Equal Parts (14 page)

When I moved to sit on the edge of the sofa, near his feet, he instantly kicked his legs off to make room. Weirder and
weirder
. “Are you going to tell me what happened to me, or will I have to use my powers of deduction again?”

He threaded his hands behind his head. “I have a few things to tell you, actually, but first I want to know how you ended up in a head-on collision with a tree in the middle of nowhere.”

It was obvious from his dark look that I wasn’t going to get any answers until I did some explaining, so I told him what I could remember from my trip in the van. I could have lied, of course, and said we’d crashed by accident. But the driver had to have died in the crash, right? So it wouldn’t make a difference if I told the real story, anyway.

Besides, I knew those endless black eyes would see right through the smallest lie.

It was weirdly cathartic, getting the story out of my system. Achilles didn’t interrupt once, but I saw the crease in his forehead deepen as I went on. By the time I’d finished talking, he looked positively murderous.

For a long while, neither of us spoke. I edged towards the end of the sofa, pure instinct telling me he was going to pounce and attack at any moment.

“Look, you have no right to be angry at me,” I told him, hating the quake in my voice. “If anything,
I
should be angry at
you
. Your damn handcuffs meant I couldn’t get into the back of the van before he crashed it.”

To my surprise, he didn’t respond. He just got up and left, slamming the door on his way out.

The hell…?

“Achilles!” I pushed to my feet, ignoring the ache in my legs at taking the sudden weight.

I limped into the main office area, where every eye of every thug turned to me suddenly. But it was only one man I was focused on – the man who was currently charging towards the stairwell, pushing everything out of his path.

“I know you’re not going to make an injured girl run!” I called out to him.

As though I’d struck him from behind, he froze, turning to pin me with that terrifying gaze.
This
was the Achilles I’d first met in the cemetery: pure predator, with no room for emotion.

“Make sure she stays in the apartment,” he told the thug closest to me – Hugo, incidentally – in a deadly voice. Then he turned and stormed out.

Well, that had to be the strangest reaction to a recount of a car crash in history.

“Where’s he going?” I asked Hugo, who led me back through to the living room.

The big guy shrugged. “Probably checking up on Doug.”

“Who’s Doug?” I put a movie on – one of my favorites,
Caddyshack
, because God knew I could use a laugh – and curled up on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket.

Hugo gave me a strange look. “The guy who crashed the van.”

And just like that, all the warmth drained from me in a rush. “H-he’s still alive? He survived the crash?”

“Well, yeah. He’s probably wishing he hadn’t, by now. We’ve been keeping him alive because we weren’t sure if it was an accident. The crash, I mean. I’m guessing from the look on your face that it
wasn’t
, right?” He handed me a bottle of water, and I gratefully accepted.

“No, no it wasn’t. Holy crap.” It was an understatement, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. “I have to go there. Achilles will murder him!”

“Why the hell are you looking guilty?” he asked. “The guy tried to
kill
you, Felicity. You saw what happened to that Joshua guy, and he just knocked you unconscious. What do you think will happen to a guy who tried to murder you just out of spite for the boss?”

“Holy crap,” I repeated. I’d just signed someone’s death sentence, even if it was inadvertently. I shouldn’t have said anything to Achilles. I should have lied.

“Kid, look at me,” said Hugo, crouching to my level, though my eyes were a little unfocussed. “He would have been dead anyway. He’s lucky to have lasted this long. Don’t feel guilty over something you can’t control. This is who Achilles is – if you go charging down there now, I can guarantee you won’t like what you find. Trust me.”

I clutched the blanket tighter around my shoulders, letting Hugo’s advice fully sink in. He was right. I knew he was right, but I still felt a little sick. Maybe it was more because Doug had survived the crash, instead of feeling guilty that he was going to die.

“Okay,” I croaked out. He looked visibly relieved that he wouldn’t have to physically keep me here. “Okay, I’ll stay.”

“Between you and me,” he said, sitting on the carpet by my feet, “that dickhead had it coming anyway. I’ve never met a bigger kiss-ass in my life. And I used to be a high-school teacher.”

“Really?” I asked in surprise. “And you took up a life of crime for, what? The retirement fund benefits?”

He gave me a smile bracketed by fine wrinkles. “You know what they say – crime pays.”

“It also has a weird way of landing you in prison. But hey, no judgment here.” I returned the smile as best as my train wreck face would allow and turned back to the film.

I thought I would succumb to the effects of the drugs after a while, but I was wide awake for the whole movie. Hugo helped me make the next pick – avoiding any kind of on-screen violence, we settled on
The Pink Panther
. It wasn’t until halfway through the film that Achilles returned to the apartment, his face flecked with blood, dark hair slicked back, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

I think Hugo and I gulped simultaneously.

“You can leave, Hugo,” my captor said tonelessly. With a darting glance in my direction, Hugo got up and left.

When Achilles took up the cushion next to me, I resisted the urge to recoil. He wouldn’t hurt me. Well, I
hoped
he wouldn’t. He’d been anything but predictable since I’d woken up a few hours ago.

“Is he dead?” I asked, trying for the same indifference his tone held.

“Yes. Does that bother you?”

I took a deep breath. “No. It did, but I know it would have happened sooner or later anyway.” My fingers fidgeted with the edge of the blanket. “Thanks for … for not letting me die after the crash. I know it must have been a tough decision, choosing whether or not I was worth the trouble.”

“If you weren’t injured, I would have you in a chokehold right now,” he told me, his voice cold as ice. “I told you – don’t assume
anything
when it comes to me. Let me tell you what was a tough decision: choosing whether or not bludgeon that guy’s head in with a hammer, or gut him with a fishing knife and watch the life bleed out of him. Choosing whether or not you were
worth the trouble
? Not so hard.”

I should have been sickened by the speech, should have called him an evil-minded piece of crap and stormed out. But instead, I read between the gory lines, and caught a glimpse of something in Achilles I wasn’t sure anyone had ever seen: vulnerability. Sure, he’d killed a guy – many guys, in fact. Sure, he was describing a rather brutal scenario I didn’t allow myself to visualize.

But him leaping to his own defense could only mean one thing: he was just as aware of this weird connection between us as I was. He had defended me time and time again, maybe because he saw me as a useful new toy, maybe not – but this time, he had done it solely for
my
sake. He didn’t have to kill Doug. Hell, it would have been just as easy for him to patch the guy up and get him back in the ranks, ignore everything I said, and go on like nothing had happened. It would also have been easy to lock me back up in a cell once it became clear I was well enough to stand on my own.

Instead, he had tracked down my attempted murderer, killed him, and then berated me for putting myself down. So I wasn’t the only one recognizing this burgeoning
thing
between us, even subconsciously.

“Are you going to tell me how I got here?” I asked, remembering what he’d said earlier, about answers for answers.

His lips tightened behind the paint. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“As long as you leave the gruesome bits out for my stomach’s sake, then, yeah. I’d like to know.”

He exhaled sharply, moved slightly closer towards me, and took on a wholly casual demeanor. “Well, we all got to the rendezvous spot at the same time, but your van was missing. We’d thrown off the police, and your boy-toy Cole didn’t bother following us.” He held up a hand when I went to argue. “My story, my rules, darling. Anyway, we waited for ten minutes. One of the police radios we have announced a crash on the Whitsby exit on the highway – a black van, as it was. So, of course, I left Molten at the rendezvous with most of the men, stole a car, and managed to beat the cops to where you were.

“When I got there, the car was smoking. The guys I’d brought with me dragged out the driver, but I couldn’t see you anywhere. At first, I thought you’d made a run for it somehow. But then I saw a dent in the rear of the van, away from the tree. So I opened up the back, and sure enough, there you were. You looked … bad,” he settled on, clearly wanting to say something worse.

“How bad?” I asked in a quiet voice.

His eyes met mine, even though I couldn’t see his pupils. “I’ve seen a lot of blood in my time, darling. I’ve seen bodies in all states of disrepair and twisted in all ways. But I’ve never seen anything that made me feel quite as ill as you in that van.”

Oh my
God.
I didn’t know whether to blush or vomit. “That’s sweet, sort of,” I said lamely.

He didn’t so much as blink at the comment. “We wrapped you in a blanket and stowed you in the backseat with the driver.” It didn’t escape my notice that he didn’t use Doug’s name. A tiny part of me surged with satisfaction at that. “I called up a surgeon who doesn’t mind blurring his moral code for the right price, and he operated on you. You heavily bruised two ribs, sprained your wrist, and lost a lot of blood from the slashes on your legs. Doc told me you wouldn’t live through it, thanks to the blood loss and head wound. So we just kept pumping you full of drugs.”

“But I did live through it,” I whispered, inwardly patting myself on the back for defying the odds.

“That you did.” His face was less than a foot away from my own. The smudged details on his mask told me just how stressed he’d been these past few days. I shouldn’t have been able to read him so well, but I put it down to limited human interaction – he was really the only person I saw these days. Of course I’d know his habits by now. He was unblinking as I sat there, gradually growing warmer and warmer under his scrutiny. Eventually he spoke again: “Cole might be a moron, but he managed to find information on your power.”

“W-what?” I stammered, snapping right out of my reverie.

He leaned back once more, giving me air to breathe again. “Molten went and met with him two days ago, like he said. I don’t know where Cole got the information – I didn’t care to ask, seeing as you weren’t expected to last the night.” He took out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and read: “
Collects endorphins from large groups, enhances it and transfers it to individuals through touch. Can be highly addictive after prolonged exposure.
”

I was surprised, more at the fact that he’d managed to hide the knowledge for this long, than him knowing the information itself. He was bound to find it out eventually, anyway. A few more sessions with Molten and I was sure I would have been singing like a bird.

“So.” He folded the paper back up and slung an arm over the back of the sofa. “It isn’t self-sufficient. Interesting. You know what I find most strange about it?” I shook my head, not trusting myself to talk. “
Your
happiness doesn’t seem to come into it at all. I mean, it’s all well and good to snatch up happiness from other people, but does yours get stuffed in there with them?”

“Yeah, it does, actually,” I said in a crackling voice.

“Huh. Well, that’s not fair, even by my standards. This does explain why I felt the need to abduct you after your hospital visit, though,” he added, and I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at the truth in that statement. I’d dug my own grave on that one. “So, I suppose what I need to do now is get you somewhere happy, huh?”

“Somehow I doubt anywhere
you
go will inspire good feelings,” I pointed out.

Smirk. “And what about individual happiness? Ever tried collecting it from one person?”

I hadn’t, actually, though the idea had crossed my mind once or twice since my power’s appearance. Until meeting Achilles, I’d never felt even a twinge of individual happiness from someone else - I figured it was because people were more potently happy in large groups.

“I can give it a go with you, if you’d like. All going well, you’d be sucked dry forever and I’d live the rest of my life in peace” was what I said, though.

Achilles just laughed. “You’re getting a bit crabby, darling. I think it’s time for bed.”

“As long as you don’t bring home another one of your hooker friends and I end up sleeping on the balcony,” I snapped, my mouth not quite connected to my brain.