Equal Parts by Emma Winters Page A

firmly above all the bodies in the room, not even glancing in their direction as we headed out. Achilles exchanged a wad of cash and a quick conversation with the restaurant owner in the front while I was herded outside into the crisp afternoon air.
    Nobody talked on the return journey. The two thugs sat in the front of the car, Achilles and I in the back. Eventually the blindfold was tied over my eyes again, and I didn’t bother protesting. There was a horrible, hollow feeling in my chest – I’d run out of sunshine, it seemed. No question as to why.
    More hands guided me out of the car when it came to a halt, into a building, and the blindfold was taken off when we were in the staircase back at … wherever we were. When we reached Achilles’s quarters, the two thugs seemed to disappear, and Achilles led me straight to the bathroom.
    “What are you…?” The question faded out when he shoved my hands under the running faucet and began to wash the blood from my skin. I hadn’t even realized it was there. Red was wedged under my fingernails, in the cracks of my palms.
    “Needless to say, that’s not how it usually goes,” he told me in a strangely soft voice. “Most of the people I deal with aren’t so…”
    “Sick?”
    His lips quirked. “Yeah.”
    Silence again. Good. Silence, I could deal with.
    He pulled out a lemon body scrub and gently rubbed it around my fingers, making me suppress a laugh. “I didn’t think you were the type to exfoliate.”
    His eyes shot to mine, trademark smirk returning. “How do you think this paint gets washed off? Magical face-washing elves?”
    “Oh. Don’t you find it annoying, having to paint your face every day?” I knew I was pushing the envelope, but I didn’t care. It was about time I got some answers – if only to take my mind off recent events.
    His shoulders heaved in a shrug. “Gets me attention.” He dried my freshly-clean hands with a towel. “Up for another movie?”
    In two simple sentences, he’d given away a few vital parts of his personality: what he did, he did for attention; and when the going got tough, he turned to film. That would explain the massive collection of movies in the living area. And why he’d chosen to watch one last night with me instead of talking further about his rendezvous with that horrible orange girl.
    It wasn’t until two days later that I found something that revealed even more to me about Achilles, tucked under a stack of paper on his chest-of-drawers. Something that made my heart both tighten and expand:
    A receipt for a check already donated, made out anonymously, for the sum of a hundred thousand dollars, addressed to the War Widows Association.
     
     

Chapter Eight
    Powers of Deduction
    “What are you guys doing here?”
    The two thugs from the other day stood in the living area when I emerged from the bathroom, three days after the Maxim incident. I had a feeling there was something weird about today, something I was supposed to remember. Someone’s birthday?
    I looked at the clock, and suddenly realized the significance of the time – and why these two were standing in front of me. It had been on the news, all those days ago: 2 o’clock, at a wedding chapel in the city.
    “We’re going to meet Finn, aren’t we?” I asked them, well aware I was right.
    “Don’t make us take you there by force, honey,” said the biker one in a gruff voice.
    I could have put up a fight, but I knew there were at least half a dozen other thugs out in the office, probably waiting to back these two up if need be.
    So, like the idiot I was, I went with them. I didn’t even require bonds – I was compliant to the point of resembling a vegetable.
    Once outside, it took my eyes a few moments to adjust to the blinding sunlight. Of course, it was only a matter of seconds before a blindfold blacked out my vision.
    “I know where we’re going,” I told my guard. “You don’t have to blindfold me.”
    “Boss doesn’t want you