The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) (19 page)

You Can Escape, but You Can Never Leave

Thursday, November 15th

PATRICK

I
flopped down onto my back
like I was trying to make a snow angel with the mat, and let my eyes slide closed.

I had killed a few hours camped out at a coffee shop sketching until they closed for the night. And then I’d made my way toward the Temple of Kalona in no particular hurry. It’s not like there’d be anyone waiting for me…except maybe the raven.

What are we doing here?
a voice commented from within my head.

Connor didn’t answer his phone. So it was either here or a hotel, and this option seemed far less depressing
, I answered within my head.

Hanging out in a dark empty training room is the
less
depressing option?
The voice snorted skeptically.

Hey! If I’d wanted your opinion I would have—

I sat bolt upright, finally realizing that I had been talking to the voice in my head. And that he had been talking
back
.

Aku?
I asked uncertainly within my own head.

Yes? Who the
moss
did you
think
it was?
he answered back sarcastically.

You’re talking to me.

And?

Inside my head.

Well,
duh
. How the
moss
else would I be talking to you?

Uh…
I hadn’t actually considered that.

There was the tiniest creak from above and I jerked my head up toward the sound. As I stared up into the darkness a shape materialized against the ceiling high overhead. It was perched on one of the heavy wooden beams that spanned the training room.
And
it was much larger than a raven.

Okay, I take that back about this place being empty
, Aku stated quickly.

My body tensed and I prepared to defend myself from the attack I feared was coming. But then Aku let out a relieved sigh.
Oh, it’s just Kira.

What makes you so sure?
I asked cautiously.

Aku paused for a second before he snorted out a harsh laugh.
What, you don’t trust me?

I didn’t answer as I returned my attention to the dark figure. “I know you’re there, Kira, might as well come down,” I called out, hoping to hell it actually
was
her.

Moments later the softest of sounds, like the nearly silent landing of a cat, reverberated through the mat-covered floor. And with a sigh she flopped down next to me. “How did you know it was me?” she asked sourly.

“Lucky guess,” I lied with a shrug.

Lucky guess my ass
, Aku grumbled within my head.
You’re such a liar.

Shut up.

Kira’s eyes narrowed at me suspiciously. She continued to watch me like a hawk for a long moment before she looked away and folded her arms.

“What are you doing here anyways, Ak—?” Kira stopped abruptly, catching herself.

I looked at her, and swallowed hard. “Kira?”

“What?” she answered without looking at me.

“You can…you can call me it if you like,” I offered.

“What?” she asked, finally turning her head toward me.

“
Aku
. Chan-rin still calls me that. You can too, if you like.”

She stared at me for a while, her eyes darting around my face—my eyes. Then with a sigh, she turned her head back, and looked up into the rafters. “I can see him in your eyes now. I couldn’t before, but I can now,” Kira said in a small voice that was barely above a whisper as she looked back into my eyes.

I swallowed hard. “I decided it was useless running from myself.”

Do you really mean that?
Aku asked uncertainly.

I was still for a long moment before I answered him.
Yes.
And it was the truth, because I was done running.

Kira continued to watch me curiously before she spoke. “I’m glad he’s not gone, not—”
Dead
, I finished for her in my head.

I’m right here, Kira. Even though I can’t hold you, I’m right here
, Aku said with a desperate sadness coating the words. And there was something in that desperation that frightened me.

“It’s not going to be like it was before, you know that, right?” I said suddenly. “You and me—or the part of me that was him anyways—it’s done. I may not be with Nualla right now, but someday I’ll figure out a way to get her to forgive me.”

“For
what
?” Kira asked indignantly as if the idea that I owed Nualla anything, offended her.

“He made me stab her,” I breathed through gritted teeth.

“
Who
, Aku?” Kira asked, startled.

“No,” I replied, shaking my head. I couldn’t remember his name, but his face was cut into my nightmares in crystal-clear detail. Blond wavy hair the color of honey and dark blue eyes that held an unfathomable cruelty behind them.

His name is Director E
, Aku said with loathing.

“Director E?” I repeated out loud, accidentally.

“Oh,
him
,” Kira spat, her tone echoing Aku’s.

I looked at her questioningly.

“Director E is the
mossing
jackass responsible for doing all of this to us,” Kira stated with an irritated huff.

“Oh,” I replied with a heavy breath. He might have been the person responsible for nearly every horrible thing that had happened to me in my entire life, but knowing a code name wasn’t going to get me any closer to finding him.

Or slitting his throat
, Aku added with savage cruelty.

“Director E? He didn’t have more of a name than that?” I asked Kira hopefully.

“
None
of them did,” Kira answered with an angry snort. “I think they did it on purpose so we would never know who they
really
were.”

“Probably,” I agreed, my shoulders sagging in defeat.

After a few awkward minutes of silence, Kira flopped back onto the floor. “So why
are
you here?” she asked as she turned onto her side, and propped her head on her palm.

“My brother’s on a date,” I said, staying where I was.

“
And
?”

“He might want to bring her back to the apartment,” I stated as I shifted my eyes to her.

“Well I don’t see why that—
Oh
!” Kira said, her eyebrows jumping up when she realized what I was implying.

“Yeah,” I agreed as I let my eyes wander away from her. “So, why are
you
here?”

Kira was silent for a while before she answered, “I don’t like my apartment, it’s too big.”

“Too
big
? Then why are you
here
? This place is huge!” I pointed out as I gestured around the training room.

She shrugged. “It feels like home.”

Then it hit me like a punch to the heart. The only “home” Kira had ever known was the Kakodemoss facility.

I flopped back onto the mats, staring up at the ceiling. “No place feels like home anymore,” I said miserably.

“The first few nights I slept in the bathroom, because it was…it was about the same size,” Kira admitted in a small voice.

“As what?” I asked dubiously, but even as I asked it Aku pushed memories forward in my mind.

Tiny rooms that were more like cells with barely more than a bed and a small table that acted as a nightstand. And a bathroom that was little more than a closet.

Was this really your room?
I asked him within my head.

For twelve years,
he answered with an odd tone to his voice.

“I’m sorry,” I said around the lump in my throat. We were so impossibly broken. Me. Aku. Kira. Chan-rin. We may have escaped the Kakodemoss labs, but we could never truly leave them behind. The things that had happened to us there were practically etched into our bones.

“It’s not your fault, it’s
his
. And when I eventually catch up with him, I’m going to shove a blade straight through his heart—before I chop him up into tiny little pieces,” Kira vowed with a dangerous, barely contained calm to her voice.

“Just promise you’ll leave me some, okay?”

“I’m serious,” Kira said flatly as she glared at me.

“I didn’t say you weren’t” I countered, meeting her glare.

Finally, I sighed heavily, letting all the air out of my lungs. It would have been unsettling to hear her plotting someone’s death, if I didn’t also think he deserved every horrible, pain-filled second that was coming to him.

“Look it’s really late, do you mind if I get some sleep?” I asked her.

“Not really. Do whatever you like,” Kira replied tersely with a shrug.

“Thanks,” I said as I curled onto my side and closed my eyes.

I let my breathing slow as I tried to think of anything other than
that
place. Of the sounds of shoes squeaking on the linoleum, and the distance sounds of lab equipment beeping. The tragic lullaby they had spent so much of their lives listing to as they fell asleep.

I’m sorry
, I whispered to him within my head.

He was silent for a long moment before he answered,
Just promise me you won’t send me back there.

Where? To the facility?

To that dark oblivion.

What?

When you are in control, I don’t just disappear. It’s not like falling asleep. I’m still here inside your head…forgotten.

Thats…
I really didn’t know what to say to that. It was unimaginably horrible. Like being a ghost trapped in a black hole.

I promise.

“
Aku rona kira okuno chan-rin
,” Kira whispered when I had just nearly lost consciousness.

My eyes fluttered open again, and I stared at her. Into her eyes with their silver flecks like captured moonlight. So familiar and yet so strange and foreign in the same breath.

Please say it
, Aku said with an aching sadness.

Say what?

You know what
, Aku answered as he filled my mind with a hundred tiny fragments of time all saying the same thing.

If I do will you tell me why it’s so important?

Aku was quiet for a moment before he answered,
Yes.

Okay.

Can I…can you touch her?
Aku asked hesitantly.

What?! No. Absolutely not. I’m married to someone else.

Please, just her hand
, Aku pleaded desperately within my head. And the sound of his voice was so heartbreaking I finally gave in.

“
Aku rona kira okuno chan-rin
,” I echoed after a moment, reaching out to hook my finger around Kira’s pinky.

She looked at me with wide eyes for a moment before tears began to swim in her eyes. “He’s in there, isn’t he?”

Yes, Kira I’m here
, Aku said with such sadness.

“Yes.”

A barely contained sob escaped her lips. She reached out toward me with her other hand, her fingers nearly touching my cheek when she stopped.

“Why didn’t you come save us, Aku? I waited for so, so long and you never came,” she asked accusingly, her eyes becoming glassy.

The night we were going to escape they captured me, Kira. They took me to the Machanta room. They made me…

Made you what?

Made me you.

“It’s my fault,” I said slowly, realizing that the reason that Aku had never rescued Kira and Chan-rin was because he had been trapped inside my mind.

“What?” Kira asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

“The reason Aku never came, is because he was me,” I admitted, the horror of it all hitting me like a punch in the chest.

Kira’s head jerked back as if I had slapped her. Her eyes welling with tears. And I knew that look, because I had seen it in Nualla’s eyes.

Betrayal.

Kira angrily turned her back on me. Wrapping her arms tightly around herself so I wouldn’t notice she was crying.