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

bullets.
    “Hey, Travis,” Parker greeted me as she eyed me uncertainly, but I really couldn’t blame her. I’d basically been throwing her mixed signals since we’d made out in my room two and a half months ago. One, because I was so frakking confused about everything. Two, because she kinda scared me. And three because, well, I wanted her so very badly.
    Parker leaned back over the microscope, her beautiful wavy blond hair twisted up into a bun with a pair of pale blue chopsticks shoved through it. My heart started to beat faster as I watched her, remembering how her hair, her skin, her lips, had felt against my fingers.
    “Did you need something? ‘Cause you know you could have just sent Akiko to come get anything you needed,” Parker stated without pulling her eyes from the microscope.
    But I like coming here, because then I get to see you , I stopped myself from saying aloud.
    “Are you busy?” I asked in an unsteady voice as I shoved my hands into my pockets of my white lab coat, and leaned against the table.
    She finally pulled her face away from the microscope, and looked around the lab. “Well, yes actually.”
    “Oh,” I said, and couldn’t help the tone of dejection that crept into my voice.
    Parker just continued to watch me, waiting for me to either say something or leave.
    Just fucking ask her already, you wuss! “Will you go out with me?” I blurted out loudly. Parker seemed more than a little taken aback so I amended it quickly. “To dinner. Will you go out with me to dinner tonight?”
    “Like on a date?” she asked cautiously.
    “ Yeah …” I answered uncertainly as I shifted my weight again.
    A shy smile pulled at her lips. “Sure. You can pick me up at seven, okay?”
    “Seven is perfect,” I agreed quickly before she had a chance to change her mind.
    “Do I have to dress nice for this place we are going to dinner?” Parker asked, the smile spreading across her lips. Lips that I was dying to press mine against.
    I looked at her and couldn’t stop myself from tracing her form with my eyes. The slate-gray pencil skirt she was wearing hugged the curve of her legs like a second skin. Really, I would be more than thrilled if she wore what she was wearing to dinner. Or anything really. Or nothing.
    I swallowed hard, and took a steadying breath before I said or did something really stupid. “Um…uh…wear whatever you like.”

Dark Places
    Tuesday, November 6th

    TRAVIS

    A s I walked past the couch, Patrick leaned over it, and looked at me. “Where you headed?”
    “I was going to—” He looked bad— really bad. There was death on the other side of those eyes. The destruction left behind by a raging storm. And I knew I just couldn’t leave him alone. Especially when I saw what he was flipping through on his phone. Pictures. Pictures of him and Nualla. Pictures of him and Nualla at their wedding. And then I noticed the mostly empty bottle of alcohol resting on the floor next to him.
    Frak.
    “I was going to go get some food,” I half lied.
    “Oh,” he said with a heavy sigh.
    “Did you want to come?”
    He looked at me for a moment and then at the door. And I knew what he was going to say. He was afraid to run into her—Nualla’s doppelgänger who had turned out to be her previously-believed-dead cousin. Kira. So afraid because although she was Nikki’s twin, Kira was nearly a perfect copy of Nualla. And though I didn’t know the whole story, I was also fairly certain he had loved her once. And that the part of Aku that was still inside him might love her still. And now she was living in the same apartment building as us. Three floors below and four doors down. Which was why I had only convinced him to leave the apartment a few times outside of his required assessments with Kiskei.
    But what scared me more than his reluctance to leave the apartment was that he hadn’t been drawing. Not one thing in over two months. Which, if it were anyone else, wouldn’t have been