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

by Thea Atkinson

  She almost felt giddy.

  "Where are you going?"

  Cain was so close on her heels that she worried he would topple her over in the boots. She turned on him, happy enough to show him her determination. He wasn't the only soldier here. She'd been a good little soldier for God back in the day, back when her father ran his church the way a general would his troops. She'd done all those things he'd required of her. She could be a good little soldier again.

  "Either Ezekiel is strung out on godspit and lying on a chaise lounge in a dank pit of hopelessness or he's the pivotal lead in someone's snuff experience."

  "Snuff again? Pivotal lead?"

  "Really?" She couldn't help the sarcastic bite in her voice. Time was running out and even if Cain was a pretty decent, living weapon, she didn't have time to educate him on the finer points of the spitters' den. "Can you really be that ignorant?"

  She rethought her retreat from the room and began to traipse about it instead, picking up various weapons: she jammed the Taser in her boot, strapped the whip to her waist, and retrieved Kat's pistol from the bed.

  Cain's commanding voice came from behind her as she contemplated an axe.

  "My ignorance doesn't matter. You're not going."

  He was lucky she had her back to him. She spun around, pistol in hand.

  "You need Kat to get him out of there. Out of this entire den. I'm Kat. I'm going."

  He sighed and took the pistol from her hand; in seconds he'd buried it beneath his jacket. "I didn't see much of Kat when I came in here."

  She glared at him and reached for his pocket.

  "I freaked out. That's all."

  He slapped her hand away. "I know that. I understand it," he said, mollifying her. "But I can't risk it happening again."

  She had to work at not stamping her foot in fury. She had to show him calm. She inhaled carefully. Exhaled. "You won't have to risk it. I'm fine."

  His only answer was a lifted brow, greenish eyes that blinked stoically at her.

  "I swear." She held up two fingers.

  He shook his head. "Too much is at stake. Your friend is back at General Eazy's house trying to contain a very brutal woman. Who knows how much time he has before things go terribly wrong there."

  "That's what I'm saying. We don't have time to argue."

  He continued packing his jacket with items he took from her as though she hadn't spoken.

  "The general is in danger of God knows what according to you and might very well be useless by now to the Beast."

  "Give me that back." She grabbed for the Taser as he pulled it from her boot.

  "And Bridget..."

  The words stopped her dead. She'd forgotten Bridget. Ezekiel's sister. The woman who housed them when they'd run from the capitol building. The lover Henrik trusted.

  "What about Bridget?"

  "Oh, she's here too." The statement was an almost infuriatingly calm one. He pushed the Taser into his pants, behind his back.

  "Tell me."

  "I saw her. She's part of Ezekiel's punishment, no doubt," Cain said. "Strung out on godspit, I presume." He shrugged. "Servicing a rather long string of bad wire back in the common room."

  She felt sick, hearing that. That magnificently beautiful woman. It was a pitiful thought.

  "And you just left her there?"

  He wouldn't answer; instead, he lifted the axe from its table and hefted it, testing its weight.

  "You didn't want her to realize you saw her." She guessed.

  "I imagine she didn't see much of anything."

  "Don't think of her that way," she murmured, laying her hand on his chest, fiddling with the zipper. "Some of us use to smother the pain, and some of us use because we can't help it. She's neither of those. If she's fixing on smears, it's to save her brother. That's all."

  He eyed her curiously. "I said you weren't going."

  She brandished the pistol she'd pulled from beneath his jacket. "I'll shoot you."

  He let go an amused chuckle. "Then you passed the test. Let's go."

  The trek to the boutique was an interesting one. With Theda flat-out glaring at anyone who dared look at them, most of the staff shrank back as though scalded, and any patrons who took the time from their activities to take any notice were immediately rewarded with a clipped command from Cain to mind their business. Two horsemen together were intimidating enough, but the Red General and her henchman bent on business were obviously downright frightening.

  It was almost amusing. If it weren't for the bald looks of hatred and terror, Theda would have enjoyed it. As it was, she had her own terror to deal with: she knew at any time Sasha would show himself, and the only thing saving her was that everyone believed she was the general. Sasha wouldn't be so easily fooled.

  The hallway leading to the boutique was taped off. A sign that read: "Under Construction" hunched next to the wall. To the casual eye it appeared as though Sasha was merely improving his complex. To Theda, there might as well have been a neon sign with the words: "Hiding a fugitive general this way."

  Theda didn't need to check with Cain. She knew he would follow her. Each step seemed to increase her heart-rate. She felt her lungs labor over each breath, and didn't dare look Cain's way for fear he'd leave her behind. As they rounded the final corner where the door to the boutique waited, she heard the rumblings of speech.

  "Guards," she mumbled, suddenly feeling her feet freeze to the floor as she spotted them; one on each side of the boutique door.

  "You thought they'd have a welcome cake and muffins?"

  "I thought--"

  "Doesn't matter," Cain said. "Just keep acting as if."

  She pulled the pistol from her boot. Best to be ready. Just in case. Cain nodded appreciatively.

  The guards stopped talking as the two drew close. Theda noticed they were taking great pains to appear casual, but she noted how their hands were conspicuously empty of weapons. Not horsemen, then. Just burly men Sasha hired to do his bidding. Piece of cake.

  "I want in," she said.

  The smaller of the two, admittedly not a small man by any stretch, snorted. "Not fucken likely."

  He wouldn't even look at Theda. She planted her feet shoulder-width apart and glared at him.

  "I said I want in." Her voice squeaked at first and the larger guard squinted at her. She cleared her throat with what she hoped was authority. "You have something of mine in there."

  "If he was yours, you'd have him."

  He. Theda had to fight against the urge to catch Cain's eye at the pronoun. She knew they'd been right. Ezekiel was in there.

  Cain pressed closer and she had the feeling he'd pulled a weapon by the way the two smartened up.

  "You recognize the Red General, surely," he said.

  "I recognize her pistol," the man said. "But the woman holding it would have come alone."

  He was smarter than he looked, at least. Kat would have been alone. Who would want to companion a sociopathic bitch?

  "You have a point," she said to the guard and turned to Cain. He held onto the axe at the pivot point, letting it sway back and forth in his hand. "He does have a point," she said to him.

  She could swear his face revealed irritation as he realized what she planned to do, but she didn't wait for him to try to persuade her else-wise. She lifted the pistol and aimed for his chest. The discharge shocked her, made the two guards flinch. Cain bled enough as he lay on the floor that she nearly went to her knees to check him out.

  She made herself grin at the guards, telling herself the son of Adam was okay.

  "Alone enough for you now?"

  The larger guard dropped his gaze first and stepped aside. The slighter man almost looked like he'd protest, but seeing his mate move away, he realized he had no backup and twisted the door open.

  She took a deep breath, bracing herself. There was no telling what she'd find within, and she couldn't let herself show surprise or shock.

  She had to step inside. Close the do
or. Try not to rush past the mannequins in various era costumes. She had to make it to the lounge door, twist it open, and prepare to meet a stoned Ezekiel.

  Except there was no stoned Ezekiel. There wasn't even an Ezekiel. All that was in the lounge were two long rectangular boxes. One was wooden and looked like it had been hammered apart; the pieces lay scattered about one end of it. The other was a kind of metal tube that rested on the floor in the middle of the room, looking very much like a coffin, except there was a round hole in its side, and it wasn't nearly tall enough to hold the swaths of satin and pillows needed to provide the illusion of eternal slumber.

  She approached as cautiously as she could. If she'd learned anything here in the den, it was that Sasha was a cunning, tricky double-crosser; it was possible he'd planned this hoping to confuse anyone who entered. There could be anything in there. Anything.

  She leaned toward it, trying to peer into the hole without putting herself in harm's way. Something had to be inside; she could make out the subtle movement of shadows within. She eased closer, straining to listen, squinting to make out the shifts of light and let them coalesce into something recognizable.

  Something that looked an awful lot like an eyeball.

  Chapter 25

  In the moment she realized there was a person inside, the person inside realized he wasn't alone. She thought she heard a groan come from within and the sound of it freed her feet from their paralysis. She rushed the box, jamming her pistol into the back of her pants, then went fumbling along the lid, feeling for a latch. She cursed when, in her haste, she tore a nail to the quick. She stuck the pained finger in her mouth and heard a scuffling come from beneath the cover.

  "Keep calm," the occupant said. "You can find it."

  She sobbed in response. It was him. Really him. She tore at the box again, digging along the lip with her nails, in a frenzy to find a way in.

  "I can't." She didn't want to think of how cramped he was inside, how long he might have been in there breathing through that hole; she needed to think about freeing him. No more than that, because any more than that and she'd be useless to him.

  "You can, Minou. Breathe. I'm okay. I'll be okay. Just get it open."

  She heard her breath catch in her throat as she tried to swallow down the sob.

  "Try the middle," he instructed, and as calm as he sounded, he also sounded weak, like he was running out of air.

  She let her fingers roam the top, forcing them to search with purpose.

  Her thumb fell on a padlock, snicked just beneath the lip, and hooked over a latch. Whoever had been here last had grown lazy; it wasn't fastened, just hooked over, but it was enough to keep Ezekiel from lifting the lid.

  "I found it," she said, unhooking the padlock and freeing it. She tossed it behind her where it clattered noisily.

  No sound from within.

  "Ezekiel?" She worked to hoist the lid. "Ezekiel, talk to me. Are you still okay? Fuck." She grunted with effort. "It won't lift." Panic in her voice, that wasn't good. She had to smother that shit. That shit would not help her get him out of there. She planted her feet on the floor and put her back into it, groaning with strain, but collapsing when she couldn't move the lid.

  "Look for another latch," he said. "I think there's two."

  She tried not to think of how tinny he sounded; instead she inhaled deeply to fuel her stupid brain. So foggy with panic. She needed to calm the fuck down. She turned and rested her back against the side, slicing through the seized up body of her thoughts, screaming within at herself to think, girl. Think. There had to be something else. There weren't two latches; she'd felt along the entire lid. She would have felt another. She twisted round as a thought occurred to her, examining the top. No hinges. Sweet mother of fucken mercy, there were no hinges. It wasn't meant to lift.

  She scooted to the head of the cylinder. If there was a god who cared, if there were such things as an immortal man, as a fallen angel, as a beast and an apocalypse and a girl left here to suffer then sweet holy mother of any god who would listen, let this be it. She braced herself with a deep inhale, planted her fingers against the lid and pushed.

  It moved. She gurgled with relieved laughter. Her body shook with it so hard she barely had the strength to push it further, past the swath of charcoal hair sweat-plastered against Ezekiel's skull, past his forehead, his squeezed-shut eyelids. All the way down to his toes, she pushed, and only then did she let the tears come. She would have flung herself inside the box, to press against him, but he was struggling to sit, then to get to his feet, trying to climb out.

  "You're naked," she said, casting her eye on each piece of flesh she could take in as though she were starved for the look of him.

  He shielded his eyes with his hand as he squinted at her. "Tempting, I know, Minou, but I'm a little shaky just yet." He stepped over the edge and nearly fell backward when she threw herself against him. She felt him sway on his feet.

  "Well, if you insist," he murmured into her hair. "But it will have to be quick."

  "You idiot," she said. She didn't care if he stank, if he was nothing but a sheen of sweat, if his hair was razored close to his head. She ran her hand over it. The curls were gone, but she didn't care about that either. She realized for the first time how she must look to him with Kat's red, cropped hair instead of the blonde, and she felt a warm glow of appreciation.

  "You recognized me."

  He tangled his fist in her hair and tugged. "Kat wouldn't have taken so long to get me out."

  "Bitch," Theda mumbled. "We'll make her pay for this."

  He chuckled as he eased her away. "She's already paying, Theda," he said.

  "You bet she is." She cast about for something for him to wear, and was heading for the outer boutique, thinking to pull a costume from one of Sasha's revolting mannequins, when she felt his fingers curl around her elbow.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean Ami is with her now. We have her strung out on godspit."

  He pursed his lips in a way that made Theda's stomach lurch.

  "What's wrong?"

  "You shouldn't have done that."

  "The Hell we shouldn't. Do you know what she did to Ami? What she did to Cain?"

  "I don't care about Ami."

  She recalled how he'd instructed Ami not to eat any of the food he'd supplied for Theda, how he expected Ami to just be there in return for safe lodging, and she pushed the thought to the back of her mind. "Come on," she urged. We have to get out of here. We can discuss your distaste for my friends later."

  She urged him toward the boutique door, where he could have his pick of costumes and hopefully be able to get smuggled out of the den courtesy of Sasha. It was almost delicious to think she could double-cross the owner by using his own supplies. Hiding. In plain sight. It should please Ezekiel too.

  They rummaged the outer boutique like teenage hoodlums, not caring whether the costumes got torn or dirty or where they got flung. There was a certain catharsis in the way, Theda knocked over the mannequins as she gave cursory inspection to size.

  Plenty of costumes would have fit Theda, and she supposed that Sasha figured every spitter was about the same size: strung out so long on their godspit that they'd have lost weight and were nothing but shadows of their former selves. Most of the victims' costumes, even the male ones, had a certain shapeless quality to them, as though they were meant to fit a small range of gaunt figures. She supposed it would have been true. Theda didn't know any plump spitters.

  But none of that helped Ezekiel. His size made finding anything remotely suitable difficult. Aware of how crucial time was, Theda wandered away, thinking to double the efforts of the search by separating. She'd been dressed for the councilman as Queen Anne Boleyn; surely somewhere close there would be a figure of Henry. The mannequin would undoubtedly be shorter than Ezekiel, but the sheer girth of the costume should make for a more robust fit.

  She was searching with her hands as much as she was her eyes, but even s
o, her fingers were wandering down a particularly large leather coat on a male mannequin before she realized exactly what she was looking at. A leather coat. A black watch cap. This mannequin beneath her hands was meant to be a horseman. Her heart skipped as she took in the height of the figure. Just the right size. She could strip it of its entire costume right here. Pull off the leather coat, scoop off the boots. To her eyes, it was a perfect fit.

  The costume was such a gift, that at first she didn't register exactly what it meant for it to be so perfectly available here in the den. She was draping the coat over her arm when she realized the male mannequin was actually standing in a type of diorama. A large diorama that took nearly an entire section. Unlike the other offerings, these costumes told a sort of tale with props and furniture and even realistic wax figures. It was so impressive that she had to stand back to take in the entire scope of the scene before her as she tried to process what it meant.

  Six mannequins spread across three different scenes, and all of them obviously meant to be a sort of narrative of the Beast's religion-monger. She had to hand it to Sasha: he knew his audience. And he knew how to capitalize on their desires.

  In the first scene, a victorious looking, and elegantly suited figure stood over a recumbent form on a medieval rack. Sasha had the hair all wrong, of course; Theda had lost the brightly colored dye job after the Apocalypse and let her hair go back to its regular blonde. The mannequin on the rack was obviously meant to match the girl on the Promos, and so give the purchaser of this particular snuff experience a little extra bang for his buck.

  The second was a propaganda piece for the laboratory, where Dr. Hurte in his lab coat had scored out a chunk of Theda's cerebral cortex through her tear duct. It was specific in every detail, complete with the thugs who had beaten her and the nurse who buckled her into the chair restraints. Her mouth went dry at that one, and she had to take a step back to gain some distance. Her knees would have gone to water when her back met solid muscle if Ezekiel hadn't spoken so quietly.