Phoenix (dystopian romance) (Theta Waves: Episode 1) (9 page)

"Oh no," he said. "Not there. The bed is mine. You're sleeping on the floor and when I get back from my shower that's exactly where you better be."

ACT NINE

She woke sometime before dawn and realized she was in the bed beside him. The towel was long gone, and in its place was an oversized T-shirt. Even so, she must have got cold through the night and crawled up into the comfort of a mattress with a warm body. It took her a few moments to realize the house was quiet. Quiet enough that if she eased a foot onto the floor, she might well be able to find his clothes. Somewhere in those pockets was enough godspit to carry her through at least a week. If she was careful, perhaps even a week and a half.

She did manage to get one foot pressed against the cold tile before he stirred. She froze, waiting to see if he was awake, and when he didn't make another move, she eased over onto her side and tipped forward so that both palms and her other foot landed on the floor. Again, she waited. She breathed deeply for at least 30 seconds before she crept her way over to the chair in the corner where he'd dumped his clothes. She wasn't sure she dared look back at him; instead she slipped her hand into his jacket pocket and felt a rush of relief when her fingers wrapped around a cache of cellophane. A large cache, large enough she felt her chest constrict in anticipation.

"I counted them," said a voice from behind her.

She squeezed her eyes closed, pulling her fingers from his pocket. "I just want one," she said.

"Maybe if you're good, I'll let you have one."

She turned on him, suspicious. "What's your definition of good?"

He placed his hands behind his head as he lay against the headboard. She watched the triceps tense and let go as he adjusted himself so that he was leaning semi-reclined. "Good might change depending on the situation."

She studied him for a short while, considering all of her possibilities. "Look, I know you saved me from the mayor and whatever it was he was planning to do –"

"What he was planning to do was kill you."

"Yes. Yes I understand that. But I would never have been in that position if you hadn't brought me there."

He started to peel back the blankets and she remembered his nudity from the night before, that he admitted to not wearing underwear and she averted her gaze hurriedly.

"Don't worry,
minou
," he said. " I found some pajama pants after you decided to crawl into bed with me. Wouldn't want you to think I took advantage of you."

"I didn't crawl –"

"Are you sure?"

She thought about it. "No," she admitted. "I don't remember much."

He hooked his legs over the edge of the bed, and she could see that he did indeed have pajamas on. His chest was bare though, and she had to bite her bottom lip to remind herself that this man had abducted her. He stretched as he stood, raking his fingers through his hair.

"I want to leave," she said.

He placed one palm against the wall, leaning against it, considering. "I suppose you can do whatever you like."

"You won't stop me?"

He shrugged. "It's a free country."

"I don't have any clothes."

"Then I suppose that makes it a little difficult, doesn't it?"

She ignored that. "And I have one smear that you took from me. I want it back."

"That I can't do."

"You will."

"I won't. You spent almost 48 hours coming down from the last batch. You're clean. You should stay that way."

"It's not your decision to make."

"Of course it isn't," he said. "But I didn't go through all of that just to give you your poison right back." He went over to the dresser beneath a window and rattled a drawer, pulling out a fresh pair of jeans that he stuck his legs into. Pulling them up, he said, "You can leave if you want to, but you should know that they'll be more of me. And this time it won't be a lowly mayor sending a Huntsman after you."

"He can't come after me anyway," she said. "You –"

"I killed him, yes." There wasn't a note of contrition anywhere in his voice. "I had to. But that doesn't mean we got off Scott free."

"No one cares about a little thing like a murder anymore."

"You'd be surprised," he said. "On the streets, maybe. Results of cheating husbands and wives, perhaps. All sorts of reasons to take another life: all of those are acceptable, I suppose. But not what we've done."

She eased herself down on the chair, on the very edge, unsure. "And what is it that we've done?" She fixed her narrowed gaze on his. "Especially when I've done nothing. When it's you who did the killing."

He laughed at that. "You've done the worst. Do you really think I'm working for the mayor?"

"But he's supposed to be cleansing his district of zealots. That's what he said. That's why I was there. He hired you to arrest me."

He pulled a spruce colored T-shirt over his head that made his eyes seem all the more green when he regarded her.

"Seven months ago a man began spouting things about being able to change things. About his soul evolving. About the fact that maybe things weren't finished here like we all expected."

A dark suspicion crept online her spine. "How long have you been watching me?"

He smiled. "You first saw me four days ago." The way he said it, the very focused way he watched her face, she knew it was a lie.

"How long?"

"Come on, Theda. You know how long." He had the grace to look uncomfortable.

Her mouth went dry. "My first trick. You knew him."

He nodded. "Your first was the Beast's son."

She noted the use of the past tense. "Was?"

Ezekiel nodded. "A zealot is a zealot. He killed him. But not before He tortured information out of him. Or should I say, had information tortured out of him." The smile returned, but this time it snaked over Ezekiel's features in a way that made her spine tingle in realization and revulsion.

"You tortured him."

He spread his hands to his sides, palms up. "What choice did I have? It was him or me. A man doesn't say no to the beast."

"And now it's me or you, I suppose." She was off the chair without even realizing she stood, backing toward the door. His re-vision stole back into her consciousness, and she felt again so clearly a sense of panic that she couldn't breathe.

He was next to her in moments, before she could twist the handle of the door or bolt down the steps. His hand was on the small of her back, pulling her toward him, making her hips meet his. His other hand had found a way to capture her fingers, pulling them forward so that her palm met his chest. She could feel the thudding of his heart.

"Once I saw it," he murmured. "Once I saw it all, I couldn't go back. I couldn't let them do to you what they planned." His eyes were searching hers and she felt trapped there, pinned by the force of the emotion in his voice.

"If you saw it all, then you know what happened to you."

His eyelids fluttered closed, remembering. "I do. I forgive you. If there is such a thing as forgiveness in these times, I forgive you."

She twisted out of his arms. "Forgive me? You've got it all wrong."

"Do I?" He looked confused. "I saw her, felt her pain, knew her desires. How can I have it wrong?"

Theda stared at him. She wasn't sure now what he'd experienced and that made her question the whole vision. She always brought her johns straight to the life that was the core of their being. The life that caused them the most pain, created the most resonance in them because that was the ride that would earn her the next trick. Despite the fact that it was the only crime in new Earth, that she risked her life with each trick, she walked it with them, knew it with them, lived it with them. It had always been about earning enough to survive, never about caring what happened to them after. She thought with the god gone, evolution was impossible. She never once took the time to think those tricks were the ones that enabled the greatest change.

She hung her head, thinking back to Ezekiel's re-vision, letting the memories of that lifetime wash back over her, feel the pain and anguish. She'd not given it much thought before. This last re-vision she'd been so close to the memory that it felt like her own. It felt familiar, too familiar. It had only been the generous amount of godspit in her system that enabled her to cushion herself from the resulting damage.

She stepped away from Ezekiel, this time thinking she really would run. "Good God," she said, forgetting for a moment that the word was enough to prove guilt of religion mongering. "You were her; you were Cathrin."

He nodded. "I thought you understood that."

"I should have," she said. "But it was too close. Too familiar. It felt like my own."

"Theda?" He reached for her, trying to wrap his fingers around her elbow but she danced away.

"Theda stop; tell me, why didn't the mayor see it?"

Her mind reeled, trying to process what had happened to her. Why she would think it was her own past she'd seen. "What?" She asked distracted. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the mayor saw nothing when his finger was in your mouth. That's why he made me do it, remember?"

Still pacing, flapping her arms because the question was immaterial at the moment. She had more pressing things on her mind. "The godspit. I had too much in me; there's no way he would see anything because I wasn't conscious enough."

She'd been conscious enough for Ezekiel's, though. The remembrance created a pain so visceral, she thought she could poke at it if she pressed into her sternum hard enough. It was too close. Too close to merely be a walk-through.

She started to spin in place, thinking she needed to get out, thinking she needed to find some godspit to reel her back in from this freefall, to give her the good old sense of grounding that only ecstasy could offer.

She felt his hands on her arms, but she shook him off. She didn't want to look at him right now. She didn't want to think about anything. She didn't want to think about the fact that if that lifetime had been so familiar, she must have been part of it.

Because if she wasn't Cathrin in his re-vision, then just who the hell had she been?

The End

Look for episode 2: Dragon

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Theta Waves Series (novellas)

• Phoenix
  
• Dragon
  
• Agni
  

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Thea writes what she calls left-of-mainstream fiction at her desk in Nova Scotia with her black lab at her feet and miniature gargoyles to protect the space and the muse. No matter what the genre, it's always slightly off kilter from the regular (mainstream) offering. She hopes you enjoy reading her explorations as much as she enjoys writing.

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