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

Patrick had been someone’s guinea pig for fifteen years. Just how many times had he been subjected to injections before he learned to fear the needles? And had he developed that fear consciously, or had they taken so much of his memory away that it had become just a slow building aversion until it boiled over?
    Parker froze when she realized what she had said. “I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way—I didn’t think—”
    “It’s okay,” I said stiffly, because it really wasn’t. “Are we done here?” I asked in a clipped voice. “Or did you need more?”
    “No, that—that should be enough,” she said as she placed the syringe into the carrying case next to the others.
    “Cool,” I said as I slipped my lab coat back on, and started toward the door. The clock on the wall said it was already nearly three o’clock, and I had promised Chan-rin that I would be there when she got out of her first day of school.
    Parker’s hand darted out, and she grabbed my wrist. I stopped, and turned slowly back toward her.
    She looked up at me, her eyes large and pleading. “I’m really sorry, Travis.”
    There was normally a fierce wildness behind her eyes that scared me to death. That, and the fact that she was Kiskei’s daughter. But at the same time, I knew that fierce wildness was something I’d walk through fire for the chance to have. It was normally there—that fierceness—but not at the moment. No, at this moment her eyes held only vulnerability and uncertainty. And it was that fragileness beneath the cracking veneer of confidence that made me pull her toward me.
    I hadn’t kissed Parker since that first time in my bedroom two and a half months ago. There had been way too much going on between then and now to figure out just where we stood. But as I slipped my fingers behind her neck, deepening the kiss, I didn’t care, because all I wanted to do was kiss her.
    Gods , I didn’t know how you could miss something as much as I missed kissing her, but I did. Right down to my bones.
    She let out a soft moan against my lips as I pressed her back against the counter behind her. Bringing my other hand up to cup her face, my thumb against her cheek. And then my phone alarm started buzzing in my pocket, and I pulled away from her.
    “I’m really, really sorry, but I have to go,” I said as I all but bolted from the room.
    I rounded the corner that lead to the school section of The Embassy at three fifteen, and was already thinking of ways I could make it up to Chan-rin. The hall was mostly deserted except for two girls looking to be in the eighth grade by the way they filled out their uniforms.
    The Embassy school uniforms were unlike anything that any other school in the city had. The girl’s uniforms especially. They had a Japanese flair to them, but they looked closer to the Victorian era than they did a Japanese school girl. Knee-length gray dresses with wide short bell sleeves like someone had cut a kimono top off at the elbows. And the emblem of the region embroidered over the heart on the light-blue sailor suit collar.
    “Um, excuse me, do you know where Miss Lovelle’s classroom is?” I asked one of the girls.
    She turned, and made no attempt to conceal the way her eyes appraised me. “It’s down that hall,” she answered with a mischievous smirk to her lips. “Third room on the right.”
    “Thanks,” I replied as I swallowed hard, continuing in the direction she had pointed. The emotions rolling off her were like a slap to the face. And I was fairly certain that in a year or three she was going to cause the boys in her class an unbelievable amount of trouble.
    The next hallway was completely desolate except for a slight, blond Marked One sitting on the floor against the wall. Her knees pulled up to her chest and her chin resting on them.
    Frak.
    “Hey, Chan-rin, I’m sorry I’m—” I started as I reached her.
    She leapt up, and threw her arms around my middle. And that’s when I