Read Equal Parts for Free Online Page A

for me – I supposed this abduction had just sped up the inevitable.
    The only thought tethering me to reality was, it can’t get any worse . I was in the dingiest prison cell, tied up with rope, being held hostage by the most psychotic villain in the country, with no one waiting for me on the outside. I had nothing to lose by being there. Achilles would soon realize that, and either release or kill me.
    I must have fallen asleep sitting up, because when I woke, the light outside the dirty window at the top of the wall had faded. The only remaining light came from the hallway outside, which I could see clearly through the glass door to my cell. Another prison cell lay across the hall from mine, but it was unoccupied.
    The door scraped open soon enough, and I saw an unfamiliar man stand in the doorway.
    “Yes?” I asked bluntly, when he continued to just stand there and stare at me.
    “Boss is on his way, says he wants answers. Well I’m gonna beat him to it.” The weedy man stepped towards me and clicked the door shut behind him. Instantly, my gut began to churn.
    “I don’t have answers,” I told him quickly, flexing my fingers, desperately trying to regain feeling in them. If I could slip a hand out of the ropes, I could properly defend myself.
    The feral gleam in his eyes was so different than Achilles’s – lustier, dirtier. It was enough to make me reconsider the ‘can’t get any worse’ mentality.
    “I wonder what it would take for you to talk, hmm?” His fingers latched on to the top of my baggy t-shirt and ripped the collar wide open, exposing the swell of my breasts. “Your skin’s perfect for carving, little girl.”
    Before the fear could paralyze me, I swung my bound feet at him, hitting him in the stomach. He staggered backwards and I jumped off the bed, throwing my weight into him, sending us both into the cement wall.
    Foul words hit my ears as we struggled, and he finally got me pinned. Well, good luck to him – he’d have to cut my foot ties to open my legs, if he was really planning on going through with this. And as soon as my legs were free, I was planning on shoving a knee or six into his groin.
    “He’ll be impressed,” slobbered my attacker in my ear, his hands pressing onto my chest. “Just give me a secret, and I’ll leave you alone, I promise. Tell me something.”
    I bucked him off once, twice, until he growled and slammed my head into the concrete. My vision swam, my teeth rattled in my skull.
    “TELL ME!” he screamed into my face, but I couldn’t talk, even if I’d wanted to.
    Again, my head smashed into the floor. A ringing noise filled my ears, and a weird cry escaped me. A door opened, voices were raised, my brain seemed to deflate…
    And the world fell out from underneath me.
     

Chapter Four
    The Daily Grind
    I awoke to a hand tapping against my cheek, so insistent I had no choice but to slowly come to.
    “Come on, darling, no time like the present. I’ve seen worse brains splattered across a floor before.”
    That had my eyes flying open in horror. “What?” I shrieked, though my voice was a wisp.
    Achilles’s skeletal face hovered above my own, the details of his mask a little less defined than usual. It was then that I realized I was missing my glasses.
    “W-what happened?” I asked, though I vaguely remembered my head being used as a bouncing ball for one of his goons. My eyes felt dried out; my brain felt as though someone had flattened it with a hammer.
    A cackle. “No brains, I’m just teasing. Here.” A bottle of water appeared in my line of vision, blocking Achilles’s face, and I nodded in thanks before sucking half the thing down in one go.
    As my close-range vision came into focus, I realized there was something beside me. No, someone . Slowly, my brain registered the puddle of blood haloing my head, the stench of excrement and death, and worst of all, the sightless eyes of the corpse lying next to me.
    Water sprayed from me as I