Free Darkest Powers Bonus Pack 2 by Kelley Armstrong Page B

the gears of my brain finally started to turn. I remembered who the man was and exactly what I was doing here.
    I leaped from the bed, landing on him and knocking his chair over backward. I ran to the door and yanked it open to see Carter. I pulled back my fist, but his grandfather was already on his feet and had the back of my shirt. He yanked, and I stumbled. His arm went around my neck in a headlock and when I tried to fight, I couldn’t breathe.
    “Just stop fighting, Derek. I’m not going to hurt you.”
    “Chloe,” I rasped. “Where’s Chloe? The girl I was with. What did you—?”
    “We didn’t touch your girlfriend. She’s fine. Gone home.”
    I heaved for breath. The man’s arm loosened around my neck.
    “You better lay back down,” he said. “Have a soda. Food is coming. You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten.”
    No, I’ll feel better once you let me out of here.
    I didn’t say that, just nodded. He released his grip. I backed onto the bed.
    “Might help if we gave him another shot,” Carter said from the doorway.
    “No,” his grandfather said. “Seems like he got too much the first time.” A look toward Carter. “More than I measured out.” He turned to me before Carter could answer. “Do you know who I am, Derek?”
    “You’re supposed to be his”—I nodded at Carter—”grandfather. Or that’s what you were pretending to be at the mall.”
    “I am.”
    “Okay.”
    Silence. He kept studying me, like he was waiting for more.
    “You know what I am, though, don’t you?”
    “A werewolf. Like him.” Another nod at Carter.
    “Anything else?”
    I shook my head. He looked disappointed.
    “My name is Theodore. Theo.”
    “Okay.”
    “Theo Cain.”
    I stiffened. I didn’t mean to, but I remembered the other werewolves—Liam and Ramon—talking about me.
    He’s a Cain.
    “You know that name, don’t you, Derek?” The old man’s rough voice had softened. “Cain?”
    “Someone told me . . .”
    I swallowed and took another look at Theo. When I’d first seen him, I’d thought he looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember ever seeing him before. Then I thought Carter’s scent was familiar, but I figured it was just the werewolf smell. It wasn’t. I looked at Theo Cain—his dark hair, his square face, his big build—and I knew why I’d recognized him. Because he looked like someone I saw in the mirror every day.
    “I heard . . .” I began. “I met two werewolves. Liam and Ramon. They said I’m a Cain and I’m guessing they told you. They must have thought I was related to you because I kind of look like you. But I’m not.”
    “Did those scientists say your daddy was someone else?”
    “No. I . . . They never mentioned my parents.”
    “Then how do you know my boy, Zack, wasn’t your daddy?”
    Because I don’t want him to be. Because I look at you and I look at Carter over there and I don’t want you to be my family. I don’t want anyone to be my family except my family. Dad and Simon.
    “It wasn’t those two who told me,” Theo said. “I know who Liam and Ramon are, but I haven’t run into them in years. Someone else who knows those scientists said they tricked Zack. Or had some girl trick him. She got pregnant and he never knew it, because if he did, he wouldn’t have left you there. He would have come for you. We all would have come for you.”
    I knew those words were supposed to mean something. That I was supposed to feel something. The little boy, locked up in a lab, dreaming of his family coming to his rescue and giving him a normal life should have felt something.
    But I hadn’t known enough about normal life to even understand the concept of family. Or that I should or could be rescued from that life. Then I had been rescued. By my dad. Even if we didn’t share a strand of DNA, Kit Bae was my father. He’d saved me and he’d given me a family and the closest thing to a normal life as possible.
    If these Cains were my biological family,