My mother briefly glared at them before looking back at me again. “Patrick, who are these people?”
“My family, who the hell did you think they were?” I snapped, looking at her defiantly.
“Don’t be silly, I’m your—your father and I are your family,” my mother sputtered, visibly shaken by my statement.
“You and Dad, family? Hell, I haven’t seen Dad in so long I can’t even remember what he looks like, and I have a nearly eidetic memory, for crying out loud!” I screamed at her; I was beyond angry now. “No, you stopped being my family a long time ago. Someone—something like you could never be my family.”
My mother just gaped at me, her eyes huge, her mouth hanging open. “How…?”
“Oh, I know what you are, I know all about it,” I answered, tapping on the glasses. “It was one of the reasons I left; as if I needed more than one.”
She just continued to stare at me, swallowing hard.
“Get away from my brother!” someone shouted abruptly from behind us and I whipped around to see Travis moving swiftly toward us.
“No, he’s my son,” my mother answered venomously.
Travis pushed past us to stand protectively in front of me. I was going to ask him what on earth was going on, but I thought, in his current state, it was better just to back away and ask questions later.
“He was never your son! You stole him from us, from me, you monster!”
“We only replaced what Joshua Centrina stole from us,” my mother said simply, unfeelingly, her eyes cold as ice.
“Don’t you dare say his name, you murdered him—you murdered both of them!” Travis screamed, lunging forward, fists flying.
I’m pretty sure he would have beaten her to a pulp if Alex and Shawn hadn’t grabbed him. “What are you doing?! She has to answer for this!” Travis screamed trying to break free from their arms.
“She has a blade, Travis!” Alex shouted as he threw all his weight into pulling Travis back.
And that’s when I saw it, a small silver blade with acid green stuff pulsing around it like someone had thrown dye in water. I had been so focused on her face I hadn’t seen her slide out the blade. I was fairly certain that had been her plan all along; for us not to notice.
Glaring at us with pure hate, my mother began slowly backing toward the door until she was gone. And we could do nothing but watch her go; it was a rotten feeling.
Minutes passed and finally Alex and Shawn released their hold on Travis. He glared after my mother as if his eyes could throw knifes into her back.
“I need to get some air. I’ll meet the rest of you outside,” Travis announced abruptly before he took a few steps in the direction my mother had gone. Alex’s hand darted out to grip his shoulder, and he whipped back around. “What?” he growled through gritted teeth.
“I cannot let you cause a diplomatic incident,” Alex said in a firm voice.
“But she’s a Kakodemoss!”
“And the Protectorate will detain her outside. She will stand trial before the Grand Council once I appoint a new one,” Alex stated firmly.
“She deserves to die,” Travis said defiantly.
“If we murder them in the streets it makes us no different than them, Travis.”
They stared each other down for a very long time before Travis folded and looked away.
“I’ll walk out with you to your car,” Alex said, putting a gentle hand on Travis’ shoulder; it wasn’t an offer. “The rest of you say goodbye to your classmates and come out when you’re finished.”
Nualla and I came out to find Travis standing next to a glossy black Porsche, staring sourly into the distance. The others were already standing next to The Embassy car, looking uneasy. I felt a little bad making them wait for us, but I had had a lot of people to say goodbye too, most of which I would probably never see again.
Nualla wasted no time making a beeline for Travis. When she was only an arms-length from him she demanded, “Travis, what in the hell was all that back there?”
He pushed away from the car and opened his door. “We can’t talk here, get in the car.”
Travis followed after The Embassy car, his face unreadable. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he spoke. “The results from the tests came in this morning.”
Nualla looked over at him anxiously. “Is he—in danger?”
“No, he’ll be fine for a little while longer,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the road. His outburst back in the auditorium lobby had been too passionate to be fake. But the things he had said had left me with a lot of unanswered questions swirling around in my head. I was smart enough to know the answers, but I was afraid to let myself believe they could be true.
“This isn’t about the headaches, is it?” I asked in an unsteady voice.
“No, it’s not,” Travis answered, looking back at me briefly before returning his eyes to the road. “When they ran your blood work, I also had them run a DNA test on us. I’m sorry, but there were just too many coincidences to ignore.” He paused, swallowing hard. “The tests turned up some pretty interesting things as it turns out.”
“Wait, you said us,” I repeated cautiously.
“Yeah, turns out you really are Patrick Centrina,” Travis said with a wry smile.
And that’s when everything I thought I knew went up in flames.
50
Just a Feeling
Friday, June 15th
NUALLA
“Hey good lookin’, what you up to?” Travis asked cheerily from behind me.
I turned around with a wide smile. “Hey, Travis.” I gave him a hug before turning back to look at the activity in The Embassy lobby. “What’s going on here?” I asked as I gestured toward all the people with equipment and what-not walking purposefully around The Embassy lobby.
“Well, after the attack on The Embassy, Nathan has really started stepping up the security around here,” Travis answered before taking a sip of his coffee. “But if you ask me, I think it was an inside job.”
“What?”
“Nualla, I know these systems, to do what they did they would had to have had extensive knowledge of how we run things around here. This wasn’t just some random hit on an Embassy by Kakodemoss, this was precise.”
“You sure you’re not just being paranoid, Travis?” I asked, folding my arms.
Travis leaned in closer. “No, we have a mole, I bet my life on it.”
“Should we call off the wedding?”
“No, with all this new stuff we should be fine,” Travis answered with a reassuring smile.
“So there’s no danger?”
Travis leaned in even closer and said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Not unless Nathan’s the mole.”
“Nathan, Head of Security Nathan? Are you serious?” I asked dubiously.
“Hey, it’s the only way I can think of that they could have pulled off what they did,” Travis answered, shrugging.
“Okay, you really are paranoid, Travis,” I said, rolling my eyes. Then I looked at him a little concerned. I wanted to say I would believe anything he said, but this was just plain crazy. “Please tell me you haven’t mentioned this to anyone else?”
“Nope, don’t have any proof; just a feeling,” Travis replied as he scanned the room with his eyes.
“Speaking of feelings, I have a feeling you are currently standing someone up.”
“Who?” Travis asked, furrowing his brow.
“Your brother. You were supposed to have met up with him half an hour ago.”
“Oh fuck!” He whipped out his phone and then grimaced at it. “Yeah, gotta go.”
“Don’t let him get too drunk, Travis!” I called out to him as he all but ran out of The Embassy.
PATRICK
Connor, Shawn, and I stood on New Montgomery street outside Connor’s apartment home complex, sipping coffee and waiting for Travis to show up; he was already nearly an hour late.
“Hey guys,” Travis called out as he walked quickly up the street to meet us.
“You’re late,” I pointed out as I sighed dramatically.
“Yeah, sorry about that I was—” he started then looked over at Connor. “—Uh, with Nualla looking over last minute stuff for tomorrow.”
“Who are you?” Connor asked, as he looked Travis up and down.
“His brother, who are you?”
“His best friend,” Connor replied, standing up a little taller until confusion spread over his face. “Wait, Patrick doesn’t have a brother.”
“Sure he does; me,” Travis stated as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his black Air Force bomber jacket.
Connor looked over at me like he thought Travis might be crazy. “Connor, this is one of those things I really can’t talk about,” I said apologetically.
“Dude, what the hell?” Connor said in exasperation as he glared at me.
“Naw it’s okay, we can just wipe his memory if we say too much,” Travis said as he tapped my shoulder.
“Seriously?” Connor asked in disbelief.
“You’re already saying too much, Travis,” I said with a sigh as I rolled my eyes at him.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He pulled an object from his pocket and held it up in front of Connor’s face. “Now, I want you to look right here and hold still.” Connor stared transfixed at the object and then Travis whacked him on the head with it. “Geez, you’re gullible. It’s just a pen, you idiot. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
Shawn and I couldn’t help bursting into laughter as Connor rubbed his head.
“I don’t need a device to erase your memory. Just ask Patrick, he seems to do a pretty good job of that on his own,” Travis said with a crooked smile.
“You’re taking us drinking?” I asked, a little surprised. Since the day Travis had given me the glasses no one had let me have a drop, but I really couldn’t blame them.
“Bingo,” he replied with a mischievous grin.
“Sweet,” Shawn said, grinning broadly.
We were going drinking, great. There was just one problem, Travis was twenty-one and Shawn and I had fake IDs, but Connor sure as hell didn’t. But then something occurred to me. “You’re going to do that same trick Nualla did, aren’t you?” I asked suspiciously.
“Why Patrick, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Travis said not too convincingly as he started walking back down the street.
The look on Connor’s face when we all but strolled into the bar was priceless. Thankfully after the initial shock he played it cool, so no one would suspect us. We ordered a round of drinks and took a seat at one of the empty tables.
A few sips into his drink, Connor looked over at Travis suspiciously. “Travis…why does that name sound so familiar?” He narrowed his eyes at Travis then a look of shocked disgust covered his face. “Wait, Travis, as in guy-who-kissed-Nualla Travis?”
“The very same, I’m afraid,” Travis admitted, a bit chagrined.
Connor just looked at me, and I had to laugh. “It’s a really, really long story, Connor.”
“Dude, I have been okay until this point with all your secret keeping crap, but you need to explain some of this shit.”
I just looked at him. I really had no idea where to start, or what would get us in trouble for telling him.
Travis put down his glass and looked at me and Shawn before he spoke. “It’s okay, Patrick, you can tell him about the adoption.”
I choked on my drink. So that’s how he was going to play this.
“Adoption?” Connor asked, looking confused.
“Why don’t you tell him, Travis, you know a lot more about it then I do.” Like any of it, for example.
“When I was six and Patrick was nearly three our parents were killed in an accident. We had no other family, so we went to an orphanage. Patrick got adopted, but they never told him. When I found him, his adoptive parents and him had a bit of a falling out.”
“Did you find out he was your brother before or after you made a move on Nualla?” Connor asked, narrowing his eyes at Travis again.
“After,” Travis answered quickly.
Connor just looked between Travis and me for a while before saying, “That’s some soap opera shit right there.”
You really have no idea Connor.
Sometime later at God-only-knows-thirty we all stumbled out of the bar.
“Geez, you three can drink like fish,” Connor said as he tried unsuccessfully to dial his phone.
“Who you callin’?” I asked as I tried to keep my feet firmly underneath me.
“Someone to come get me,” Connor answered as he kept jabbing the phone with his finger.
“Dude, don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t get you wasted then send you home to get yelled at,” Travis said as he flagged down a taxi. It screeched to a halt at the curb and Travis steered Connor toward it with Shawn at their heels. “You guys are crashing at my place.”
“Travis, if I have a hangover at my wedding tomorrow, I’m going to punch you,” I slurred as I drunkenly wobbled toward the cab.
51
Warnings in White
Saturday, June 16th
PATRICK
The next morning found the four of us sitting in a coffee shop with dark sunglasses.
“Remind me to punch you when my head stops throbbing,” I groaned at Travis as I rubbed my temples.
“Here, drink some of this. It will make you feel better,” Travis said as he handed me a flask of something.
“Do I even want to know what this is?” I asked as I took the flask.
“Probably not.”
I took a swig and nearly spit it back out. “Gods, what the hell is this crap? It tastes awful.”
“Hey, I said it would get rid of your headache. I didn’t say anything about it tasting good.”
“Can I have some?” Connor asked, sounding equally miserable.
I passed him the flask and washed the awful taste out of my mouth with coffee. Connor took a swig, made a horrible face, and then passed it to Shawn. He took a swig as well before passing it back to Travis.
Travis put it back in his pocket and looked at me. “So…aside from your head, how you feeling? You nervous about today?”
“Surprisingly, no.” It was surprising; I had always thought I would be nervous as hell, but after all the crap I had been through the last few months, I seemed to be all out of anxiety.
“Well, you’re damn lucky, because if it was me, I know I’d be—” And then he stopped himself. “You know if it had to be anyone, I’m glad it was you, Patrick.” Then he smiled. “I don’t think I ever did tell you that.”
I didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Thanks, Travis.”
It was nice to have a brother. To know that no matter what someone would always have my back; always be there to watch out for me. It was a good feeling to feel like I belonged somewhere. Sure, my new family had tried to make me feel welcome in their world, but I had never felt like I truly belonged there; until now. Now I had proof that I was and always should have been a part of their world—of her world.
Travis looked at his phone, and his eyes got wide. He shoved it in his pocket and stood. “Come on Patrick, we have to head out. If I make you late to your own wedding Nualla will kill me.”
NUALLA
I sat there staring at myself in the mirror trying to calm my breathing. I had already done this once before, so why was I so nervous?
“Hey Nualla, I know it’s your wedding and all, but we re
ally should get out there,” Nikki said as she leaned against the door frame.
“I know, Nikki. Just give me another second, okay?”
She gave me an indulgent smile and started walking out the door.
I went back to trying to calm my nerves. It was just Patrick; I was just marrying Patrick, nothing scary. Except that I would be in front of hundreds of people who were silently judging me.
I wonder if this was how Skye had felt when she got married to Nikki’s dad. Knowing Skye, she probably wouldn’t have given the slightest damn what people thought.
I heard the door open again and whipped around. “Nikki, I said I’ll be right there!” I snapped in exasperation, but the person in the doorway wasn’t Nikki, it was Natasha Jordash. “Oh, sorry Natasha, I thought you were Nikki.”
“Your father would like to speak with you before the ceremony starts,” she said with a smile.
I stood up. “Okay.” He probably just wanted to say something sweet and fatherly. If there had been something wrong, he would have come to me himself.
I followed Natasha out into the hall and down one of the hallways on the way to the temple. We turned the corner and someone grabbed me, but before I could scream they placed something over my mouth. And everything went dark and silent as death.
52
I Should Have Known
Saturday, June 16th
NUALLA
Daemons in the Mist (The Marked Ones Trilogy: Book One) Page 31
