The Naturals, Book 2: Killer Instinct (2 page)

I
t was late September, the time of year when you could practically feel the last, labored breaths of summer as it gave way to fall. A slight chill
settled over the backyard as the sun went down, but the five of us barely felt it, drunk on power and the unfathomable thing we’d just managed to do. Lia chose the music. The steady beat of
the bass line drowned out the sounds of the tiny town of Quantico, Virginia.

I’d never really belonged anywhere before I joined the Naturals program, but for this instant, this moment, this one night, nothing else mattered.

Not my mother’s disappearance and presumed murder.

Not the corpses that had started piling up once I had agreed to work for the FBI.

For this instant, this moment, this one night, I was invincible and powerful and part of something.

Lia took my hand in hers and led me from the back porch onto the lawn. Her body moved with perfect, fluid grace, like she’d been born dancing. “For once in your life,” she
ordered, “just let go.”

I wasn’t much of a dancer, but somehow, my hips began to keep time to the music.

“Sloane,” Lia yelled. “Get your butt out here.”

Sloane, who’d already had her promised cup of coffee, bounded out to join us. It became quickly apparent that her version of dancing involved a great deal of bouncing and occasional spirit
fingers. With a grin, I gave up trying to mimic Lia’s liquid, sensuous movements and adopted Sloane’s.
Bounce. Wiggly fingers. Bounce.

Lia gave the two of us a look of consternation and turned to the boys for backup.

“No,” Dean said curtly. “Absolutely not.” It was getting dark enough that I couldn’t make out the exact expression on his face from across the lawn, but I could
imagine the stubborn set of his jaw. “I don’t dance.”

Michael was not so inhibited. He walked to join us, his gait marked by a noticeable limp, but he managed some one-legged bouncing just fine.

Lia cast her eyes heavenward. “You’re hopeless,” she told us.

Michael shrugged, then threw in some jazz hands. “It’s one of my many charms.”

Lia looped her arms around the back of his neck and pressed her body close to his, still dancing. He raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t push her away. If anything, he looked amused.

On again, off again.
My stomach twisted sharply. Lia and Michael had been
off
the entire time I’d known them.
It’s none of my business.
I had to remind myself of
that.
Lia and Michael can do whatever they want to do.

Michael caught me staring at them. He scanned my face, like a person skimming a book. Then he smiled, and slowly, deliberately, he winked.

Beside me, Sloane looked at Lia, then at Michael, then at Dean. Then she bounced closer to me. “There’s a forty percent chance this ends with someone getting punched in the
face,” she whispered.

“Come on, Dean-o,” Lia called. “Join us.” Those words were part invitation, part challenge. Michael’s body moved to Lia’s beat, and I realized suddenly that
Lia wasn’t putting on a show for my benefit—or for Michael’s. She was getting up close and personal with Michael solely to get a rise out of Dean.

Based on the mutinous expression on Dean’s face, it was working.

“You know you want to,” Lia taunted, turning as she danced so her back was up against Michael. Dean and Lia had been the program’s first recruits. For years, it had been just
the two of them. Lia had told me once that she and Dean were like siblings—and right now, Dean looked every inch the overprotective big brother.

Michael likes pissing Dean off.
That much went without saying.
Lia lives to pull Dean off the sidelines. And Dean…

A muscle in Dean’s jaw ticked as Michael trailed a hand down Lia’s arm. Sloane was right. We were one wrong move away from a fistfight. Knowing Michael, he’d probably consider
it a bonding activity.

“Come on, Dean,” I said, intervening before Lia could say something inflammatory. “You don’t have to dance. Just brood in beat to the music.”

That surprised a laugh out of Dean. I grinned. Beside me, Michael eased back, putting space between his body and Lia’s.

“Care to dance, Colorado?” Michael grabbed my hand and twirled me. Lia narrowed her eyes at us, but rebounded quickly, wrapping an arm around Sloane’s waist, attempting to
coerce her into something that resembled actual dancing.

“You’re not happy with me,” Michael said once I was facing him again.

“I don’t like games.”

“I wasn’t playing with
you
,” Michael told me, twirling me around a second time. “And for the record, I wasn’t playing with Lia, either.”

I gave him a look. “You
were
messing with Dean.”

Michael shrugged. “One does need hobbies.”

Dean stayed at the edge of the lawn, but I could feel his eyes on me.

“Your lips are turning upward.” Michael cocked his head to one side. “But there’s a wrinkle in your brow.”

I looked away. Six weeks ago, Michael had told me to figure out how I felt about him—and about Dean. I’d been doing my best not to think about it, not to let myself feel anything
about
either
of them, because the moment I felt something—anything—Michael would know. I’d gone my whole life without romance. I didn’t need it, not the way I needed
this
: being part of something, caring about people in a way that I hadn’t realized I still could. Not just Michael and Dean, but Sloane and even Lia. I
fit
here. I hadn’t
fit anywhere in a very long time.

Maybe ever.

I couldn’t screw that up.

“You sure we can’t talk you into dancing?” Lia called out to Dean.

“Positive.”

“Well, in that case…” Lia cut in between Michael and me, and the next thing I knew, I was dancing with Sloane and Lia was back with Michael. She looked up at him through heavily
lashed eyes and put her hands flat on his chest.

“Tell me, Townsend,” she said, practically purring. “Do you feel lucky?”

This did not bode well.

I
was dead. Outmanned, outgunned, seconds away from disaster—and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

“I’ll see your three and raise you two.” Michael smirked. If I’d been an emotion reader, I could have determined if it was an
I have an incredible hand and I’m
spoon-feeding you your own doom
smirk or an
it’s smirk-worthy that you can’t tell I’m bluffing
smirk. Unfortunately, I was better at figuring out people’s
personalities and motivations than the exact meaning of each of their facial expressions.

Note to self,
I thought.
Never play poker with Naturals.

“I’m in.” Lia twirled her gleaming black ponytail around her index finger before sliding the requisite number of Oreos to the center of the coffee table. Given that her
expertise was spotting lies, I took that to mean that there was a very good chance that Michael was bluffing.

The only problem was that now I had no idea if
Lia
was bluffing.

Sloane looked on from behind a veritable mountain of Oreos. “I’ll sit this one out,” she said. “Also, I’m entertaining the idea of eating some of my poker chips.
Can we agree that an Oreo missing its frosting is worth two-thirds of its normal amount?”

“Just eat the cookies,” I told her, eyeing her pile mournfully—and only partially joking. “You have plenty to spare.”

Before joining the Naturals program, Sloane had been Las Vegas born and raised. She’d been counting cards since she’d learned to count. She sat out about a third of the hands, but
won every single hand she played.

“Somebody’s a bad sport,” Lia said, waggling a finger at me. I stuck my tongue out at her.

Somebody only had two Oreos left.

“I’m in,” I sighed, pushing them into the pot. There was no point in delaying the inevitable. If I’d been playing with strangers, I would have had the advantage. I could
have looked at a person’s clothes and posture and known instantly how much of a risk taker they were and whether they’d bluff quietly or put on a show. Unfortunately, I wasn’t
playing with strangers, and the ability to get a read on other people’s personalities wasn’t nearly as useful in a group of people you already knew.

“What about you, Redding? Are you in or are you out?” Michael issued the words as a challenge.

So maybe Lia misread him,
I thought, turning that idea over in my head.
Maybe he’s not bluffing.
I doubted Michael would have challenged Dean unless he was certain he was
going to win.

“I’m in,” Dean said. “All in.” He pushed five cookies into the pot and raised an eyebrow at Michael, mimicking the other boy’s facial expression almost
exactly.

Michael matched Dean’s bet. Lia matched Michael’s. My turn.

“I’m out of cookies,” I said.

“I’d be open to discussing a modest interest rate,” Sloane told me before returning her attention to divesting an Oreo of its frosting.

“I have an idea,” Lia said in an overly innocent tone that I recognized immediately as trouble. “We could always take things to the next level.” She unknotted the white
kerchief around her neck and tossed it to me. Her fingers played with the bottom of her tank top, raising it up just enough to make it crystal clear what the “next level” was.

“It is my understanding that the rules of strip poker specify that only the loser is required to disrobe,” Sloane interjected. “No one has lost yet, ergo—”

“Call it a show of solidarity,” Lia said, inching her shirt up farther. “Cassie’s almost out of chips. I’m just trying to even the playing field.”

“Lia.” Dean was not amused.

“Come on, Dean,” Lia said, her bottom lip jutting out in an exaggerated pout. “Loosen up. We’re all friends here.” With those words, Lia pulled off her tank top.
She was wearing a bikini top underneath. Clearly, she’d dressed for the occasion.

“Ante up,” she told me.

I wasn’t wearing a bathing suit under
my
top, so there was no way it was coming off. Slowly, I took off my belt.

“Sloane?” Lia turned to her next. Sloane stared at Lia, a blush spreading over her cheeks.

“I’m not undressing until we establish a conversion rate,” she informed us tartly, gesturing toward her mountain of chips.

“Sloane,” Michael said.

“Yes?”

“How would you feel about a second cup of coffee?”

Forty-five seconds later, Sloane was in the kitchen, and neither of the boys was wearing a shirt. Dean’s stomach was tanned, a shade or two darker than Michael’s. Michael’s
skin was like marble, but for the bullet scar, pink and puckered where his shoulder met his chest. Dean had a scar, too—older, thinner, like someone had drawn the tip of a knife slowly down
his torso in a jagged line from the base of his collarbone to his navel.

“I call,” Lia said.

One by one, we flipped over our cards.

Three of a kind.

Flush.

Full house, queens and eights. The last was from Michael.

I knew it,
I thought.
He wasn’t bluffing.

“Your turn,” Lia told me.

I flipped my own cards over, and my brain cataloged the result. “Full house,” I said, grinning. “Kings and twos. Guess that means I win, huh?”

“How did you…?” Michael sputtered.

“Are you telling me the pity party was an act?” Lia sounded impressed despite herself.

“It wasn’t an act,” I told her. “I fully expected to lose. I just hadn’t actually looked at my final cards yet.”

I’d figured that if
I
didn’t know what my hand held, there was no way for Michael or Lia to figure it out, either.

Dean was the first one to start laughing.

“Hail Cassie,” Michael said. “Queen of loopholes.”

Lia huffed.

“Does this mean I get to keep your shirts?” I asked, reaching for my belt and snagging an Oreo while I was at it.

“I think it would be best if everyone maintained possession of their own shirts. And put them on.
Now.
”

I froze. The voice that issued that command was female and crisp. For a split second, I was taken back to my first weeks in the program, to our supervisor, my mentor. Special Agent Lacey Locke.
She’d trained me. I’d idolized her. I’d trusted her.

“Who are you?” I forced myself back to the present. I couldn’t let myself think about Agent Locke—once I went down that rabbit hole, it would be hard to fight my way out.
Instead, I focused on the person barking out orders. She was tall and thin, but nothing about her seemed slight. Her dark brown hair was pulled into a tight French knot at the nape of her neck, and
she held her head with her chin thrust slightly forward. Her eyes were gray, a shade lighter than her suit. Her clothes were expensive; she wore them like they weren’t.

There was a gun holstered to her side.

Gun.
This time, I couldn’t cut the memories off at the knees.
Locke. The gun.
It was all coming back.
The knife.

Dean laid a hand on my shoulder. “Cassie.” I felt the warmth of his hand through my shirt. I heard him say my name. “It’s okay. I know her.”