The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) by Alicia Kat Vancil

she could punish and boss around.
    “I can probably get her up and running by the end of the week. And then fully integrated by the end of the month,” I said without needing to look at the tablet of notes Akiko had provided me. I knew exactly how far off from completion we were. I had basically been measuring my days by that for weeks.
    “Up and running? I thought she was already functional,” Ashley asked with a patronizing and mocking tone to her voice that made me want to set loose a flock of pigeons in her office again.
    I swallowed and took a steadying breath. “There was an…unforeseen security risk and portions of KARA’s code had to be rewritten,” I admitted reluctantly. Or basically, a Kakodemoss agent hacked her and locked me out.
    Ashley opened her mouth to speak, but Kiskei cut her off before she got a chance. “There were also the modifications to the biometric scanners that needed to be made.”
    “Modifications?” Johannah asked as she turned toward Kiskei.
    Instead of looking at her, Kiskei looked at Roy. “The data markers for the K1-2012 mutation had to be added in,” he stated. And there it was again, the weird emotions coming off of him like the ones I had felt coming off him in his office.
    “What mutation?” Ashley asked with narrowed eyes. As the director of Health and Daemon Services she should have been one the first to know about any health risks, and it probably irritated her to no end that others knew before she did.
    Kiskei and Roy looked at each other, and then at me before Kiskei turned back to Ashley. “When Patrick Galathea was exposed to the daemon retro-virus through the blood transfusion and underwent the Change, the daemon retro-virus also underwent a change—a mutation. We have labeled it the K1-2012 mutation. Patrick then later passed this mutated retro-virus on to the Arius Nualla and she to Travis Viliyata.”
    At the last part everyone’s eyes darted to me, and Tylia arched her eyebrows. Apparently it wasn’t only teenage girls who were aware of the speculations that Secrets magazine was making about my and Nualla’s relationship.
    “Not like that ,” I said sarcastically as I folded my arms, and leaned back in my seat. “It was through an injection of blood.”
    “Is the mutation dangerous?” Johannah asked with large eyes.
    “Dangerous? No, it’s not dangerous. Though, I must admit that we don’t fully understand it yet,” Kiskei replied as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
    “I can’t believe you are treating this so lightly, Kiskei! This mutation could endanger all of Karalia! He could be infecting us as we speak! We should quarantine them to an observation lab for study until we can develop something to counter the effects of this mutation,” Ashley squawked as she glared at me in disgust. Leaning away from me, and spitting out the word mutation as if she thought I was a diseased rat.
    And that was when I finally lost it.
    “The K1-2012 mutation is the only reason you’re all not dead right now,” I snapped through clenched teeth as I slammed my hands onto the table.

    I trudged into the living room of my apartment sometime after seven o’clock, and flopped onto the floor in front of the futon couch because Patrick was stretched out across it.
    I had lost my temper again. Let Ashley bait me into snapping. Again.
    After I had shouted at them, Kiskei had explained that the mutated retro-virus was only passed through blood or other “bodily contact.” A.k.a sex . And that one of the benefits of the mutation was the immunity to titanium that had allowed me to not die when I had gone out into the titanium-filled halls.
    Instead of letting it go, Ashley—proving how much of an ungrateful bitch she was—said we should come up with a new designator for the three of us since we were no longer Kalodaemons. At that, I had nearly lunged across the table to throttle her. But Roy—who seemed to have better restraint, even though he also looked like he