Daemons in the Mist (The Marked Ones Trilogy: Book One) (17 page)

23

In over My Head

Sunday, January 22nd

PATRICK

T
he truth sat there on the screen, burning a hole into me.

I was fucked. I mean royally, totally, fucked. My marriage to Nualla wasn’t and had never been legal. And worse of all, no one in Nualla’s family had figured that out yet. Then something even worse occurred to me; I was a dead man. I was pretty sure that if the Grand Council found out I wasn’t legally married to Nualla they would have me executed. This was bad; this was
way
beyond bad.

And so as a normal, rational teenager, I did the first thing you do when you realize you’ve just royally screwed up. You curse really loudly, and then call your best friend.

Connor picked up on the second ring sounding distracted. “What’s up, Patrick?”

“I’m fucked,” I answered, leaning back in my chair and swinging it back and forth.

“How so?” That got his full attention. When I fucked up, I usually did it spectacularly.

“I majorly fucked up and—”

“Patrick, what on
earth
is the matter?” my mom asked from behind me.

I turned around to see her standing in the doorway of my room. I had been listening to music and had not even heard her come home.
Crap
, I needed a lie quick; I sorted through possible reasons why someone would yell expletives. “Nothing Mom, I just whacked my knee on my desk.”

“Oh, okay.”

I couldn’t really have the conversation with Connor I had intended on having, with my mother within earshot. I needed to get out of here. So I did the next thing you normally do when you’re a teenager who has just screwed up. I lied through my teeth. “Hey Mom, I’m gonna run to the convenience store, okay?”

“Alright, but don’t be out too late, it’s a Sunday,” she said in a typical motherly fashion, which coming from her, was a tad weird.

“No problem,” I said with the most reassuring voice I could muster. As she walked away, I whispered into the phone. “Meet me at the store in ten, ‘kay?”

“But it’s Sunday. The store is closed on Sundays,” Connor pointed out in a confused voice.

“Yes I
know
Connor, but does your
mother
know that?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“Well probably not, but—”

“It’s not even eight, Connor. Your mom won’t care if you go one block down the damn street,” I spat into the phone as quietly as I could.

“Good point. See you in ten,” Connor said quickly before hanging up the phone.

I took a deep breath as I descended the stairs. My mother had gone back to watching TV and probably wouldn’t notice how wound up I looked. Still, I tried to exit my house as casually as possible.

A little over ten minutes later I walked up to find Connor leaning up against the wall in front of the closed store. He pushed off from the wall as I arrived. “So what
exactly
did you fuck up this time? Last time I checked your life was looking peachy.”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you,” I said sourly, leaning my head against the cold wall of the building behind me. “I just realized something tonight I should have realized a fucking week ago.”

“What?” Connor asked curiously.

“That my marriage to Nualla wasn’t legal,” I admitted with complete despair.

Connor looked confused. “Wait, how was it not—
oh
, right ‘cause your birthday’s not till next month.”

“Exactly,” I said, closing my eyes. I couldn’t believe I had been this stupid.

“So just tell her. If she didn’t really want to marry you, she’s off the hook. And if she
did
want to marry you, then you can just marry her again in a month. Girls love weddings.”

“I can’t.”

“Patrick—”

“No, I mean I
can’t
tell her,” I said, looking at Connor.

“Why?” he asked, looking confused.

“It’s…complicated,” I answered, avoiding his eyes.

“What is it, her family or something?”

“No, they know.”

“Your family?” Connor asked, arching his eyebrows.

“No, there’s no way in
hell
I would tell them about this. But no, that’s not it.”

“Then
what
?” Connor asked, sounding exasperated.

I opened my mouth to answer then realized I couldn’t tell him the truth. If I did, they would have to kill him. As it was, they would probably have to kill
me
. I was going to have to lie. And I really sucked at lying,
especially
to people who actually knew me as well as Connor did.

I slammed my head back against the building and stared up at the cloudy sky. It would probably start raining any minute, and I had left my umbrella at home.

Great,
just
great.

I settled for a believable lie, if I strayed too far from the truth he would spot it. “She’s everything I’ve ever wanted and now that I have her I…I don’t want to lose her.” I looked back over at him. “I’m afraid that if she knew the truth she wouldn’t have a reason to be with me anymore.” It wasn’t a total lie, but I hoped it would fool Connor.

“Dude, why do you think she wouldn’t want to be with you?” Connor asked, looking genuinely concerned for my mental state.

I pushed off the wall and practically yelled, “Have you
seen
her? She’s gorgeous and smart and…and perfect. And there’s no way a guy like me gets
this
lucky twice.” I leaned back against the wall again, dejected. Even
I
was starting to believe my own lie. But it hadn’t really been a hard sell; why would she want to be with someone like me in the first place when she could have anyone?

I slid down the wall to sit on the ground. Seconds passed in silence and sure enough, big fat drops started to fall from the sky.

Finally Connor spoke. “Patrick—man you are
way
too hard on yourself.”

He had believed the lie, hook, line, and sinker. But I guess it was easy to lie when it was mostly based on the truth. Aside from the supernatural stuff and my impending death what I had said had been the truth, really.

“You know you have to tell her, right?” Connor said, his hands in his pockets.

“I know. I’m just not ready yet,” I answered as I looked away from him back down the street. “I just want to stay in this dream as long as I can.” Even if it
was
a hopeless dream.

After a few minutes of silence, Connor looked at his phone. “Look Patrick, I have to get back and finish that paper for Miss Desborne’s class. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I lied. It was starting to rain in earnest now.

“You sure?” he asked mostly unconvinced.

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow, ‘kay?”

“‘Kay,” he said reluctantly, and then he turned and ran back down Mission Street.

Eventually I got up and started my walk back home, but not before I was soaked to the bone. I felt worse than I had before, if that was possible.

24

Hiding Lies with a Smile

Wednesday, February 8th

NUALLA

O
ver the next two weeks we fell into an easy routine as if it had always been that way. We spent all the time we could together at school and all eight of us had lunch together mostly without incident—
mostly
. Jenny still looked like she wished I’d just fall off the face of the Earth, and Beatrice still hadn’t gotten the message that Shawn was
so
taken already.

Michael, true to his word, was now completely ignoring me as if there had never been anything between us in the first place—like someone had flipped a switch in his brain. Maybe Penelope really
had
been his One, and he had been too arrogant to see it until I was taken out of the equation. Whatever the reason, it was nice to not have to worry about him suddenly pushing me up against lockers, but it was also very weird.

And Patrick was…Patrick; warm and kind and funny and self-deprecating at times. But I could also tell that something was really bothering him. I could see it there in his eyes; he was hiding something, or more likely not telling me something. I could see it eating at him, but I didn’t know how to pry the truth out of him. And I didn’t know his friends well enough to get it out of them either—if he had even told them in the first place.

Originally, I had decided I needed to be patient and wait for him to just tell me. However, “patience” was not something I did well, so instead I devised a plan. I was going to take Patrick somewhere he would think was beyond awesome; somewhere humans really didn’t get to go. But to pull it off I needed Travis’ help, which meant a trip to The Embassy.

Sixth period had let out, and we had all converged in the main floor entry hall.

“Hey Patrick, I need to go somewhere after school so…” I said in a voice I hoped sounded nonchalant.

“No problem, it’s a Wednesday anyways,” he said with a huge grin, or at least as big as they got lately.

“Wednesday?” I asked a little confused, and then I remembered. “Oh right, you and Connor’s thing.” Some boys hung out and played video games or watched football. These two hung out at a Japanese mall and watched anime on Saturday nights. “Okay, well, see you tomorrow,” I said before I gave him a kiss.

I started to walk away, but he called out, taking a few steps toward me. “Hey wait, what about the pictures? They came in today.”

“Can you just pick them up and give me mine tomorrow?” I asked over my shoulder.

“Sure,” he answered with a small dazed smile, the kind he usually had after I kissed him.

And then I left him there and went off to work on my devious plan. Okay, it really wasn’t
that
devious. No, wait, it totally was.

PATRICK

A
fter Nualla left, Connor and I headed over to the student office to pick up our Winter Ball photos. The crowd was huge since they had just arrived, but it didn’t take us too long to get to the front.

“Name?” the student behind the counter asked without looking up at me.

“Patrick Connolly.”

The guy flipped though the photo packs until he pulled out one. He looked at it briefly before his eyebrows shot up. He looked at me. “Oh you’re
that
dude.”

“What dude?” I asked, getting a little concerned.

“The one who’s with Nualla Galathea.”

“Yeah, I’m her boyfriend,” I said a little defensively.

“Lucky you,” he said as he handed me the photos.

You have no idea how lucky I feel dude,
trust
me.

I moved away from the line and looked down at the photos. I stopped dead in the middle of the hall and just stared at the us in the pictures. For some reason, that fact that I was with Nualla hadn’t felt as real as it did now. Like it was a dream I was going to someday wake up from, but the pictures made it fact. I looked okay in the pictures, but Nualla looked like a silver screen goddess. These were
so
going up on Facebook when I got home.

“I still can’t believe you actually ended up with her,” Connor said, looking over my shoulder. “I know you’ve been infatuated with her since Freshman year, but I never thought in a million years that you would
actually
end up with her.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Thanks Connor, your confidence in me is overwhelming,” I said sarcastically.

“Hey man, you can’t tell me you honestly thought it would ever happen.”

I looked back at the packet of photos. “No, you’re right, I didn’t.”

“So you want to see mine and Sara’s?”

I turned to look at him. “You went with Sara?”

“Yeah, what planet were
you
on? We even saw you guys there.” He looked upset for a second before his expression turned to a mischievous grin. “Oh, I know what planet you were on; Planet Nualla,” he said in a teasing voice.

“I am not on Planet Nualla,” I said flatly.

“No dude, you
totally
are,” he said, laughing.

“Am
not
.”

“So how is it on Planet Nualla?”

“Don’t make me hurt you Connor,” I threatened, glaring at him.

“Dude
please
, you would have to catch me first.”

“You don’t think I can?” I said, folding my arms.

“Are you going to even try?” Connor asked, raising an eyebrow and preparing to run.

I looked at him for a while before I gave up. “Naw, let’s just go to the mall.”

“Will we be going there in your spaceship, Explorer Connolly?”

“Seriously Connor, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to punch you.”