Since we're only allowed to put a certain amount on our descriptions, here is the full summary; versus the shortened one (darn those number quotas.)

Full Summary: Running for your life sucks. Whitney Souza and her brother, Zander, are finding that out the not-so-fun way. Everything was fine until Whitney came home to find her house devoid of her parents. And it's not like they just went away to the grocery store. They are gone, and the blood in the living room carpet doesn't make her feel much better. Her parents drilled it into her what she was supposed to do at a time like this. She just never expected that it would've come. Now she and Zander are running for their lives, from the people that failed to capture her parents twenty-five years ago. She has to figure out who to trust and where to go to find her parents, because she's not giving up on them. The only problem? She's not sure they'll even survive.

This is my THIRD story for the Darkest Powers. Please do go check up on my other two, After the End and The Hidden Truth.

This story is rated T because the majority of the characters are sixteen and older, and there will be "cartoon" violence (combat, superpowers, a little blood and gore, etc.)

** Some of these characters are of my own creation, some of them belong to the author of the Darkest Powers Series, Kelley Armstrong.

The Darkest Powers Series belongs to Kelley Armstrong. Please enjoy. (:

Half-Breeds

1: Missing

Whitney

Mom would be mad. I didn't know how I was supposed to tell her that I almost revived the teacher's pet hamster by accident. That definitely wouldn't have been pretty, not with the little fur-covered body already cold, sitting in the shoe box loving adorned with tissue paper and little stickers. Ms. Willoughby was one of those crazy cat ladies. Except she was allergic to cats, so she had an array of chattering hamsters that lined the counters in her classroom. Creepy, and a little bit obnoxious to Jaime, my best friend who was allergic to dander. There was no talking Ms. Willoughby out of her growing hamster collection, so Jaime just sat as far away from them as she could. If she wasn't my best friend, I would've been fed up with her sniffling a long time ago.

And to make matters worse, Zander thought that it was hilarious. I wanted to smack him upside the head as he sat cackling in the passenger seat of my little car, but I was too focused on the road. Dad had been an army sergeant when it came to teaching me to drive a car. Mom had always told him that I needed the freedom, which was something that dad didn't seem to know much about. Mom had always given me those pleading eyes right before I got into it with my father. I knew the repercussions of getting into an argument with a werewolf, and one that was as big and strong as my dad, to boot. Zander wasn't even close to that sort of strength.

I bit down on my lip as I turned into the driveway of our cottage-like home. It was big enough that Zander and I had one half of the house while my parents had the other. Good thing, too, because Zander liked to play his annoyingly loud drum set whenever he could, and you could barely hear it on the other side of the house. I, though, was subject to listening to every symbol while trying to talk on the phone or do my homework.

I threw the car into park and stepped out. Zander already had his backpack slung over his shoulder, still laughing at the idea of a hamster pulling itself on small, stiff feet across the desktop, when he froze. I did, too. Both of us were what I considered half-breeds, two species that had never really been mixed before, not to my knowledge. Both of us had a little bit of mom's necromancer powers and a smidge of dad's werewolf, but I tended to be more like my mom while Zander was more like dad. Dad theorized that it had to do with our genders. But I didn't really pay attention to it. All I knew was that I didn't have those convulsions or whatever, and my senses were nowhere near the magnitude of my father's, or even Zander's.

I leaned against the car, watching Zander as he lifted his head a little bit, taking a deep breath. I could feel the wind blowing in my face, whipping my long, black hair around my face. I brushed it out of my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to pick up on what Zander smelled. While his senses were closer to my dad's, I could still pick up things that my mom couldn't. I closed my eyes, trying to be dependent only on my sense of smell. Another deep breath revealed what I thought was someone new. Someone that wasn't supposed to be around here.

Mom smelled like her floral perfume. Dad smelled like half a stick of deodorant. Zander tended to smell like Axe, and I thought that I had a scent that resembled my citrus body wash. Zander had once told me that the different scents went deeper than that, but that was all I could smell.

I looked at my brother across the top of the car. His eyes, blue, like our mom's, were wide as we both stared at the doorway. It was closed, but as I got closer, I could see that the wood around the knob was splintered. My heart leapt in my throat. Zander was immediately at my side, tapping into his werewolf speed. We both stood on the doorstep, our hearts pounding in our chests.

"Zander," I whispered.

He glanced at me, his eyes narrowed on the window right next to the door. The curtains were drawn, instead of pulled back like they always were. "Code 3?"

I nodded, biting down on my lip. I reached out and gently touched the doorknob, afraid of what I would see. Mom and Dad had taught me and Zander what to do if our lives ever came to this. I always thought that it was out of the question. Our parents had sat us down right before I turned thirteen. Zander had been twelve at the time, a little over a year younger than me. Our parents had a secret, one that they'd kept from us until they thought we were ready. They figured I was as close as I could get to the possibility of power changes, and they were right. The point was, they figured that they couldn't hide it anymore. And so I knew about my parents being experiments, mom considered "failed" and dad just another experiment, albeit the one outcast in the whole study. I heard about how they ran from the scientist group – the Edison Group – and how they'd managed to hide away from them.

And I thought we were fine, because they hadn't found my parents for over twenty years. I thought that we would be okay, and that we never would have to worry about it. Zander reached out and touched my elbow, bringing me back to the present. "Whit?" He asked, his vow low. He sounded a lot like our dad when he talked like that.

I ignored him and pushed open the door. It gave a little squeak when it opened, making both of us cringe. Someone had pulled on it hard enough to twist the hinge a little. That thought alone was scary. I handed Zander one of the umbrellas from the little container by the door and took one for myself. We split up – him going to our parents' room, me going to our half of the house. After a thorough sweep, we would meet up in the living room, which was right in front of us.

I slipped down the hallway and peered into Zander's room. It would either be impossible to hide in their or the most convenient place. His room looked like a tornado hit it, so I couldn't even be sure if anything had been moved. I figured someone could be hiding under the bed or in the closet, but you would have to make a lot of noise to get there. I checked the places anyway, ignoring the urge to hold my breath to avoid getting my brother's germs. Once his room was cleared, I checked our joint bathroom (it really does suck to share a bathroom with your brother). I even yanked back the shower curtain, umbrella raised to whack the crap out of someone.

And then I went to my room. Everything was in order, but that didn't mean that I didn't check under the bed or in the closet. I let my hand drift over my shelf of special belongings. My hand caught on a piece of paper that stuck out. It hadn't been there before. My heart thumped, trying to fight its way out of my chest as I opened the folded up page. It was a note, and it was clearly written by my father.

Whitney and Zander, we've been compromised. I don't know how. I don't know what they want from us. This should've been over years ago. Do what we always taught you. Stick together and be safe. We love you. Mom and Dad.

I nearly choked reading the note. Dad must've slipped it into my room just before the door had been busted down. I folded it back up and tucked it into my back pocket. I scanned the game room/office, which was just as neat as it had been when I left for school. It was time to meet up with Zander in the living room.

As I crept my way back, I heard Zander call out, "Whitney?" I sped up and found him standing on the other side of the couch, looking down at the floor. His umbrella was loose in his hand. I couldn't see what he was looking at over the back of our old, worn leather couch. I hurried around it, scared of what I would see.

I never would've thought that my heart could shoot off the way it did, but within seconds it was in my throat. Zander looked a little green himself. I put a hand over my mouth as I stared at the mess on the living room floor.

Blood.

# # #

The first order of business was to get the heck out of here. Zander and I ran to our bedrooms, pulling out the duffel bags that we kept hidden in the back of our closets. I had to stuff in clothes in mine, around the shoes, first aid kits, and at least a thousand dollars in cash, hidden away in a pocket sewn in the side. Zander had an equal amount of money there, as long as he hadn't dipped into the emergency funds for something stupid.

I tucked the note from my dad in with the money, hauled the strap over my head and across my chest, and darted for my parents' room. I grabbed a few things that would remind me of them, plus a few extra blankets from the chest at the foot of their bed. I wasn't sure where we'd be going yet, but I knew we had to be prepared for anything. Dad had drilled that into me enough that I could say it in my sleep.

I nearly collided with Zander as I rushed out of their room. He was stocking up on food from the pantry. I grabbed a few apples and bananas, things that would get bad eventually but would be good for the next few days. Zander had already grabbed the few hundred dollars that had been taped into the inside of the freezer, and I had the envelope from my dad's sock drawer.

"Come on, Zander," I said sharply, pulling him away from the nearly-empty pantry. I ran into the garage and pulled the extra license plates out from underneath dad's work bench. They'd been duct taped up there for a while. They were licensed to a Ms. Andrea Potts, from Arizona. With them was a fake license for me, stating that I was twenty-one, and there was a second one for Joshua Potts. I shoved the fake ID into Zander's hands and told him to get in the car. I expertly pulled off my current license plates and shoved them into the back of the garage while Zander hooked on the new ones.

And then we were in the car, blankets and pillows and anything else shoved into the back to look like we were traveling cross country. I glanced over at Zander as he buckled his seatbelt. I rammed my foot down on the gas, tires squealing as I pulled out of the driveway and turned the car north, towards Uncle Simon's house. We were directed to go there, first, and if he was unavailable we were supposed to go to Aunt Tori's, and then Grandpa's.

Our entire family was spread out. We lived in a cozy house in western Florida. Uncle Simon lived in northern Georgia, Aunt Tori in New York, and Grandpa in Minnesota. I hoped that the few thousand dollars, plus our fake debit cards (to Andrea and Joshua Potts, of course) would be able to get us to Uncle Simon's house first.

Zander reached over and touched my arm. I threw a glance over at him as I barely stopped at the stop sign, speeding down the road towards the highway. He looked like he was panicked. That was an expression that I'd never seen cross his face before. He was stubborn, and a complete daredevil. He never doubted himself or what he decided, which is why his obvious freak out was bothering me.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. A white van was following us. It was one of those that had no windows in the back, the kind that I associated with service vans or kidnapper vans. I had a feeling that it wasn't a carpet cleaning service, like the side advertised, but someone who was much more dangerous. Also, I couldn't help but see the irony in the fact that a carpet cleaning van was following us when the blood on the living room carpet had been what tipped us off that this was real danger.

I shivered at the thought. It had seemed like a lot of blood, but after a moment it just seemed like it was more common with a head injury or a heavy cut to the arm or leg. It didn't have to be a lethal amount, especially since it had been two people that were taken, not just one. My stomach clenched when I thought about my parents, tied up and injured, stuck somewhere. Dad had told me that we weren't supposed to go looking for them unless we were told otherwise. But I'd already made a vow to myself that I was going to find my parents, and I was going to find them alive. If Uncle Simon didn't help, then we'd go find Aunt Tori, who had always been more laid back out of the two of them. She'd also been the one that had told be to rebel a little bit. I got along with her swimmingly.

That was probably the reason she was number two on people to go see. Still, I would keep to that part of dad's wishes.

Once again, I looked in the rearview mirror. The carpet cleaning van was still following us. Instead of turning out of the neighborhood like I would've usually done, I flipped on my blinker to turn into the older, more winding part of the neighborhood. It went with the land, so the roads were hilly and sharp, and if you didn't know them well, definitely confusing.

"What are you doing, Whitney?" Zander asked, turning in his seat to look through the back window.

"Hang on tight."

# # #

Dr. Watson

Finally. Mr. St. Cloud would be pleased, if he even managed to understand what I'd just done in his old age. They'd never been able to capture them. I'd been researching them for the last two decades, after Davidoff, the stupid fool, failed. He was too confident, too arrogant to see anyone else's view. I'd stayed in the back all those years, watching as he struggled to locate his experiments.

And in the end, they'd beaten him. I remembered that day, when I arrived at their building. It was torn to shreds. Obviously, the necromancer girl had been stronger than anyone had imagined, and she'd been able to figure out how to set the demi-demon free from the walled cage that held her there. With her release, the whole building, everything that St. Cloud invested in, was gone.

And then there was that insolent Enright woman, who was stupid enough to mix her daughter's witch blood with that of a warlock before putting her into the study. That girl should've been taken out as a compromised specimen. She had too many blood experiments going on at once, but of course, she'd been able to sweet talk her way. That woman was more venomous than a cobra. And there she lay, dead in the rubble of the building. She still had that scowl of hers on her face. And she was holding a gun.

A gun whose bullet had taken the life of Davidoff. If I hadn't had to pretend that it was very serious, what had happened there, I might've laughed. Enright killed Davidoff! Finally, she must've realized how useless that man had been. Talking about how he was so strong for being an Agito, when he wasn't even close to being the top. That didn't matter, now, of course, because I was on top. I was running the show. And, after twenty years of cleaning up after Davidoff, I was the one who had captured the experiments in their home.

And, there had been an extra little surprise for me. Two bedrooms, one for a teenage girl, the other for a teenage boy. The experiments had had children. It was the perfect opportunity to open a new slot of experiments – half-breeds. Our results from those two couldn't be perfect, because of the fact that their parents had been in the Genesis II project. They would be outliers, as well as Enright's daughter. And then St. Cloud would look at me like I was the best, instead of saying that the loss of Davidoff had been a huge hit to our industry.

He knew Davidoff was a screw-up, just like I did. Just like we all did.

And now it was finally time to prove it.

So what do you guys think? I'm really excited about continuing on this story, but I'll be flat-out honest and say that I'll lose gusto for it if you guys don't review.

As always, I love you guys for reading this (and hopefully reviewing – DOOOO IIIITTT.) Please feel free to leave me comments and criticism. I apologize ahead of time for any grammatical/spelling problems that I missed in my quick review.

With my stories, I enjoy creating playlists (as I have yet to find a rule against this.) Feel free to post any songs in the reviews that you believe pertain to this story. The rules for this little fun activity are that the songs cannot have over-the-top profanity or strong intimate situations. Thank you (:

Once again, don't forget to check out After the End and The Hidden Truth, and please do favorite this if you're enjoying it exponentially. Peace (: