Darker Days (14 page)

Lukas took a deep breath and held it. Slowly, he blew out through pressed lips and lowered his hand. I grabbed it and squeezed, afraid he’d lash out again.

His fingers wrapped tight around mine. He was squeezing so hard, I thought my fingers might pop off. “You’re all right?”

I nodded. “I’m all right.” Truthfully, I was numb, but telling Lukas that would only make things worse.

With my free hand, I tugged the cuff of his shirt. “Let’s get him back to the office. Mom will know what to do with him ’til this wears off.”

Chapter Eighteen

Garrett screamed for almost an hour after we got him back to the office. It got so bad that Mom had to gag him so the neighbors wouldn’t call the cops. Most of it was incoherent. Rage-fed growls and a string of inventive curses, but once in awhile, he’d scream my name.

Mom asked if I was all right and let it drop. She promised to pick it up tomorrow, though, because technically, I’d snuck out and she wasn’t thrilled. It probably hadn’t helped that I’d been covered in mud and wearing the forest floor as a fashion accessory when we walked through the door, either.

I didn’t know what I’d tell her. What I
could
tell her. With a mom like mine, the last thing you want to do is tattle on someone. His fault or not, she’d have Garrett hanging upside down over an unending pit of ravenous, flesh eating demons for trying to hurt her little girl. And with Dad there? I didn’t even want to think about the things
he’d
do.

I’d sat quietly and listened to Mom call Mrs. Redding at the hospital to tell her we got into the liquor cabinet. Since we were
snockered
, Mom told her she was going to keep Garrett here overnight and would bring him home in the morning.

In truth, an associate of Mom’s, a Voodoo priestess named McKenna, was coming over at first light to fling a whammy on Garrett. It would help speed things along. After McKenna did her mojo, Garrett would sleep for a day and wake up normal.

We hoped.

After everything was squared away, Mom and Dad slipped away to follow a lead they’d heard on the police scanner. A nightclub downtown had erupted into a scene from a porno gone wrong. They hoped to catch Lust. I was instructed to stay put, and I think I made Mom more suspicious when I didn’t bother arguing. They headed out and I promptly left Lukas curled up on the couch and retreated to shower.

When I got back to my room, I heaved my backpack onto the bed and pulled out the first thing my fingers touched. My history book. Flipping to a random page, I sucked in a deep breath and gripped the edge of the book like it might try to run away. The words danced in blurry waves, and everything grew hazy. The fiery unease I’d been trying so hard to tamp down since we’d left the woods ignited, and the tears spilled over. I’d been doing a great job ignoring what happened—what could have happened—but here in the dark, alone, it was a neon elephant dancing a jig with bells on in the middle in the room.

I don’t know how long I sat there—curled into a ball and crying like a baby—before he came in.

I didn’t look up as he crossed the room, or as the bed sagged under his weight. I didn’t pull away or stop crying when he slipped behind me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. Normally, I would’ve sucked it up. Even Mom didn’t get to see me bawling like a baby. But part of me wanted Lukas there. I wanted him to see that under my hard shell and weirdness—according to him—I was just a human girl.

Just a girl…

“You’re all right now,” he whispered. His voice sent soothing ripples over my skin and chased away the numbness. A tiny voice in the back of my mind raged at me over the reaction, but for once, I ignored it.

We sat there, silent except for my occasional sniffle. The moon peeked through the window on the other side of the room, casting our shadows across the wall behind the bed.

After a while, the silence got too heavy. Plus, there was something I’d been wanting to ask him. “How did you find me in the woods? How did you know?”

“I saw you leave. Out the window. I followed.”

Wow. Way to be stealthy. I seriously needed to work on that. “Why?”

He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice came barely above a whisper. “I’m not sure. I suppose I was worried. About you.”

A few more minutes passed. All I could hear was the soft sound of Lukas’ heart beating in my ear. With the window open, the cool night breeze blew through the room, chilling the air. His arms, wrapped tight around me, were almost electrifying in contrast. I snuggled closer and breathed in deep. He still smelled like the forest—which should have bothered me after what happened—but there was something else. Something comforting. Something
all Lukas
.

“Tell me something.” I felt comfortable—safe—and somehow that felt wrong. Too intimate. It went well beyond liking his voice and taking comfort in his presence, and that scared me. “About you. Tell me something no one else knew. A secret.”

“Painting,” he answered almost instantly.

I shifted around so I could see him. With his head tilted down, his bangs had fallen across his eyes so that the only part of his face I could see was from the nose down. He was smiling. Not a passing grin or a two-second smirk, but a genuine smile.

It was amazing. It lit up the dark and made the butterflies in my stomach dance in crazy circles.

“Painting?”

“It’s all I ever wanted to do. Paint.”

“That’s a secret?”

He nodded, smile fading. “It was. I never told anyone.”

“Why would you keep that a secret?”

“Where I’m from, a man is expected to follow his father—not pursue unrealistic dreams.”

“What did you paint?”

“Anything. People were my passion, though.”

“Why people?”

“Because there’s so much to see. When you paint someone, you have to look at them. Really
look
at them. You can see it all—everything they keep hidden. It’s all in the eyes. Truly a window to the soul.” He sighed. “It was my peace. My calm. It kept me grounded when all else was in upheaval.”

“It sounds nice.”

“Your turn. Tell me something about you.”

“There’s nothing secret about me.” I gave him a small smile and swiped a hand across my damp eyes, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m an open book.”

“Surely there’s something. Do you like helping your mother at the agency? Don’t you ever get scared?”

Not until today. “I was raised around this stuff. It’s second nature to me. I guess my big confession is that normal people scare me.”

“Normal people? Why would normal people scare you?”

“Things aren’t the same as your time. Read the paper—watch the news. Demons and all the other nasty things that go bump in the shadows—they have an excuse most of the time. It’s their nature. People, though? They’re horrible because they
choose
to be. Humans are more dangerous than any Otherworlder I’ve ever come in contact with.”

“Working with your mother, you must see human atrocities.”

“I guess—they just never happen to me. It doesn’t seem real. It’s a pretty messed up world where a girl can take down a high ranking demon but—”

“What happened with your friend wasn’t—”

“I know…” It was the truth. Garrett would never have done anything to hurt me if he’d been thinking straight. He just wasn’t that kind of guy. But even knowing that, I wasn’t sure I could ever look at him—or people in general—the same way again.

Lukas was right. I’d seen plenty in the years I’d been helping Mom. But it was different. Detached. People were bad—but I was never the
target
of that bad. I’d never been made to feel like a victim. It scared me because, really, Garrett was my lifeline to normal. Not Garrett specifically, but school. I meant it when I told Mom I had no interest in living a
normal
life, but I did like to visit on occasion. But now, every time I closed my eyes, I saw him hovering above me. I felt the weight of his body pinning me down. Pressing the air from my lungs…

“I believe the effects on Garrett were heightened because he has feelings for you.”

An insane giggle slipped past my lips despite my best efforts to keep it in. “That’s hysterical! Garrett doesn’t have a thing for me.”

Lukas shook his head. “That is one thing about women I see has not changed. You are all so oblivious…”

“Quite the comedian when ya wanna be, eh?”

He chuckled, then took a deep breath. Face serious, he said, “I have a confession as well.”

For some reason my heart sped up. His arms still around me, we were face to face—inches apart. “Oh?”

“The day I asked for your help, that first day in the office—it wasn’t about securing my freedom from the box. It was about revenge.”

“Against the witch?”

“Yes.”

“But Meredith Wells is long dead.”

“It was Meredith’s bloodline that kept me there—trapped. The
Wells
bloodline. When the box was opened, all I could think about was destroying her descendants.”

“But if you destroyed the descendants, you’d never be free.”

“It didn’t matter. I was consumed by anger and hate. I’d been betrayed by the same line three times.”

“It’s understandable that you’d want revenge.”

He nodded. “Jessie, that’s only half my confession.”

“There’s more?”

“There is. As I said, it was about revenge in the beginning. I didn’t care about what happened after I destroyed Meredith’s line.”

“And now?”

He tilted his head to the right. The curtain of hair parted and the moonlight glittered off the light in his liquid brown eyes. “I don’t want to go back. I’m willing to let my revenge go—as long as I can stay.”

“Well, this is an awesome time to live—”

He reached out and cupped the side of my face. “You.” He leaned closer—our lips were almost touching now, but he didn’t push forward. “I want to stay because of you. I’ve never come across someone like you. Your strength and determination is astounding. It’s odd because you’re so incredibly infuriating—”

“Kids our age don’t say things like incredibly infuriating—just so you know.”

“Shh.” He placed his index finger across my lips. “My entire life, all I wanted was to find something different. Special. I never would have guessed I’d have to sleep for so long to find it.”

He paused, face so close to mine. A lot of girls would have pulled away. Maybe I should have, considering what had almost happened earlier, but being there with Lukas, in his arms, made me feel safer than I had in a long time. His nearness wasn’t uncomfortable like it had been with Garrett. In fact, it was just the opposite. It made me feel ten feet tall and nearly bullet proof. If this was anything like the feeling Mom got around Dad, then I understood everything.

And then he kissed me. At first, I didn’t know what to do. His lips moved over mine, soft, warm, and tasting faintly of the ketchup he’d slathered his french fries in at dinner. Arms tightening around my waist, he urged me closer, teasing my lips apart with his tongue.

I mimicked his movements, terrified I was doing it wrong. But he didn’t complain. Instead, a small noise of contentment sounded low in his throat. The sound tickled my stomach and sent a chill racing up my spine. Seconds later, that single chill exploded into fireworks. Grand finale on the Fourth of July fireworks.

Falling. It was like falling. Wind in your hair, freefalling into perfection plus. In that moment, I
really
understood the fuss people made about love. The look in Mom’s eyes when she talked about Dad. The sappy grin I saw girls wearing as they gossiped about their first dates. I got it. And for the first time, I thought maybe, just
maybe
, I could have it, too.

After a few moments, he pulled away, and even in the dark, I could see his face flushing.

“I apologize. That was highly inappropriate.”

I almost giggled. I wondered what he’d think of HBO or Showtime if he thought that had been inappropriate. “I’ve got a news flash for you—that’s not as inappropriate as it was in your time.”

“Such things are kept between husbands and wives among honorable society. But you—”

“Me?”

“You do strange things to my control.” He sucked in a deep breath. “One minute, your simple presence is enough to pull me back from the brink—I would have killed your friend in the forest had it not been for you—and the next… The next, you make me forget myself entirely.”

I clucked my tongue. “So much to learn, young Jedi. So much to learn.”

“Jedi?”

“Shh,” I whispered. Taking his face in my hands, I said, “Did you want to do that again?”

Chapter Nineteen

2 days left…

When I woke up, Lukas had gone—but I wasn’t alone.

And for some reason, I wasn’t in bed.

“Mom?”

She was sitting in the armchair across my room, coffee in hand. Bleh. Hazelnut. I could smell it. “Can I ask why you’re sleeping on the floor in the corner—and what that
thing
drooling on your foot is?”

I looked down to see none other than Mr. Winkie, head resting on my foot and snoring softly. A trail of green, slimy drool leaked down my sock and pooled on the floor beneath my ankle. Good thing my room wasn’t carpeted. The stain would never come out. “For crap’s sake…”

“Something you’d like to tell me?”

I shook off the demon and climbed to my feet. The possessed corgi stretched and gave a lazy yawn. With a single yip and several swishes of the tail, he disappeared in a thick cloud of stinky black smoke.

I waved it away and readied myself for a lecture. “Apparently, work followed me home from that pet possession the other day.” Arching my back, I stretched toward the ceiling to release a crick in my neck, muscles protesting as though I’d been down there all night. “And as for the floor, you can ask, but I can’t answer.”

She let it go. “We need to talk.”

Normally, a statement like that from Mom wouldn’t worry me. But lately, I’d broken so many rules—and with what happened with Garrett—I was nervous. I wasn’t ready to talk about it. I might never be ready.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Bad news sucked, but I breathed a sigh of relief. Any morning that didn’t start with a lecture was a win in my book.

She hesitated, then set her coffee down on the floor beside the chair. “Jessie, I know you’re a smart girl, but I’m feeling the need to remind you Lukas isn’t human.”

I rolled my eyes. “He used to be.” This couldn’t be a result of him being in my room last night because she would have railed me for that right off the bat. Wanting me to get out and date aside, she’d be fuming if she knew I was sucking serious face with a guy on my bed in the middle of the night. Probably more so if said guy was one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

“Yes, he was. But we can’t help him.”

The air chilled. “Why would you say that? What about our other options? You said—”

“I’ve exhausted all my leads. I talked to everyone I could think of yesterday, and then some. There’s no way to keep Lukas out without transferring Wrath to someone else. And even if I was willing to do it, the Wells family is gone. Cassidy called this morning. She said they dropped off the grid in the mid-nineteen-hundreds. I have to focus on collecting the Sins—and finding the box. If time runs out and the Sins are recalled on their own, the six innocent people whose bodies they’ve stolen will go with them. They’ll die, Jessie. I cannot let that happen.”

I had to fight to keep my voice steady. “I know.”

“Finding this particular witch will only help one person. I raised you to be practical, Jessie. We can’t sacrifice six people for one—no matter how unfair his situation is. It’s a hard decision, but it’s the right one. You understand that, right?”

I only nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak anymore.

“Unless a miracle happens, Lukas will end up going back into the box with the others.”

“I know.” My voice cracked a little.

“Do you? Because you seem to be getting attached.”

Deep breath. She was right. I was raised with both feet firmly planted in reality, and my head clear of the clouds. Last night with Lukas made me lose sight of that. I did have feelings for him, and to make things even more complicated, he felt the same way. But regardless, it didn’t change anything. We had no way to keep him here. The needs of the many trumped the needs of the few. She was right. It was hard, but it was reality. One I’d been acquainted with at a very early age.

“I know,” I said again, this time stronger. “And you’re right. I
am
getting attached. But I’m not an idiot. I know how it’s gonna end.”

“Jessie—”

“It is what it is.”

I needed to get out of the room. Away from the conversation and away from her.

“At least a little good came out of it. I think we both learned something on this one.” I started rummaging through my drawers for clothes. A black sock. A white one. A random shirt. Whatever I could get my hands on.

“Oh?”

“This thing with Lukas—my
attachment
—is the perfect example of why I won’t end up like you.” I glared at her as I passed and spoke, even though the declaration was pointless. The damage was done already.

Her eyes went wide. “Like me?”

I could see she didn’t understand what I was getting at, but she was hurt all the same. All I’d ever said growing up was that I wanted to be
just like
her. And I did. In every area except this.

A part of me dug my heels in, wanting nothing more than to stop—but I couldn’t. I was a planet-sized Jessie-boulder rolling at warp-speed down a steep hill. I drove my point home with cruel accuracy. “Miserable. Missing someone you can never have. It’s not worth it.” I slammed the door behind me—my first act of truly juvenile teenage behavior.

…

I didn’t wait for Lukas before heading to school. Mom didn’t want us getting any more attached? Fine. Neither did I. There was no reason for me to lug him around. It would only make things harder. Let
her
play babysitter.

The first thing I noticed when I got to school was Garrett’s absence. I didn’t know if he’d remember anything that happened—for his sake, I hoped not—but I couldn’t forget. And I needed some time.

Contrary to my
I’m an island
rant this morning, I’d grabbed Mom’s phone book on the way out the door. I might have made the decision to let my feelings for Lukas slip into the background, but that didn’t change the fact that we’d made him a promise. The Darkers were girls of their word. I’d keep fighting ’til the last possible minute, even if Mom was ready to give up. She wouldn’t let me help find the Sins? Well, then I’d help another way.

By the time I hit third period study hall, I was itching to crack open the phone book. All Mom’s Otherworlder contacts in one nifty, leather-bound bundle. I knew which ones to stay away from—Jenna Mason, the owner of the Black Cat bar, and one of Mom’s best friends. As soon as we got off the phone, she’d be running to Mom to tell her what I was up to.

Allen Bane—leader of the local were pack. We’d too recently pissed him off. That whole incident with him and Mom and an ill-timed game of fetch wasn’t about to blow over any time soon.

And McKenna Blaire—the Voodoo priestess with a mouth for gossip. Not besties, Mom and McKenna still talked. And worse than that, they knew a lot of the same people. McKenna had a mouth like a bullhorn. One call to her and the entire Otherworlder population would know what I was up to. And so would Mom.

There was one specific number I was looking for. I flipped to the N’s—Mom had the book organized not by name—but by association. I needed the N’s for necromancer.

I’d just punched Paulson Miller’s name into my cell when a low growl filled the air.

Oh, hell in a hailstorm. Not now.

I looked around. No one else seemed to have heard it. Trying to play it cool, I glanced around the room. The sound seemed to be coming from the front row. Right next to David Ogden’s desk. He chose that moment to look up. He caught my eye with a cheesy wink and a thumbs-up.

Really? A thumbs-up? Did the dude really think a thumbs-up was a turn on? That smooch with Hannah the other day had given him all sorts of confidence.

Creepy,
Hi, I’m a stalker in the making
confidence.

At the front of the room, Mr. Dakota looked up from his papers as the door opened. On top of his desk, a shimmer of black smoke trailed upward from the floor. I couldn’t see beneath his desk, but I was betting my vial of Fairy Dust that Mr. Winkie was lingering close by.

Mr. Dakota’s mouth fell open as in sauntered Vida wearing a black skirt that looked like it belonged on a first grader and a bright red corset top that left little to the imagination. If she bent over too far, I had no doubt she’d pop out of it—cartoon sound effects and all.

She slid slowly across the room and over to his desk. “I need to see Jessie Darker in the hallway. You don’t mind, do you?” The words dripped like honey from her lips as she trailed a finger over the edge of his desk. My demon dog stalker gave another growl, but one look from Vida in his general direction and he fell silent, another puff of black smoke tufting upward to tell me he’d split.

Dakota waved a hand in my general direction, then pointed toward the door, never taking his eyes from Vida—or her chest.

I contemplated staying put. She couldn’t make me leave with her—but I
was
curious. Plus, if opportunity presented itself, maybe I could bring her in. I’d probably get crap from Mom, but in the end, it would be one less innocent for her to find. She’d have to appreciate that—even if she wasn’t willing to admit it out loud.

Gathering my things, I started down the aisle toward the door. Vida stood in the doorway with a sickeningly sweet smile plastered on her ruby-tinted lips.

“Where’s Lukas today?” she asked as the door snapped closed behind us. From the hall, I could see Dakota craning his neck, trying to get another peek at her. He wasn’t even trying for subtle. Ugh. Men.

I shrugged and stuffed both hands into my pockets. “A girl’s gotta have some alone time now and then, ya know?”

She giggled. “You’re more amusing than your ancestors, little Darker girl.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s a compliment.” I gave her a minute. When she said nothing, I pressed it. “Something tells me you didn’t call me out here to chat about pedicures and—” I nodded to her chest, “—implants.”

Vida giggled again. “Oh, they’re real—and she’s quite proud of them.” Circling like a vulture, she tapped the side of her head and said, “She’s in here, you know—totally aware of what’s going on.”

Stopping in front of me, face inches from mine, Vida grinned. “And let me tell you, she
likes
it.”

“Two peas in a skanky pod then, eh?”

“More than you know.”

I didn’t say anything. She was plainly hinting at something, but I refused to give her the satisfaction.

She frowned, obviously disappointed that I wouldn’t play her game. “Has Lukas told you how he was infected?”

“Yeah. He told me about the witch.”

She clucked her tongue. “Of course he did. But there was more to it than that, silly girl.”

She began to circle again. “That witch would never have been able to do what she did to some random person. The vessel has to be viable.”

Even though I hated playing into her trap, I was curious. “Viable? What does that mean?”

“Open.” She gestured to herself and rolled her baby blues. “Take dear little Vida, for example. Not an innocent white rose, this one.”

Stopping, she leaned against the wall across from me and ran a hand down her—
Vida’s
—body. “I was only able to enter her because she embodied the basis of what I am.”

“So—you’re saying she was a big ho?”

“Several months ago, Vida seduced her stepfather.” A noticeable shiver ran through her, and her grin got wider. “She still thinks about it.”

All I could picture was some potbellied old guy in a dirty white wifebeater and cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Probably smelled like stale beer, too. “Eww.”

She winked. “The way she remembers it, he was
quite
yummy.”

“Okay, so you’re saying each person had to have walked the walk—sinned the sin.”

She shook her head. “Embodied. You’re thinking small potatoes. Each infested person had to be stained by it.” The words slid off her tongue like poison. Arms folded, she leaned back against the wall. “Tell me, little Darker girl, has Lukas told you what he did to open himself up to Wrath?”

“Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t belong with you, and he’s not going back in that box.”

Vida laughed. “Oh, I think you’ll find you’re wrong about that. On both counts.”

“Actually, Lukas belongs with
me
,” another voice said. She strolled down the hall toward Vida and me, the heels of her boots clinking a steady rhythm as she came.

Black jeans sat on slender hips paired with a blue blouse unbuttoned dangerously low, and the girl’s dark hair hung wild down her shoulders. She could definitely rock the bed-head look—I was a little jealous.

“Ah,” Vida said, smiling. She pushed off the wall and stepped aside to let the dark-haired girl pass. “Let me introduce you to our witch.”

Hand extended, the girl grinned. “I’m
sure
you’ve heard of me. Name’s Meredith.”