Equal Parts (8 page)

And, somewhere, deep down in my soul, I knew I wouldn’t be able to attack Achilles, if push came to shove. He hadn’t hurt me, hadn’t struck the first blow, hadn’t done anything to deserve physical retribution. Part of being all about neutrality was believing
that if
there was no blood, there was no foul.

I dragged the chaise over to the window, hoping the city below would distract me from the itchy feeling Molten’s touch and words had sent skittering across my skin. I’d never been so close to breaking point before; if Achilles made me feel, Molten made me number. There was no way I was going to let myself be cornered by him again. I would glue Achilles to my hip if I had to – I would take him over his protégé any day of the week.

“Planning a daring escape, darling?” came a dark voice from the doorway. I jumped about a foot in the air.

“Don’t
scare
me like that!” I gasped, clutching at my heart. “Jeez! Is your superpower that you’re part phantom?”

I felt – rather than saw – his eyes linger on the clothing I’d donned. A shiver ran through me. “I don’t have a superpower. Where’d you get the clothes?”

He didn’t have a superpower? Well, that was news to me. Everyone in Carova assumed – probably because of his black eyes and generally petrifying demeanor – that Achilles harbored some deep, dark ability. Telepathy, maybe, or a superhuman intellect. To hear that he didn’t have one was … oddly comforting.

“I found them.” I jutted my chin out defensively. “And if you want them back, you’ll have to do better than order your ‘right-hand man’ to do your dirty work for you.”

He stalked towards me, but I didn’t get the same feeling as when Molten did it – perhaps because I knew Achilles wasn’t about to do something unforgivable. Was he really that predictable to me already?

When we were a foot apart, he crouched down so we were eye to eye. “Keep them, but I don’t want yo
u snooping around my place when
I’m not here. You want something, just ask the guys outside. They won’t bother you again.”

“What did you do to Molten?”

He shrugged. “Nothing.”

“
Nothing
? But he –”

“I know what he did,” he said simply. “I watched the surveillance tape. He was stupid, to forget about it. But he was right, in some ways – I’m too possessive as it is when it comes to you. If I took revenge against him, it would just prove that theory right. And I can’t risk Molten becoming an enemy.” We stared at each other for what seemed like hours before he spoke again: “You called for
me
when he was attacking you.”

I resisted the urge to blush. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

Now it was my turn to shrug. “Better the devil you know, right?” It was the only reasonable explanation that I had. The other would have been something along the lines of, ‘It just happened!’.

“Did you believe I would help you?”

“No. But I…” I knew he’d see right through any lie I presented, so I opted with the simple truth. “I didn’t want to be alone with him.” Seeing as that was out in the open, I decided to use my confidence while I had it: “Are you planning on killing me, Achilles?”

It was the first time I’d used his name aloud, and he flinched at the word. Did he not like his own name? Or was it simply too weird for me to use it? “Are you planning on giving me what I want, Flick?”

I laughed hollowly. “Does it really matter? I would rather be dead than be your happy-drug dealer. And you would rather kill me than let me go. That doesn’t leave us much leeway, does it?” I sank further into the chaise with a sigh. “I know that small hit was enough to help you escape. And I know it’s addictive – that feeling of invincibility, that fearlessness. But I’m not lying when I say it’s like the worst type of drug imaginable. You’ll become dependent on me for it, and if I’m killed, or abducted, or manage to get beyond your reach, the withdrawal will kill you.
You’ll
kill
yourself
.”

“Are you speaking from personal experience?” he asked.

All the air left my body in one big rush, as though he’d punched me right in the lungs. “No,” I lied quickly. Too quickly – the smirk on his painted face told me he’d noticed.

“What happened, Flick? Did you dish out one too many hits and someone offed themselves because they couldn’t have you? I’m close, aren’t I?” His feral grin reappeared, and a strange noise escaped me, a mixture of a sob and a squawk. “Who was it, Flick? Someone close, hmm?”

“Stop it,” I rasped, cupping my face in my hands. Memories came to the surface and I instantly slammed them to the back of my mind, struggling to wrangle them back into th
e
closet they inhibited. “You have no right.”

“A parent? No, I don’t think so…” I jumped to my feet to run to the door, but quick as a fox, he blocked my path. “It’s still fresh though, isn’t it – the pain? You aren’t unhappy because you
can’t
use your power on yourself; you’re unhappy because you
don’t
use your power on yourself. Right?”

“Shut up!” The sunshine ran through my feet like water down a drain, leaving nothing behind but raw grief and the image of two policemen at my parents’ door.
No! No! Not again!
“You don’t know me!”

As I went to elbow my way past him, he crowded me into the corner of the room, my chin between his fingers. My eyes looked through him, though, to a time not so long ago, when my world had collapsed in on itself, when I’d had to run to avoid the fallout of my own stupidity.

“Look at me, Flick.” I gulped in bucketfuls of air, but managed to meet his empty gaze. “You’re breaking into pieces, right before my eyes. I’m not going to hold you while you cry, and I’m not going to give you sympathy. What I
am
going to do is stand here and watch you pull yourself together. You’re a big girl – whatever this suffering is, you can handle it. Face it and move on.”

“Why are you doing t-this?” I sobbed, though no tears were shed. I put it down to exhaustion.

“Because this is what I do. I’m not your kindhearted Finn Cole –”

“No,” I corrected in a small voice, “I meant, why are you b-being so nice? You shouldn’t care!”

“Jesus, girl,” he said, running his free hand through his short hair, “if this is your idea of nice, I’d hate to see what you’d do if I offered you a Kleenex.”

To both of our surprise, I choked out a laugh. His hand dropped from my jaw and I shoved the painful memories he’d brought up back to the farthest corner of
the closet in
my mind, locking the door behind it. Gradually, I took in enough air to calm my nerves. I didn’t dare analyze how Achilles’s treatment of me had just worked.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, and he suddenly bared his teeth at me.

“Stop being so goddamn nice!” he barked. I accidentally laughed again, ignoring the murderous look he gave me. I was as good as dead anyway. He visibly cooled his temper before asking, “How about a deal?”

“What sort of deal?” I didn’t know why I bothered asking – it couldn’t be anything good.

“I’ll ask an external source if they can find the key to your power. If they find it, I can keep you. If they don’t, I’ll let you go.”

“You mean kill me,” I corrected.

“No, I mean, I’ll let you go.” He seemed to be lost in his thoughts for a few minutes, then those eyes snapped back to me. “What’s your greatest fear here? Being killed?”

“You know that’s not true,” I grumbled. “I just … I don’t want to be a lab rat for the rest of my life. The whole reason I don’t side with you or Finn outright is because if my power got out, both sides would be gunning to cage me up and milk me dry. That’s not how it works, though.”

“And you aren’t going to
tell
me how it works without a fight, yes?”

“Why do you even need me, when you have Molten? Surely his power is worth a hundred of mine.” The power of influence through speech could get Achilles anywhere, if he put his mind to it – couldn’t it?

Those two black eye sockets dipped down into a frown. “Molten isn’t a dog. He –”

“And I am?”

“You’re a prisoner. You’re controllable – to an extent. Molten is … unpredictable. His dreams are of a somewhat larger scale than mine.” Suddenly he was crowding me again, the smell of paint and citrus tang filling my world. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the only unhappy soul in this world, Flick.”

Something horrifyingly close to sympathy tugged at my heartstrings.
No! No sympathy for this guy! Not ever!

“I won’t give it up without a fight,” I stressed, lost for any other words.

“
I’d be disappointed if you did
,” he said, surprising me. “Do we have a deal, then?”

“I … who’s your external source?” I suddenly had a mental image of Achilles torturing my doctor – or worse, Lucia – for information on my power.

“No people will be harmed in the process of finding out the information,
including
you, if that’s what you’re getting all flustered about.” Though I couldn’t see his pupils, I had the distinct feeling he rolled his eyes. “You really think I just cut people open for a living?”

“Prove me wrong,” I countered, arching a brow.

“Well,
there’s
a good idea!” He grinned, and I got a familiar sinking feeling in my stomach. “Any plans for the day after tomorrow, darling?”

I kept my look dry. “Oh yeah, I was thinking of taking the yacht out for a run, then maybe helping out at the homeless shelter. I just have so much free time, you know?”

He studied me for a long moment. “You get sarcastic when you’ve been upset. That’s interesting.” As though that statement was a simple aside, he continued blithely, “Keep your calendar open. We’re going on a short field trip.”

He turned to leave, but I piped up, before I lost the nerve, “I have some amendments to your deal, too.”

“Such as?”

“I get access to a
private
shower while I’m here. And you’re present whenever Molten is around me. And nobody touches me,
ever
.”
If I didn’t lay down some ground-rules now, I’d never get another chance.

“What about me?” His fingers pinched at my chin. I didn’t so much as flinch.

“You know what I mean,” I snapped.

The frown he gave me creased the white paint across his forehead, cracking lines just above his eyebrows. A shard of cinnamon skin peeked through. “I do. And it won’t happen again.” Just as quickly as his stormy look came, it blew away again, replaced with an eerily bright smile. “Your demands are hardly difficult. Sure you don’t want
an all-expenses-paid shopping trip
, or golden tampons, or whatever it is women want?”

“Wow, careful there – your gender-based ignorance is showing,” I commented.

A cackle, and he pushed away from the wall, headed for the living room. “I always have fun with you, Flick. Get some sleep – I’ll
see you
tomorrow night.”

I didn’t bother asking where he planned on sleeping. My eyes were so sore, my head so heavy, that the best I could do was shut the door before collapsing into the massive bed, reveling in the lemony smell clinging to its sheets.

A small part of my brain reminded me that I should be on my guard, should tuck a weapon under my pillow, should plan an escape route, just in case. Unfortunately, the rest of me was too exhausted to even take off my glasses before I fell asleep.

Chapter Six

A Good Host

It was an odd feeling, inhabiting Achilles’s apartment. He wasn’t there when I awoke, but he’d (I assumed it was him, anyway) removed my glasses and shoes sometime in the night, and, judging from the dip in the mattress beside me, had slept beside me without ever making a sound. Not that I’d been in any state to wake up to the slightest noise – I slept until midday, woken only by the sound of drilling in the street
s
below us.

Dressed in my underwear for safety’s sake, I showered in the massive bathroom until the water ran cold. I could have taken a bath, but didn’t like the idea of being prone for too long. When I went through the bathroom cabinets (I figured, if I found anything Achilles didn’t want me to find, it was his own fault for not guarding it better), I discovered the face-paint he used – big pots of black and white, with smaller pots of all colors. Going with my gut instinct, I left it alone.

One of the upsides to staying in the apartment was the better quality food. Instead of rice and water, I was given cold pizza and a can of cola. Achilles had a stash of food in the corner of the living room, but I didn’t dare touch it. It was all sugary junk, anyway
– he seemed to run entirely on energy drinks
. Chances were if I needed a dentist in this place, he’d probably send Molten up to do the job.

When it became obvious that I was to be left to my own devices all day, I turned to the TV to keep myself entertained. Another benefit of the apartment was the plethora of movies Achilles possessed; I watched three films before tuning in to the six o’clock news.