A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)(14)

He nodded and wandered down the rows, browsing the tables and chatting with Elaine the entire time. I could hear him from the back room as I checked through the small pile of unopened boxes, and it was driving me nuts listening to one side of the conversation. I found myself wondering what she’d looked like. How long they’d been together. How serious it was… Huh. Mom would be giddy. I was having a normal teenage reaction. Jealousy.

After a quick once-over, I found two additional small boxes labeled Darker, and by the time I came out from the back room, Lukas had gravitated to a table three rows over and had a small bronze picture frame in his hands.

I came up behind him and gently took the frame. The glass was cracked, and the metal was bent at the top right hand corner. The man in the picture looked like an older version of Lukas. The same deep-set eyes and dark, unruly hair. His smile was different, though. Unsettling. Like at any moment he’d snap and try to rip your head off. I’d seen dozens of grins like that. They usually came right before hell broke loose.

In the picture, the man stood with a slight woman, arm around her waist almost possessively. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, and she seemed stiff. Like she would rather be anywhere than there. “Your dad?”

“And my mother,” he said quietly. “I remember this day. It was right before I was presented to Meredith Wells. Simon Darker took this photograph.” Lukas was far away, lost in memory. “I remember thinking how odd it was…the way Simon looked at my mother. Longing and sad. I didn’t notice at the time, but she looked at him the same way.”

“You didn’t know they were in love?”

He took the picture back and set it on the table next to another larger one, carefully. Like any sudden movements would cause it to crumble before his eyes. With a sigh, he brushed his fingers across the top of the frame. “Not when this picture was taken. I found out shortly after.” Lukas laughed. “Simon was so worried I’d be angry. That I would find his feelings disrespectful in some way.”

“Did you?”

He picked up the picture next to it. This one was of an old house, with a tall man standing on the porch. It wasn’t as old as the others. In color and clearer. “Not at all. If anything, I wanted him to feel more. To do more.”

I slipped my hand into his and squeezed. “You wanted him to take her away from it all.”

“Of course. She deserved to be happy. She deserved to be loved. My father treated her like an animal. A slave. She was nothing more than a trophy to him, as I was a symbol of status.” A dark laugh escaped his lips, but it didn’t last. When he picked up the next picture, everything about his demeanor changed. If the pictures of his father stirred anger and resentment, the next one brought something else to the surface. Something far darker than mere anger. Something that reminded me of Wrath.

I made a grab for the picture, but Lukas was too fast. He yanked it away and jumped to the left, out of my reach. The picture, one of him and Meredith, shattered in his fist. The delicate frame bent, and the glass plinked to the floor. “Don’t, Jessie. You can’t change my past, and you can’t shield me from it. Meredith existed. She condemned me to the box. Nothing will ever wipe that away.” Sighing, he tilted his head, listening. With a deep breath, he added, “Elaine is upset.”

“She’s upset?”

Lukas frowned. “The arrangement with Meredith’s family is what ended our courtship.”

“You’re dead, Lucy. It’s time to get over it,” I yelled in the direction he was looking. Because, getting all pissy over a relationship that hadn’t worked out over one hundred years ago? That was a little lame. The girl had stalker tendencies.

I should have known better than to snap at her. Lucy—or Elaine—was harmless, but she had her destructive moments. Grandpa had documented a few of them in his journals. She didn’t like change. And, apparently, being told to get over it.

One of the frames on the table in front of us rocketed into the air. It zoomed upward and crashed against the ceiling, raining bits of glass and metal on my head. A second later, another frame took flight, this one rushing straight for my face. I ducked and it missed me, crashing instead into the large, creepy mirror next to the Darker table. The glass exploded. The picture, along with a million shards of glass, plinked to the concrete floor.

I cringed. “Oops…”

Lukas laughed. “I knew you had a unique knack for angering people, but I wasn’t aware that it applied to the dead, as well.”

“All part of my charm.”

He rolled his eyes and bent down to pick up a piece of glass from the mirror. Rubbing it between his fingers, he said, “This is bad.”

I shrugged and kicked at the mess. Several pieces shot across the room and bounced off the wall across from us. “It’s just a mirror.”

He was shaking his head. “This glass…”

“Yeah. It’s all over the place. Big deal? When they notice the Darker stuff is gone, they’ll figure whoever busted in knocked it over.”

But Lukas didn’t hear me. At least, I didn’t think he did. He was staring over my shoulder. I assumed he was listening to his ex rant more about Meredith and the unfairness of death until his mouth dropped open. A funny smell filled the air. Sort of like bananas.

I turned. “What’s…?”