Wolf Untamed (SWAT - Special Wolf Alpha Team #11) - Paige Tyler Page 0,104

us cigarettes or junk food, have the guards leave our lights on for an extra ten minutes so we could read at night. Sometimes he’d use it to keep the other inmates from messing with me.”

Bree almost laughed. So, Dave’s cellmate was a charmer who was able to talk people into being nice and giving them things. It sounded like a great skill to possess, especially in prison, but not exactly a superpower.

“I told him he was wasting his gift,” Dave said pacing back and forth. “He could have run the prison and been the most powerful man in there. Instead, he used it to bum smokes and candy bars. He claimed it was a talent that shouldn’t be abused and refused to go along with anything I suggested.”

Dave stopped in front of her, an ugly gleam in his eyes that reminded her of the one she’d seen there the night he beat that poor guy to death all those years ago.

“What did you do?” Bree whispered, afraid she already knew the answer.

“I took it from him,” he said, as if that should have been obvious. “He rambled on all the time about how he’d been on some kind of DNA research team that got genetic material that had been frozen in the ice somewhere for thousands of years. He’d got some of it into his system, is the way he put it. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, and I have to admit I wasn’t paying a lot of attention when he talked about that part. But I was smart enough to figure out how I could get some of his DNA into my system.”

Bree felt her stomach turn as her mouth went dry. “Dave, what did you do? Tell me you didn’t…”

“I got him alone in the laundry area, and then I choked him to death and took a big bite out of him.” He turned back to look out the window, frown lines appearing across his forehead as if something across the street was bothering him. “I wasn’t sure if drinking his blood alone would do it, so I took a little extra, you know? Eating human flesh isn’t fun, but it was definitely worth it.”

Bree gaped at him. If she’d had any doubts before, they were erased now. Holy crud, he’d eaten another person because he had delusions that would give him superpowers. Her ex-husband was a damn cannibal. She’d always known he was a little off, but she never imagined he could go as far as something like that.

A few feet away, Brandon was staring at his father like…well, like his father had just confessed to eating his prison cellmate.

“I was right,” Dave continued as if he hadn’t admitted to be the biggest whackadoodle on the planet. In fact, from the self-satisfied smirk on his face, he seemed to think his little act of cannibalism had been the brightest thing anyone had ever done. “Once I had the ability, I was able to make people do anything I wanted. I had a crew of muscle covering my back 24/7, and getting the parole board to go along with my early release was a piece of cake. The two people I marked with my blood fell all over themselves to get me released without probation. Once I got out, having people rob banks and jewelry stores for me only made sense. A little bit of blood and it was ridiculously easy to get those people to steal for me. The best part was, they couldn’t remember doing it afterward.”

Pieces began to fit into place then. Oh. My. God. Diego said the delirium drug had likely originated in Coffield. It turned out he was half right. Delirium had started at the prison. But it wasn’t a drug. It was Dave and his blood. She guessed that explained all the bandages and gauze on his hands and arms. She wasn’t sure how such a thing was possible, but apparently, it was.

“I have to admit,” Dave said, still looking out the window, his face paler than before, “it took a while to learn how to control more than a couple people at a time, and when the numbers get too high, maintaining control can be a bit challenging. Actually, it can be kind of painful. It gives me really bad headaches, like my brain is on fire.”

She wanted to ask if that was why he was sweating and pale at the moment, because he was trying to control