TRAVIS
Nualla was standing next to my car. Her head tipped up into the rain, letting it wash over her face like she didn’t give a frak.
“What the hell was that back there, Nualla?” I shouted at her when I was only a few feet away. “I asked you to come here because I needed your help. Not because I wanted someone to yell at me.”
She turned fierce eyes on me, and for a moment she reminded me of Emmy. Of the day of her and Patrick’s wedding when me and Emmy had screamed at each other in the hall. And the pain deep in my chest that that realization caused just made me even more angry. Because that fight was one of the last conversations I had had with Emmy before she died.
“Well, you needed someone to yell at you. Gods, Travis, how could you be so reckless?!”
“Because for once in my life I just went with it, okay? Just let go, and tried not to think so damned much!”
“Well apparently not thinking worked out brilliantly,” Nualla sneered sarcastically as she folded her arms under her chest.
“Hey, it made sense at the time,” I stated unapologetically.
“That’s the worst reasoning ever!”
“Oh, like you’ve got your head screwed on straight.”
“What are you insinuating?” Nualla asked as she took a step back, stunned hurt in her eyes.
“Something’s bothering you, and you won’t even fucking talk about it,” I accused, jabbing a finger to her breast bone.
Nualla stared me down for a moment before she turned her head away with a huff. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh you don’t, do you?” I replied dubiously. “What about lunch a few weeks ago, or when you made me stay over. Or hell, when I had to come pick you up from that Halloween party because you were hysterical and Shawn and Nikki didn’t know what the frak to do with you!”
“I wasn’t feeling good, okay? So just get off my back!”
She tried to push past me, but I grabbed her wrist.
“Nualla, you’re scaring us all! So will you please just tell me what’s wrong?” I shouted at her because I was scared. She had been acting weird and erratic for awhile, and I hadn’t known what to do about it. Or even if there was anything I could do about it.
“Nothing’s wrong, so just forget about it,” Nualla growled through gritted teeth as she tried to pull free from my grasp. And there was something in her continued denial that she wasn’t in trouble that made me finally decide that enough was enough.
“Hey! You and I made a pact, remember? Your life is mine, and mine is yours. It’s a two-way street, you know. You can’t yell at me for being stupid, and then run away when I try to help you.” I hated using our bond—our pledge—against her, but she hadn’t left me any other options.
“When have I ever run away?” Nualla said venomously as if she found the very idea that I would think that, insulting.
“That’s all you’ve been doing since—”
“Don’t even try to get on my case. You’re the one who fucked up!” Nualla snapped as she tried to yank her arm from my grasp. I finally let my hold on her go and she slammed up against the side of my car. She glared at me with eyes like captured fire, and pushed past me.
I turned around, and called her on her bullshit. “As if you’ve never fucked up. Geez, Nualla, you’re the only one who rivals me for number of screw ups.”
“Oh, I think with your current situation you just won that one,” Nualla said with a derisive snort that made my skin flush with anger.
“Oh, like you’re always so damn careful!” I shouted at her back as she stalked angrily across the parking lot.
Nualla whipped back around, her fists clenched at her sides. “You don’t need to be careful if you’re trying to get pregnant!” she shouted back.
I nearly dropped the bag in my hand. “What?”
Nualla bit her lip, and looked away. And it was then that I realized that the water running down her face wasn’t rain, but tears.
My eyes darted to her stomach, but it was impossible to tell one way or another through her coat. “You’re not—are you?” I asked hesitantly, because I was afraid of the answer. Because it would fit too perfectly into the fucked up mess that was our lives.
She didn’t answer, and I strode quickly across the wet, cracked asphalt until I was an arm’s length from her.
“Nualla, you’re not pregnant are you? Please tell me you aren’t, because if you are—”
“I’m not, okay?” she shouted as if she was admitting something terrible. “I…I thought I was, but it was just all this damn stress. And I was glad I wasn’t. And then I hated myself for being glad, because I shouldn’t have been happy and—”
My heartbeat pounded loudly in my ears. “Nualla, you weren’t seriously trying to get pregnant were you?” I asked in an uneven voice. The two of them were so young—so unbelievably young—to be thinking about that already.
“Of course I was!” she wailed, a harsh tortured sound.
“But—”
“I’m an arius, Travis. Karalia’s only arius. Do you know what that means? If something happens…if something happens to me before I produce a child then the Galathea line ends. A bloodline that stretches back thousands of years ends just like that, and it would all be my fault!” Nualla screamed at me as angry tears spilled down her cheeks.
“You don’t understand what it’s like. None of you have ever understood. Not even Nikki. My whole life I’ve been raised to do two things; take over the rule of Karalia if it was needed, and make some new Galatheas. And for a while, I deluded myself into thinking that I could do what I wanted. Be what I wanted. That Andraya could be the one to take over, and everyone would just leave me alone. But now she’s dead—she’s dead and she’s never coming back—and it’s all on me!” Nualla shouted at me through the rain, a raw anguished sound ripping from her throat like thunder. Like the death throes of a wounded, frightened animal. And then she dropped down to her knees until she was sitting in a puddle that had formed in the cracked pothole of the parking lot asphalt as if her legs couldn’t support her weight anymore.
“Don’t you see? You could grow up and be whatever you wanted, but not me. My destiny was chosen for me the moment I was born,” she sobbed, her head sagging in utter defeat, her arms hanging limply at her sides.
I just stared at her for a moment, unable to move. “Why didn’t you ever say anything? If this was eating at you all this time, why didn’t you say something?” I finally managed to get around the lump in my throat.
She looked up at me with sad, tortured eyes, and a weak, half-hearted smile. “Because you were one of the few people who let me forget who I was. Who let me be just Nualla. Who let me be an ordinary girl.”
And that’s when I realized that all these years, what I had mistaken for fearlessness had just been an unwavering stubbornness not to fail. That she had always been running. That she had always been trying to escape that destiny she knew she never would be able to. That I had been a fool to think that her, or anyone could be truly fearless. That here I was dragging her into all my drama, and she was barely keeping it together herself.
She had given me her life. She had handed it to me, and asked for my help—for quite possibly the first time in her life. And I had been too self-absorbed to even notice how badly she needed me.
I let the bag fall to the ground as I dropped to my knees, and threw my arms around her. “I’m sorry. I’ve been the worst friend in the world, and I’m sorry,” I said as I wound my fingers through the wet tangle of her hair, and pulled her closer.
All the tension went out of her body and she cried into my chest, the hardest I had ever seen her cry. Until there was nothing left.
“It will be okay,” I promised as I guided Nualla toward her car, my arm protectively over her shoulde
r.
“How exactly? Draya’s dead, I haven’t talked to my husband in like, three months, my dad’s who-the-fuck-knows where, and the whole of Karalia thinks I’m sleeping with you. So tell me, Travis, how exactly is everything going to be okay?” Nualla pointed out skeptically.
“Okay, maybe that was a bad choice of words, but it couldn’t possibly get any fucking worse, right?” I said with a shrug.
Nualla looked at me for a moment before she started laughing. “Oh my gods, you did not seriously just say that.”
“What?” I asked, my brow furrowing.
“That’s exactly what people say right before the car blows up, or a tornado hits, or aliens attack.”
“Oh.”
“Sometimes you are such a big idiot,” she said with a half-hearted smile as she punched me.
I cocked my head to the side, and grinned at her smugly. “If I’m such an idiot, why are you laughing right now, hmm?”
Nualla froze for a second, and then she smiled. “Okay, I take that back, you’re brilliant.”
“Why thank you, my dear” I said with a playful bow.
She rolled her eyes, and dropped down into the seat of her car.
The grin on my face disappeared, my mood turning serious. “Are you okay to drive?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Nualla replied as she pulled her seat belt across her body, and clicked it into place.
“You sure?”
“Yes, go. Parker needs you more than I do right now,” Nualla ordered, pushing me away from her.
“Okay, but only if you’re sure,” I relented, though I still felt very unsure about it.
“Go, you idiot.”
“Fine…” I sighed.
Nualla slammed her door shut, and I stepped away from the car. She started up her Vanquish, and then rolled down the window.
“There’s just one more thing,” she called out.
“What?” I called back.
“I swear to the gods, if I end up in the tabloids because of this, I am so making you march down to Secrets and explain your own fuck up to them,” she threatened playfully.
“Deal,” I answered with a crooked smile.
I’m Not Ready for This
Thursday, December 20th
TRAVIS
I opened the door slowly, expecting her to come jumping out of nowhere, and try to kill me. Like the old stories of the Amurai I had heard as a child. Silent as the night, and just as deadly as titanium. But when I got halfway across the living room and didn’t see her I finally called out, “Parker?”
No one answered, and I crept cautiously through her darkened apartment toward her bedroom. When I reached it I peered through the open door, and found her curled in a ball on her side, tears spilling slowly down her cheeks.
“You were gone for so long, I didn’t think you were coming back,” she confessed in a tear-choked voice, her eyes staring fixedly at the blank wall across from her.
“I…uh… I’m sorry,” I said with a heavy sigh as I walked into her bedroom. I crouched down in front of her, and brushed a piece of hair from her face.
Parker’s eyes darted to the bag in my hands before focusing back on the wall. “What’s in the bag?”
“Tests,” I answered as I set the bag down on the floor.
“You got more than one?” Parker asked as she finally looked at me.
“You’re a scientist, I figured you’d want more than one,” I replied with a small, gentle smile.
She looked at me for a moment before she burst into sobs, and threw her arms around me. “Sometimes you can be so stupidly thoughtful,” she sobbed.
“Uh…thanks?” I said uncertainly.
I was still soaked to the bone, and I hadn’t wanted to get the blankets on her bed all wet, so I had decided to sit against the wall of her bedroom and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
I told myself that no matter what the tests said, I wasn’t going to lose my cool. That I was going to be a supportive rock for her. That I wasn’t going to let on just how frakking scared I was right now. Because as scared shitless as I was, it would never be anything compared to what she was probably feeling.
What seemed like an eternity later, Parker finally came out of the bathroom looking more scared and vulnerable than I had ever seen her, and I stood up quickly.
“They all said the same thing,” she stated in a toneless, distant voice, and I finally noticed that she held one of the tests loosely in her hand.
I swallowed hard. “Which is?” I asked, my heart thudding noisily in my chest.
I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for this. I’m not—
I held my breath, waiting for the verdict. But she didn’t answer, just nodded, and it was like someone had poured cement into my brain.
Parker dropped the test and ran to me, throwing her arms around me. And I let the breath out in a rush, pulling her closer.
I felt numb. Normally I had a million thoughts and emotions swirling around in me—colliding into each other. But all I felt in that moment was nothing. Like there was too much to feel and it had overloaded my systems.
I don’t know how long I just stood there holding her, but slowly I realized that Parker was crying. That she was crying, and I needed to make it better. That she was crying, and it was my fault. That it was my fault, and I needed to make it better.
And so I did the only thing I could think of. Which was my first mistake.
“Marry me.”
A Promise
Thursday, December 20th and Friday, December 21st
NUALLA
I should have probably gone home after I left the drug store parking lot. But I didn’t. I just…couldn’t. So I went to a place that had always felt safe, a little bit of home.
The Coffee Press was still packed full even at this hour. Probably because it was pouring rain outside. Or the fact that it was one of the few places just for us that never closed. The Coffee Press was nearly as old as the city itself. One of the few buildings that had miraculously survived the 1906 Earthquake and the subsequent fires that nearly burned all of the city to the ground. The first Embassy hadn’t made it through that disaster, but this place had.
As I turned from the pickup counter, coffee mug in hand, I almost wanted to laugh…or cry. Our favorite booth was empty as if it had known I would be coming—as if it had been waiting just for me.
I slipped into the booth, setting my large mug—the same brilliant blue as the streaks in my hair—on top of the dented and worn dark wood of the table. And that’s when I saw them, the little markings that were numbers. The ones Travis had carved into the booth that night so long ago. The ones Emmy had bugged him about endlessly. The ones he had never told the meaning of. Not even to me.
1-8-1993
I traced my fingers over the markings. They were still here. But of course they were, it had only been a few years and these booths were over a hundred years old.
Pressing my back against the solid, dark wood, I pulled my knees to my chest. And then I just watched the people, my coffee mug clutched in both my hands resting on the tops of my knees. Gods, when was the last time I was here?
When the people started to get blurry and unfocused I closed my eyes. And as I breathed in the rich smell of my coffee I could almost pretend that Travis and Emmy were here with me. That any second, Emmy would suggest we do something crazy like dancing in a fountain or pretending we were spies on a secret mission. I kept my eyes closed for a long time, because as long as I didn’t open them, it could still happen—she could still be alive.
Sometime later—long after I had finished my coffee—I walked back up to the counter. Jenna, the current owner of shop, was flippin
g through things on the tablet register that was next to the shop’s original coffee grinder. And something about that juxtaposition of new and old made me want to laugh…or cry.
“I need a room for the night,” I said quietly.
“We’re all out of rooms, go find a hotel,” Jenna replied without looking up.
I pushed my wet tangled hair out of my face, and raised my eyes. “I need a room for the night,” I repeated a little more loudly.
“Didn’t you hear me the first time? We’re fresh out of—” she stopped abruptly when she realized who I was.
One of the many nights the three of us had took up residency in that booth, Emmy had told me a story about the Coffee Press. A story that ended with a promise. That if a member of the Galathea family asked for a room, they could not be turned away. I had never remembered to ask my dad if it was true, but as I stood there looking at Jenna, I wanted so badly for it not to be an urban legend.
Jenna sighed. “Let me see what I can do, Arius.”
I sat bolt upright as the scream ripped its way jaggedly though my throat. My heart beating painfully fast in my chest. And then I really started to panic. Because the chair at the foot of the bed, which had been empty when I had closed my eyes, now held a dark figure. A dark figure that leapt to their feet, blade in hand glinting in the pale shaft of cold dawn light coming through the window. But I didn’t have time to process the threat, because at nearly the same moment there was a loud crash like shattering glass and someone else burst through the door, gun drawn.
The door slammed against the wall so hard that it knocked a neighboring picture to the floor. Clattering across the wooden surface as the gunman in the doorway cursed loudly, “Spawn of a Kako feckin’ whore!”
The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) Page 25
