Darker Days

equally against men.”

“Careful—normally this is a chick-only household. Estrogen is combustible under the right circumstances. And yeah, men and women are equal.”

“But to allow women to have such freedoms—is it safe? I must admit, the thought of Klaire—or you—doing the things Joseph Darker told me of…”

Good thing it was dark. He probably didn’t see me getting ready to deck him. How was that possible? To go from kissy thoughts to kick-your-ass thoughts in a matter of seconds? I’d never met anyone who could make my head spin on a dime like this before. I loved it and hated it at the same time. “What? Makes you sick? Gives you the creeps?”

“Worries me.”

“Huh?”

“Do the men in this century not look after their women? To allow them to participate in such dangerous things—”

“Whoa. First off, something you’re gonna need to know if you have any hope of not getting creamed in public—women can take care of themselves. We can ass kick with the best of them.” I winked. “In some cases, even better.”

I glanced back toward the house. It was nothing more than a fading silhouette barely visible through the brush. God, had we really gone that far? It felt like we’d just started walking.

It was Lukas. He was easy to talk to. To just be with. He made my brain itch with his backwards thinking and stone-aged comments sometimes, but underneath it all, he had a sense of humor and a kind heart. Not to mention a pair of arms I could see myself dreaming about.

I was about to suggest we start heading back, but Lukas’ eyes widened suddenly and he rushed forward. Whatever caught his attention, I was happy for it. My brain was venturing into places it shouldn’t go.

He stopped at the edge of the old railroad tracks that went through the back end of our property. Bending low, he brushed the tips of his fingers along the rusting metal and let out a long sigh. “Are these—I was just a child when these tracks were laid,” he whispered. “Everyone was so excited…”

I couldn’t imagine how displaced he must feel. If it were me, back in the same town I’d grown up in—over a century ago—I was pretty sure there’d be some freaking out. “This has gotta be weird for you.”

He stood and brushed off his jeans, giving the tracks one final look. “Did you know our families were friends? The Scotts and the Darkers?”

“Really?”

“Simon Darker—an ancestor of yours—was very close with my mother.” He laughed. “I do believe I was the one who set the Darker family on its current professional course.”

Ahha! Now we were getting to the good stuff. I leaned against the pine tree behind me. “How so?”

“When I was freed the first time in 1910, it was Simon I sought help from.”

“You’re saying the box was opened before the riots?”

He nodded. “Yes. Just once, and the rest weren’t out long.”

“So, why Simon?”

“I couldn’t go to my mother. She was a devout Catholic and I’d been gone twenty-eight years without aging a day. It would have caused her great stress to see me, and she was very ill. I knew Simon had always been secretly fascinated by the occult. He was my only choice.”

“So you went to Simon and said what? ‘I’ve been trapped in a box all this time—help a guy out?’”

He snorted. “Obviously it wasn’t that simple. At first, it was quite hard to convince him I wasn’t a dem—”

I glared at him.

“Evil,” he finished awkwardly. “But once I did, he was more than eager to help. He always believed that Meredith had something to do with my disappearance, but could never prove it because she disappeared shortly after.”

“So what happened? I mean, you mentioned Meredith’s descendant screwing you over in 1959. The same thing couldn’t have happened in 1910?”

He took a deep breath. “It did. Simon found a member of the Wells family and explained what her ancestor had done. The woman—Margret was her name—was ashamed and vowed to right the injustice. She told him she knew of a spell that could grant me my freedom. The time came and things were going fine, but in the middle of the spell she stopped.”

“Stopped?”

“She was speaking—then silent. I saw the others called back to the box and everything went black.” He thrust both hands into the pockets of his jeans and shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. Not with the spell. Not with Simon…”

“Where were the other Sins while you were working with Simon? They didn’t want out of the box for good?”

“They didn’t find out about the spell to gain their freedom until 1959. Technology was more advanced. I was able to get to Joseph Darker faster than I had Simon. We had more time to search for a Wells witch, and I suppose they became suspicious. They found out about the spell and what we were doing, but it didn’t matter. Mary Wells never intended to free me.” He sighed. “You asked me why I agreed to help—even though I knew Klaire had no intention of freeing me.”

“Yeah…” For an insane, brain-blocked moment, I thought he might declare that I was the reason. That from the moment he’d laid eyes on me, he knew we were destined to be together.

Then he opened his mouth.

He spread his arms wide and flashed me a wicked smile. In the fading light, he looked almost mad. The slight gleam in his eyes, coupled with the tilt of his head and crook of his lip made the whole scene seem surreal somehow. Spinning twice, he said, “Maybe it’s my penance. Eternity in the box. I made mistakes—we all do—and maybe this is my punishment. My destiny. To hold Wrath in my body so no one else has to.”

Seriously. I had to stop letting Kendra drag me to those cheesy romance flicks.

I sighed and stepped closer. “Unless you went on a mad killing spree, I don’t see what you could have done to deserve this. It would take a special kind of asshole to be worthy of getting locked in that box…”

There was something more he wanted to say. I could tell by the way he watched me, but instead, he simply plucked a pinecone from a low hanging branch and crushed it between his palms.

I was about to suggest heading back to the house—standing out here alone in the dark with him was doing strange and confusing things to my stomach—but a loud roar split the air.

Chapter Eleven

“That didn’t sound good…” I said, looking past the open field and beyond the tracks. A second boom came, this one accompanied by an angry looking plume of gray smoke and a series of smaller bangs. With a quick glance toward the house, I turned on my heel and took off toward the chaos without a second thought.

Footsteps pounded against the ground behind me. Lukas. I don’t know why I was surprised he’d followed— but I was. Surprised, and something else. Glad? Grr. Why would I be glad? Obviously something in my brain had short circuited—spending more time with him wasn’t going to make it any better.

Another boom, this one even louder than the first. There was a slight shake to the ground and in the distance, someone screamed. I picked up the pace.

I crashed through the brush at the edge of the field and hit the pavement of the lot behind Al’s Antiques. The ground was wet and my sneakers slipped, momentarily disturbing my momentum, but I righted myself and kept going. Another boom. Louder. We were getting closer.

Rounding the corner of the building, I came to the sidewalk and pulled up short. Lukas plowed into me from behind, sending us both lurching forward into the street, but it didn’t matter. There was no traffic to worry about.