Darker Days

Chapter Four

My commute from the office to home was a tough one—through the back door and up a set of narrow stairs to our apartment. The carpet was worn to the wood in the middle of each step, and the fourth, fifth, and seventh stairs creaked. I’d lived here all my life, same as Mom. The building had been in our family for generations. Once an old barn, the bottom was long ago converted into a makeshift office, and the upstairs, a living area.

The apartment was small—I guessed none of the Darkers before us had exceptionally large families—two bedrooms, one bath, and an eat-in kitchen. It was fine. Big enough for me and Mom, and as far as I was concerned, comfy. More space meant more to clean, and neither one of us could be considered domestic goddesses. We didn’t even own a vacuum.

Having nowhere else to go, Lukas convinced Mom to let him sleep in the office. Honestly, I was pretty shocked when she agreed. She had a strict no personal involvement with clients policy. Yet another thing that had come from her relationship with Dad. That was, until I realized she probably wanted to keep an eye on Lukas. Setting Wrath loose on the town would make her twitchy. I knew how her brain worked. She’d made sure I went up to bed long before she did. If I had to guess, she’d put multiple wards in place that would alert her to any funky business.

Despite having what was, for all intents and purposes, an ancient evil cooling his heels on our office couch, I fell asleep fast. I was in the middle of a pretty awesome dream involving me, some chocolate covered popcorn, and a nice quiet corner of a deserted island when a loud crash jarred me awake.

Throwing aside the covers, I jumped out of bed and sprinted into the hall. I skidded to a stop in front of Mom’s door and pushed it open a crack. She was safe and curled under the covers, sleeping peacefully. It was kind of irritating. The woman could sleep through an alien invasion complete with a marching band to announce their presence. Me? A fly farted downtown and I was up.

Another bang.

I took off down the hall, sock-clad feet sliding on the scuffed hardwood as I rounded the corner. The noise had come from downstairs.

From the office.

Lukas.

Taking the stairs two at a time, I burst through the door. I don’t know what I expected to find. Catch him doing something evil? Making the neighborhood pets go rogue? Maybe inviting all his Sin buddies in for a late night raid on the fridge…

What I found was him standing in the middle of the room frowning at the floor. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark, but when they did, I saw his right hand was bleeding onto a broken glass at his feet.

He looked up. “I didn’t mean to—”

I walked around him and went to the hall closet to grab the broom and dustpan. While I was at it, I made a pit stop in the bathroom and pulled out the first aid kit and a roll of paper towels.

Once the broken glass was cleaned up, I nodded to the pooling blood. “Trying to refinish the floor with your guts?”

“I cut myself.”

“Ya think?” I motioned for him to move closer. When he didn’t budge, I grabbed his hand and pulled him forward. He was surprisingly warm. Not sure why, but I’d expected something cold. In my experience, most evil things were cold.

The glass had sliced open the entire center of his hand, and I was thankful blood didn’t eek me out. My best friend Kendra would have passed out by now. “What happened?”

He didn’t seem bothered by the gaping chasm hacked into his palm or the river of blood gushing all over our floor. Instead, he was focused on me. I saw him watching through the curtain of my hair as I cleaned his hand, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling him to look away. The scrutiny made me squirmy. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was technically-maybe-sort of one of the bad guys, or because he was so damn hot.

I was about to start wrapping the wound when he tilted his head to the side, eyes faraway, and asked, “Who is Damien?”

The question took me off guard, and I stepped back, dropping his hand and almost tripping on my own two feet. “What?”

“Klaire was yelling at someone named Damien.”

Impossible. That was totally impossible. There was no way he was here without me knowing. I took another step back and folded my arms. “There wasn’t any yelling.”

“She was yelling at him in her dream.”

Her dream? I had no idea what to say to that. It made more sense, but was a little creepy. “So, you can spy on people’s dreams? Is that what you’re saying?”

His hands flew up in defense. Tiny flecks of blood flicked out and splattered against the wall. “Not on purpose.”

“Not on purpose? What the heck is that supposed to mean? How do you accidentally invade someone’s privacy like that?”

“I can see the focus of someone’s anger.”

“See? Like a vision or something?”

He shook his head. “See is the wrong word. It’s like a whisper in my head. A feeling. It’s the thing I feed on.”

Yeah. That wasn’t too creeptastic. “Thing you feed on?”

“The thing inside me. Wrath, remember?” He rolled his eyes. “It feeds off anger.”

I bit back a smile. Cute and sarcastic—if I had a type, Lukas would be it. Too bad he was kind of annoying, and more importantly, one of the Seven Deadly Sins… I glanced over at the DVD player. Two a.m. Fantastic. I was going to be one cranky kid come morning. Might as well make the most of it and see what I could find out.

Sinking onto the couch, I tucked my feet up and gestured toward the ceiling. “So you go around spreading your mojo and, what, feed?”

“This is hard to explain.”

“So let’s simplify. You spit pissy beams and then suck down the resulting anger orgy?”

His mouth fell open, and for a moment, I thought he might yell at me. His right eyebrow twitched and his mouth hung open in surprise. Taking a deep breath, he finally said, “I don’t spit anything, and I’m not sure what pissy beams are, but I’m fairly sure I don’t do them.”

I leaned back and tried to hide a smile. The hotness factor went through the roof when he got angry. Definitely something to take note of. “Okay. Fair enough.”

He held my gaze for a moment before looking away. When he turned back, his expression had done a one- eighty. Smile in place, he said, “I missed this.”

My own smile widened. He was infectious. “This?”

“Conversation.”

I laughed. “This is more argument than conversation.”

“The last person I spoke to was your grandfather. I wonder…would it be possible to see him?”

The smile faded, and I sighed. “Sorry…He died before I was born.”

“Oh.” He sounded genuinely disappointed.

A few moments passed in silence. Lukas picked at the edges of the peroxide bottle, peeling back tiny bits of the label and dropping them into his lap. Wispy strands of dark hair fell forward, partially framing his face. I turned away, feeling a little guilty. Stop staring at the Sin! I had to do something distracting— something to keep my brain occupied. “What’s it like? Having Wrath inside you?”

He didn’t answer right away and I was worried I might have overstepped. When he did speak, his voice was low, and something about it made my chest tighten. “Like I said earlier, the Sin lives inside—we share the same space. I can feel it trying to push me out sometimes. To take over…”