The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) (31 page)

Astari Tahara

Monday, December 24th

TRAVIS

“I
hope you know that since
you’re dead, I’m going to drink this myself,” I informed the stone grave marker as I sat down cross-legged in front of it. The Galathea family shrine was the largest and most impressive of all of the eight-sided, gazebo-like, black structures in the Kalodaemon cemetery in Marin, and the final resting place of one Emily Inaba Galathea. A girl with a dangerous sense of fashion and a mischievous attitude that I had always known simply as Emmy. “Though, I will leave your flask when I’m done.”

The cemetery was virtually empty as it usually was on this day. But soon, octagonal wooden lanterns would be hung from each of the curving edges of the shrines. With their beads like fallen stars. And on the thirty-first, come rain or shine, this whole place would be packed to the brim with picnicking families enjoying lunch together and burning messages to their ancestors. But today it was just me, the groundskeepers, and probably a ghost or two.

Astari Tahara—the star festival—was one of the biggest festivals in Kalodaemon culture. Which was also why when I was nine, I had asked to be allowed to come on Christmas Eve instead. Because me and large crowds…well…
yeah
…

I sat there in silence for a while in front of Emmy’s grave sipping from her flask before I said, “So I’m going to be a dad. Yeah, bet you never expected me to say that, huh?” And then the words just continued to spill out. About Nualla and Patrick. About how I had almost died. About how frustrated I was not to have all the answers. About how I was one hundred percent sure that Parker, and not Nualla, was my One.

“I’m going to ask her again—to marry me. Properly this time,” I said as I flicked the ring on its chain so it spun like a top. “Not sure
how
exactly yet, but…”

I slipped the ring back into my jacket pocket, and looked back at the grave marker. And then I picked up the flask, held it toward the marker, “To the stars,” and tipped the remaining alcohol down my throat.

I set the now empty flask down, and pulled the long strip of special, highly flammable pale grayish-blue paper from my pocket. I read over the message one more time before I folded the long paper strip into a star.

I was the one who released hundreds of crickets in your room.

That kiss wasn’t as bad as I let on.

I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.

Two truths and a lie—one of Emmy’s favorite games. One I would have given anything in the world to play with her just one more time.

I sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly until there was no air left in my lungs, and then I pulled the lighter and the package of sparklers from my pocket. I pulled one of the sparklers free from the others and slid it through the loop at the back of the metal lotus dish that rested in front of each grave, and then I dropped the paper star in. “Goodbye, Emmy. You were the friend I never knew I needed,” I said as I lit the end of the sparkler.

“Come on, Patrick, where are you?” I grumbled aloud as I checked my phone. He had promised to be here, so for once I wouldn’t have to do this alone. But he wasn’t here, and no matter how many times I looked, it still showed the same thing—no missed calls.

I stood in front of the eight-sided shrine that held every member of my family since we had first come to San Francisco some hundred and fifty years ago. Everyone, except me and Patrick.

There was probably something truly screwed up about the fact that I insisted on doing this on Christmas Eve, but this was the night I had lost them. The night we had stopped being a family. So while everyone was celebrating, I was always alone. Remembering what it was like to have a family.

My phone buzzed, and my eyes darted back down to it.

Today 5:12 pm

Shawn Vallen

Hey have you seen Nikki?

Travis Centrina

No sorry I haven’t.

Shawn Vallen

Oh ok

Travis Centrina

Have you seen Patrick?

Shawn Vallen

No

Travis Centrina

K

I slipped my phone back into my coat pocket. I just couldn’t put this off any longer. It would be past sunset soon, and I didn’t want to be here in the dark. And so with a heavy sigh, I entered the shrine, and kneeled in front of the metal lotus cups. I pulled two strips of the special paper from my pocket and folded them into stars just like the one I had made for Emmy. All the messages I had sent to my parents had pretty much been the same since that first year.
I’m still here, and you’re still not.
And this year wasn’t any different.

I performed the same paper and sparkler ritual I had every year since I was six, and then I looked up at the grave markers. There was so much I wanted to say to them. So much fighting its way up my throat to be heard, but the only thing I could manage to get past before my throat closed up was, “I found him.”

‘Twas the Night before Christmas

Monday, December 24th

TRAVIS

I
stared at the pictures in
the darkness as the tears slipped down my face. It was that day again—that night—the anniversary of that night that I had lost everything. And once again, I was alone. It was Christmas Eve and I was spending it alone…
again
.

I reached over and picked my phone off the bed, holding it above my face, blocking my view of the pictures. But even as I stared at the screen I knew what I was going to find.

No missed calls.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and hit the buttons to call him, because I had given up calling
her
.

And it rang.

And rang.

And rang.

And went to voicemail.

PATRICK

A
soft buzzing reverberated in the
distance. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, but the noise just continued. Finally I opened my eyes and looked around in the darkness, searching for the source of the noise. And that’s when I realized it was my phone.

I sighed and slipped out from under Nualla. Slowly, so her head fell gently onto the pillow. Then I made my way as silently as I could across the bedroom, and crouched down to dig through my pants pockets. Pulling it out, I looked down at the screen. Eight missed calls, all from Travis. And a text from Shawn,
Have you seen Nikki?

Great.

The phone started buzzing again in my hands, and I slid my finger across the screen to answer it.

“Travis?” I whispered into the phone.

“Where are you?” he asked unsteadily on the other end of the line. And even though he hadn’t slurred any of his words I knew he was a bit drunk.

“Um…” I looked toward Nualla—who was still out cold—and picked up a robe from a nearby chair. “Give me a second,” I whispered into the phone before I slipped on the robe, and crept quietly out of the bedroom.

“Where
are
you?” Travis asked a little more forcefully.

“Why, did I forget we were doing something?” I replied a bit taken aback by the harshness in his voice.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he stated flatly.

“
And
—oh
gods,
Travis, I’m sorry,” I groaned. Christmas Eve, the night our parents had died. The night I had promised to spend with Travis so he wouldn’t be alone.

“You’ve got like thirty minutes before midnight. You could probably still make it,” he pointed out unenthusiastically, his voice devoid of hope.

I felt sick. He needed me—probably more than he ever had before—but so did
she
. And I was going to have to choose between them.

“I can’t leave,” I said miserably as I squeezed my eyes shut, and put my head in my hand.

“
Why
?” Travis snapped, hurt coating the word like tar covered in broken glass.

I let out a heavy sigh. “I’m at a hotel…with Nualla,” I answered in a weary voice, because I could already tell this wasn’t going to be a short conversation, and I was beyond fucking tired.

“
What
?!” Travis yelped into the phone and I clamped my hand over it—my eyes darting to the bedroom door. If anyone needed a goodnight’s sleep more desperately than me, it was Nualla.

I slipped out of the hotel suite into the deserted hallway, and leaned against the wall.

“Did you just say you were at a
hotel
?” Travis asked in disbelief.

“Yep,” I replied as I let my eyes slide shut.

“With
Nualla
?”

“Yep.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re both…
okay
?” Travis asked uneasily as if he was certain that someone was trying to trick him.

I looked toward the hotel suite door. “No, actually we’re far from it. But being that she’s currently asleep in the same bed I just got out of, I’d say yeah, we’re getting there.”

There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line that sounded like wind over an open bottle. “Well thank Daenara
one
of our lives is on an upswing,” Travis said sarcastically.

I froze, my heart starting to pick up pace. “What did you
do
, Travis?”

“I asked Parker to marry me,” he answered, an odd quality to his voice.

“Oh!
Really
?” I said, my eyebrows shooting up in surprise. I had known that he was head-over-heels for her—I’d have been blind not to notice—but still, this seemed a little…sudden.

“She didn’t say yes. But then again, she also didn’t say no, either,” Travis admitted in a babbling rush.

“What
did
she say, Travis?”

“She threw a pillow at me, and screamed at me to get out of her apartment,” Travis answered miserably.

That didn’t make sense. I was almost one hundred percent positive that Parker adored him. So why would she— And then it hit me. There were only two reasons to rush a wedding and I doubted it was because he had accidentally drunkenly married her in Vegas only to find out it wasn’t legal.

“Is Parker
pregnant
?” I asked in a stunned, low voice that was barely above a whisper.

He was silent for so long after my question I almost thought my phone had lost signal. “
Yeah
…” he finally admitted in a low breathless voice.

“Wow! Just,
wow
.” I ran my hand back through my hair as I processed the implications.

“Yeah.”

“So you’re going to be a dad?” I pointed out. This was huge. No wonder he had been a little distracted, and stressed the last time I had seen him.

“Um…
maybe
,” Travis mumbled into the phone.

Wait,
what
?

“What do you mean
maybe
?” I asked in a slight panic. Was something wrong with the baby? Had the mutated virus done something to damage—?

“Currently Parker won’t even answer her door, let alone return my calls,” Travis clarified miserably.

“Oh,” I said on a heavy breath, letting all the air out of my lungs.

“
And
I have absolutely no idea what to do,” he admitted, sounding utterly defeated.

“Have you tried confessing how much of a fucking idiot you’ve been while on your knees in the pouring rain?” I asked as I recalled my practically disastrous proposal to Nualla on Valentines Day.

“What?”

“Never mind,” I answered with a sigh. “I’m probably
not
the best person to be giving you advice on relationships, you know,” I pointed out. Really, between the two of us, I wasn’t sure who had a worse track record when it came to relationships.

“If I had anyone else to ask, I would, but you’re really all I’ve got. Well, you and Nualla, and she just kinda screamed at me that I was an idiot.” The end of his statement sounded a bit muffled and I was pretty sure he had just buried his head in his arms or something.

“Funny, she did the same thing to me,” I said with a self-deprecating smirk as I remembered the day Nualla had realized our first wedding wasn’t legal. I had been under-aged, and like a complete idiot, I had kept it from her.

“
So
glad it’s not just me,” Travis said with a mirthless snort.

“Well she
does
yell at you the most.”

“Thanks, ‘cause that makes me feel
so
much better.” Travis said flatly.

I sighed, we were getting off topic.

I ran my hand over my face as I slid down the wall to the floor. “Look, Travis, the only way Parker’s going to forgive you is if you prove to her just how sorry you are that you fucked up.”

“I’ve
tried
,” Travis whined. “I’ve left her dozens of messages, but I’m pretty sure she’s just deleting them.”

“Do you know
exactly
why she’s pissed at you?”

“
Maybe
…” Travis answered uncertainly.

“Did she start screaming at you
before
or
after
you proposed to her?” I asked as I traced the patterns in the hallway carpet with my finger.

“After.”

“Well then, she’s
definitely
not pissed that you knocked her up. Well, she
might
be, but I’m fairly certain it’s because of the other thing you did.”

“Other thing?” Travis asked and I could hear something—probably his bed frame—creak.

“Your apparently less-than-stellar proposal,” I clarified as I continued tracing the carpet pattern.

“Oh,
that
,” Travis said with a groan and there was another creak, probably from him flopping back down.

“Yeah
that
,” I agreed as I rolled my eyes. “How
did
you ask her exactly?

“She was crying and she’d just found out that she was pregnant and I just kinda panicked.”

I stopped tracing the pattern and my mouth kinda dropped open in disbelief. “
Seriously
?”

“Seriously.”

“And you’re surprised that she threw things at you?”

“
So
not helping, Patrick,” Travis said flatly.

“Okay, okay, sorry,” I said as I ran my hand down my face again. Apparently he was even worse at this than I was, and that was saying a lot.

“You need to think about why you’d pick
her
over every other girl in the world and—”

“Because she’s my One,” Travis stated firmly, cutting me off.

“Yeah, I gathered
that
,” I said sarcastically. “But does
she
know that? Like, have you actually ever
said
it to her?”

There was a long pause before Travis answered, “No…I mean I started to, but then I kinda got distracted.”

“By
what
?” I asked incredulously.

“Um well her…um… You know what, never mind,” Travis mumbled quickly in an uneven voice.

“
Okay
… Well then you need to tell her, Travis. Because that’s the only way that this is gonna get better.” Because keeping secrets—even well-intentioned secrets—was never the right answer. In fact, usually it was the exact thing that fucked your life up.

“But
how
? How do I tell her that the thought of being without her makes me want to walk into traffic?” Travis confessed with anguish. And that one statement alone told me that he was most definitely in love with Parker. And I wanted more than anything to help him—to have the perfect solution that would fix everything. But I didn’t.

“I don’t have an answer for you. That’s something you’re going to have to figure out for yourself,” I said in a weary voice, because I felt so utterly useless. “But whatever you decide to do, you better do it fast, because the clock is ticking. You only have like what, eight months?”

“Actually it’s more like six.”

My eyes shot open wide. “
What
?! Parker’s three months pregnant?!”

“What?! No, of
course
not,” Travis yelped and then seemed to realize something. “Oh…um, of course you wouldn’t know that.” He let out a heavy breath and then clarified, “You see, with humans it’s nine months, but with us, it’s only seven.”

“Oh, that’s um…cool,” I said uneasily. Even with Aku’s memories daily adding themselves to mine, there was still so much that I didn’t know about daemons. About myself.

“You don’t have to pretend it’s not weird, I can only imagine what it must be like…”

“It’s beyond weird sometimes, but I’m okay,” I said, thinking about how I basically had another person living within my mind.

“
Really
?” Travis asked, skepticism heavy in his voice.

“Travis, you need to stop worrying about everyone else in the world for a second, and just work on
you
and
Parker
. Because I know you, if you let her slip through your fingers you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.”

Travis was quiet for a long time before he finally let out a heavy sigh. “Look, I should probably go. But…thanks.”

“For what, basically telling you you’re screwed?” I asked wryly.

“For picking up the phone.” He paused for a moment before he added, “For being there.”

And then I realized that aside from Nualla and maybe Emmy, Travis hadn’t had anyone.

“I’ll always be here,” I promised around the lump forming in my throat.

Travis made a sound as if he was about to say something and then changed his mind. “Well, I should let you get back to…sleep.”

“Are you implying I wasn’t sleeping just now?” I asked with mock outrage to mask the tears stinging my eyes.

“I’m not
implying
anything. And I really,
really
don’t want to know what you two were doing.
Ever
,” Travis said vehemently.

I leaned my head back against the wall, and let my eyes slide shut. “I
was
sleeping, actually.”

“Don’t care.”

I sighed in playful exasperation. “Well,
you
should stop drinking and get some sleep, too. You look like crap when you don’t get enough sleep.”