Equal Parts (21 page)

“…and then there’s your birthday next week, so we have to do something for that, of course. Ellis Legrand is throwing a massive Halloween party, and I’m sure I could get tickets through that girl Jenna at work, because she’s dating his brother or something –”

“W-what? A party?” I asked, snapping out of my daydreams. Ellis Legrand lived with Finn, along with a number of other superhumans. His superpower was something to do with self-multiplication, I vaguely remembered.

“Sure. Your birthday is on Halloween, right? It would be a good way to get out of the house and show off the new you. Only if you want to, though,” she added quickly. My apprehension must have been more obvious than I’d thought.

“I’ll think about it,” I assured her. Crap. I’d forgotten all about my birthday – twenty at last. Somehow it seemed much more anti-climatic now, after everything I’d been through.

Plus, if we went to that party, Finn would be there. I had to face him at some stage, but in just a week seemed so soon.

After dinner and a movie, when it became obvious I couldn’t keep my eyes open much longer, Lucia showed me to my new bedroom, right across the hall from hers.

Somehow, the sight of that darkened room before me – the furniture arrangement so similar to Achilles’s, the bed much too big for one person – frightened me much more than anything had in the past twenty-four hours. Loneliness, I think, was the real fear. Waking up in the dark with nothing to stop the nightmares, nothing to stop the horrible thoughts from creeping into my mind.

“Lucia … I know you must be sick of me by now … but would it be too much trouble if I…?” I couldn’t even bring myself to face her, knowing full well the pity I would see in her big eyes.

“Oh sweetie, of course. Just let me get changed.” She disappeared into her room. I changed into fluffy pajamas she’d purchased for me that afternoon and crawled into the massive bed.

This was to be my weakness, then – the night. In the cell and Achilles’s bed, I hadn’t had nightmares, probably because I was living one during the day. But here, now, in this beautiful house, in a place I was truly safe, I felt more afraid than ever.

As I lay down and looked to the right, the image of Achilles’s sleeping form flashed before me. His face-paint wasn’t quite so terrifying when he slept, probably because those all-seeing eyes weren’t open, and the tightness around his lips was gone. White paint would smudge on the black pillows, and his arm would inevitably find me and tighten around my middle, pulling me to him in the darkness. And I wouldn’t fight his hold, because on some primitive level, it felt
right
. His bare cinnamon skin, the only vulnerability he ever showed me, impossibly hot against my own. His breath, even and without care, on the back of my neck. His heartbeat
thump-thump
ing in sync with mine.

Did he breathe so easily without me there? Did he care that he didn’t have someone to hold, assuming the girls he brought home didn’t stay the night? Had Finn caught him and told him what I had said? Or had he slipped through the net once more, invisible until the time came to make another spectacle of himself?

Did he miss me at all? Or had he played me from the start?

When Lucia slipped into the bed beside me, I was ashamed to feel tears on my cheeks. She didn’t say anything, simply pulled me in and held me in the light of the lamp, stroking my head as I cried into her shoulder.

And somewhere, somehow, I told her the entire story. It ran out of me with the tears, into her shoulder, selfishly sharing my burdens with her. I told her about my first encounter with Achilles, of our back-and-forth
life saving
, of my banter with him, of the girls he brought back to the apartment, of the car crash and my recovery. Worst of all, I let loose how I felt about him – the kiss, the rejection, the way he managed to break and make me all at once, the way he was just dark enough to keep me on edge, and just light enough to keep me going. Equal parts villain and hero.

“I miss him,” I sobbed aloud, the truth finally dropping from me. It was easier to simply admit it than lie to myself. “I
miss
him!”

Lucia didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.

“It will get better,” she said eventually. Funny how those words sounded so more convincing coming from her, instead of myself. “Over time, it
will
get better.”

In a tiny whisper, I heard her add, “I’ll make sure of it.”

The week leading up to my birthday – and, subsequently, Halloween – passed without trouble or drama. I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen after my first night at Lucia’s house. Possibly for Finn to track me down somehow, or Achilles to show up on the news one night, or some new catastrophe to happen. But the world went on as usual, with no upsets on either side, and I grew increasingly restless with the boredom.

I stayed in the house for most of the week, only going out when Lucia insisted I go to the supermarket with her, or to drive across town to check the mailbox at my old apartment. Of course, I had to wait until someone came out of the building to get into it, but it was a start.

It became increasingly obvious that I was literally a nobody in this city. No home, no job, no keys to my car, no ID – nothing to my name. I had a bank account, obviously, but I couldn’t prove my identity to get into it. With my new hairstyle, I looked completely different than my ID anyway.

Yet another thing I could thank Achilles for.

The day before my birthday, Lucia took me downtown to a costume store for the Halloween party, insisting that we go in strictly non-slutty outfits, probably in an attempt to persuade me to go.

“But you’d look so cute as a sexy devil,” she said with a pout, stuffing the scrap of a dress back on the rack.

I rolled my eyes. “Just because you stick horns on and bring a fork doesn’t make you a devil. It just makes you a horny tramp with a big stick.”

She whacked me playfully with the plastic fork in question. “You’re dirtier than I remember, Eastwood. I like it.”

It was getting easier to talk to Lucia – not about Achilles, but just in general. She’d stopped treating me like a china doll after the breakdown of my first night, instead opting to give me tough love every time I got lost in my thoughts or looked, as she put it, “batshit floaty”. Whatever that meant.

“How about a giant teddy bear? Saves you on make-up,” she commented, pointing to a Godawful mascot outfit that was falling apart at the seams.

“I have nothing against people seeing my face. I’d just prefer to be wearing, you know, clothing.” I pulled out a pair of couples’ costumes, and turned to Lucia, holding them up and wearing a huge grin. “And I think I just found our matching awesomeness.”

“Felicity, sweetie … that’s very …
manly
,” she said, as though letting me down gently.

“Well,
you’d
be Tinkerbell, obviously,” I replied, holding out the green sparkly dress to her. I held the other one up to myself. “I don’t think Captain Hook is too manly. Just because he has a mustache doesn’t make him unappealing. I think it’d be funny.”

From the look on her face, she thought my sense of humor was a little warped. But she managed to rein in the skepticism, and lowered her raised eyebrows. “Well, okay, if you’re sure. Just as long as you’re prepared to spend the night single – well, except gay guys, maybe, until they find out you’re a chick.”

Oh, I was sure. I wanted nothing more than to be unappealing to the opposite sex for Halloween. For any time, actually. I’d had enough attention at the old police station to last me a lifetime.

We hired the costumes out, and carted them out to Lucia’s car in the street. As I hung the Captain Hook coat against the door, a voice came from behind me:

“Felicity?”

We both froze. Lucia’s panicked eyes flicked from the man behind me to the car, probably judging how fast we could bundle inside and drive off. I slowly turned, dreading seeing whoever it was…

To find Hugo standing on the sidewalk, bundles of cloth in his arms, looking just as stunned to see me as I was to see him.

“Good guy?” whispered Lucia to me.

I gulped. “I’m not sure. Start the car – I’ll be there in a sec.”

Glaring at Hugo, she got into the driver’s seat and revved the engine. As though approaching a ticking bomb, I stepped towards Hugo, my eyes never leaving his. He hadn’t made a move yet, and I had Lucia at my back, so I was relatively safe at the moment. I was ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble, though.

“New hair,” he said when I reached him. I resisted the urge to run a hand through it self-consciously.

“New everything, actually,” I told him. Silence, then, “I won’t go without a fight, if you’re here to take me back. Just so you know.”

He actually looked surprised. “What? Kid, I’m not going to … this is a chance meeting.”

“So … you’re not following me?” I narrowed my eyes up at him, knowing how stupid it was to trust a criminal, even if it
was
harmless Hugo.

“No, actually. Boss told us … well, you’re not to be disturbed in whatever it is you’re doing.” He waved a hand back to Lucia in her car.

“Oh.” What the hell did that mean? “Were you okay? After the attack, I mean. I mean, not an attack. Well, you know.” Fantastic, I was rambling. I’m sure he and Achilles would have a great laugh about this later on.

He looked more surprised that I’d asked after his welfare. “Um, yeah, we’re all good. A few lost to the cops, but what can you do? Won’t be long before a new batch turns up for recruiting.”

God, this was strangely awkward. “Great.”
Great?
Really Felicity? No wonder you’re a nobody. “Well, I should probably be going…”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably. “But hey, er, Felicity, you should know … well, the boss’d kill me for saying this … but it’s for your own good. He hasn’t been so great, since Cole took you. I’ve seen him a lotta ways, but the way he raged after you left … yikes. Still gives me chills. I don’t think he’s hunting you or anything. I just wanted you to know – he … well, I guess he kind of …
misses
you.”

“Hugo, he
held me hostage
,” I reminded him, quashing the spark of hope in my chest. “The only logical explanation for him
missing me
is because he misses my power, and because he’s bitter that Finn Cole happened to beat him at his own game.”

Once again, he appeared thoroughly uncomfortable. “Look, kid. You know as well as I do that you could’ve walked, jumped, or ran away at any time in that place, and he
still
wouldn’t have hurt you. The fact that you’re talking to me instead of screaming and calling the cops speaks volumes in itself. But if you think he wants you back because of your power, or Cole, or whatever, that’s fine.”

“Well of course he –” Lucia blasting the horn interrupted my protest. My time was up. “I have to go. Tell him…” What? That I missed him too, and I couldn’t explain why? “Never mind. Take care of yourself, big guy.”

He gave me a very fatherly rub on the head before I got into Lucia’s car, and we were off in the next second.

“Who the hell was that?” she demanded, eyeing my ruffled hair suspiciously.

“A friend, I guess,” I answered tonelessly. I turned my stare out the window at the greenery speeding past. “A friend with the wrong idea.”

Chapter Fourteen

A Bad Night for Nostalgia

My twentieth birthday got off to an unusual start. To fill in time before she woke, I checked my email on Lucia’s computer, and found a flood of unread messages from the time I was with Achilles – mostly spam, but one at the very top, marked as today, that caught my attention.

From my parents.

My dearest Felicity
,

I promised your mother I wouldn’t write this, because she thinks you wouldn’t want to be bothered by us, but I couldn’t go your whole birthday without at least trying to reach you.

This day, twenty years ago, we became parents to the most beautiful girl in the entire world. We may have lost our son to powers beyond our control, but Felicity, I refuse to lose my daughter. We miss you every hour of every day, and keep looking to the front gate for you to bounce up to the door, like you used to.

Don’t ever think we blame you for what happened. We love you with all our hearts, and we just want you safe.

Wishing you a happy birthday, wherever you might be, whatever you might be doing.

All my love,

Dad

It wasn’t until wetness splashed onto my hand that I realized I was crying. My parents didn’t deserve any of this – I had taken Xavier from them, from
me
, and now I had all but taken myself.

I had to reply. There was no way I was leaving my father to think I’d vanished off the face of the earth. He deserved better than me as a daughter, but I could at least give him something, until I could escape this place – this situation – long enough to see them again.

Dad,

Everything that needs to be said can’t be done in one email, and I’m currently pressed for time.