“Patrick dear—why is the mail all over the floor?”
Patrick let out a breath. “Oh, I knocked it over right before you came in; I was just going to pick it up.”
There was another long pause. “Patrick—what’s that stain on the floor?”
I looked frantically to the left, there was a smudge on the carpet from when I had dropped to the floor. I was as good as dead.
Before Patrick’s mother could investigate further, her cell rang. “Hello? Yes dear, he’s perfectly alright. You worry too much…” She continued her conversation as she drifted out of the room.
As quietly as he could, Patrick took a few steps toward the bed. In a barely audible voice he whispered, “You okay?”
Before I could answer, his mother reappeared in the doorway. “Honey, I need to run to the office. You’ll be alright on your own, won’t you?”
“I always am, Mom,” Patrick replied with a shrug.
I had to take my chance now if I was ever going to know for sure. As silently as I could, I peered out from under the bed toward the doorway. Two dusky red horns rose from the shoulder-length blond hair on his mother’s head. I slid silently back from the edge of the bed. My worst fears had now been confirmed. Patrick’s mother was a Kakodaemon.
Five minutes after Patrick’s mother left, I finally slid out from underneath the bed.
Patrick crouched down next to me. “Since I didn’t give you away, do you believe me now?”
I swallowed hard. “Patrick, I believe you, but now I have to ask you to trust me.”
“You know I do.”
“We have to leave now. Take only what is most important to you because you can never come back.”
“Excuse me?” Patrick asked in a strangled voice.
“Patrick, your mother is part of the Kakodemoss, and they will kill you if they find out about us.”
He swallowed hard, fighting back tears. But who could really blame him, I had just basically told him that his mother was a monster who was out to kill us. It seemed like I was only there to continue to shatter his world.
“I know…”
“You do?” I asked, thrown.
“I should have told you before…I can kinda see through your illusions.”
“What?! But that’s not—” I was about to say it wasn’t possible but stopped myself. “Right, not human.” Thinking of Patrick as being something other than human would take some getting used to. I really didn’t know that much about Marked Ones, so it could have been perfectly normal for Patrick to already be starting to see our world. “So what is it like?”
“You all flicker slightly between what you actually look like and what I’m supposed to think you look like.”
“So you knew what she was while you were talking to her.”
“Yeah…you have no idea how hard it was just now not let on that I knew.”
Patrick wasted no time preparing to leave. As he shoved some clothes and other items unceremoniously into a duffle bag, I looked around the room. It looked like any other teenage boy’s room, except maybe a little cleaner. Then I saw them covering the walls around his desk—drawings. I took a few steps closer and gasped. They were all of me.
I reached out a finger and touched them. I would have thought they were stalkerish if not for the stark vulnerability of the artist they captured. His feelings were plain in every stroke. Love. It was as if his love had flowed out of his hand onto the pages.
“They’re beautiful,” I said in a small voice.
Patrick took a few steps toward me and put his arms around my waist. “You’re beautiful.”
I reached out and unpinned one from the wall.
“It’s okay, we don’t need to take them; I already have the real thing right here,” he said, holding me tighter.
A tear rolled down my cheek and bounced off the desk. “We have to take them all. We can’t leave any piece of me here in this place for them to find.”
Patrick sighed. “Then we’ll have to take the computer too.”
He reached down and unplugged the black box as I unpinned more of the drawings from the walls. There was too much to say and so naturally neither of us said a word.
We walked down the hall away from Patrick’s home, me with the duffel bag slung over my shoulder and Patrick carrying the black computer box. When we reached the elevators I extended my hand to press the down button, but before I could the doors sprang open. A very pissed looking Tylia was on the other side of the doors, her arms folded across her chest.
“You should be at the hospital right now,” Tylia stated in a stern motherly way as she slammed her hand against the edge of the elevator door so it couldn’t close.
“I feel fine.”
“You should let a doctor decide if you’re fine,” she said with a scowl. “What’s all this for?” she asked, her eyes shifting to the duffel bag and then the computer box.
“Um…” I said, racking my brain for a good lie but coming up short. Tylia jerked suddenly, startling us, and the elevator door started to close. “What—?” I yelped, jumping back.
“Phone,” she replied as she slammed her hand flat against the edge of the elevator door and pushed it back open again, sliding the phone out of her pocket with her other hand. “Damn vibrate; I will never get used to this thing.”
Patrick leaned in toward me and whispered. “Just how old is she?”
I shrugged, I really didn’t have any idea, and I would never ask.
Tylia’s brow furrowed before her eyes went huge. “What?! You can’t be serious?!” She tapped the screen and looked up at us. “We have to go, The Embassy was just attacked.”
“What?!”
42
Last Kiss
Wednesday, May 9th
PATRICK
When we arrived in front of The Embassy, the people on the street were paying it no mind, but I knew better.
Tylia jumped out of the car then turned around to talk to us through the window. “You two stay here. If I’m not back in ten minutes, you drive to the house in Marin and lock the doors. If anyone comes near the car, you get the hell out of here, even if you know them. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” Nualla answered quietly as she continued to look past Tylia to The Embassy beyond.
Without another word Tylia was gone, running into the building at an alarming pace. The building flickered less than the daemons, but when it did I saw utter chaos inside. A few large shapes littered the floor; I wanted to believe they weren’t bodies. But I knew better than to hope they weren’t.
“Don’t you find it odd that The Embassy was attacked right after the school?” I asked, looking down the streets suspiciously. “It’s like they knew it would have less security and emergency personnel because they would all be on their way to the school.”
Nualla looked back at me, all the color draining from her already pale face. And then she opened the door and leapt out.
“Nualla!” I rushed out of the door after her, but she was too fast. She disappeared into the field of the building without looking back, and I stumbled to a halt on the last step.
Crap.
I looked around nervously at the mostly deserted street. I really didn’t want to wait out here by myself, and gods only knew what was waiting for them inside. Tylia and Nualla could be walking into a trap.
I waited for a few more moments before I just couldn’t take it anymore. I gritted my teeth and ran straight on with closed eyes. I could now see better through the fields, but it still made me feel queasy and disoriented if I looked at it too long. My fingers hit the door, and I wrenched it open. I continued running blindly forward, my hands stretched out in front of me, so I didn’t run into the archway.
I hit something soft but solid, and when I
opened my eyes I was looking up into the confused face of my father. “Dad?”
“Patrick?” he said back, equally confused.
Then everything spun out of control, and I was lost in the blackness.
NUALLA
I slammed myself into the door, but it was locked. “Travis, it’s Nualla, open the damn door!” I shouted as I pounded my fists against the door. They were right behind me, and if I didn’t get through this door I was toast because like an idiot, I had walked into a trap.
After entering the lobby, I had tried the elevator, but it had been down. So I had been forced to settle for the stairs. I had slunk up the stairs as quietly as I could, trying to keep my rising fear under control. There were so many bodies I was afraid of what I would find when I reached my dad’s office. I had stepped onto the second floor landing when I saw her in the distance, one of the assassins. In a panic I had given up all stealth and just bolted down the hallway that lead to the stairs. And now here I was in front of Travis’ closed lab door hoping for a safe place to hide; hoping I wouldn’t find him dead, too.
After a few long moments I heard a voice on the other side of the door, “Nualla?”
The door opened quickly and arms darted out. I almost screamed until I saw that they were Travis’. We were only in the room a fraction of a second before he slammed his hand against the biometric reader sealing the door shut again.
Travis took one look at me and burst into tears. “Gods, I thought you were dead,” he sobbed into my hair as he hugged me fiercely. I hadn’t seen Travis cry since we were children, so to see him crying now was more than a little startling.
Eventually, Travis stopped crying and sat on the floor against the wall. It was a response of his I recognized, when we were children it was something he would do if he was upset—or scared.
I sat down with him and pulled my knees to my chest, Travis’ usually bright lab was dark. “Travis, why are all the lights off?”
“I don’t know what they used, but it knocked out all the power. No cameras, no phones, no lights. I’ve been in here for hours with no way of knowing if they’re still out there.”
“Oh, I assure you, they are.”
“What?!” he asked, looking at me.
“I saw one; why the hell do you think I was banging on your door?”
Travis looked like he was going to be sick. He swallowed hard. “Not that I’m not happy to see you alive, but what are you doing here?”
“Patrick and I escaped the attack on the school unharmed, but others—like Michael—weren’t so lucky. They were using titanium blades; there was nothing the Kalo EMT’s could do for him. I pulled a dangerous stunt to get him out of there unseen and paid the price for it.”
“What did you do?” Travis asked with large eyes.
“I extended my illusion shield over him.”
Travis looked at me fearfully, but he didn’t speak for a long time. Finally he asked, “So Michael is…”
“Dead? Yeah he is. So are a lot of others at the school, and here. After we left the hospital, we went to Patrick’s house and then—and then Tylia got the call and we came here.”
“But the phones are all out. Even my cell isn’t working. How were they able to call her?”
“I don’t know.” This whole day was getting more and more unsettling.
We sat in silence for a long time huddled on the floor like scared children in a storm. “I need to tell you something, but I need to know I can trust you first,” I said, my chin resting on my knees.
“Nualla, you’re my best friend, there isn’t anything you should be afraid to tell me.”
“Even if it means you would be committing treason?” I asked nervously.
“I would risk my life for you in a heartbeat, and you know that,” Travis said, brushing a strand of electric blue hair away from my face.
“I can’t ask for that kind of loyalty from you…I’m not—I’m not yours,” I said, looking away from his eyes.
“I know that you never will be, but that still doesn’t change how I feel,” Travis confessed, twisting a strand of my hair around his finger. Neither of us were saying it. Neither of us had ever said it. We had spent over three years not saying it. I had thought once that I—but every time I had thought of getting close to him, of trying to be more than a friend to him, something had held me back. Something deep inside that I couldn’t explain. But now it felt like those reasons—those walls—were slowly cracking, and I was afraid to be there when they came down. Because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to resist everything that would come rushing through.
I looked back up at him slowly. “Even if what I tell you could be used to make me yours?”
He paused, looking at me seriously before he swallowed hard. “It’s about Patrick, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said quietly.
Travis leaned his head back against the wall. “Even if I had information that could get rid of Patrick, I wouldn’t use it,” he sighed as if just saying it hurt him. He squeezed his eyes shut and then they flashed open again, and he reached out, cupping my face in his hand. “Because that would mean I would also be betraying you,” he said his face dangerously close to mine. “Okay?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Okay,” I said, letting all the breath out of my lungs.
“But before you say anything more let me go turn something on.” He leapt up and fumbled around in the dark. A few moments later he came back and held a device out in his hand.
“What is it?” I asked, looking at the small device.
“It disrupts audio equipment; if someone was dumb enough to bug my lab they wouldn’t be able to hear our conversation.”
“You are even more paranoid than I thought, Travis.”
He sat back down and placed the device at our feet. “It’s on now, so go ahead. I promise that whatever you say will never leave this room.”
“Thanks, Travis,” I said with a small smile. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Patrick’s a Marked One.”
“What?!” Travis choked out in complete shock. “Did you know that all along? Did he?”
“No, and no.”
“Well that’s not really an act of treason, my brother was—” Travis stopped mid-sentence and turned to look at me with horror-filled eyes. “His parents are Kakodaemons.” It wasn’t a question, he didn’t need to ask. He was the smartest person I knew, if anyone would have gotten it right off the bat, it was Travis.
“Yeah,” I answered, avoiding his eyes.
“Are you sure?”
“I saw her Travis—Patrick’s mother—she’s most definitely a Kakodaemon.”
“Okay I believe you, but you do realize she would have had to have gotten pregnant the first time, and carried him to term even through the daemonification process.” Travis paused for a second as if he himself was processing this in his head. “The odds of that are astronomical.”
“I know.” It was a rarity on top of an impossibility on top of a horrible miracle.
Travis’ brow furrowed. “Unless they—”
Blam, blam, blam! The sound of gunshots reverberated in the hall outside the door. We heard footsteps and something metal clinked against the door. I held my breath. They had found us; we were going to die. Travis grabbed my face and kissed me for all his worth. I couldn’t really blame him; it was a nice way to die.
“Anyone alive in there?” a female voice called from the other side of the door. That voice it was—Tylia?
I opened my eyes and pulled my lips from Travis’. “Tylia?” I called out in an unsure voice.
“Of course, who the hell else would it be?” Yep, definitely Tylia, she was the only one who would answer with that much disrespect to my rank.
I stood up and moved toward the door, but then reali
zed I couldn’t open it. “Travis,” I said, gesturing to the door with my head. He stared at me completely stunned. “The door,” I said a little more slowly.
He finally snapped out of it, but only just a little. “You kissed me back,” he said, staring at me in disbelief.
Oh hell.
“Well yeah, I thought we were about to die; it seemed like a pretty good idea at the time,” I admitted with a shrug.
“But you kissed me,” he said still dumbfounded.
“Yeah, stranger things have been known to happen, now open the gods-damned door!”
“Right,” he said, finally moving forward and pushing his hand against the door’s biometric reader.
Then something occurred to me, only Travis could open the door which meant we had been perfectly safe in here.
“You knew they couldn’t get in, didn’t you?” I asked, glaring at him.
“Um…I kinda forgot,” he answered, looking at me sheepishly, and I only glared at him more. “What? I swear it didn’t occur to me okay? I don’t think very well when threatened,” he admitted, a deep flush across his cheeks.
When the door slid open Tylia was still holding her gun, and I got the feeling it had been her who had been shooting.
“What happened?” I asked, looking apprehensively down the hall.
“Um, gee, where to begin. After I told you specifically to stay in the damn car, you ran in here—in an attempt to make my job just that much harder, might I add,” Tylia replied, glaring at me. “Oh, and I shot one of the bad guys. Or I should say, girls.”
“But what good would that do? They’re daemons.”
“A bullet’s still a bullet, child. It’s still gonna hurt no matter who you are,” Tylia said, putting a hand on her hip. “Trust me a bullet through the heart will kill you just as sure as anything else would.”
Daemons in the Mist (The Marked Ones Trilogy: Book One) Page 27
