The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) (22 page)

Like a Dog with a Bone

Wednesday, November 21st

TRAVIS

“W
hen they bring you down,
drag you through the ground, I can pick you up…” I sang as I bopped my head along with the Nightcore music pumping out of the iPhone radio dock sitting on the kitchen counter.

There was a knock at my front door. Probably Patrick forgetting his keys again.

“Door’s open,” I called out as I pushed the stir-fry across the skillet. I looked over my shoulder toward the door. “Dinner’s almost—” the person wasn’t Patrick.

“
Parker
?” I choked out in shock.

“You’re cooking?” she stated with arched eyebrows.

“Well yeah, that is generally how one makes dinner,” I said with a nervous laugh. Parker hadn’t actually been back to my apartment since the morning we had…taken a shower together.

“It smells amazing!” she said as she crossed the apartment, coming into the kitchen to stand next to me.

“You don’t have to sound so shocked.”

“I’ve never met a guy who cooked,” Parker said, her eyes still wide with surprise.

“Kiskei doesn’t cook?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Not unless you consider burning boxed mac and cheese ‘cooking,’” Parker stated with a snort.

“Well, unless I want this to burn, I do have to get back to it,” I said apologetically as I jerked my head toward the food.

“By all means, don’t let me get in the way.”

Parker, you are the right kind of in the way
, I mercifully didn’t say out loud.

“Seriously, is there anything you
aren’t
good at?” Parker asked in wonder as she watched me.

“Singing. Well, according to
Patrick,
anyways.”

“I know one other thing you do
very
well,” Parker said as she leaned close to my ear, her warm breath stirring my hair as her hands slid across my skin to encircle my waist.

I shuddered uncontrollably, the skillet clattering against the glass surface of the stove top. “Are you reading my mind again?” I asked jokingly as I moved the skillet off the burner, but my laugh came off a little too nervous.

“Maybe I liked what I found there,” she said coyly as I turned to face her. Parker looked up at me with large beautiful eyes, and I had to remember how to breathe.

“Hi,” I said stupidly.

“Hi,” Parker replied, a grin spreading across her lips.

“If I had known you were coming, I would have made more food,” I offered apologetically.

Parker reached past me, sticking the tip of her finger into the food. “It’s okay, we can share,” she said before popping her finger into her mouth suggestively.

I swallowed hard. “Is teasing me one of your favorite pastimes?”

“It is now?” she answered with a mischievous grin.

I reached out quickly, and pulled her to me. Wrapping my arms tightly around her, and kissing her neck until she started to giggle.

“Stop it!” Parker squealed, pushing me away playfully.

“Nope.”

“But it tickles!” she whined.

“I know,” I countered, a grin spreading across my lips. “But you like it.”

Parker glared at me playfully, because she knew I was right.

I slowly brought my hand up to trace the edge of her jaw before running it down her lips. I leaned forward to kiss her lips, but at the last moment, kissed her nose instead.

“Who’s teasing whom now?” Parker said, her hands on her hips.

“Turn about is fair play,” I said with mock seriousness.

She stuck her tongue out at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

I brushed a piece of hair away from her cheek, and let my fingers trail down her neck, catching my pinky on the chain of her necklace. “You got a new chain.”

“I had to.
You
broke the last one, and I couldn’t walk around without it,” Parker said, poking me in the chest.

“Where’d you get it?” I asked as I looked closer at the pendant. It wasn’t a Daenarian pendant. Instead, it was surprisingly the pendant of Kalona.

Parker pulled it out of my hand, and took a step away from me. “Why does it matter?”

“Because Tylia found a bunch similar to it on the black market and it made me wonder where you got yours,” I replied with a shrug, trying to play it like I really didn’t care too much. But it was more or less a lie since the pendant had been second in my thoughts since Friday, right after her.

“Not from the black market, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Parker stated, an edge creeping into her voice.

“I didn’t think you did, that’s why I was wondering where you got it.”

“Someone made it for me,” Parker replied defensively.

“Really? Who?”

“Why do you care who?”

“Because I do, okay? Why won’t you just tell me?” I said, starting to get a little irritated at how evasive she was being.

Parker just stared back at me, and it hit me like a punch to the gut. A panicked uncertainty, masked thinly with defensive anger.

“You don’t trust me,” I stated in disbelief. “After all we’ve been through you still don’t trust me, and you’re the one who’s—”

“A monster?” she spat savagely, looking ready to strike out at me.

“
What
?! No! Parker, I would never call you that.”

“But it’s what you’re thinking isn’t it? That I’m just like those people that killed your parents, because of what I am.”

“No, I was going to say, ‘you’re the one who’s keeping secrets.’ Though it’s nice to know you think so highly of me,” I countered, folding my arms across my chest.

Parker glared at me, her bottom lip quivering slightly before she snapped, “You know what? I don’t need this. I’m leaving!” And then she turned on her heel, and stormed toward the front door.

“
Good
!” I shouted back. “Maybe you should go hang out with whoever gave you that thing!”

“I can’t, he’s dead!” Parker snapped back angrily as she reached for the doorknob.

I probably should have stopped then, but I was stupid and I didn’t.

“Well, maybe if he wasn’t making things for the black market he wouldn’t have ended up
dead
!”

“It was your father, you jackass!” Parker shouted, whipping back around to face me.

I just stared at her, frozen. “What?”

“It was your father who designed this device,” Parker answered, breathing heavy.

“Why on earth would my father create something like that?” I asked in confusion.

She just looked at me, the anger draining away along with the color in her face. “You don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” I asked, my heart thumping so hard against my chest I could hear it in my ears.

She didn’t answer, just continued to stare at me open-mouthed like she had made a horrible mistake.

“Parker,
what
don’t I know?”

She shook her head in a jerky motion before she turned and bolted out the door.

I ran to catch up with her. “Parker!” I called after her down the hall, but she was already gone.

I probably would have just stood there for a while, but I caught sight of one of my neighbors coming up the hall, and quickly shut my front door. I leaned against the door and slid down until I was sitting on the floor. The realization that I had just had a screaming match with Parker starting to sink in.

What did I just do?
I groaned inwardly as I put my head in my hands.
You royally frakked up, Travis, that’s what you just did.

As I pushed my hands back through my hair, and looked up I noticed something glinting from under the couch. Curiosity getting the better of me, I crawled across the floor and stuck my hand out to pull it toward me. It was a tiny bit of metal, no bigger than the first joint of my finger.

“What are you?” I asked the piece of metal as I ran my finger over the strange triple spiraling symbol marking its surface. The three spirals joined at one end and what looked like an Egyptian lotus on the other end of each, with more lines spiraling around the whole.

I stood up slowly and walked across the room, dropping down onto the couch. I continued to study the piece of metal before I tentatively pushed my finger against the side of it. The inside section of the bit of metal spun outward.

“Huh?” I breathed, cocking my head to one side.
A micro flash drive?

I looked to the other side of the coffee table where Patrick had left his tablet. With a shrug I pulled the tablet toward me, and popped the micro drive into the port. A strange symbol appeared on the screen briefly—too fast for me to process what it was—and then the screen went black. About when I was considering pulling the flash drive back out, a message in light gray typed across the screen.

It is only through this that we shall prevail.

A cursor flashed
|
below it, patiently waiting for my answer.

“Well, how the fuck should
I
know,” I said indignantly to the tablet.

I tapped my foot impatiently on the floor at I looked at the question. Crooking my mouth to the side, I typed in the first thing that came to mind.

determination

The tablet made a horrible popping sound before it sparked and the screen went black. I just stared at it in disbelief as a thin trail of smoke drifted up from the tablet.

“Well
fuck
,” I breathed out as the front door slammed shut.

“Hey, sorry I’m late. Is dinner—” Patrick stopped abruptly when he saw me. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Uh… Come on, we’re going to the computer store,” I said quickly as I jumped up from the couch.

“Why?” Patrick asked, startled.

“Because I owe you a new tablet,” I replied as I grabbed my car keys off the front mail table, and my bomber jacket from the hook.

“What happened to my last one?!” Patrick asked as his eyes darted to the coffee table.

“It had a system failure,” I replied, slipping on my jacket.

Patrick looked at me skeptically as he folded his arms across his chest. “Did you
cause
said system failure?”

“You could say that,” I admitted with a grimace as I walked out the door.

The Tangled Webs We Weave

Thursday, November 22nd

NUALLA

T
hanksgiving was probably the most
depressing thing yet.

The house was usually filled with festive music, the delicious smells of baking dishes, and loud conversation. This year, it was just me and Nikki sitting alone in a suddenly way-too-large dining room. A huge turkey sitting between us on the table along with a variety of dishes that had also been delivered.

When I was considering just taking a stab at the turkey myself since I was fairly certain my dad wasn’t going to
magically
show up and cut it like he had every year of my life, the doorbell rang.

I stood up quickly, and rushed toward the door. But as I reached it, I realized he wouldn’t be ringing the doorbell of his own house. The realization of that was so sudden and harsh it crushed the air from my lungs. So when I pulled the door open I just kinda stared at the figures on the other side of the threshold.

I blinked at Roy and Shawn for a moment before I was able to find my voice. “I’m surprised you came.”

“And miss Loraly’s famous pumpkin bread?” Roy stated with playful dubiousness. “Of course we came.”

“Loraly didn’t make pumpkin bread. Or
anything
for that matter,” I said flatly. “Really, you’ll be lucky if she even comes downstairs,” I said as I turned, and walked back toward the dining room.

I felt a weird numbness creeping through my chest as I slumped back into my chair across from Nikki at the dining table.

Shawn took an empty chair next to Nikki, and Roy the one on the other side of him. Shawn gave Nikki a look, but she only shook her head in response.

Roy looked at the empty chairs, then back at me. “Where is Skye?”

I focused on the turkey so I wouldn’t have to look into his eyes. “With Kira.”

“Oh.”

Loraly. Alex. Skye. Draya. Emmy. Travis. Patrick.

Kira.

There were twelve empty chairs at the dining table. Eight of which should have been full.

Yep, officially the worst Thanksgiving ever.

TRAVIS

“P
atrick, the turkey’s here!”
I shouted as I placed the delivery bags on the kitchen counter.

He didn’t answer.

“
Hellooo
, Earth to Patrick, the food’s here!” I called out again.

Still nothing.

I was about to call out a third time when a phone buzzed on the table. I dashed over and picked it up quickly, thinking it might be Parker. It wasn’t until I was staring at the text message that I realized it wasn’t even my phone, but Patrick’s.

Today 5:19 pm

Connor Beckman

Thanks for that tip on that dude.

I was about to just put the phone back down when part of the text conversation caught my attention.

Fri, November 16, 11:02 am

Connor Beckman

Hey man, sorry I missed your call yesterday. What did you need?

Patrick Galathea

Nothing. Forget about it.

Connor Beckman

Oh ok. Hey, want to go with me to the MOMA?

I froze, nearly dropping the phone. They were talking about the night I had gone out with Parker. The night Patrick had said he was going to see a movie
with
Connor. The night he had apparently
not
seen a movie with Connor. He had lied to me.

Again
.

I set the phone down on the table. They were all keeping secrets from me—all three of them. But why? Was it because of my new title? My position? My personality? What was it? What was it about me that made everyone close to me need to keep secrets? And had they
always
been keeping things from me, or was this…new?

As I walked down the hallway I tried to pretend it didn’t sting as much as it did.

I poked my head into Patrick’s room and stopped dead. It looked like a truck of paper products had exploded. Sketches covered nearly every inch of the walls, desk, floor, and a good portion of the futon bed. And there was Patrick in the center of the disaster. Sketching away, a small smile on his face as his foot tapped along with the music pumping through his ear-buds.

I just stood there watching him. He was drawing. And he was…
smiling
? I didn’t think I had seen him smile—
truly
smile—since the day of their wedding.

As if he sensed someone watching, he stopped tapping his foot and turned toward me abruptly. “Hey, Travis, what’s up?” he asked as he pulled the ear-buds free of his ears.

I jabbed a thumb in the direction of the rarely used four-person dining table that was between the kitchen and the living room. “The food’s here.”

“Awesome, I’m starving,” he announced as he stood and stretched, the sketch book tumbling to the floor. He passed by me with a spring in his step as he walked down the hallway.

I watched him for one more disconcerted moment before my eyes darted back to the room. I had no earthly clue what to think about his sudden mood change or the art store hurricane like state of his bedroom. But I wanted so badly to believe that it was a good thing.

I let my eyes trace the room. I couldn’t make sense of most of it, but I did see the same symbol make an appearance quite a lot. It and a few words in Daemotic were repeated over and over again, but mostly the pages were made up of frantic sketchy drawings. Almost like he couldn’t move his hand fast enough to capture the ideas.

I gave the room one more long look before I turned and walked back to the kitchen.

As I dropped into a seat across from him, Patrick reached for a still-steaming roll.

“Uh, so how was the movie?” I asked as I spooned some corn onto my plate.

“What movie?” he asked between bites.

I paused before continuing to spoon side dishes onto my plate. “The anime one you went to see with Connor?”

“It was actually pretty okay,” he lied without missing a beat.

“What was it about?” I asked as I put the serving spoon down.

Patrick’s fork froze part of the way to his mouth and he looked at me. He shoved the turkey into mouth, chewed it, and then swallowed before answering. “It was about secrets.”