And as he fumbled for the light switch and flicked it on, I could only gape at him open-mouthed. It was the guy from the Halloween rave. The dark-haired guy with the Kaigan Midoraian accent. The dark-haired guy whom I was pretty sure had been named Damian.
Completely ignoring my shocked incredulity, Damian slumped into a nearby chair. His gun hanging at his side so it brushed the floor. Breathing heavy like he had just run up Powell Street.
“What the fuck are you two doing here?!” I yelped incredulously.
Damian shifted his leather jacket to reveal something embroidered there. An emblem. Eight silver spokes radiating out in a circle, each spoke ending in an Egyptian lotus, and a vibrant lapis-blue filling the background of the emblem.
“You’re Protectorate?” I said skeptically.
“That we are,” Damian replied.
I sat there for a few more shocked moments before I asked, “So what are you doing here? You know, besides scaring the crap out of me.”
“We’re your security detail, Arius” the younger guy with honey-colored hair—James—answered as if he was apologizing for it.
“Both of you?” I asked dubiously.
“Most of the time it’s just one of us, if that makes ya feel less dodgy ‘bout us,” Damian replied unhelpfully. “Though, if it’s for your sake or ‘cause they think we’ll do a diabolical job, I’m not sure.”
I scowled at them. “Who gave you orders to follow me?”
“The Grand High Councilor, himself,” Damian answered as he ran his hand down his face.
Roy? I couldn’t help the feeling of betrayal that washed over my face.
Damian looked up at me, and then sighed. “Look, don’t be mad at ‘im, he was just doin’ his job. Not all of us have a choice in what we become, you know,” he stated and then he stopped, and looked at me appraisingly. “Or maybe ya do.”
When I just continued to stare at him incredulously, his cocky demeanor faltered. “You do realize that once it hits that six month mark, they will have to name you as the next chancellarius, don’t ya?”
“Of course,” I lied, because I hadn’t known that. I had somehow failed to notice that such a law even existed.
“Then I don’t know why you’d be so surprised that they would want extra protection for ya. If somethin’ were to happen to ya, your region would be in a right bloody mess,” Damian stated, the cockiness returning as he leaned back, and draped his free arm behind his head and closed his eyes. And there was something about his attitude that had been thrilling before, but was now just irritating.
“How long?” I asked tersely.
“How long what?” Damian asked without opening his eyes.
“How long have you been following me?” I asked, folding my arms protectively across my chest.
“Since that night at the club, Arius,” James answered as he stood awkwardly next to his chair. Apparently still unsure if he should sit back in it or keep standing.
I narrowed my eyes dangerously at the two of them. “Were you following me last night?”
Damian opened his eyes, and gave me a don’t-be-stupid look. “I think ya already know the answer to that.”
“If you say a word about last night to anyone I will—”
Damian looked at me with deadly, serious eyes as he sat back up and slammed his feet on the dark wooden floor. “Arius, let’s get one thing straight. We will never ask ya about where you go or what ya do. We are here to protect you. Not to ask ya about secret rendezvous in drugstore parking lots when it’s lashin’ out,” Damian stated, his lips quirking up to one side as he finished. Apparently unable to resist.
I arched my eyebrows at him, and James ran a hand down his face. “Tact, Damian. There’s this thing called tact.”
Damian shrugged. “I said I would never ask. I never said nothin’ ‘bout not making comments.”
I continued to glare at him for a few minutes before I asked. “Just one more question before I kick you two out of this room.”
“But—” James started.
“You can patrol the hallway for all I care, but I’ll be damned if I let you two stay in here when I’m trying to frakkin’ sleep,” I snapped angrily, cutting him off.
Damian looked at me appraisingly again before he stood, and shoved his gun back in its holster. “Ask your question, Arius.”
“How did you know it was me and not…and not Kira?”
“The boots,” Damian replied simply.
“Excuse me?”
“Kira Varris never wears anything she couldn’t run for her life in,” Damian answered as he met my eyes, all traces of playfulness gone.
If You Weren’t So Damn Cute
Friday, December 21st
TRAVIS
When I had said that I would adopt Chan-rin it had been an impulsive response to Ashley’s threat. And even though I had said it then, it had never occurred to me to even consider the fact that someday I might be someone’s dad.
I stared up at my “I Want to Believe” poster which I had moved to above the couch. I was going to be a dad. Me. It was like the universe had gone frakkin’ crazy or something. I mean sure, I had basically sworn that I would adopt Chan-rin if need be, to keep her at The Embassy. But I hadn’t actually thought about it beyond that need to keep her here—keep her with us.
The door beeped, and I looked over. Please be Parker. Please be Parker. Please be Parker.
Akiko stepped into my lab, her hand covering her eyes as the door slid shut again. “If anyone’s naked, please put your clothes back on,” she announced like the words were a shield.
I sighed, and looked back at the poster. “No one’s naked. It’s just me.”
There was something in my tone that must have tipped her off, because she asked, “Travis, are you okay?”
“No.” Because really I was about as far from “okay” as you could get.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked hesitantly after a moment.
I sat up abruptly. “No I don’t want to—” I stopped, realizing I was shouting at her. “Sorry, I’m a bit…” I apologized as I ran my hands down my face. “Never mind. Did you need something?” I asked, looking up at her.
“Just came to show you the reports of the KARA usage in The Embassy.”
I looked down at the tablet, before looking back up at her. “Couldn’t you just email me the reports?”
Akiko glared at me. “I do email them to you. You never read any of the reports I send you,” she said flatly.
I groaned and leaned back into the couch as I extended my hand to take the tablet from her. “Sorry, I’ve been…distracted.”
Akiko snorted. “That’s a good word for it.”
I rolled my eyes at her before I turned my attention to the reports. But as I scanned the information the lines began to blur together, and my mind started to wander off. I shook my head to clear it, but it didn’t help. There was no use, I wasn’t going to get anything done in the state I was in. I needed to talk to Parker, but after the way she had screamed at me last night, I doubted she was going to take my calls. So I had to go talk to the next best person—Nualla.
I set the tablet down on the couch, and stood up. “I’m taking the rest of the day off,” I informed Akiko as I stretched. “Monday too.”
“Can I ask why?” Akiko asked uncertainly.
I stopped stretching, but I didn’t look at her. Instead I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the other side of the room. “If you really want to know why, lookup December 24th, 1996 in my file.”
“Okay…” Akiko replied, concern tinting her voice. “What should I tell anyone who asks?”
I let my hands fall to my sides. “That I’m taking a mental health day, or I’m sick. Take your pick. It really doesn’t matter. The people who kn
ow will understand, and the others can just deal with it.”
As I finally looked at her she reached out and hugged me. And after a heartbeat or two I hugged her back with a heavy sigh.
“You’re trying to make me break down and cry again, aren’t you?” I said flatly.
“Sometimes crying is the only answer.”
NUALLA
I walked out of the classroom and practically groaned. Travis was standing in the hallway trying to look nonchalant and failing horribly at it.
I walked up to him, and sighed heavily. “What did you do now?”
“I frakked up.”
“Yeah I gathered that much,” I replied sarcastically.
He looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown or throw up. Or both.
“Can we…can we go somewhere, or were you busy?” Travis asked uneasily, and that’s when I knew something was seriously wrong. He wasn’t even looking at me, instead his eyes were fixed firmly on his feet.
I reached out my hand, and took his in mine. “For you, I’m always free.”
The smile he returned was heartbreakingly tragic.
The roof was still wet from last night’s rain. The puddles mirroring the clouds in a rippling copy.
“So what did you do?” I asked as I nudged a leaf floating on the surface of a puddle with my boot.
After a moment or two of silence, Travis let out a heavy sigh. “I asked Parker to marry me.”
I spun around to face him. “You did what?!”
“I asked Parker to marry me,” Travis repeated.
I just stood there, my mouth hanging open in stunned surprise before I asked, “And what did she say?”
“She cried harder and yelled at me to get out,” Travis admitted with a grimace.
“You proposed to her when she was already crying?!” I asked in disbelief.
Travis threw out his arms in frustration. “What was I supposed to do? She was crying, and she had just found out she was pregnant, and—”
“When you say, ‘she had just found out she was pregnant’ you mean like several hours before, right?” he didn’t answer. “Thirty minutes?” He shook his head. “Ten?”
“Two,” he admitted, wincing.
“You idiot! No wonder she was so upset. Gods, you have even worse timing than your brother,” I chastised him. “No girl wants to feel like you’re only marrying her because you knocked her up. They want you to ask them because you love them! Because they’re your One.”
“Oh…shit,” Travis said slowly as if that had never occurred to him.
“Gods, I swear, if the two of you weren’t so damn cute,” I grumbled under my breath as I folded my arms.
Travis looked up quickly in a panic. “So what do I do now?”
“You tell her how you really feel and pray she doesn’t throw the nearest object at you,” I answered with narrowed eyes.
“Nualla,” he whined as if I was being completely unhelpful.
“Seriously, Travis. I mean, you do love her, right?” He looked a little queasy. “Please tell me you didn’t just sleep with her because ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’?”
He looked up, and ran his hand back through his hair. “Um…well…”
“Travis!”
“Hey it’s basically what you did!” he pointed out with a scowl.
“But I didn’t sleep with him, I accidentally married him!” I shouted back indignantly.
“Cause that’s so much better,” Travis countered as he rolled his eyes, and folded his arms across his chest.
“Hey, don’t you dare push this on me. You’re the one who fucked up.”
Travis let out a heavy huff. “Right, sorry.”
I continued to glare at him a moment longer until my anger receded. “So, do you love her, or not? Because if the answer is no you are pretty much fucked.”
“Um…” Travis replied uneasily, the look like he might hurl returning to his face.
“Travis!” I snapped as I stamped my foot.
“The thought of being without her makes me want to walk into traffic,” he blurted out in a rush.
I glared at him. “Now, was that so frakking hard?”
“You have no idea,” he groaned as he buried his face in his hand.
Lost and Found
Friday, December 21st
NUALLA
When I got home I found my mother in a heap by the Christmas tree, sobbing. Her fingers sliced and bloody.
I dropped my bag, and darted forward. Dropping down beside her, I cupped her hands in mine. “What did you do?”
“It broke,” Loraly sobbed broken-heartedly. “I broke it and…and…and now it’s ruined,” she sobbed harder.
I looked down as Loraly leaned into me, finally seeing the shattered bits of thin, colored glass. But even though it was broken, I could still tell what it had been. Draya’s birth ornament—shattered to pieces on the wooden floor. Broken to pieces and gone—just like her.
“Oh Mom,” I breathed out around the lump in my throat. “It will be okay, we’ll make her a new one. And it will be okay,” I cooed as I rubbed her back gently.
I looked up from the shattered ornament. For once, the house seemed to be inconveniently devoid of Protectorate.
Where the hell are they?
I stood up, and pulled Loraly off the floor. She let me lead her over to one of the sofas as if she was a piece of kelp in the Bay, completely at the mercy of the world around her. It was horrible to see her this way—to see her so broken.
“Just wait here, Mom,” I said quickly before I hurried into the kitchen. I pulled a clean towel from the stack, and stuck it under the faucet. I had damn near failed basic first aid in school, but I at least knew this much.
As I walked back into the living room, I saw that Loraly hadn’t moved an inch. She just continued to stare into the distance, her bloody hands resting numbly in her lap.
I sat next to her, and took her hands gently into mine. Carefully cleaning them until they were free of blood and I was certain there weren’t still bits of glass in her skin.
“You really cut yourself good, Mom. You might need a stitch or two,” I said with a sigh as I heard someone enter the room.
A Protectorate I didn’t even recognize looked back at us with wide, panicked eyes. “Cellarius Loraly, Arius Nualla, what happened?”
“She cut her hands. Can you have Dr. LaCosta come over as soon as he can? She’s probably going to require some liquid stitches,” I stated in a clear, calm voice.
“It will be done, Arius,” the Protectorate responded in a rush as he bowed. His right fist coming across his chest quickly in salute. And a heartbeat later, he was walking purposefully back out of the room, his left hand pressed to the com device in his ear.
I looked back to Loraly, and realized that she was watching me. “When did you become the strong, level-headed one?” my mother asked with a sniffle. A tiny weak smile threatening to spread across her lips.
When dad forced me to be. When he ran away to play hooky and left me to run this whole damn region on my own.
“I’m not sure,” I lied, unable to return the smile.
I trudged up the stairs, leaving Dr. LaCosta to find his own way out. Today had been a very, very long day, and I just wanted to collapse into bed and pretend the world didn’t exist.
As I reached the last step my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I groaned. Why, universe? Why can’t you let me catch just one frakkin’ break?
I slid my finger across the phone and answered it without even looking, because I was even too tired to defiantly ignore it. “Hello?”
“Nualla, I—”
“Roy?” I replied in surprise. “Did I miss some meeting? Is there some other cerem
ony I need to perform that everyone forgot to tell me about?” I said sarcastically, because I was just so frakking done with today.
“I found him,” Roy said in a breathy voice like he was jogging down stairs.
I froze, gripping the railing with my free hand. “What?”
“Alex—I found him. I know where he is.”
I Still Need You
Saturday, December 22nd and Sunday, December 23rd
NUALLA
There was a person sitting in the corner by the window, but it wasn’t the father I knew. This person’s pale, wavy blond hair was wild, his face sporting weeks’ worth of stubble, and he was dressed in an informal indigo blue and white kimono. I had never seen my dad looking so disheveled in my life, and it scared me.
Alex turned to look at me when he caught my reflection in the glass. “How did you find me?”
“Roy recognized the name,” I replied in a quiet voice. Rain beat down on the city below, so much like San Francisco, and yet, so unlike it at the same time. Washington was part of the Karalian region, but really, I had only been to Seattle a few times in my life.
“Is your mother with you?” Alex asked, looking past me.
I shook my head. “No, she stayed at home.”
“Good.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to see her?” I asked accusingly. The helpless feeling of abandonment giving way to anger.
“Because I still don’t know what I’m going to say to her,” Alex said with a heavy sigh.
“So you just ran away?!” I asked incredulously.
“Nualla—”
“Do you think this isn’t hard on the rest of us? My sister is dead. My best friend nearly died. My husband tried to kill me. And every time—” My voice cracked and I had to stop for a second, and take a deep breath.
The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) Page 26