The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3)

by Alicia Kat Vancil

  “What?” Travis asked in a toneless voice.

  “How was she exposed?” I asked, my heart pounding heavily in my chest. Was it my fault? Had I accidentally exposed her—them all—somehow during training? Had I cut myself and not even noticed? Had the virus mutated further to be spread faster and in more ways? Was the K1-2012 virus currently working its way through all their bodies without them even knowing it? Was I silently killing everyone around me?

  Kiskei rested the bridge of his nose on his fist and squeezed his eyes shut. “I wish I knew. But being that there were no reported lab accidents or contaminations, I can only conclude that it came from outside the lab. Either by accident or from the Kakodemoss.”

  After a few long moments of silence Travis made a startled sound, like he was trying to suck in more air than his lungs could hold. Kiskei looked up quickly, and both our heads snapped toward him. Travis looked at us both nervously before he ran his hand back through his hair. “Define…accident.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him in confusion. “Travis, how on earth did you accidentally infect someone with your—” And then I stopped, my eyebrows shooting up. “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” Travis answered with a glare.

  “Well, fuck,” I breathed as I couldn’t stop my eyes from drifting to Kiskei. Travis hadn’t exposed Parker to the mutated virus via blood. He had exposed her to it the same way I had exposed Nualla.

  Kiskei’s eyes darted between the two of us until he finally realized what we were talking about. Then his eyes focused on Travis, and his mouth hung open slightly. “You slept with my daughter?!”

  “I wouldn’t exactly say we slept a whole—”

  Kiskei lashed out quickly, and slammed Travis against the wall, his hand gripping Travis’ shirt. “She’s dying because you couldn’t keep your hormones in check?!”

  Travis glared back at him. “If I had known, do you honestly think I would have—”

  “You knew exactly how Nualla was infected. And yet you didn’t stop to think, for one bloody moment, that you could hurt Parker, did you? That you could kill her by exposing her to a mutation we barely even understand!”

  “If one of you had bothered to tell me what she was before I slept with her, we wouldn’t be in this fucking mess!” Travis shouted back, looking all the world like a cornered tiger.

  Kiskei stood there for one moment glaring at Travis, shaking visibly with how angry he was. And then in one quick, fluid motion he slammed Travis against the wall one more time before he released him. “Gods be damned, if you go near her again, I will kill you!” Kiskei spat venomously before he slammed his hand to the door sensor. The door slid open, and he stalked out of the office.

  Travis watched him go, fire and tension in every line of his body. But the moment Kiskei was out of view, Travis sank to the floor. He put his head in his hands, running them both back through his hair until they were at the base of his skull. “No more lies, okay?”

  I sighed heavily and leaned against the wall, staring out at nothing. “No more lies.”

  A Little Help from the Stars

  Saturday, November 24th

  TRAVIS

  I did the one thing I told myself I would never do again. I carried the offering into the temple in the hospital, up to the mosaic of Karanei, Guardian of life, and slowly lowered myself to my knees, head bowed.

  I had been such a fervent believer in the gods when I was little. Like they were superheroes or something. I had believed they could do anything, and would ask for their help for the stupidest of things. But then my parents died, and I stopped believing. Not because I stopped believing that they were all-powerful. But because I couldn’t believe in something that was cruel enough to take my family away from me. To leave me all alone.

  “I know you and I haven’t really been on the greatest of terms for a while now, but…” I said to the floor before words left me.

  How was I supposed to put into words how I felt about Parker? How was I supposed to express how lost I had felt until I found her? How it felt like I was drowning now that she was being taken away. Was that just my fate—to be lost and alone?

  I was so scared, I couldn’t even find the will to be mad at the gods anymore. Because the truth of it was that I would do anything—swallow every ounce of my pride—for her just not to die.

  “Please, you’ve taken so much already. I…I just don’t think I’ll make it if you take any more from me,” I pleaded, the tears welling up in my eyes and making everything blurry.

  I put my hand to the mosaic, and looked up into Karanei’s serene face. Her fair blond hair managing to look soft as a warm blanket despite being made of cold sharp bits of broken ceramic. Her pale green robes curving around the swell of her pregnant belly, and the pearly white mortar and pestle in her hands. The twin serpents wrapped around her horns looking wise and gentle, instead of threatening.

  “Please…” I begged as I laid my head against the cold surface of the mosaic, the tears spilling down my face.

  It might have been blasphemous to lay my head against the mosaic, but I also liked to think—needed to believe—that she would understand. That she would understand just how badly I needed a mother’s sheltering presence.

  I let my eyes slide shut, and soon I was back in that place again.

  The fire roared up into the night, swallowing the car whole, so no part of it could still be seen through the dancing flames and eerily-lit fog. I sat there unmoving as I watched the flames lick at the metal, because I knew moving was pointless. I had given up the hope of moving so very long ago.

  My eyes slid shut and I pleaded silently, Please, why won’t you let me go? Haven’t you tortured me enough with this?

  When I opened my eyes again, I was shocked to find that the whole accident was gone. That instead, I was sitting in a collection of fallen leaves in a forest of snow pale trees. Their brilliant red leaves making it look like autumn in Seattle.

  The tree directly in front of me was different than the rest—silvery instead of white and red. But no sooner had I noticed the tree, than with a boom like rumbling thunder, it burst into flames. I flinched back, but the longer I stared at them the more the flames changed and became red silken cloth billowing in the wind, like fake fire in a stage show.

  As my heart beat frantically in my chest, the bark peeled back from the silvery tree. I stared at it in wonder as Parker stepped free from inside its depths. The soft, silken, free-flowing toga-like dress of a of goddess wrapped around her. As I stared at her, the color of the dress started to change from red to purple to blue as if it was soaking the blue out of the night sky. Like someone had dipped the cloth into colored water, the color racing down the fabric like it was bleeding blue.

  She walked toward me, and I couldn’t breathe. She was dead. I had killed her, and this was her spirit coming to bid me goodbye before she journeyed to the stars.

  I scrambled backward as she reached for me. Afraid that if she touched me, it would all end. That this would all be over, and she would be dead.

  “Travis,” she called out gently.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered back in a shaking voice, the tears nearly choking me. “So very, very sorry.”

  “Travis,” she called out again.

  “I never meant—”

  “Travis, wake up.”

  A firm hand landed on my shoulder, and I looked up at Kiskei.

  “She’s awake, and she’s asking for you,” he said in a quiet, contained voice.

  I looked up as I felt them running down my cheeks—tears.

  “What?” I asked, because his words weren’t making any sense.

  “Parker is awake, and she’s asked to see you,” he repeated a little more loudly.

  “She’s not dead?” I asked in a choked voice, convinced I hadn’t heard him right.


  “No, she’s not.”

  I shot to my feet a little too quickly, and stumbled forward in my effort to get to her as fast as I could.

  “I hope you understand that if she had died, I would have killed you,” Kiskei stated in a low voice.

  I turned slowly back toward him. “If she had died, I would have let you,” I replied around the lump in my throat.

  And something changed in his hard expression. Something I couldn’t quite place. But I didn’t stop to figure out what it was—I just started running.

  An Armor Built of Secrets

  Sunday, November 25th

  TRAVIS

  I stood in the doorway watching her talking with a nurse, afraid that if I went in there, this would all turn out to be just a continuation of that weird dream.

  Parker finally noticed me, and I held my breath. Her eyes took all of me in, darting around my form. I probably looked terrible, I hadn’t been home since Friday, and the only real sleep I had gotten was back in the temple.

  When Parker didn’t answer whatever the nurse had just asked her, he turned and looked over his shoulder toward me. Then he turned back, and said something to her. I didn’t know what it was though, I really wasn’t paying attention to anything other than Parker, and the fact that she was alive.

  I took a hesitant step forward, and then another until I was just inside the room. The nurse passed me, shutting the door behind him on his way out. And I just stood there, frozen.

  “Hey,” Parker said, breaking the silence.

  “You’re awake,” I said stupidly, pointing out the obvious.

  “Don’t remind me,” Parker groaned as she slumped back into the pillows.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, unable to make my legs take another step forward.

  “Like I fell down several flights of stairs,” Parker answered grimly.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said, my voice shaking a little.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Parker said with a heavy breath as she looked up at the ceiling.

  “Parker,” I pleaded.

  “You can make it up to me later.”

  “Name it and it’s yours,” I promised.

  “I can think of several things and they all involve you with considerably less clothing on,” Parker said with a mischievous smile as her eyes drifted back down to meet mine.

  “Are you really sure you want to do that again?” I asked skeptically, self-loathing thick in my throat, coating the words on their way out.

  “Are you saying you don’t?” She looked at me dubiously, but with the slightest bit of fear behind it.

  “Not if it’s going to kill you, Parker,” I said miserably as I looked at my shoes.

  She was quiet for a long moment before she asked, “Travis, what do you see when you look at me?”

  I looked her over curiously. She looked exhausted and her skin was a bit feverish, but she looked pretty good all things considered. “Is this a trick question?” I asked warily.

  She sighed, and rolled her eyes at me. “What color are these?” she asked, running her fingers across the ridged surface of her horns.

  “Blue,” I replied slowly, unsure where this conversation was going.

  “I’m not wearing my pendant.”

  “What?” I choked out as my eyes darted to her chest, but sure enough, the pendant was missing.

  “Whatever this mutation is, it burned the Kakodaemon blood right out of me. I mean sure, it hurt like hell, but now I’m the way I was always meant to be,” she stated, looking up into my eyes, searching for something in them.

  “Parker, I—” I started as she continued to look up at me with her deep, startlingly blue eyes.

  I wanted to say it. Every part of me wanted to tell her that I loved her. But every bit of me was also terrified to death that if I did tell her—that if I admitted it out loud—the universe would just find some way to take her from me. Because it hated me just that much. Because it had already taken so much from me. Because it didn’t play fair.

  “—I’m glad you’re okay,” I breathed out on a heavy breath.

  The tension left her in such a way that I almost felt like she was disappointed. She stared at me a few moments longer before she finally looked away from my eyes. “Are you going to stand there all night or are you going to come sit with me?”

  “Sure…” I replied uneasily as I crossed the room, and slipped down onto the bed beside her. The urge rose up inside me again, the urge to tell her all the emotions that were whirling around like a maelstrom in my chest. I opened my mouth, but I just couldn’t force them out. And when the silence had gotten way too uncomfortable, I finally blurted out instead, “So you’re Amurai?”

  Parker’s head jerked back, and she narrowed her eyes at me. “Who told you?”

  “Patrick,” I admitted without thinking. “Though don’t get too mad, I kinda forced him to,” I added sheepishly.

  “You know I should kill him for that, right?” Parker asked with her eyes still narrowed. “And you.”

  I let a crooked grin spread across my face. “Can it be our secret then?”

  “If you kiss me I might consider it,” Parker said as she folded her arms across her chest, the IV tube pulling taunt.

  I leaned forward, and gently pressed my lips against hers briefly before pulling my head back.

  “You call that a kiss?” she asked dryly, one of her brows arched.

  I rolled my eyes at her, and leaned in to give her another kiss, and this time I put everything into it. The fear of losing her. The fear of it being my fault. The desperation of watching helplessly as she lay dying. The passion of always wanting her so very badly. All of it. And when I finally pulled away this time, we were both breathing heavy, and a bright blush was spread across her cheeks.

  I sat back against the wall next to her and twined my fingers with hers, listened to the sound of the machines she was hooked up to as they beeped quietly. “So you’re not supposed to tell anyone that you’re Amurai?” I asked curiously.

  “Not…exactly.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, looking over at her.

  “There is only one person we’re allowed to tell,” she said quietly, looking down at our entwined fingers.

  “And who’s that?”

  “Our One,” she said, looking up into my eyes. “And only after we are bonded.”

  “Oh.” Of course. Of course that would be the only thing allowed to break the silence. The Bond of One was a sacred bond of trust, and with a secret as big as that hanging over you, that kind of pact could never exist.

  I leaned back into the pillows, and stared at the ceiling. I wondered if Nualla knew what Patrick was—that he was Amurai. But somehow I doubted he had known himself, before…

  “One of my parents was Amurai too, weren’t they?” I asked abruptly, thinking of Patrick. When Parker didn’t answer I looked over at her. She was studying me, trying to decide something. I could tell by the way her eyes shifted around my face.

  “They were my parents, Parker, I think I’d have a right to know.”

  She looked away from me, watching the rate of her heartbeat on the screen beside the bed. “Both,” she finally admitted in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

  “What?” I blurted out, sitting up a little straighter.

  “Both of your parents were Amurai.”

  “Is that common?” I asked in a startled voice, because to us, the Amurai were basically like superheroes.

  “No.”

  I leaned back into the pillows beside her, and let out a long breath as I processed it all. They had been Amurai, and they had probably been killed because of it. I had thought they had died so the Kakodemoss could take Patrick. But maybe—just maybe—his capture had actu
ally been just collateral damage. Maybe this whole time, it was really their secret that had set this whole thing into motion.

  So many secrets. So many lies. So many things kept hidden to protect the people who carried them and—

  “Nikki and Kira’s dad was Amurai, wasn’t he?” I asked suddenly.

  Parker looked at me in stunned curiosity. “How did you—?”

  “Everyone pretends that Nikki’s dad was James Varris. But there never was a James Varris, not anytime recently, anyways.”

  Parker was looking at me with wide eyes.

  “What?” I shrugged. “His records were pretty good, but I could tell they were fake.”

  “How?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Because the records are all there was. There’s no pictures, no news articles, nothing personal whatsoever.” Parker was looking at me like I was some crazy superhero myself and I sighed. I wanted her to think I was clever, but really I had known for awhile that James’ records were suspect. “Also, in Nikki and Kira’s encrypted birth records, James Varris wasn’t the person listed as their birth father. Nikkollas Varrook was.”

  “Sometimes you’re a bit too clever for your own good, you know,” she said with playfully irritated look.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said with a huge grin.

  “You would,” Parker snorted as she rolled her eyes at me.

  A few minutes passed and I asked, “Is anyone else I know Amurai?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that,” Parker said guardedly as she pulled her head back.

  “Why?”

  “Because our secrets are the only protection we are granted,” she recited with a slight scowl on her face. I looked at her questioningly and she continued. “We don’t conceal our identities to keep ourselves safe. We do it to keep those we hold most dear safe.”