Read Eight's Origin (Lorien Legacies: The Lost Files Bonus) for Free Online

a peaceful smile.
    Although he is old and gray and wrinkled, he has a strength about him too, a quiet confidence that has something to do with the way he's smiling. I suspect that he's more than he seems, though I don't know why I think that. Or what that could even mean.
    Reynolds's death taught me never to trust anyone. If Reynolds hadn't trusted Lola—hadn't fallen in love with her—he never would have told her our secrets. Then she never would have been able to betray us to the Mogadorians. And Reynolds would still be alive. Trust is dangerous. But as much as I resist it, I can't help trusting this man.
    I watch him from a distance for a while. In my rabbit form, I can instinctively understand what another creature is going to do next from just the tiniest gestures and signals. There's something about this man's steady breathing, the way his eyes are moving lazily behind his eyelids and the way his ears are pricked, that tells me he knows I'm here watching him. But I also know that he's not going to approach me. He's just going to sit there. I could stay or go. It's up to me. Finally he laughs and opens his eyes.
    Then, before I even realize what I'm doing, I have hopped into the bushes, shed my rabbit skin, and teleported behind a line of trees in the opposite direction. When I step out from behind a tree, I am standing before this strange man in my human form. Number Eight.
    His eyes land on me. "Hello," he says.
    "Hi," I say. I decide to use the name I'd taken on when Reynolds and I moved here to India. "I'm Naveen."
    "I am Devdan," he says. "I am happy you have found me. You have much power, but you have much more to learn." He reaches into a leather pouch and pulls out a green, fresh leaf. ''But first, would you like a piece of lettuce? " he says, and offers it to me. I stare at him, confused.
    "I'm sorry I don't have any carrots," he says with a sly grin. "But rabbits like lettuce too, don't they?"
    A smile spreads across my face. For some reason, I feel like I've known this man all my life. I feel like he has known me forever too. Like he would know me in any form. The weight of regret and loneliness and despair that I have been carrying with me for so many months lifts from my shoulders, and suddenly I'm laughing.
    The man looks at me curiously for a moment, and then he begins to laugh too. It's like someone has just told us each the world's funniest joke.
    Somehow I know that this man will teach me more than I ever believed was possible. Perhaps more than even Reynolds could. He can teach me about this shape-changing power. He can teach me that it's one thing to become a bunny but that to become something powerful—something that can defeat the Mogadorians—takes much more than fear or anger.
    It takes strength.
    It takes knowledge and focus and trust.
    More than anything, it takes faith.
    But for now, I am just a rabbit. And a boy known as Number Eight.