You," she said. "I killed you. Why aren't you dead?"

  He shrugged. "If you killed me, then I would be dead."

  The general pressed her lips together in an annoyed moue. "True enough," she said, taking note of the gun Cain had aimed at her. Theda had forgotten all about the pistol, and as she watched the way Cain held it without shaking, with a confidence borne of a man who knew he would make his shot, she felt hope bloom in her chest. They just might make it out of here.

  Kat, however, showed no signs of agitation. Instead, she lifted her boot over Ami's face and rested it on his nose. It was in that moment that Theda realized the woman hadn't been casually making conversation, but had known about the gun all along and had used the opportunity of banal conversation to sidle over and gain an advantage against it.

  "Go on," the general said to Cain. "Take your shot."

  "Don't," Theda said. "Please don't." She had the feeling Cain was about as interested in Ami's safety as Ezekiel had been, that in the end his orders had been to save just one person.

  Kat rocked her foot back and forth, making Ami's face twist from side to side against the floor. "Don't, please don't," she mimicked, affecting a high-pitched squeak. She lifted her boot off his face as though her intention was to bring it down onto Ami's nose with as much force as she could muster. And for the Red General, that was a considerable amount.

  Theda should have known Cain wouldn't hesitate, but when the report sounded she jumped all the same, and her hands went to her ears, trying to shut out the noise. Instead, she seemed to have captured it, making it rattle around within her skull.

  Without thinking, she fell to her knees and scrambled for Ami's legs, thinking only that she had to get him out of harm's way. If Kat hadn't suffered a fatal shot, then Theda had to pull Ami free of her. More than that didn't register.

  She was pulling on Ami's trousers in a frantic attempt to drag him toward her when she heard Kat let go a primal growl of rage. There was about one heartbeat of silence before the general followed it up with anything intelligible.

  "He's mine," the woman shrieked.

  Theda swung toward her in confusion, all the while clawing at Ami's legs. She wasn't about to take the time to argue about who Ami belonged to; she was just bewildered as to why the woman was still alive in the first place. Why she was still speaking. Had Cain missed?

  "Look what you did," the general shouted and dropped to her knees, reaching for Ami's shoulders. "Look what you did, you idiot."

  Theda expected Cain to rush forward and fall on the general, perhaps deliver another more fatal shot, but the way the woman was clawing at Ami, perfectly healthy, absolutely unscathed, indicated that Cain had in truth missed. Theda redoubled her efforts to pull Ami away from Kat, trying to get him close enough that she could protect him with her own body if she had to. Her hands were moving up his legs, grappling for his hips to yank him further when she noticed the blood blooming on his shoulder. She thought she heard herself swear when she noticed it, but it didn't sound like her voice.

  There was no explanation for what she saw next, and for a second Theda wondered if she was dreaming as she watched the Red Rider tear at Ami's shirt with probing hands, digging beneath the material for the wound. Pressing her palms against it in an effort to staunch the bleeding.

  Stunned, Theda fell back on her haunches, staring at the woman in disbelief. She stared at Ami, trying to shake some sense into her mind until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  "Run, Theda," Cain said into her ear.

  She shook her head because it was the only part of her that would move. "I can't," she replied.

  "You have to."

  His hands were on her then, pushing. She nearly fell forward onto Ami's legs, but she caught herself and struggled to find her feet. She sobbed as she looked down at the man who had supplied her in coffee, food, and godspit over the last months. Then she collapsed again.

  The next time Cain spoke, his voice wasn't gentle. It was harsh and commanding.

  "Get up, Theda."

  The sound of his voice seemed to free the general from her trance. She swung her gaze past Theda to where Cain stood towering behind her, shoving at her with one hand while the other pointed the gun at Ami's head.

  "You bastard," she said to him. An incredible expression of inexplicable fury stole across the woman's face before she launched herself at Cain. All Theda saw was a blur of leather and boots as the woman abandoned her inspection of Ami's wound and flew past to launch herself at Cain.

  Theda twisted to see the two horsemen tangled about each other, writhing on the floor in a mortal knot of legs and arms. Kat was the one to wrestle herself to the top first, straddling Cain across the upper chest. But it was he who still had hold of the gun, clenched tightly in his fist. The Red General's hands found some purchase on his wrist and wrapped around it, lifting it so the muzzle pointed toward the ceiling as though there were no contest to struggle.

  If Theda didn't know better, she'd think Cain was trying to aim the pistol back at Ami, but the general managed to twist it out of his grasp. With no more than a satisfied grunt, Kat hit him three times over the head with the butt of it, knocking him unconscious. He splayed out so completely, Theda worried he might actually be dead.

  Something whispered to her that she should be running, but she couldn't for the life of her find any strength to move. She watched, paralyzed, as the general fell backwards onto her bottom onto the floor, her knees bent in front of her, arms slung over them. She didn't seem the least winded, but something else obviously weighed on her, that Theda could tell.

  When she swung her gaze back toward Ami, finally, Theda realized what it was that pinched her shoulders together so fretfully. She was worried about him. For all her torture, for all her talk of tormenting him, she was worried about Ami.

  Realizing it enabled Theda to creep to her knees. "It's all right; he's okay," she said.

  The woman lifted her eyes to Theda's. Her jaw seesawed back and forth in a peculiar way. She sighed so audibly that Theda had no trouble discerning the note of resignation in it. Without another word, she heaved herself wearily to her feet and clomped over to where Ami lay.

  Looking down, she said, "Sorry, handsome, but I can't have any weaknesses."

  Theda watched as she crouched next to Ami and wrapped her long fingers around his neck. To Theda's horror, she began to squeeze.

  "Wait."

  Theda scrambled to the general, clutching at the fingers that had a vice-like grip around Ami's throat. "You don't have to do this." She tried to pry Kat's fingers loose, but the woman's determined grip made that impossible. Ami's face lost all color. "Just take me. Leave them to the mercies of the den. Take me to the Beast. Leave them."

  "I can't. That one won't die and this one..."

  "This one won't love you," Theda finished and the general peered sideways at her, her eyes red-rimmed.

  "This one almost got me killed."

  Ami was blue now.

  Theda started beating on the hands, digging at the skin where she could. "But Cain shot him, not you."

  At the words, Kat's hands left Ami's throat. The color stated to pale to normal. Theda took a deep breath as though she could inhale for her friend.

  The general squinted at her. "Cain?" she said, easing to her feet. She took a short pause to scan Cain as he lay inert, then she chuckled. "Well, I'l
l be," she said to his unconscious form. "Issat what that mark is, you old bastard?"

  Foolish as it had been to use the son of Adam's name, it was done now. Theda sighed and slumped in defeat as Kat leaned down to hoist Ami over her shoulder. She didn't so much as look at Theda as she walked over to where Cain lay. The general went to her haunches and heaved him up as well, slinging him over her other shoulder as though the two men were nothing more than beach towels. Only then did she look at Theda.

  "Follow me. And don't so much as pass gas or you'll find yourself fueling someone's furnace. Whether the Beast wants you alive or not." She gave Theda a hard stare until Theda nodded quietly.

  "Good." The woman adjusted the men on her shoulders, hitching them up to make them a sturdier carry.

  "Better yet," she said. "Walk ahead of me, and if you outpace me by more than three steps, I will shoot you in the back with the bastard's gun."

  Chapter 11

  It was slightly disconcerting to be striding through the spitters' den with the Red Rider General parading along behind her. Theda imagined the occupants of the den had seen plenty of strange things in their days, but she wondered if they'd seen a spectacle like the one she knew they presented. She felt very much like she was on procession by a conqueror of old, forcing her to tread humbled in front, while the spoils of war advanced slung across the conqueror's back. She would've chuckled at the scene if she wasn't so terrified.

  What made it even more disconcerting was the way the spitters looked away from her when she drew near, as though they were ashamed to be in the same vicinity with her. The patrons of the den gave her revolting looks of lechery, as though they were imagining a host of humiliating activities to subject her to.

  Eventually, by direction, Kat led Theda back to the room where she had caged the councilman. Theda recognized the door immediately and for some reason her knees went weak.

  "What are you waiting for?" Kat said. "Open the door."

  "I don't have the key."

  The woman scoffed from behind her. "I don't exactly think you left it locked when you left."

  Theda couldn't stop her feet from moving backwards. She whirled to face the general. "I can't do it."

  "Open the door."

  Theda shook her head.

  Kat's face went from a cold stare to an anxious one. "You want your boy to die. Issat it?"

  Theda's gaze went to the way Ami resembled a wet rag across the general's shoulder, the way his blood had begun to soak nearly half of his shirt. Even so, something told her to refuse opening the door.

  "He's not going to die."

  Kat's posture was carefully controlled, but the expressions warring across her face told Theda that the woman was most definitely not in control.

  "How do you know that?" Kat said.

  "How can you not?"

  "Open the door."

  "I won't." Theda's limbs began to quake. She felt her chest shuddering.

  "You will open the door or I will kick you through it."

  There was a brief moment where Theda thought the woman would argue further, and then something crossed her face so fast that Theda didn't have a chance to read it.

  "Ah, Hell," Kat said. "Why am I giving you a choice?"

  In the next instant, Theda felt as though a cannon had blown through her chest. Her back met solid resistance before pain crackled through her spine. When she realized she had landed in a rubble of wood and splinters, she tried to roll over onto her side to get up. Hot pain lanced through her rib cage.

  "Never mind," Kat said. "I opened the door for you."

  Theda looked up at her. "I think I broke something."

  Kat ignored her and strode past, heading for the bed. Theda had to twist to see if she would drop the two men onto it, and when she did, another jolt of pain rippled through her. "Seriously," she said. "I don't think I can get up."

  "Oh, you'll find a way."

  Instead of trying to get up, Theda collapsed backwards. She lay with her face to the ceiling, trying to imagine what fresh torture Kat would work out for her. She couldn't help her eyes roaming the walls; she and Cain had taken some of what they thought had been the best instruments: the gun, Taser. But there were still plenty of weapons lining the walls. If she could just get to one of them...

  "I thought I told you to get up," Kat said.

  "I thought I told you I couldn't."

  The next Theda knew, her scalp felt like it had caught fire. She felt herself being dragged along the rubble, and despite the pain shrieking through her ribs, her arms and hands went to her head in an effort to buffer the pain. Tears came unbidden along with shrieks of agony as she did her best to crab her feet along the floor and hold onto Kat's wrists at the same time. It was such an extreme relief when the woman let go of her hair, that Theda found a way to roll onto her uninjured side and lay there sobbing.

  She was aware of the Red General's cold examination.

  "You don't look anything like me, you know." Kat said.

  Theda said nothing. She was too busy trying to build a dam around the tears.

  "Too short, too ugly, and too whiny."

  "If anyone cared enough to look at you in the first place, then maybe I wouldn't have fooled anyone." Theda said, choking on the words through a tear-constricted throat.

  "Good one, little mung."

  Theda was beginning to hate that word. Funny, she hadn't given the derogatory term for religion-monger much thought in the early days of the post-Apocalypse, but now it was coming to mean pain and torture for her. Her entire body shivered at the way Kat said it.

  "I have a name," she whispered.

  "What was that, mung?" The long, high-heeled and booted legs stopped in front of Theda's face.

  Instead of answering, Theda drew in a long, purposeful breath. Part of her wanted to do a cursory inspection of her rib cage, thinking she might have broken a rib, but she didn't dare move. All she was able to manage was to twist her head so that she looked upwards into Kat's face. She squirreled all of her courage together to keep that direct stare.

  "Get in the cage," Kat said. The woman's hair stood out in flaming spikes as angry as the expression on her face.

  The cage. So that was how far she had been dragged: all the way across the room. No wonder she felt as though she had been scalped. Theda eased an arm out to her side to feel the cold hardness of the iron bars. Now that she knew where she was, she could even smell the dried stink of the councilman's urine and feces. The telltale acidity of his vomit. Her stomach lurched.

  "Please not in there."

  Kat rattled the door on its hinges. "I need to leave for a bit, and you are getting in there."

  "But what about the other two? We won't all fit in."

  "Handsome is coming with me," Kat said. "The other one is already inside."

  Theda craned her neck so that she could see Cain's bare legs and the petticoat he wore as his disguise. He was supposed to be a tranny with a Morrison fetish, so he could secret them past all of the horsemen the Beast had left in the den when Sasha got shot. When Theda shot him, she reminded herself. She remembered how angry she'd felt when she'd realized Ezekiel wasn't leaving with them. He had pulled a gauzy white shirt down over her head as casually as if he were dressing her for dinner, telling her she was supposed to be Cain's Jim Morrison. She felt the sting of tears again.

  "Are you going to get in, or do I have to drag you in?" Kat said. She nudged Theda's cheekbone with her booted toe, letting the tip scrape along the skin.

  Theda would be damned if she'd let that woman put her hands in her hair again, even if it did hurt like Hell to resist. She'd drag herself to the cage if she broke another five ribs doing it.

  "I can drag myself."

  She shifted her weight, digging her feet into the floor to help push her forward. Each agonizing inch brought more sweat to Theda's brow, and each time she felt the sharp stabs of pain, she gritted her teeth against it and told herself that she was robbing the hateful woman of pl
easure.

  It was only through sheer spite that she managed to pull herself over the threshold of the cage door. She could see Cain crumpled into a fetal position where Kat had obviously kicked him in and jammed him into the corner. His sandy hair was blood colored, and Theda could clearly see the rise of several swollen lumps. The largest one had split apart to reveal a cracked skull. She couldn't avert her eyes before she caught sight of what she thought was shining globules of brain.

  Her stomach dry-heaved, sending razors into her sides.

  Kat swore impatiently from behind her and planted her boot on Theda's bottom. Theda would have been sent into a forced tangle of arms and legs if she hadn't rolled away before the general kicked out at her. She might have avoided the agony of getting kicked into the cage, but she wasn't spared a toe to her aching side with the hated boots.

  The woman grunted and clicked the door closed. She drilled into Theda with a hard, green gaze.

  "Issat cozy enough for ya?" Kat asked. "Reminds me of when we first met." She made a great show of sniffing the air and waving her hand in front of her nose. "Fuck, you stank." She grinned. "Thought I was gonna get to kill you then. Shame."

  It was uncalled for, the reminder of how this woman and Ezekiel had found her battered and bruised, hidden inside a forgotten room in the sanatorium. She'd refused to be reeducated and had suffered a near lobotomy by the zealous Dr. Hurte, a few blows to the stomach by his orderlies, and been given the very strong suggestion that she had inhaled noxious, even deadly gases. In the end, she'd escaped the doctor, but with the threat that the Pale Rider had plans to execute her within a couple of days. She'd escaped, yes, but she'd been terrified that she couldn't trust anyone. Least of all the man she loved.

  If she hadn't run into Cain then, she never would have found the cramped space where she'd been safe--albeit feverish and afraid that Ezekiel would find her and punish her. Her time in that storage closet had been as torturous as her time with Dr. Hurte. She understood intimately why the cage she had crawled into stank of Councilman Prusser's fear.