The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) (38 page)

Tempting Fate

Tuesday, January 1st

TRAVIS

“Y
ou have to tell Kiskei,”
Akiko said stubbornly.

I didn’t answer.

“
Travis
.”

“Fine,” I relented with a huff as I pushed the button to connect me to his com. “Kiskei?”

“What, Travis,” Kiskei replied in a low, quiet voice.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and blew out a heavy breath. “Just a heads up, Shawn’s on his way in.”

There was a pause as his heart rate spiked on the large monitor display in front of us, and then Kiskei said, “Because someone needed backup or because you couldn’t manage him?”

“I’ve never been very good at giving orders,” I stated flatly.

“Or following them, apparently.”

I let the anger blow past me unhindered.
Later, you can always punch him for that later.

“Akiko?” Kiskei said with slight irritation.

“Yes, Kaptaya?” she replied into the microphone on her headset.

“If he gets any
more
bright ideas,” Kiskei said sarcastically, “you tranq him.”

“It will be my pleasure,” she stated as she rested her hand on the TranqGun on the desk in front of her.

The Kakodemoss facility was a series of seemingly endless sterile white corridors which were boring as frak to stare at. Until, that is, half the team’s cameras suddenly went out.

I sat up quickly and hit the comm button corresponding to the first camera that was now throwing back a blank blue screen.

“Damian?” I asked in a rush, my heart starting to pick up pace.

“Yeah?” he replied back in a slightly bored voice.

“How’s your area?”

“Really bloody empty,” he replied with what sounded like disappointment. “Why?”

“Because half the camera feeds just cut out and yours was one of them.”

He snorted out a laugh. “Well, isn’t
that
grand.”

“Yeah…well if you need any backup in your location, just let us know.”

“Sure,
sahavi
.”

I commed the next two in the series of broken camera feeds—Simon and Kira—and they both reported back nothing of interest, though Kira’s vitals did spike a few times, but I figured that had more to do with her being back at the facility than anything else. So I moved my hand over to connect the next direct link and paused—this one was Parker’s. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then I pushed the button.

“Parker, how’s your…how’s your area?” I asked in an uneven voice—this was actually the first time I had spoken to Parker since I had seen her at the Temple of Kalona.

“Surprisingly clear,” Parker answered in a low voice. “Why?”

“Because a few of the cameras suddenly blue screened, and yours was one of them.”

“Oh,” she said after a moment. There was an odd quality to her voice as she said it that made my heart beat unevenly.

“Look, Parker, I—”

“Really not a good time for this, Travis,” Parker replied, the irritation in her voice making her posh British accent more prominent.

Skye’ words echoed in my head. “Well, when exactly
would
be a good time, Parker? Because I’d really like to know,” I said a little more harshly than I’d intended.

Akiko shot me a look, but I ignored her.

“How about when I’m not in the middle of a bloody mission,
youuugh
—” Parker snapped back, her words cutting off into a garble of grunts, loud bangs, and then static.

“Parker?” I said quickly, my heart beating a frantic rhythm in my chest, as I looked at her spiking vitals.

She didn’t answer.

“PARKER!” I shouted into the microphone, but only static answered me. I stared at the display in front of me as her vitals spiked and then flatlined. I turned quickly to Akiko. “What the fuck just happened?!”

“What just happened—” Akiko said as she pushed a button that stopped the static. “—is that her system just went offline.”

“Offline? What does offline mean?!” I asked a bit hysterically.

“That they’re blocking her signal somehow. Or that her headset has been damaged, or…”

“Or,
what
, Akiko?!”

Akiko didn’t answer. And that’s when I realized what the third option was.

Akiko slid her headset off her ears and back onto her horns, and then she finally saw my expression. “
Oh
, no. Oh, no, no, no. You are
not
going out there,” Akiko said quickly.

“But she could be in trouble!” I pleaded.

“And that’s
precisely
what she’s been training her whole life to deal with.”

“But—”

“No way in
hell
, Travis,” she stated firmly.

“But Shawn went in after Nikki,” I countered as I gestured toward the door of the Bus.

“Because
you
let him!” Akiko pointed out indignantly.

“Well
you
didn’t stop him,” I shouted back.

“Because Shawn at least
has
some damn training. I mean gods, Travis, have you ever even fired a gun before? Because from what I hear, you are shit with a
katana
.”

That brought me up short. I didn’t want to admit to her that the only gun I had ever held was a video game controller, or a Super Soaker. “Akiko, I
have
to go,” I stated defiantly as I placed my headset on the table in front of us.

“No, you don’t,” Akiko countered, equally defiant. “You let her do her job, and you do yours.”

“I’m going,” I stated as I stood.

“Travis Centrina, do
not
make me tranq and hog-tie you, because I will,” Akiko threatened as she got up and followed me.

“I would
love
to see you do that,” I mumbled sarcastically as I reached for one of the remaining digital headsets on the shelf.

“You can’t just go running off because your girlfriend—”

“She’s not just my girlfriend,” I said as I slid the digital headset over my eyes and pushed the button.

“Fine, your
One
,” Akiko continued with an exasperated huff. “Regardless, Travis, I can’t just let you—”

She grabbed my wrist as I reached for one of the holsters, and I whipped around to face her. “She’s carrying my child!”

Both of Akiko’s eyebrows shot up, and her mouth dropped open. “Did you just say what I think you said?”

“Probably,” I replied, swallowing hard. I hadn’t meant to say it, it had just slipped out of my mouth.

“Parker is
pregnant
?” Akiko asked, the look of complete and utter shock still plastered on her face.

“Yes.”

“And it’s
yours
?”

“Yes.”

A bark of a laugh burst from Akiko’s lips as she released her hold on my wrist. “Oh, I
really
don’t want to be either of you when Kiskei finds out.”

“That makes two of us,” I agreed with a heavy sigh. I hadn’t meant to admit it to her, but there really wasn’t a point in lying. The truth was going to come out as soon as Parker started showing anyways.

Still giving me a you’re-so-fucked look, Akiko reached past me and pulled a holster from the weapons wall, and slapped it into my hand.

“You’re not going to stop me?” I asked suspiciously.

“Kiskei is going to kill you the moment he finds out you knocked up his daughter. So I figure either way, it’s your funeral.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said flatly as I strapped the holster around my hips.

“I
did
warn you,” Akiko said with an amused smirk as she walked back to the operations station.

I pushed a clip into the TranqGun. “Yeah, well, some things are worth walking through fire for.”

I looked over at Akiko, all amusement had left her face. “Let’s just hope you don’t burn for this, then.”

And that’s when what I was about to do hit me like a punch to the gut. That there was a very real chance this time that I wouldn’t make it back out alive.

I shoved the TranqGun into its holster as I walked back over to the operations station. I scrawled a message onto a piece of paper, and then I held it out to Akiko. Her eyes looked dangerously uncertain.

“Look, if I…if I don’t make it back I want you to replace me as the Director of Technical Research and Development.”

“We are not talking about this, it’s bad luck,” Akiko said in a toneless voice.

“Probably,” I answered wryly. “But look, this code will get you into everything. Every file and system I’ve ever made. Just read it to KARA and you’re in.”

Akiko looked at me a moment before she looked down at the piece of paper, and took it.

Her brow furrowed as she read it. “This is a date.”

“It is,” I agreed as I walked toward the door of the Bus.

“Why January, 8th 1997?” Akiko asked uncertainly as if her desire to not know and her curiosity were fighting for dominance.

I just smiled at her weakly as I turned, and stepped off of the Bus. January, 8th 1997 wasn’t a date that would be on record anywhere but in my heart. Because January, 8th 1997 was the day I met Nualla. That day so long ago in that hall when a little girl hadn’t let a broken and damaged boy chase her away. The day when our lives had converged. The day we started down the path that had lead us to today. The day I had become Travis Centrina.

PATRICK

I
had skidded around the corner
just as the officers had opened fire. A tranq dart whizzing past just shy of my shoulder. And then I had bolted down the corridor, running as fast as I could with Nikki in my arms. She was more awkward to carry than Nualla, mainly because she was about three inches taller and thus only three inches shorter than me. And if I hadn’t been an Amurai, I doubted I would have had the strength to carry her.

I had continued to zigzag through the facility until I was certain I had lost them, and then I had just continued running. But now I was hopelessly lost myself.

Where the hell are you going?
Aku shouted within my head.

Fuck if I know!
I shouted back.

I darted through a doorway only to realize that I was in the cafeteria. And that a shootout of some kind had recently taken place there. Casings littered the floor along with overturned tables, benches, and the bodies of a few facility officers. Though if they were tranqed or dead, I didn’t know.

As I took in the aftermath of the battle, I heard the
click
of a gun. Turning slowly to the right, I saw someone I was pretty sure was Shawn, leaning up against the wall, a TranqGun aimed at me.

“Hey,” I said slowly, swallowing hard.

“Hey,” he echoed, the sound coming out drowsily and muffled through the black fabric mask that covered his face just below his eyes. “Are you,
you
?” he asked, the TranqGun still firmly fixed on me.

I looked at him a moment longer before I looked down at Nikki, and then back at him. “Yeah.”

He let out an exhausted sigh, finally lowering the TranqGun, and pulled the mask down around his neck. “Good, because I really didn’t want to shoot you.”

I stepped into Shawn’s little fort of overturned tables, and set Nikki down carefully against the wall next to him. As I released her, her head slid across the wall until it rested on Shawn’s shoulder.

He looked at her for a moment before he asked. “Is she hurt?”

“Sick, I think.” And I hoped to the gods I was right.

He nodded once slowly, and then pressed his lips to her head, his eyes sliding closed.

As I watched him, I realized he was dressed in a uniform that was similar to the Protectorate—tight black pants, black knee-high boots, long black cut-resistant undersleeves, and a black kimono top—except that it also had a wide hood and an Eastern-style cuirass adorned with an intricately embroidered dark gray lotus on it. He also had a black obi sash, but instead of around his waist it was tied tightly across the middle of his ribs. And that’s when I realized that Shawn had been shot.

“Shawn, you’re bleeding!” I said as I looked at the damp spot on the obi.

Shawn’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked at me and then down at his torso. “Not so much anymore, that bullet just grazed me,” he said as he touched his ribs. “Luckily the one that got me in the leg was a tranq,” he continued, his speech getting a tiny bit slower with each word.

I looked down at the small snagged hole in his left pants leg that I had overlooked before.

“I can’t move my legs,” he said as he noticed me staring.