The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

hurt them,” he stated firmly.
    “Then what was the law to protect them from ?” Connor pressed, not backing down.
    Travis opened his mouth and then shut it again, looking away. “From being imprisoned in mental institutions. Some of them still end up there, but it isn’t because of the Karalian government.”
    Connor just looked at him in disbelief, his mouth hanging open. “For speaking the truth ?!”
    “It wouldn’t be there first time in history,” Travis mumbled nearly under his breath.
    “ Excuse me?!”
    Travis whipped around to face Connor. “Hey, we’re not perfect , you know! But we’re not the only ones to blame here. You humans have persecuted people for being different just as much as we have, if not more!”
    The two of them stood there breathing heavily and looking like any second they were going to start throwing punches. And I just groaned inwardly. For once, I wished the three of us could go out somewhere where part of the outing didn’t involve an almost-fistfight.
    Chan-rin looked between the two of them before she tugged on the sleeve of my black kimono top. “Chan-rin can see Aku and Big-Big Brother’s horns. Does Chan-rin have kenshanathea too?”
    Travis sighed heavily and then looked away from Connor toward Chan-rin. “No, Chan-rin, you’re a daemon so you can’t have—” Travis stopped abruptly mid-sentence, a look of horror spreading across his face.

    TRAVIS
    “W hat—what’s wrong ?” Patrick yelped, his black-blue eyes filled with panic.
    I looked at him, then at the others, then reached out and dragging him a few yards away to an empty corner of the Japantown Mall’s common area.
    “Travis, what the fuck is going on?” he said under his breath as he leaned in closer.
    “Chan-rin is a Marked One, she shouldn’t be able to see our horns at all.”
    I wanted to kick myself for not realizing it sooner. It was so obvious it had practically been screaming at me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
    “Well yeah, I mean I couldn’t—” he stopped talking, and his eyes darted back to Chan-rin.
    “But she can ,” I pointed out, the full horror of it all finally settling in like the bone chilling cold of winter rain. “ Furthermore , The Embassy barrier—”
    “Should have made her sick,” Patrick finished as he ran his hand down his face. “Shit.”
    “And that’s not all,” I continued. “She shouldn’t have any abilities at all. Those don’t awaken in Marked Ones until they start going through the Change.”
    Patrick looked at me, his eyes frightened and uneasy. “And there’s no way this could happen, you know, naturally , like through a mutation or something?”
    I just shook my head. I was going to be sick. I had known the Kakodemoss had experimented on them all. That they had chipped them, tattooed them, and kept them locked up in a facility nearly all their lives. But somehow, the realization of what that actually meant had never really occurred to me. What must it have been like to know nothing outside of that life? Outside of that horror?

    “The bad people, they hurt Aku, and Kira, and Chan-rin. They hurt Aku the most.”

    I had always thought I’d known what evil meant. It was a simple enough concept we all learned at a very young age. But I realized now that I hadn’t had a frakking clue what evil truly meant. What it truly meant to be a monster. But I did now. Whoever had done this to them was a monster.
    Pure and simple.

A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Nightmares
    Wednesday, October 31st

    NUALLA

    F ractured fairytales danced in front of me. Some monsters, some heroes, the flashing lights passing over them like wicked fairies as they danced through the night. Wolves and maidens, dragons and princes, each interpretation of the storybook characters more inventive than the last.
    I searched the crowd of dancing bodies for Nikki and Shawn from beneath my black-feathered mask as I leaned my elbows back onto the bar behind me and sipped my drink. I had