Equal Parts (34 page)

Ellis
?

Everything was happening so quickly, so suddenly. One minute there was one of him, the next, there were four of him on that street.
Multiplication
– that was his superpower. At least I wasn’t seeing quadruple. I laughed in relief.

“Flick!” shouted the voice again. Was I hearing things? None of the Ellises’ mouths had moved.

One version of him walked towards me, crouched so we were eye-to-eye. Why was he looking at me like I was crazy? I opened my mouth to tell him about Skye, about Molten, to ask what the hell he was doing here, but he cut me off.

“Gimme the gun, sugar,” he said softly. I glanced down. The pistol was in my grip, pointed at Ellis’ shoe. I all but threw the object at him, and it didn’t escape my notice how his shoulders sagged in relief.

All of a sudden, there was something barreling toward me from across the street. Still in some kind of daze, I reared back so I was on my knees. As though I was watching from above my own body, I saw a black clad figure collide with me on the lawn, his arms winding around my body so tightly, my ribs hurt. His big hand pulled my head under his chin, against the hammering pulse in his neck.

“My brave girl,” he muttered into my hair. Slowly, I came back into my own body. “My beautiful, brave girl. Christ, I’m glad you’re safe. I’ve got you.”

As reality gradually sank in, I pulled back far enough to see Achilles … but at that moment, he wasn’t
Achilles
. He was Henry Westwood. His face-paint was worn down to faint remnants across most of his face, save the black surrounding his eyes. His contact lenses were missing, giving me unrestricted access to those honey brown eyes.

“Hugo?” was the first word I got out.

“He’s fine,” he assured me, rubbing a thumb across my hairline. “They all are.”

I didn’t have time to question him further. He pulled me up beside him, and I looked around to see the four versions of Ellis holding four different thugs. Colby – a bear of a man, and Finn’s best friend – was there too, cradling Skye in his arms. Her arms were around his neck; I could hear her sobs from across the yard.

Had she broken free of Molten’s influence?

Achilles’s …
Henry’s
eyes landed on Molten, lying motionless in the grass, his hands over his face in apparent pain. I hoped I’d sucked all the happiness straight out of him forever.

“What did you do to him, darling?” Henry asked me. I blinked up at him.

“I … I don’t know.”

Giving my hand one last squeeze, Henry stalked towards Molten, drawing the hammer from his back pocket. My eyes immediately flew to Colby and Ellis, expecting them to step in, but they simply watched on. It was almost like they knew what was coming. Like they…

Had made a deal
, finished a whisper in my mind.

I could have interrupted, could have called out Henry’s name and put a stop to this. But I chose not to. Maybe it was morbid curiosity, maybe it was waiting to see what Henry would do, or maybe I was just too exhausted to bother.

“Kill me,” groaned Molten, clutching his face, and the sound of his voice was no longer terrifying. “Please, for the love of God,
kill me
!”

What the hell had I done to him? My hand went to my chest, as though expecting to feel a physical reaction to Molten’s happiness in my blood. But no, there was nothing. It was just as pure as anyone else’s.

“I told you I’d have you begging for death just yesterday,” said Henry, rather conversationally. The hammer twirled in his right hand. “Little did I know it would come around so soon. Indulge me – how are you feeling? Not so hot?”

Another tortured groan. “
Kill me!
” Molten yelled again, loud enough for the whole street to hear.

A strange expression crossed Henry’s face. In all this time I’d known him, I’d never seen him hesitate. He never wavered, never gave anyone the impression that what he was doing wasn’t deliberate.

But now? He looked …
torn
.

His eyes met mine, the hammer raised slightly at his side. Was he waiting for my approval? My disgust? I didn’t shake my head, and nor did I nod. I simply gave him my natural reaction to seeing his face, painted or not: a smile five miles wide. It was partly because of the sunshine, partly because I was so glad to see those beautiful eyes.

And that was all it took. One moment he was standing over Molten, hammer poised to kill, and the next he had tossed the weapon to the ground and was striding back towards me. His expression had gone from hesitant to stormy in the blink of an eye. Uh oh.

“You’ve
changed
me!” he growled furiously, coming right into my personal space, his forehead almost touching mine. I didn’t falter or step back. “Jesus, woman, what’ve you
done
to me? You’ve ruined everything!”

Maybe I should have been offended, but I could only see this as a positive thing. “Henry … are you … are you not killing Molten for
me
?”

His hands ran through his hair in frustration. Then, meeting my gaze once more, he sighed. “You deserve better than bloodshed and killing. You deserve better than
me
. But I can’t … I won’t sacrifice what we have for this, Flick. I won’t risk losing you again.” Those massive maple syrup eyes blinked. “Did you just call me Henry?”

I didn’t respond. My only reaction was to throw myself at him, my lips crashing onto his. It was the only way I could think of to convey my love of him, my appreciation for everything he had done and
was
doing for me. God, I loved him. I poured all the sunshine from Molten straight into Henry, and he returned it tenfold, just in the seconds our lips were connected.

“Oi, lovebirds!” called Ellis’ Southern drawl from the road. “Are we finishing the deal or what?”

Henry pulled away first, his pupils expanded to black saucers. I could read the hunger there, and knew it was reflected in my own stare.

“Christ, I need you so badly it hurts.” He hoisted me over his shoulder as though I was just a sack of potatoes, and I shrieked at the sudden movement.

“You are such a pig!” I laughed, swatting at his back. I didn’t need sunshine. I didn’t need the constant warm glow of happiness pouring from Henry’s skin to make me happy.
He
made me happy. Just by existing.

“Death is too good for him,” I heard Henry tell someone – Ellis, I guessed. “If you need us, we’ll be absolutely unavailable, so don’t bother.”

“Also,” I piped up, and Henry swung around so I was facing Ellis. Or, one of Ellis. “You might want to search Molten’s office. I think you’ll find some interesting information regarding the mayor’s assassination.” I felt Henry stiffen under my body, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t cut me off.

“And Skye? What’re we supposed to do with her?” Ellis and I looked over to where Colby stood, still holding a distraught Skye in his arms. My heart physically ached for the poor girl.

“Don’t force her to open up,” I advised, thinking of my own traumas in the past. “Just be gentle, and respectful. If you need a hand, or if she needs someone to talk to, Finn has my number.”

“Give us a solid forty-eight hour window, though,” added Henry.

Ellis looked as though his teeth were being pulled from inside his mouth when he said, “Thanks. Both of you. This was…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, it was a real pleasure working with me. It always is.” Henry swung back around so I was facing the house. “Don’t get the wrong idea here, Legrand. You’re still blacklisted.”

“Ditto,” grunted Ellis, obviously back to his normal, cold self.

“Well, now that’s sorted, we’ll be off.” Henry didn’t wait for permission; he was unloading me into the passenger seat of a nearby Jeep, which I recognized as his, and sliding into the driver’s seat before anyone could stop him.

“Where are we going?” I asked, looking back at the destruction behind us. “Another display home?”

His hand tilted my chin back to face him, his trademark smirk back in full force. “Darling, you know it’s only five star accommodations for you from now on.”

Two hours later, I somehow found myself in the honeymoon suite of the ritziest hotel in Carova. We’d had to stop along the way for Henry to pick up our belongings from Finn’s house. Yeah. He just, like, waltzed into the mansion, as if he’d lived there his whole life, and returned ten minutes later with a bag in each hand.

“Legrand and the Big Guy found me before the cops reached the house last night. The happiness you gave me helped fight Molten’s instructions,” Henry had explained as we were pulling away from the mansion, into the city center. It didn’t escape my notice that he’d scrubbed the remnants of his face-paint off. Had Finn seen the real him? “They brought me to their place, mostly because I told them they could beat the crap out of me if they did.”

“And did they? Beat you, I mean?”

He’d shrugged. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. Once Cole found out I was there, though, they cut it out. I told him about you – about Molten, and the whole set-up – and he believed me. The rest of them didn’t want to, but I think Cole knew I wouldn’t be so low as to joke about you being abducted.”

So, we reached the hotel, gathering blatantly curious stares at our respective attires, and my eyes had all but bugged out of my head when Henry announced he’d booked out the honeymoon suite for a week.

“It was the most romantic thing I could do on such short notice,” he’d said with an adorably crooked smile.

Now, here we were, standing in the doorway of the suite, my head spinning from the radical change of scenery. Everything was impossibly lush – the furniture, the carpets, the wallpaper, the décor. Hell, even the curtains had to be worth more than my car. Gold and rose-pink everything, as far as the eye could see. The bed was, of course, covered in rose petals, with wine in an ice-bucket on the table and a box of French chocolates beside it.

Needless to say, those were the first things I went for.

“You know, if you want to take a bath, I’ll order room service,” Henry said as I stuffed my face full of praline and caramel. He shrugged out of his shirt, leaving his torso covered by a black tank that had me salivating.

“Are you saying I stink?” I asked, mock affronted. In actual fact, I wanted him more than I could say. The way his muscles shifted and bunched on his shoulders made me rather dizzy, and the peak of the V-cut between his jeans and the hem of the singlet had my lower gut pounding.

He grinned – the rare grin he gave me, and only me. “I’m saying you’re tired and sore and probably in need of some TLC.” I think he caught the glint in my eye, because his expression darkened, the menu dropping to the counter. “Flick, you should know better than to tempt me with that look.”

I shrugged delicately, pulling off my sweater and T-shirt on the way to the bathroom. “Fine, have it your way,” I said over my shoulder, kicking off my shoes. “I’m not all that hungry, but if you’d rather stay out here and eat…”

I had to laugh at the way he all but bolted for me. In one fluid movement, he set the bath running, had his tank over his head, and had my jeans half-way down my legs. The ‘bath’ was really a monster spa, with four taps and a million different buttons on the side.

“So, TLC, huh?” I managed to rasp past the haze of lust clouding my vision. I was trying to be seductive. Obviously, it was backfiring. “What does that involve, precisely?”

Henry’s lips sealed over my earlobe and sucked,
hard
. My knees buckled at the sensation, but his arms were already holding me up.

“The usual,” he answered in a rumble. “Foot massages, being hand fed grapes, fern-fanning, that kind of thing.” His hands made short work of my bra, and I moaned when his bare chest met mine. “Why? Any requests?”

“Umm.” Jeez, he honestly expected me to be capable of thinking? I couldn’t even remember my own name any more. “You. In the bath. With me.”

His grin was pure Cheshire Cat. “Have I ever told you how much I love the way your mind works?”

Well, he didn’t have to
tell
me. Under one minute, he’d stripped us both, swept me into the bubbling water, and proceeded to
show
me just how much he loved it.

Because, really, actions speak much louder than words.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the mayor?”

I stretched out in the warm, soft sheets, sated from our hour-long session in the spa and the ton or so of burgers and fries I’d consumed afterwards. Henry was curled against me, our noses an inch apart, the rest of us tangled up under the covers.

His eyes were muted, flashing with unease. “The assassination wasn’t my idea. I wanted to make a statement, and Molten wanted the mayor taken out. Seemed like a two-birds-one-stone theory.” Those expressive eyes darkened. “Truth be told, I didn’t want the guy to die. He hadn’t done anything but get in Molten’s way. I didn’t want the blood on my hands, so I gave him over to Molten, thinking he’d hold him for ransom. Few days later, the guy’s body was strung up on City Hall with my name carved into his chest.”