Equal Parts (13 page)

The pudgy car dealer returned with three sets of keys, which Molten snatched up and gave to a few random Achilles clones.

“Y-you can’t do this,” blubbered the manager to Molten, who, to him, was the real Achilles.

“Sure we can” was Molten’s reply, slinging a shotgun over his shoulder.

“Almost there, darling,” whispered Achilles to me. He proceeded to unthread the scarf from around my neck, unlock my handcuffs long enough to slide my jacket off, lock my hands back up, and pile my hair atop my head using a rubber band around his wrist, all in a seamless, fluid movement. I winced against his rough treatment of my hair, and I saw his lips tighten in a scowl. Why?

He handed the scarf and jacket to Molten, who then gestured to two women in the small crowd before us – a brunette my height, and a red-head a little bigger than me. I struggled against Achilles’s hold, knowing what they were planning, but it was pointless. I couldn’t even reassure them.

Their fear was palpable as Molten hooked the scarf around the brunette’s neck and handed her to one of the thugs. A man – her partner, I presumed – stood and went to argue, but Molten pushed him back down. “She’ll be fine, pal. Just your standard decoy move,” he explained, jerking a thumb back at me. All eyes fell on me, and I glared at the back of Molten’s head.

The red-head was given the jacket, and she donned it with little reluctance. The whole exchange was over in about two minutes. I didn’t know whether to be impressed with Achilles’s gang’s skill, or embarrassed that these people had put up so little a fight. Then again, living in Carova, there wasn’t much point to fighting back.

“Off we go,” said Molten, clicking his fingers at the other versions of Achilles.

The brunette went off with one group of copies, the red-head with another, and Achilles handed me to one of his thugs. I felt inexplicably fearful – abandoned, even. He must have read something like it in my eyes, because he said, in a low voice for my ears only, “Don’t get all panicky on me, Flick. It’s for your own good.” He smirked, but it was oddly strained. “Don’t miss me too much.”

He and three thugs jumped into one of the original vans we’d travelled in, leaving me with a single copy of Achilles. I hoped it was Hugo or the kind-of nice biker dude from this morning under that paint.

Wordlessly, he grabbed my arm and hauled me past the group of hostages, who gave me a collective look of fear – probably for themselves, not me – and into the passenger seat of one of the rental vans. He didn’t bother with my seat-belt, and we were zooming out onto the freeway before I could do it up.

The three other vans split up – Molten’s exited early on, then Achilles’s, then the third, police cars trailing after all of them, until we seemed to have lost the trail. I balled up in the seat, hands twisted uncomfortably behind my back, just wishing this afternoon was over already. Not that I had anything better to do – I just didn’t love the idea of being a part of a high-speed chase that was sure to result in death of some kind. I just hoped it wasn’t Finn’s.

Poor Finn. I hoped for his sake Skye wasn’t really anywhere with Molten or Achilles. Surely I’d have heard about it if she was. She’d been missing for months – there would have to be some trace of her in the whole building I’d been kept at, some clue to her presence.

A sharp skid to the right had my mind jolting back to my present situation. My driver had swerved down an exit that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. I looked at him in question, hoping he would catch my glance. Were we simply throwing the police off our scent? When I looked behind us, I couldn’t see any followers, but I suppose that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

“Two years,” said my driver, with a hiccup of a laugh. I blinked at him. “I’ve worked for Achilles two years now, and you know what? He still doesn’t know my name.
He doesn’t know my name
,” he repeated in a hiss.

Uh-oh. This conversation couldn’t be headed anywhere good.

“My brother worked for him, too – his golden boy, Joshua. I think you might have met him?”

Definitely
not going anywhere good. I tried to scramble back on the seat. He cackled, the sound so different than the laugh of Achilles I was used to.

“Of course, no one knew Josh and I were related.” I could see the crazy glint in his eyes, and it filled my stomach with dread. I frantically looked for a walkie-talkie, a phone, anything to contact the other cars with, but found none. “He was ashamed of me, said I was too
eager
to please Achilles. I did the dirty work, you see – mopping up the blood, hiding the bodies, that sort of thing. And I didn’t mind. I figured eventually I’d do enough dirty work for Achilles to notice me and boost me up past Josh’s rank. But no.”

The car revved to a higher speed along the deserted street. Oh God, oh God, oh God. I was going to die. I was going to die in the middle of nowhere at the hands of a maniac henchman of a maniac criminal.

“I didn’t care when Josh died, really,” he told me, not taking his eyes off the road. “He’d always been a shit – only a matter of time before Achilles got sick of him. You might say I was glad. My big chance, laid out in front of me. But then, of course, Achilles calls me into his apartment and tells me that I’m in charge of making your food.
Your food!
” He banged a fist on the dashboard, making me flinch. “Like your fucking slave!”

My heartbeat was somewhere in my ears and my stomach was somewhere near my knees. I couldn’t even stall him by talking. I was utterly useless. I swore to myself, I’d kill Achilles if I lived through this. If he hadn’t insisted on these stupid cuffs, I’d be fine!

“And you know what’s funny?” He gave a weird little giggle. I fumbled for the latch on the door, but found it locked. “Ah, ah,” he said, noticing what I was doing, “no escape this time, little girl. Now, you know what’s funny? Answer the fucking question.”

He said it with such vehement calm that a dry sob escaped me, which I guess he took as an answer.

“What’s
funny
is that he knew
your
name. When it comes to his own men, he couldn’t care less, but when it comes to his
pet
Felicity, he knows you inside and out. I thought about poisoning your food, but knew it was too easy. Besides, what Achilles would do to me would be worse than death. So I waited. And waited. And then today, of all days, when I’m dressed as the man who only knows his own name and yours, apparently, you fall into my lap. And I’m not a man to waste opportunity.”

With a sickening grin that would haunt me for the rest of my days – as if I didn’t have enough nightmares – he let go of the steering wheel. I lunged for it, knowing full well how pointless it was, but I was thrown against the passenger door as the van veered hard-left, straight towards a cluster of trees.

I barely had time to make a leap for the back of the van, the driver’s hand latched around my ankle, before I heard the sickening crunch of metal against wood, glass shattering, an engine groaning, a horn endlessly blaring.

My chest compacted so tightly I thought it would burst. My head hit something hard. Sharp pain stabbed at my legs. I let out a cry for somebody, anybody, but my vision was quickly fading to black.

Agony ripped at my insides, and blissfully, everything disappeared.

Chapter Nine

No Room for Emotion

“...not so pretty now, huh?”

“Doc said she’ll be lucky to last the next few days. Poor kid.”

“Come on, boss says to get her upstairs. Just when I thought he couldn’t get any worse…”

“Nah, he’s taking it out on that driver. Now
him,
I don’t feel sorry for.”

A chuckle. A searing blast of pain through my chest. A hand pawing at my hair as I rocked back and forth in something solid. I gasped at the pain, and a voice gently shushed me, told me everything would be alright.

Then I was back under.

Next time I awoke, the world was a blur of shadows and dancing light. My eyes were too heavy to keep open for long, and I could feel more pain trying to break through me, barricaded by something I later realized was morphine.

Lolling my head to the side, I saw a black-clad figure asleep in a chair next to the bed I lay in, his painted face smudged in a few places. On the bedside table was a collection of pill bottles, cups of water, bandages, and a hammer.

A breathy giggle escaped me upon noticing the last item. A hammer? How odd.

The man jerked awake at my tiny noise, his huge black eyes immediately on me. In my drug-addled haze, he looked like Death himself, soulless and bleak.

“I don’t want to die,” I croaked out as his hand reached towards my face. Immediately he withdrew it.

“You won’t, darling. Go back to sleep.” His hand eventually touched mine, so tentative I hardly felt it.

“Don’t kill me yet,” I heard myself whisper.

I dropped into weightlessness, aware that Death kept a firm grip on me as I fell.

The third time I awoke in so many days, I was completely conscious. Once again, the pain had receded to a dull ache in the back of my mind, stinging just enough to remind me of its presence.

The bedroom was dark, its curtains closed tightly, though light from the outside world escaped in slivers through the gaps. I seemed to be alone, the whole apartment eerily silent.

Seizing the opportunity to check myself over, I threw the sheets covering me back, and was almost sick at what I saw.

My legs were bare from the jeans I’d worn to the church, and in their place, a series of bandages and surgical tape, criss-crossing up my thighs. My arms weren’t much better – bandages of all shapes and sizes were strapped around them, one of my hands seemingly cut across the palm, judging by the heavy cushioning surrounding it.

Looking at my torso, I noticed I was no longer wearing the same T-shirt I’d worn that day, either. Someone had dressed me in one of the ratty nightgowns Achilles had taken from my apartment. Lifting the material, I saw my chest wrapped in yet another thick bandage, spots of blood seeping through the white gauze. My ribs felt as though they’d been snapped and glued back together.

Worst of all, when I brushed shaking fingers over my face, I felt small bits of tape patterning down my cheek, and my eye was too tender to touch. I was suddenly very grateful Achilles’s mirror faced the door, not the bed.

Just as that thought ran through my head, the door creaked open, and a familiar skeletal face appeared.

Feeling stupid just lying there looking at him, I waved feebly. The next instant, he was beside me, his tall form blocking all sources of light.

“Give it to me straight – do I look like Frankenstein’s monster?” I rasped before gulping down a glass of water from the table next to me.

“Well, you don’t look fantastic, but I think ‘monster’ is stretching it.” He studied me for a long while, until I grew sick of it.

“You can sit down, you know – it’s your bedroom. Looking up at you is hurting my neck.”

With that trademark smirk, he took up a seat and scooted closer to me. “You must be feeling better if you have the energy to boss me around. I’ll let that one slide.”

I tried for a grin, but my lips cracked so much I could only grimace. “How long was I out?”

“Three days.” I’d figured as much – my injuries felt too tender to be more or less than that.

Suddenly a more immediate problem hit me. “Um, this is really embarrassing, but I need to use the bathroom.” He rose to throw the covers back – was he really trying to
help
me? – but I stopped him. “I should be okay to go it alone.”

Of course, then I took two steps off the bed, and my knees collapsed beneath me. Achilles just stood and watched until I held out a hand. “
Fine
. Can you please help me get to the bathroom?”

He could have easily laughed and walked out on me. He could have told me to do it myself. I fully expected him to rebuke my plea in some way, but instead he shocked me to the core, and scooped me off the carpet, into his arms.

I didn’t bother fighting him. My limbs weren’t working properly, and my head was still a little foggy. When we got to the bathroom next door, he set me down on the edge of the bathtub.

“Do you need a hand?” he asked, shocking me further. Who was this guy, and what had he done with my heartless captor?

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m sure there’s nothing in the abductor handbook about helping your hostage use the toilet,” I said with another attempt at a smile. Still no dice.

He gave me a curious look before slipping out the door, locking it from the inside as he went.

I used the facilities, washed my face and hands without so much as glancing in the mirror, and limped outside into the lounge area, where Achilles was stretched out on the sofa.

“Do you want to go back to bed?” He blinked up at me, his head craned upside-down on the sofa’s arm. He had to be playing some kind of mind game. There was no way in hell he could be actually concerned for my welfare.

“Not just yet,” I answered. I suddenly felt a little self-conscious, standing awkwardly in my thigh-length nightgown, but shrugged it off. He’d clearly seen more of me while I was unconscious, anyway. For whatever reason, that fact didn’t make me feel as violated as it should have.