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met the gaze. “I know so.”
    “You guys are that much better.”
    Garret shifted his chair back, pushing aside his beer bottle and placed his elbow on the desk, hand uplifted and ready to grasp Teigan’s. Instinctively, the muscles in Teigan’s arm flexed. He was in excellent physical shape, one of the best field agents out there, and could bench press a full ten rep of 280. Nor was he stupid. Viadal’s meddling would give Garret a true edge and Teigan wasn’t about to make any sort of bet that he could beat the ex-super soldier. At the same time, Teigan was no fly to be easily squashed—and yeah, he was damn curious.  
    Curiosity won. It had always been one of his greatest flaws.
    He shifted his chair into better position, placed his elbow onto the desk and clasped Garret’s hand. Garret waited, allowing Teigan to start the match. Fine . Teigan pushed hard, met an immovable force. Hands locked, knuckles whitened, arms strained; Teigan broke out in a sweat, keeping his force steady, using leverage as much as strength, ever increasing the pressure in hopes of making headway. His palm became sweaty and his grip slipped. He recovered easily. Too easily. He glanced up, Garret smiled. Smiled, like he imagined the Cheshire cat playing with a mouse might. Seeing the lack of strain in his half-brother’s shoulder, Teigan quadrupled his efforts, determined to at least make the arrogant bastard work for the win. Garret chuckled, slamming Teigan’s arm down effortlessly.
    “Fuck.” Teigan rubbed his throbbing hand. “You sure you’re human?”
    Garret’s smile vanished. He pushed back from the desk, grabbed a slim container off the shelf, and extracted a smoke. He lit the cigarette and drew in a long breath. Teigan had never understood how the safe-smokes had caught on as a replacement to the addictive nicotine cigarettes of the 20 th century. Chemically altered to be a perfectly harmless, non-addictive, non-cancer forming smoke alternative—even the smell had been carefully neutralized to be non-offensive to the non-smokers—the only thing the smokes did for a person was keep their mouth and hands occupied. If Teigan was going to have a vice, he wanted it to be bad for him. Bad for his health, bad for his wallet…or something.
    “Yeah. I’m human. I’m perfectly fucking human.” Garret puffed a series of clouds into the small room that dissipated as quickly as they formed. “Human enough to hate him. And resent you.”
    Teigan didn’t have to ask who him was: Their father. He could understand the hate part. Not many people hadn’t hated Teigan’s father. Including Teigan. Hadn’t stopped him from idolizing the old bastard though. “Can I ask why you resent me?”
    “Cause of what you are, what I wasn’t,” Garret said through another cloud of smoke.
    Teigan eyed him dubiously. “Isn’t it the other way around? You’re the perfect soldier, the perfect son. I imagine that’s why he did it. I was never good enough.”  
    “You coddle him too much, Marie. You’re turning my son into a pussy.” The anger and disgust in the gravelly voice sliced the young child inside his memories. It was the child’s weakness and his father’s repugnance that had no doubt fueled the creation of this half-brother beside him. Teigan wondered if their father would’ve finally been proud of his eldest son for making the cut and joining the Agency. He’d never know. The old man and his mom died in a freak hover car accident before Teigan had even been accepted into the training program, ending his hope of ever gaining his father’s approval.
    Teigan tipped his beer bottle in Garret’s direction. “You’re the son he wished he’d had.”  
    Garret leaned forward, blue eyes intense. “But you had a dad, and a mom. I didn’t even know who my father was until Whitesman asked me to do this. I still don’t know my mother. We had a governess until we were five. After that, all we had were trainers and handlers.”