Equal Parts (12 page)

“Boss doesn’t want you knowing where you’ve been, just in case. Best just to go with it,” replied someone.

I was stuffed into a car of some sort – a van, I had to guess, by the sound of sliding doors – and felt the engine roar to life before we took off.

So we were going to meet Finn. Great. No doubt there’d be a dozen or so snipers around the building as well, waiting for Achilles to show his face. Plus, Finn would connect the dots between my identity and the girl from the gazebo, most likely.

What in the world was ‘our wedding chapel’, though? Clearly the history of Finn and Achilles was more complicated then I’d first assumed.

A long time later, we came to a halt. I was handed out of the car, made to walk a short distance, up some steps, and into a building of some kind. The chiming of bells in the distance filled my ears, and then the blindfold was taken from me.

I screamed at the sight that greeted me.

At least ten versions of Achilles surrounded me, all with the same pattern of skeleton on their faces, all wearing the same outfit, all around the same height and weight. They even had the same fathomless black eyes. They must have done their make-up in the car, because I recognized none of them.

“What the hell?” I gasped, taking in the setting – a dilapidated church of some kind, with broken stain-glass windows, battered pews, and an altar scribbled with graffiti.

“Is the real one here?” I asked a random Achilles clone, noting his hair was a little too long to be the actual Achilles.

“You tell me,” he said with the trademark Achilles smirk. Dear God, this was beyond freaky. What was even freakier was the way I was beginning to tell them apart.

I studied each of them closely, noting the way some of their eyes avoided me – definitely not the real one – and how some of them were standing with a slight hunch, or in an aggressive stance. Some were bigger, some were scrawnier, some had obviously just sprayed their hair black. Scattered around the church were more versions, one at the end of the aisle, hip jutted against the altar, examining his finger-nails far too casually.

With a last look at the group closest to me – nope, none of them fit the few descriptions I had of Achilles besides the face-paint – I approached the one in my sights. I couldn’t exactly call out his name and see which one turned around, because chances were, Achilles wasn’t his real name.

So, I did the only thing I knew would inspire a reaction in
one
of them, and ‘accidentally’ tripped on the carpet, hitting my head on a pew on the way down. It did hurt, but maybe my skull had become immune to pain over the last week, because it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Letting out a keening groan of agony, I clutched at my head, tried to get up, and sank back down dramatically.

“Boss?” asked one of the thugs – the one I’d first guessed was just a clone.

Footsteps approached me, then a shadow fell over my ‘unconscious’ face. “Christ, girl, what am I going to do with you?”

A hand slid under my head, feeling for a lump or blood, and my eyes flew open. The Achilles leaning over me was definitely the real one – the one I had been approaching anyway. Same floppy hair, same square jaw, same intricate detail in the face-paint, same tanned skin peeking out from under his collar.

“You can start with not underestimating my powers of deduction,” I told him with an unrestrained grin. I shouldn’t have found that to be so much fun, and I
really
shouldn’t have received a trickle of happiness from Achilles’s end when I opened my eyes.

Was he just happy that I wasn’t dead? Or something else?

“I’ll remember that,” he growled, but I saw the twitch in his painted lips. Ha! He bent closer to me, mouth hovering just above my ear. “I’m slightly impressed, darling.” The whisper made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

He straightened, pulling me up with him, and I heard one of the Achilles clones mutter behind me, “She’s just as weird as him.”

Achilles didn’t react, and neither did I, but I wasn’t quite sure whether or not to be insulted. That in itself was worrying.

When a knock at the chapel doors came, Achilles instantly handed me off to one of his carbon copies. “Try not to read too much into this, darling,” he told me, before clicking a pair of handcuffs on me that he procured from his pocket –
what?
– and returning to the pews to lounge.

One of the thugs opened the church doors, just as another gagged me with a strip of material, and another came to stand behind me and pressed a gun to my head. I struggled against his hold, looking to the real Achilles, who was studiously avoiding my gaze. Well, that wasn’t good.

A second later, Finn appeared in a puff of smoke at the end of the aisle, surveying his surroundings with a speed I hadn’t thought possible. His eyes cast over me, over every version of Achilles, and settled on the one in front of me.

“Nice to see you again, Finnian,” said the imposter, his voice at exactly the right pitch for the part. “I was starting to think you’d stood us up.”

“It was stupid, you know, making a big show of where you wanted to meet. Most of the city’s police force are putting snipers on you as we speak.” Finn seemed a lot less confident than when I’d last seen him at the party so many nights ago. He’d lost the sparkling edge that seemed to set him apart from most other people.
Why?
, I wondered.

“Oh, I know,” said Fake Achilles casually. “I just wanted some attention. Plus, I have a proposition for you.”

Finn arched an eyebrow. “For me? How sweet.” His eyes raked over me again, kneeling on the sticky carpet, and I saw a brief flare of recognition.

“I think you may have already met Felicity,” said Fake Achilles, gesturing back to me. “She’s been staying with me for a while, keeping me company. Say hi, Felicity.”

I glared at the Fake Achilles, and the one behind me tugged on my hair hard enough to elicit a muffled yelp from me. Another glance at the Real Achilles, who still wasn’t looking anywhere near me.

“Goddammit, Achilles, I thought we were past this crap. Let her go.” Finn sounded so weary. What was wrong with him? Where was Finn Cole, nice guy extraordinaire?

“Well, I’ll admit, I expected a bit more fight from you,”
tsk
ed Fake Achilles. “But no matter. I don’t just have dear Felicity, after all.”

“What do you mean?”

I couldn’t see Fake Achilles, but I knew he was grinning. “Does this look familiar?” He held out a mask of some kind – sapphire-colored, with splotches of blood, and thin silver detailing…

Skye’s mask!

I gave another muffled cry, drawing Finn’s eyes to me. The thug behind me fisted my hair, bringing tears to my eyes. “Shut up,” he snarled down at me. I resisted the urge to send a donkey-kick back into his kneecap.

“Where did you get that? Where is she?” demanded Finn, storming towards Fake Achilles, who held the mask back with one hand and gestured towards my holder with the other. The safety cap of the gun against my head was suddenly flicked off.

“No further, Finnian, unless you want to lose both of your fangirls. Skye is safe and sound, tucked somewhere you won’t find her. The same can’t be said for this one, though,” he said, turning to smirk at me. “Don’t get me started – had to wrench her legs apart with a crowbar just to get some, if you know what I mean.”

I choked on my gag and saw the actual Achilles half-stand from his position in the pews, then quickly sit back down. Clearly that little titbit hadn’t been part of the script.

Finn’s fists clenched, but he didn’t rise to the bait.
Smart man
, I thought. “What do you want?” he asked again, the confidence flooding back into his tone.

Fake Achilles shrugged. “Nothing you can’t get me, I’m sure. Felicity here is a sweetheart, but she’s a bit tight-lipped on her power, I’m afraid. If you can get me information on how her ability works, I’ll set Skye free.”

Finn’s frown deepened. “Why do you want her power?”

“Why does anyone want anything?
Because they can’t have it
. That’s my deal, take it or leave it. No catches, no pitfalls, no fine-print. Just get me the information somehow, and you’ll have your precious Skye back. Or,
don’t
get me the information, and I’ll cut off both their heads and send them to you in a basket. Choices, choices.”

I could see the indecision take hold of Finn’s mind, could all but
hear
the cogs churning. When his eyes searched mine from the small space between us, I tried to mentally shout to him:
Don’t do it! She’s not really being held! Get out!

He mustn’t have heard my imploring, because a moment later he sighed and said, “Fine. You have a deal.” To my surprise, he addressed me next, “I’m sorry, Felicity. I’ll get you out of this somehow, I promise.”

“How romantic,” commented Fake Achilles with an eyeroll. But I was actually very impressed with Finn – he didn’t know me at all, didn’t have to play the good guy part here, but he seemed genuinely worried about me. Sweet, in a backwards way.

“Oh, and you have twenty-four hours. Did I mention that? Probably should have,” added Fake Achilles.

Finn’s jaw tensed, but he showed no other signs of anger. “One day soon, I’ll have you all to myself. Then we’ll see how confident you are.”

“Careful, Finnian, we are in a church,” warned Fake Achilles, winking dramatically. He then turned to me and hauled me to my feet by my hair. I winced, but managed to hold back my cry this time. “See you tomorrow, then? Maybe in the same gazebo we met Felicity? Seems fitting.”

Finn simply stared daggers at him as we backed out into the church hallway. All the other clones of Achilles followed us, and with a last wicked grin, Fake Achilles slammed the door behind us, blocking Finn out altogether. He couldn’t teleport beyond solid walls, or so the rumors went – he often ended up with parts of himself inside the wall, usually resulting in him having to smash the whole thing down to free himself.

“Don’t give me that look, darling,” said the
real
Achilles when I was handed back to him like an unwanted doll. “I think you did brilliantly.”

I couldn’t say anything to him, even if the gag hadn’t been on me, because we were charging out into the parking lot behind the church a moment later, into two separate vans, as I’d guessed before.

Seeming to know what to do, the group split in half, and I was bustled into the back of a van with Achilles. He grinned at me. “Having fun yet?”

I grunted something behind the gag that I never would have said to his face, but he seemed to understand me, because he laughed.

“Trackers on the vans, I think, boss,” piped up the thug in the driver’s seat, roaring the engine to life.

“Good,” said Achilles, surprising me for the thousandth time in so many days. He pulled me down into the seat beside him as we took off out of the lot, into the streets.

I was thrown around the back of the van enough to make me feel a little queasy. We skidded to a halt, and I was quickly dragged out of the van and into what appeared to be a rental car yard. People screamed and scattered as we approached the main building, each of the Achilles clones armed with various types of weapons.

As we entered the rental offices in the middle of the park, police sirens blaring in the background, a pudgy man strode towards us, red in the face.

“Out!” he shouted, shooing us with his hands. “Don’t bring your goddamned guns in here like you own the joint! Get out!” The thugs instantly dispersed, taking up post at most of the windows and office doors, rounding up the people inside the building. Soon enough, a small group of people were herded out in front of us, most of them cowering or sobbing.

One of the clones stepped forward and pressed a hand to the pudgy manager’s neck. “
Go and get the keys to three white vans, bring them back here, don’t stop for anything.
”

Without a second’s hesitation, the manager turned and practically fled from the room. I turned to Achilles, panic in my eyes. His grip on my arm tightened ever-so-slightly, as though he feared I’d suddenly make a run for it. His fear wasn’t exactly misplaced.

Molten had been in the room with me, that whole time. He’d been the Fake Achilles – the one to address Finn, which explained how he’d known Achilles’s idiosyncrasies so well, and also why the real Achilles had shown a hint of defensiveness when Molten had mentioned prying my legs apart.

Panic seized my gut, making the world around me suddenly seem very stark. Instinctively, I released the sliver of happiness I’d attained from Achilles in the church into my system – I wasn’t going to need it any time soon, anyway.

Of course, I’d forgotten that Achilles was in direct contact with my skin, so the sunshine slid right through the both of us, my body only retaining a little of it, his receiving much more.

The fear in my blood settled to a low hum of caution, which was better than nothing, I supposed.

Achilles, on the other hand, experienced more than me. His breath left him in a quiet
whoosh
, and immediately his eyes slid to me. Crap. He probably thought I’d done it deliberately.