Equal Parts (2 page)

“Not looking so hot, bud,” commented Finn, eyeing Achilles’s injured shoulder.

“Yeah, some skinny-ass white boy threw me out a second-floor window.” The pain was truly seeping into his voice now, tightening the dry words. His head cocked to me. “But lucky for me, you have a certain weakness for hostages, right, Finnian?”

Finn finally noticed me, still rooted to the cement beneath my feet, and those baby-blues widened.

With a speed that
had
to be superhuman, Achilles took advantage of Finn’s distraction and sent a fist straight up into his jaw. I heard a sickening
crack
, right before Finn disappeared in a puff of smoke – his superpower: teleportation through smoke.

Achilles laughed, right as Finn reappeared behind him, and went to twist his injured arm backwards.

Achilles knew it was coming, and dodged the attack, instead taking the nail-gun and twisting to aim it straight at Finn’s chest. Another puff of smoke, and Finn was behind Achilles again, but the villain was faster. He caught Finn in the jaw with an elbow and shot a nail into his arm, right through to the gazebo wall behind him. The proceeding roar of pain sent off alarms in all parts of my body.
Do something!
, cried my heart.
Stop him!

“Help!” Finn cried to me, his arm physically pinned to the wall. He couldn’t teleport without ripping the nail through the muscle, and it made my own arm twitch in empathy.

“Yes, darling!” said Achilles in a mock-desperate tone. “By all means, step up to the plate!”

My hesitation was obvious, judging by the smirk on his painted face. If I got involved, if I attacked Achilles, I would effectively be siding with the superheroes, and putting a target on my back. If I walked away, I might as well be leaving Finn to die by nail-gun, damning my conscience for the rest of my life.

This
was why I was superneutral.
This
was why I never got involved.

Seeing my moral dilemma, Achilles brought the nail-gun down on Finn’s head, knocking him completely unconscious, before stalking toward me. Well, at least he’d made the decision for me.

“Are you Mexican?” I found my mouth asking, though it had no approval from my brain.

He stopped, a foot from me, and blinked. I think I’d surprised both of us. “Why do you ask? Is my complexion showing?” he asked dryly, patting at his whitened face, nail-gun still in hand.

“Day of the Dead. That’s your mask, right?” I had absolutely no idea where this information was coming from. I’d studied Spanish in high school, but I’d never bothered to memorize any of it, including culture. I blamed it on stark, outright fear.

Of course, his black eyes gave away nothing, but I had the distinct feeling he was slightly impressed. Then again, he could simply have been impressed that I wasn’t on my knees begging for mercy already.

He narrowed his eyes at me and took a step forward. Still frozen, I couldn’t even manage to back away. In that small moment, I caught a glimpse of why he wore the mask of the dead – he
was
Death. He could easily kill me, and act as the final stroke between this life and the next.

“Not scared of me, darling?” he purred, and I let out a strangled laugh.

“Strangely concerned for your welfare, actually.” It was the truth. He was losing blood from the wound on his neck rapidly, and his shoulder was still sticking out at an awkward angle. Why would I care? It had to be a combination of the shock I felt at experiencing radical emotions so suddenly, and the urge to heal people that came with working in a hospital. “But I’m smart enough to know I should be petrified.”

He actually laughed, but I think it took effort. “I think I’m flattered. Now, are you going to help me with this thing, or what?” He gestured to his shoulder.

I glanced at Finn, lying bloodied and unconscious across the gazebo.
Superneutral!
yelled my brain.
You can’t help either side!

But there was more at stake here than my moral code; chances were, Achilles would kill me in the blink of an eye if I refused him. He had no problem nailing Carova’s golden boy to a post – what would he do to someone as insignificant as me?

“Turn around,” I heard myself croak.

Giving a smile that made my spine hitch in both fear and adrenaline, he turned. Interesting, how quickly he trusted me.

“For your sake, darling, please don’t try anything stupid,” he told me, as though he’d read my mind.
Crap
.

Taking a deep breath, I placed one hand on his shoulder and held his bad arm back with my other, praying this wasn’t some kind of
sick
test … or trap.

“Freeze! Police!” roared a voice in the darkness, beyond the light of the gazebo. Clicks echoed around the grounds – guns, most definitely.

“Oh brother,” muttered Achilles.

I didn’t let go of his hand. My heart was beating so fast, I could scarcely remember where I was.

“Get on your knees!” came the gruff order. Neither of us moved. “You, girl – move or we’ll open fire!”

God, could they be any vaguer with their commands?
Don’t move, move a little, move a little more
.

“Shoot her in the leg,” came the command, just loud enough for me to hear.

My reaction was instantaneous and … well,
extreme.
In one smooth movement, I pulled Achilles to his knees, following him down, and shoved his shoulder back into its socket with a resounding
pop
– eliciting a rough groan from him – right as a bullet whizzed past where I’d just stood.

“On three, I distract them, and you run.” I think Achilles spoke the words, but I was too dazed by all that was going on around us to be sure.

“W-what?”

“One…”

“I said back the
hell
up, girl, or we’ll shoot!” came another, colder voice. Crap, crap, crap!

“Two…”

I let go of Achilles’s arm and stepped back, towards the rear exit of the gazebo. God, I hoped it wasn’t surrounded.

“Three.”

Achilles jumped to his feet as if he’d never been injured, and procured a red cylinder from his pocket. It cracked in his hand before he tossed it straight out of the gazebo, right into the face of one of the policemen. The ensuing screams made my head hurt.

“Go!” Achilles pushed me out into the graveyard before turning to confront the other officers in the grounds. His nail-gun and something else – was that a
hammer
? – were in hand, and he took full advantage of the light the flare provided, slashing out at his targets like a cat swiping at wool.

I sprinted down the hill, all the way back to the parking lot. Why had he saved my life? Or had he simply meant to kill me and been interrupted?

Either way, I wasn’t sticking around to find out. One thing, though, I was sure of: my thrill cravings were most definitely filled for an entire year.

Chapter Two

Rabbit to a Trap

Three nights later, I stood in the living room of a stranger’s house, surrounded by drunken peers and music loud enough to give me permanent hearing loss. I didn’t start going to parties until my power developed, at around sixteen. Before then, I was more than content to stay at home and get an early night.

But my power fed on happiness and good feelings – I could well it up and transfer it to others through touch. Which was why, in a
roundabout
way, parties were the best way to store enough sunshine to treat the whole hospital.

I call it ‘sunshine’ because, about six months ago, when I used my power to cheer up a little girl, she said it felt like sunshine on her insides. I wouldn’t know what it felt like – I’d only ever given myself trickles of the stuff, because my own happiness was locked away in the same bottle. I’d only used up my whole supply on one person
once
, and I would never, ever do it again.

“You have an admirer,” said my only friend in Carova, Lucia. She was one of three people in this city who knew about my power and had kept the secret locked so tightly, I doubted she even knew what it
was
any more.

I followed her gaze to the other side of the room, where Finn Cole, of all people, was openly staring at me. He’d recovered since the gazebo incident, but rumor was his ego had taken a pretty big beating.

I still didn’t know what had happened to Achilles.

“Oh God,” I groaned, crunching the plastic cup in my hand. “Anyone but him!”

Lucia giggled and wa
ggled her fingers at Finn. I instantly snatched her hand and hissed, “Are you insane? He’s
Finn Cole
!”

I wasn’t being coy. Finn Cole truly wasn’t appealing to me. I got it – bl
onde hair, smoky blue eyes, sun-kissed
skin – it al
l made for a traditionally good
looking package. But I knew that underneath that god-like exterior, he was just as arrogant and thick as the rest of his gender, with the added bonus of being superhuman.

“He’s coming over! Look casual,” whispered Lucia, floating off into the background with far too much ease. I went to follow her –
anything
to escape Finn Cole’s notice – but a heavy hand on my shoulder stopped me.

Crap, crap, crap.
What if he somehow recognized me? It had been dark in the gazebo, and I had a heap of make-up on tonight, but he might be more perceptive than I gave him credit for.

I cleared my throat
and turned, hoping I could pul
l off a huskier voice for the sake of a disguise
.

“Hello,” came Finn’s voice, as dry as the smoke he disappeared into.

“Hi,” I replied flippantly, avoiding eye-contact at all costs. The happiness and excitement from the party was making my brain a little sluggish, especially with Finn here – he tended to inspire good feelings wherever he went.

“I’m Finn,” he said. Like I didn’t know who he was. I shook his hand.

“Felicity.”
Please be put off by my cold shoulder. Please just leave me alone
.

But once Finn Cole got his claws into a girl, he didn’t let go without a fight.
Again judging by rumor alone, h
e was
apparently
crushing big time on his pseudo-sidekick, Skye – another superhuman, with the ability to blend in with her environment, clothes and all – but she’d disappeared off the face of the earth about a month ago. When no ransom for her came, and the police gave up their search, I guess everyone just assumed she’d skipped town.

Finn must have, too. At any rate, he was fast to forget poor Skye and jump back into the bachelor lifestyle.

Which was why, an hour and a half later, I found myself sitting on a sofa with him upstairs, listening to him recount the gazebo incident. It would have been amusing to hear him twist the story in his favor, I
suppose
, had he not been so lacking in personality whatsoever.

“So he pulls out a
nail-gun
, and I’m like, ‘Listen dude, I just want to reason with you’, but he’s not so into reasoning…” On and on and
on
the story went, like it was a freaking epic in its own right. Funnily enough, I was only mentioned sparingly – usually crying out in helplessness and sobbing hysterically.

During his retelling, I stared out the upstairs window, half-wishing Achilles – or any supervillain, for that matter – would appear, just to put me out of my misery.

The skin at my nape kept prickling with the sense I was being watched, but I shrugged it off as Finn’s nearness. If anyone
was
watching me, it was probably to spread the rumor that Finn Cole had been trapped in the web of a plain-looking geek.

At least he didn’t seem to detect presence of a superpower on me. I once read in a magazine that people with special abilities could sense others of their kind, thanks to our different genetic make-up or something. I can usually spot a superhuman if I’m close enough to them, like sitting next to them on a train. They have a certain glow about them, under their skin.

But no one has ever suspected
me
of having a superpower – probably because I’m so normal-looking. I lack the
standout
beauty most superhumans possess, helping me to blend in with my peers.

“And the police
shot
him, you know, so it’s not like he’s coming back any time soon…”

“Wait,
what
?” I asked, snapping out of my rather morbid daydreams.

He blinked those huge eyes at me. “They shot him. Achilles, I mean. I would’ve done it myself, but don’t usually
pack heat
–”

“Is he dead?” Something weirdly like panic bloomed in my chest, and I had no idea why. What did it matter if Achilles was dead? Who cared? Definitely not me.

“Nah, just in a critical condition or something. I wouldn’t be too worried about him, if I were you,” he said, clearly reading the emotion in my eyes. “The guy is a psychopath, Felicia. He feeds off the misery and misfortune of others.”