Jus Accardo - Darker Days

Something wasn’t right here. Sure, Lukas could be some dorky—but seriously hot—history nerd, but all the detailed intel about the Sins? No human would know all that. He was talking like he’d been there. Like he’d seen it all go down. “This stuff is nitty-gritty—no way did you find this sitting between the dusty pages of some history book. How do you know all this?”

“He’s an Otherworlder,” Mom said. “Obviously.”

“Otherworlder?” Lukas looked from Mom to me, confused.

“Non-human,” I supplied. I loved when she was wrong. It gave me warm fuzzies since, sadly, it didn’t happen often. “Which you obviously aren’t.”

Mom’s eyes narrowed. She must have realized I was right. “Lukas, tell me how you seem to have such an intimate knowledge of the box’s history.”

He was quiet for a moment before standing, shoulders squared. “I was in the box.”

“You were in the box,” I repeated as a chill crept up my spine.

Expression blank, he nodded. “Yes.”

“You’re one of the Sins,” Mom said, understanding.

“Yes,” he said again.

“Wait. One of the sins? One of the Seven Deadly Sins ? Standing here in our office?” I sucked in a deep breath and jumped from the chair. Nodding to Mom, I said, “This doesn’t freak you out at all?”

She ignored me and gestured to Lukas. “So, you’ve…infected this body?”

“This body was infected,” he confirmed. His jaw tensed, then twitched. Arms rigid by his sides, he sat back down.

I did the same, refusing to take my eyes off him. It was because he was a Sin. A bad guy. Not because he was easy on the eyes. Really . “Which Sin?”

“Wrath.”

Mom’s expression darkened. I knew that look. It was the Something smells fishy in Freeport glare. “If you’re one of the Sins, why are you coming to us for help? If they go down, you go down as well.”

“When I said I was familiar with your family, it was because I knew your father, Klaire.”

“How did you know my father?” Mom was queen of the poker face. She might as well have been asking the deli guy for a pound of Swiss for all the urgency in her voice. But I knew her better than anyone in the world. She was thrown by his admission.

“After we were released in 1959, right before the riots began, I tracked down your father and offered my help. Joseph Darker is the one who put the Sins back in the box.”

Mom nodded. “I see.”

She seemed pacified, but I still didn’t get it. “You’re saying you went to Grandpa and offered to help him box up your buddies? Out of what, like, the goodness of your heart?” I folded my arms and laughed. “No offense, but I don’t see Wrath as the tragic hero. It all sounds a little too selfless.”

“You don’t know me.” He scowled. “And it was by no means selfless. I offered my help in exchange for freedom.”

“Your freedom? How would that even work if you have to all be packaged together?” I leaned back and kicked my feet onto the desk. One look from Mom and I dropped them to the floor.

“All seven Sins must be inside the box before it will lock,” he confirmed, voice frosty.

“But you’re a Sin, right? You escaped the box and infected someone. You can’t change what you are… According to what you told us, the box will recall you if time runs out. How could there possibly be a way around that?”

“My daughter has a point. I’m afraid you’ll need to give us a bit more, Lukas,” Mom said. She was watching him with a mix of caution and awe. We met a pretty weird assortment of non-humans on a daily basis—but Lukas might have been the oldest, most famed one yet. One of the Seven Deadly Sins? There was a possibility Mom was getting ready to fangirl all over herself.

Lukas was quiet for a few moments. When he spoke again, there was an edge to his voice. Something dark, but determined. “There is a way to transfer the Sin to someone else. They could take my place in the box.”

What a tool. Figures. It’s always the hot ones that turn out to be asshats. “Let’s forget for a sec that what you just said makes, like, no sense.” I gestured to him. “You’re saying you’d sacrifice this poor guy so you could be free? Keep the body you stole? Kind of a dick move, don’t you think?”

He whirled around, pinning me with a look that, while dangerous, made my stomach do a little flippy dip. “Why would I think twice? It was done to me .”

“You’re saying you’re human but still a Sin?” Mom did nothing to disguise her skepticism.

“I’m saying that this body was infected a very long time ago —but it was mine. It’s always been mine.” He turned to glare at me. “I didn’t steal it from anyone.”

Lukas Scott was one big bundle of surprises wrapped in a nice, swoontastic package. But, if he was telling the truth and was in fact human, then that gave us six people to save instead of seven. Not a huge help, but Mom and I would need every advantage we could get since time was a-tickin’.

I was about to mention this as a good thing to Mom, but something hit me. If Lukas had been infected by Wrath, and this was his original body, then how come he hadn’t gotten it back when the Sins were returned to the box? “Hold up,” I said, standing again. “This isn’t adding.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You said my grandfather put the Sins back in the box in 1959. Did he do it in time to save the people they’d infected?”

Lukas hesitated. “Yes. They all survived.”

“Then what’s your deal?” I turned to Mom. “If he was human, and his body was infected , how come he ended up in the box if everyone else was saved? Didn’t he say as long as the Sins were returned before the time was up, people got their bodies back? Why wasn’t he freed with the rest of them?”

He glared at me, obviously annoyed I’d poked a planet-sized hole in his story. “My situation was different from theirs.”

“No offense, but that’s what they all say.” I waited, expecting him to continue—but he didn’t.

Mom, apparently thinking the same thing I did, said, “I’m going to need a bit more than that.”

“I wasn’t taken over by Wrath in the same way the others were—I had it forced on me. It was fused to my soul by witchcraft.”

“Fused with your soul,” I repeated. “’Cause that doesn’t sound phony…”

His eyes went wide. “Are you accusing me of lying?”

“I dunno— are you lying?”

Mom flashed me a warning glare, then turned back to Lukas. “Please continue.”

“In 1882, one of the times the Sins were released, Wrath infected a man. A local farmer’s son. It grew fond of the body it had stolen, and all the perks that came with it, so it sought a way to keep them. A local witch devised a spell to transfer his essence to someone else.”

“I still don’t get it,” I said, feeling thick. “How could a witch have done that? How could she have separated him?”

“She made him human by stripping the demonic aspect from his essence and transferring it to me.” He flashed me a look of mock sympathy. “It’s something only a witch of immense power could manage. I understand if it’s too difficult an idea to wrap your head around.”

I opened my mouth—then closed it. I had a feeling I’d just been insulted. Politely insulted, but still. Insulted.

“Wrath and I inhabit the same space.” He tapped his chest. “We coexist here. I’m vulnerable to its weakness—being tethered to the box and the limits that entails—but when out, unlike the bodies the other Sins infect, I’m not a puppet. I maintain control. Mostly…”