The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) (23 page)

Black Friday

Friday, November 23rd

PATRICK

I
t seemed like it was
going to be a pretty quiet training day at the Temple of Kalona until I stepped out of the locker room and the head of a dummy rolled into my foot.

My eyes darted up quickly to see Parker standing before the now headless dummy, breathing heavy, a real
katana
in her hand.

“Gods, remind me never to piss you off,” I said as I looked at the decapitated head of the dummy at my feet.

That goes double for me
, Aku said within my head. I was getting more used to hearing his voice there, but it was still beyond weird.

Parker looked up at me, her eyes a bit red like she had been crying. Then she looked back at the headless practice dummy, and sheathed her
katana
.

I took a step forward, and then paused. It felt very much like I was walking in on something private.

Ask her if she wants a match.

Excuse me?
I asked Aku incredulously.

Trust me.

I sighed inwardly and looked at Parker. “Could you use someone who’d be a better sparring opponent than that now headless dummy?”

Parker looked away from me, then back. “I guess.”

See
, Aku said smugly.

Shut up.

About five minutes into the match I could tell Parker’s heart really wasn’t in it. And eventually she stopped, the point of her
bokken
lowering to rest on the floor.

“Do you think I’m a monster?” she asked in a quiet voice, her eyes fixed on the mats.

“Not any more than I am,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh as I lowered my
bokken
. During that first group meeting and training session of the Warriors of Kalo, Kiskei had pulled me, Shawn, and Kira aside to explain Parker’s “unique” situation.

At my answer, Parker breathed in sharply, sounding like she might burst into tears at any second.

“Parker, are you—?”

“Your brother can be a real idiot sometimes,” she stated with a sniffle.

I froze. They had had a…
fight
? Why hadn’t Travis said anything? Or
had
he, and I had just been too distracted to pay attention. Had I been so wrapped up in my own stuff that I had missed it?
Probably.
Suddenly I felt like the worst brother ever.

“He loves you, you know,” I blurted out.

She looked up at me, her eyes glassy. “Does he?”

Of
course
he does, a blind lab rat could see that
, Aku stated snarkily within my head.

“Definitely,” I said, ignoring him. “I mean, I haven’t known him as long as—as some others, but I’m almost one hundred percent sure he—”

Parker sniffled again, and a trickle of dark red blood started snaking its way toward her upper lip. Darker than blood normally was. So dark it was almost black.

Parker looked up when I didn’t continue, her brow furrowing. “What?”

“Your nose is bleeding,” I stated as I stared at her in alarm.

“
Godsdammit
, again?” Parker huffed in irritation as she drew her forearm across her face. Which only succeeded in smearing a line of blood across her cheek.

No
, Aku said breathlessly.

“Does that happen a lot?” I asked with concern. There was something about the blood that was unsettlingly familiar in a way that made my heart race with fear.

“No, just today,” Parker grumbled as she wiped the blood from her arm onto her black
hakama
pants.

She sniffled again, but the blood wouldn’t be stopped. It flowed down in a snaking line to the crest of her upper lip before veering off to the left and continuing down her face. As the stream of blood reached the edge of her jaw, my heart started to beat frantically.

Oh gods, no, not again. Please not again. I don’t want to see this again
, Aku whimpered within my head. And I could nearly feel him trying to bury himself further down in my subconscious. Trying to block out what was happening in front of me.

I reached out a shaking hand toward Parker, the familiarity of what was happening thundering toward me. The panic and fear reaching me before the memories. “Maybe you should have Kiskei check—”

“It’s fine!” Parker shouted angrily as she stormed past me toward the ladies locker room. But she only made it a few steps before the
bokken
slipped from her hand, and she crumpled to the floor.

I rushed toward her. “Parker, are you okay?! But she wasn’t
okay
. Not in the least. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, and she had began to convulse violently.

“Parker!” I called out as I dropped to my knees next to her, but she didn’t answer. I could only stare at her in horror as a trickle of blood started to leak from the corner of her mouth.

Aku, what’s wrong with her?
I asked him frantically.

He didn’t answer, but a barrage of fractured images flashed through my mind like a broken flip book.

An Indian boy dropping to the ground as if his body no longer possessed bones. So much blackened blood pouring out of his mouth and nose that it ran down the steps of a white linoleum stairs, pulling bits of dust along with it. His body twitching and flopping around like a fish out of water. Bloodshot, lifeless eyes staring out. The same blackened blood snaking down his face like tears.

I looked back at Parker, at how similar to the boy in the memories she looked in this moment.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.

I couldn’t let this happen. Parker was important to Travis. Hell, I was pretty sure he was in
love
with her, and I couldn’t let another person he loved be taken from him. Not one—not again. Not if I had any way to prevent it.

Aku, what do I do?
I asked in a panic.

He didn’t answer.

AKU!

Help! Get help!
Aku shouted back hysterically the end of it managing to crack even though he used no real voice to speak.

Without a moment’s hesitation I leapt up quickly, and bolted for the guys locker room. I skidded on the tiled floor as I rounded the corner, and practically dove for my locker. I flung the door open, and fished my phone out of my jeans pocket. I dialed
9-1
and then stopped as the horrible realization that I couldn’t call them for help hit me.

We weren’t
human
. We couldn’t go to a
human
emergency room. And I had absolutely no idea what
our
emergency number was.

Cursing, I shoved the phone into the waistband of my boxers and ran back out into the training room. Parker was still writhing around on the floor, and now blood was pouring out of her mouth in earnest.

I lifted her up, cradling her in my arms, and walked as quickly as I dared out of the temple. When I reached the street I searched frantically in both directions. Nymphaea wasn’t a heavily trafficked street so I walked quickly down toward Geary. When I reached the corner, I frantically scanned the traffic flowing down the street in both directions searching for bright yellow. The place was a madhouse of cars and holiday shoppers because it was Black Friday.

“Oh
fucking
perfect!” I cursed under my breath.

I leaned out into traffic as much as I dared with Parker clutched tightly in my arms, and tried desperately to get the attention of a passing cab. What seemed like an eternity later, one glided to a halt at the curb next to me.

I got into the taxi and the driver took one look at us—at the blood covering Parker’s face and the exposed portion of her chest. “Hey, she’s hurt,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Yes, I
know
that. Now take us to the corner of Battery and Clay street,” I said in a panicked rush as I pulled the cab door shut and looked back at him expectantly.

“I’m not taking you anywhere but a hospital,” the taxi driver stated firmly.

“We
are
taking her to the hospital,” I countered.

“There isn’t a hospital on the corner of Battery and Clay. The nearest one is—”

I threw every bit of influence and illusion I could at him and screamed, “Just take us to the corner of Battery and Clay!”

The driver looked back at me for one stunned moment before his eyes glazed over and he turned around. “Sure thing kids. Hey, do you think the Giants are going to win the World Series next season?”

I ignored his question and let him babble on about sports as I tried to situate Parker in a way that she wouldn’t choke on her own blood.

Aku?
He didn’t respond.
Aku, please
, I pleaded.

Yes?
he asked in a small, trembling voice.

What happened to that guy, the one you showed me?

He didn’t answer.

Aku, I need to know. Please.

He died
, Aku answered in a heart broken whisper.

Breaking Promises

Friday, November 23rd

TRAVIS

P
atrick was gone again. He
had said he was going to the mall with Connor, but I knew he wasn’t. That it was a lie. Because he wasn’t
at
the mall. In fact, according to the program, he wasn’t
anywhere
.

I had felt like the worst brother in the world when I turned on the tracker program and saw that he was headed toward the Japantown Mall. But the feeling had faded when he veered away from the mall, and then disappeared from the map altogether.

I had only turned the program on once before, that night he had run off after I’d told him I had slept with Nualla. But even then the same thing had happened, he had moved toward the mall before disappearing from the map. I had trusted him so explicitly that it had never occurred to me to even question where he went or what he did while I was at work all day.

I fought the urge to get in the car, and track him down. Find out
exactly
where he was going. Find out how he was disabling his tracker bracelet without setting off the alarms. I looked down, and realized I was turning the tiny flash drive I had found under the couch over and over again in my fingers like I had with the ring. A nervous habit I hadn’t been able to kick.

I stared down at it, at the strange triple spiraling symbol marking its surface. I had seen it somewhere before—the symbol. I just couldn’t seem to remember
where
.

My phone buzzed on the coffee table in front of me, and I dove for it, in case it was Parker. But it wasn’t Parker, it was Patrick.

I slid my finger across the screen, and snapped angrily into the phone, “Patrick, where the hell are—?”

“Travis, get down to the hospital quick,” Patrick said in a panicked, breathy voice.

My heart squeezed, the anger dissipating like a broken water balloon. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Parker—she’s… I don’t know what’s wrong with her—but…but she’s coughing up blood.”

My heart squeezed tighter, and I bolted for the door.

I didn’t know how bad Parker was, they had already taken her into the ICU by the time I got there. But based on the fact that Patrick’s clothing had been replaced with a set of medical scrubs, it didn’t look good.

“What happened?” I asked even though I was terrified of the answer. Terrified he had had a mental break, and hurt her.

“She collapsed,” he stated in a slightly numb voice.

“
How
?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, one minute she was walking toward the—one minute she was walking away from me with a nose bleed, and the next she was on the floor convulsing.”

My heart felt like someone had it in a death grip before slamming it into a wall.

“Where were the two of you?” I demanded, the strangeness of the two of them hanging out somewhere twisting my stomach into knots.

Patrick looked up at me with panicked eyes.

“You haven’t been hanging out with Connor everyday, and I know it,” I stated accusingly. “So please, just tell me where you’ve been going.” I was tired, so very tired, of all the lies.

A wash of pain cloaked Patrick’s eyes. “Travis, I can’t—”

“She’s
dying
, Patrick!” I shouted as I gestured toward the ICU. “The girl I love is
dying
! So don’t
even
try to shrug me off and lie to me. Because nothing—and I mean
nothing
—could be that fucking important to justify lying to me right now!”

“You don’t understand, I
can’t
tell you,” Patrick countered with regret, and anguish coating his voice. And I was done. So very, very done with this all.

I wanted to punch something, but hitting a wall wasn’t going to get me the answers I craved so desperately. Gods, what I hated more than anything, was
this
feeling. The feeling that I was completely and utterly helpless.

I slumped back against the wall as I slid down it to a heap on the floor. “I can’t lose one more person, I just
can’t
. So please, I’m
begging
you, if you know anything, just tell me,” I pleaded until my lungs ran out of air.

Patrick was quiet for a long moment before he crouched down next to me. I looked up into his sad eyes as angry, frustrated tears started to spill down my cheeks.

After a moment or two, Patrick blew air out in a huff, and ran his hand back through his hair. “Come with me.”

“What?” I asked a bit caught off guard.

“You wanted answers, right? So come with me right now,” he said as he stood.

PATRICK

“W
hat happened to Parker?” Travis
asked the second we were in the little alcove which had probably once held payphones, but now only held a ficus I was pretty sure was fake.

I was about to break the one secret I had sworn to carry to my grave. And even though it was Travis, I still felt like I was trying to swallow a mouthful of ash as I answered, “We were training. And she just collapsed.”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “Training? Training for
what
?”

I sucked in a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
Gods, forgive me.

“Travis, I’m an Amurai, or at least I will be when I take the oath,” I stated in a quiet, serious voice.

Travis looked unbelievably angry for a moment like he thought I was fucking with him before both of his eyebrows shot up. He took another serious look at me—at the lotus key hanging from my neck on a chain. “No…you can’t seriously be… It’s not possible,” he stammered in disbelief.

And then he took a quick swipe at me. But he might as well have been standing still for all the good it did. I could see it in his face the moment the thought to strike, had entered his mind. Saw the tension in his muscles before he moved. He swung wide, and when he didn’t make contact with me he fell to his knees.

Travis sat there for one stunned moment before his eyes darted up to mine. “But if you’re Amurai, and you and Parker were training, that means she’s a—”

“You two need to come with me, right
now
,” someone growled from next to us.

My blood ran cold, and I looked up. “Kiskei, I—”

“
NOW
!”