I could feel Aku’s anger boiling up, mixing with my own and overtaking the pain so there was nothing left of us but a seething pillar of unbridled rage.
“I’m going to kill you now,” Aku stated, a deadly edge to his voice like a titanium tipped blade.
“I made you too good a warrior to ever doubt that you would do otherwise,” Eskel said as he stared unflinchingly back at us through the reflection of the dark screen. And then his eyes slid shut.
We had him. We finally had him. All those years he had done all those horrific things to me—to Aku—and now we finally had him. I could feel Aku’s rush of emotions like an approaching hurricane. The almost sickening desire to slide the blade across Eskel’s throat. To watch the acidy green blood pour down the front of his pristinely white sherwani coat like rain. And I reached out gladly to let the emotions sweep over me, but something—something in the back of my mind was screaming a warning.
Why isn’t he resisting? I asked suddenly.
Because he had to have known that it would someday end like this, Aku answered with a strange, twisted glee.
Maybe… I agreed reluctantly, but even as I did, I realized something was off. Eskel was as ruthless as he was cruel, but no one in their right mind would just stand by waiting to die. Not unless—
No, Aku, stop! Something’s not right! I cried out frantically as I tried to regain control of my body.
Stop fighting me, Patrick! He deserves to die! The bastard deserves to—
Eskel’s body arched suddenly toward the blade as he took what was nearly his last breath. The deadly sharp blade of the titanium wakizashi slicing a line as thin as the edge of a sheet of paper across the crease of his neck.
Parakalo makara Nikkollas mai Chan, someone pleaded inside my mind. A familiar voice. A voice that had been a constant companion within my head for years. A voice I would have known anywhere.
And Aku froze. Patrick? he asked uncertainly within my head.
I think you and I both know that wasn’t me, I replied.
And he had to know it wasn’t me. That it was Nikkollas, because these memories—these memories of that voice—were his, long before they had ever been mine. But even if we hadn’t recognized the voice, it was the simple hopeless plea cloaked in anguish—Please forgive me my One—that gave it away.
Aku didn’t retract the blade in case it was a trick. “Nikkollas?” he asked cautiously.
The person sucked in a startled breath of air, and his eyes flashed open. He turned slowly—careful to avoid slitting his own throat—and looked over his shoulder at us. And then he raised his hands slowly, to show he wasn’t a threat, but Aku didn’t let down his guard for a second.
“Aku?” Nikkollas asked in a hesitant voice. Both of his hands went slowly to the pendant at his throat and he turned it, his hands shaking uncontrollably. His image shimmered and blurred and became someone else. Someone I recognized. Sure, he was a bit older, and the expression in his blue eyes looked haunted and deeply weary, but I was sure it was him. My parent’s friend. Nikkollas Varrook. Nikk.
It’s Nikk! I shouted within my head.
Are you sure? Aku asked guardedly.
Of course, we’ve seen his picture a dozen times. He was my—our parent’s friend.
I hope you’re certain, Aku said reluctantly as he finally lowered the blade.
I am, I said with slightly more confidence then I felt.
Nikk looked more closely at the blade, recognizing something we hadn’t, and relief spread across his face. “They’re here, aren’t they?” he asked, shining hope filled his eyes. “Josh and Mi, they’re finally coming.”
“They’re not coming,” Aku stated in a dead voice.
I wanted to throw up, because the sick, horrible truth of it had finally settled in like a noose around my throat. Eskel had been using the chip to control Nikkollas in the same way he had controlled us. Only worse, because Nikk had been waiting for a rescue that would never come. Because most of the people he had been waiting for were dead.
“That’s an Amurai blade, I’d recognize that type of hilt anywhere,” Nikk countered confidently.
“The Amurai are here…” Aku answered before swallowing hard. “Just not them.”
Nikk looked at Aku skeptically. “There’s no way Kiskei could have convinced them not to—”
“They’re dead,” Aku said in a strange, detached voice that didn’t sound like mine.
“How do you know?” Nikk asked distrustfully before his eyes filled with horror. “Did you kill them, Aku? Did they make you kill them?”
Aku shook our head. “I didn’t kill them.”
Nikk’s brow furrowed. “Than how do you—?”
“I know because I’m also Patrick Centrina-Galathea and they were my parents.”
Far Worse than Any Lie
Tuesday, January 1st
PATRICK
Nikk stared in stunned disbelief. “What did you say?”
“I am Aku, but I am also Patrick Centrina-Galathea,” Aku stated with the same emotionless calm.
Nikk just continued to stare at us in horror as if his deepest, darkest nightmares were becoming real before his eyes.
“Look, eh—” Aku’s hands shot up to our head. The wakizashi hitting the floor with a loud clang that was swallowed up by the shrieking sound of the Machanta. Without the rage acting as a shield, the sickening pain from the feedback was overwhelming.
“How is it not bothering you?” Aku asked as we crumpled to the floor unable to hold the pain at bay.
“That’s a very good question,” Nikk said as he looked over at the Machanta.
Aku could barely keep our eyes open anymore. The last thing we saw before they closed for good was Nikk kicking over what was left of the Machanta.
As I regained consciousness, I tried to move my hand, but nothing happened. I tried to move it again.
Still nothing.
And then I started to panic.
I can’t move! I shouted inside my head, because my lips refused to form the words.
Patrick, Aku said gently.
I’m—I’m trapped in here! I have no control over my body, and I’m trapped in here!
PATRICK! Aku shouted. Calm down.
Calm down?! I repeated incredulously. How can you tell me to calm down?! I can’t move my body!
I know, Aku said with a sigh.
That brought me up short. Does that mean that…
I don’t know, he admitted in a tired voice. I don’t know what any of this means, but I do know one thing.
And what’s that? I said, too frightened even to be sarcastic.
That we should probably figure this out after we get out of here. I mean maybe you forgot, but we still are basically in the center of this mossing hell hole.
I was silent for a moment before I answered. Oh, yeah, right.
“Aku?” Nikk asked uncertainly. “What’s wrong?”
“Patrick was having a panic attack,” Aku answered with a wince as he massaged our head with his left hand.
Nikk’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s in your head?”
Aku nodded, running the hand down our face.
“Right now?”
Aku nodded again.
“And you can talk to him?” Nikk asked in disbelief, and Aku looked over at him again.
“Yes.”
“That’s fascinating,” Nikk breathed, cocking his head to one side with interest.
Aku clicked the button on the pommel of the wakizashi so the scabbard slid out and over the blade. Then he leaned heavily on it as he struggled to his feet. And I began to feel his weariness. Felt the toll that coming this close to the Machanta while it had been screeching in that horrible high-pitched keening tone, had taken on us.
Aku took a few unsteady steps forward, and then looked Nikk dead in the eye. “Whatever you do,” Aku stated in a steely voice, “never say that to me again,” he finished before walking past Nikk, and back into the corridor.
TRAVIS
I made it to the nearest corridor intersection before I realized that there was no way in hell we were going to make it outside.
My eyes darted around the corridors, searching. Nearly all the doors were open because of the power outage. All but one with a keypad, and a lever handle.
I walked slowly over to the door, my breathing already severely labored. And then I stopped.
“I need to set you down for a second,” I said as I shifted Parker in my arms. “Just stand on your good leg.
“Why? What are you doing?”
“I’m not gonna make it as far as we need to go to get out. So we’re going to hide out until help comes,” I answered as I set her down as gently as I could.
I put my hand on the door lever and pushed, hoping like hell that it had unlocked along with the others. That it was filled with something helpful, something that would keep us safe. An armory, a lab of chemicals, a—
As the door fell open I wanted to laugh. The room on the other side of the door was a narrow filing storage room, no wider than maybe eight feet at best. Floor to ceiling cabinets lining the two long walls and a small narrow window was in the center of the wall opposite the door. The Kakodemoss had created such evil—was capable of such horrific atrocities—and yet, the only thing they felt they needed to hide behind a security door were files.
With a bitter, slightly unhinged bark of a laugh, I wrapped my arm around Parker’s waist. Pulling her tightly to my side as I helped her slowly forward.
Once she was resting comfortably on the floor, I walked back to the door. The large banks of filing cabinets stopped a few feet short of the door and would be way too heavy to move. However, there was a smaller filing cabinet to the right of the door.
I wedged myself between the smaller filing cabinet and the wall and slammed my good shoulder into it until it started to scrape against the floor. I pushed the filing cabinet until it finally slid in front of the door, and then collapsed against it. The blood loss already starting to make everything blur in and out of focus.
“Akiko?” I called out softly as I touched the comm by my ear.
“You’re still alive?” Akiko asked, her voice sounding odd, and uneven through the comm.
“Apparently I’m much harder to kill than I look,” I said with a self-deprecating smile.
“Well that’s good, considering you look about as tough as a six-foot tall teddy bear,” Akiko replied sarcastically.
I let out a short laugh that cut off in a wince of pain as I untied my obi sash.
“I’m going to turn off my system for a bit,” I informed her as I started to unlace my cuirass before my fingers got too numb to manage it.
“Are you crazy?!”
“Maybe, I am loosing quite a bit of blood,” I said with clenched teeth as I lifted the piece of armor over my head.
“Travis…what happened?” Akiko asked in an uncertain voice.
“Someone tried to take my head off with a katana,” I answered as I folded my sleeve back so it covered my shoulder. “’Course she missed, or I wouldn’t be talking to you right now,” I said with a mirthless laugh as I placed the center of the obi on my injured shoulder, then looped one end around the other in a loose knot. “Anyways, I’d rather not have an audience for what I’m about to do next if you don’t mind.”
“Travis, don’t you dare turn off that—!” Akiko threatened.
“Just send someone our way when you get a chance,” I said over her before I turned off the headset. And then I pulled the two ends of the obi.
The pain of it almost brought me to my knees and as it was I bit my lip until I tasted blood just so I wouldn’t scream.
When the black circles stopped flashing in front of my eyes, I swallowed down the blood, and staggered toward Parker.
PATRICK
We moved through the facility, Nikk and Aku, and me still within my own head. Nikk had turned the illusion back on in case we ran into trouble, but he wasn’t nearly as good an actor as Aku was.
I was still unbelievably freaked out to not be in control of my own body. But Aku was right; first we needed to get out of here alive. And preferably still in one piece.
Aku peered around the edge of the open doorway into the inky darkness. The frigid winter wind blowing icy drops of rain into our face as he scanned the mostly deserted street for Kakodemoss agents. The absence of lights in the city turning the buildings into a strange and foreign mountain range of black cliffs against the winter clouds moving quickly across the sky. He sucked in a deep breath of air, and let it out slowly. And I could feel it racing through our body, the exhilaration of finally making it to the outside. Of finally reaching that happy ending after nearly four years of nightmares. Freedom.
Aku stared out into the night until the panic of it being snatched away quieted, and then he turned back toward Nikk. “Well, there doesn’t seem to be anyone out there. But I wouldn’t let down my guard if I were—”
A katana blade swung toward Nikk, and Aku shoved him out of the way without a second’s thought. And it wasn’t until the blade made contact with our side that I finally realized that we weren’t wearing armor of any kind.
“Patrick?” Kira asked with huge eyes.
Aku sucked in a sharp breath and Shawn’s wakizashi slipped from our fingers.
“What’s wrong with you?!” Kira shouted at me incredulously. “I could have killed you!”
Aku continued to suck in short gasps of air as he slumped against the wall. Pressing our hands to the wound to stanch the bleeding. But it was too late, the blood just leaked through our fingers in scarlet rivers.
“Moss, Kira! You think I don’t know that?” Aku cursed as he looked up at her. “But I couldn’t just let you kill him.”
Kira’s mouth fell open in stunned shock. “Aku?”
“At the moment,” Aku grunted through gritted teeth.
“But—but how?” Kira sputtered, clearly caught off guard by the sudden re-emergence of Aku.
“Can we do this some other time?” Aku replied with a grimace as he pressed his hands harder into our left side. “Like after we get out of here?”
Kira looked down at the blood, and swallowed hard. “Right.” Then her eyes darted back to Nikk who was just standing there curling his fingers in and out, one at a time. Almost as if the fact that he could move his body was something strange and foreign to him. And then I realized, with a nauseating twist in my stomach, it probably was.
“So why don’t you want me to kill him?” Kira asked as she eyed Nikk uncertainly.
“Because he’s not him,” Aku stated firmly, then winced.
“Excuse me?” Kira asked dubiously with arched eyebrows.
“Kira, he’s not what you think. Director E—Eskel—he was controlling Nikkollas in the same way he controlled us. Wearing him like a mossing suit of armor.”
“What?” Kira breathed as her eyes darted from Aku to Nikk. “This is Nikkollas?!” she asked incredulously. “How can he be Nikkollas?”
“Don’t you see? Eskel was never even here. He didn’t have to be. Not when he could control our minds. Make us into his own personal puppets,” Aku stated with seething hatred before he nodded toward Nikk.
Nikk’s eyes darted around the corridor before he turned the outer ring of the pendant clockwise. Nikk’s image blurred again before settling on his true self.
Kira just continued to stare at Nikk, dumbfounded. But as the realization sunk in, her shoulders began to sag in utter defeat. She—both of them—had clearly wanted revenge more than they had probably wanted
anything. And to have it snatched away so cruelly—to realize the person you had spent so much of your life hating was just as much a victim as you were—must have been devastating.
“Well, since he clearly isn’t Director E, who the moss is this guy?” Kira asked bitterly. Her eyes glassy with the threat of frustrated tears. “Another Marked One experiment like us?”
“Nikkollas Varrook,” Aku answered. And it was something in the way he said the words that told me that he had decided to say the rest of it, even though he knew it would probably break her heart. Because she deserved to know. Because not knowing the truth was far worse than any lie. “Your father.”
All I Ever Wanted
Tuesday, January 1st
TRAVIS
“Why did you say no?” I asked Parker as I stared at her with unfocused eyes. We had been hiding out in the filling storage room for gods-only-knew how long, and my mind was getting a bit hazy.
“What?” Parker asked, her eyes sliding open.
“When I asked you to marry me, why did you say no?” I clarified as I tried to get my eyes to focus on her.
Parker looked at me in disbelief, her eyebrows shooting up. “You want to do this now?”
“It’s not like we’re going anywhere anytime soon,” I pointed out as I gestured to our currently injured states.
Parker looked at me for a moment longer before she looked away. “Because I knew you were only asking me because of…because you had to.”
“Parker, I’m not settling for you. I’m choosing you,” I said with slight exasperation as I pulled the chain from under my black kimono top.
“What is that?” Parker asked as she stared at the ring dangling from the chain around my neck.
“A ring.”
“I can see that it’s a ring. I’m asking why it’s around your neck?”
The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) Page 39