The Naturals

Michael and Dean were already in the living room when Sloane and I arrived. In the past fourteen minutes, my blond companion had quieted, like the Energizer Bunny powering down. She took a seat on the sofa next to Michael. I sat down next to her. Across from us, Dean was sitting on the edge of the fireplace, his gaze locked on the floor, hair in his face.

Sofa, chairs, pillows, rug, I thought. And he chooses to sit on stone.

I flashed back to the first time I’d seen him, lifting weights and pushing his body to the brink. My very first impression had been that he was punishing himself.

“Glad to see you all made it.” Lia didn’t just walk into a room; she made an entrance. All eyes on her, she sank to the floor and stretched her legs out, crossing her feet at the ankles and spreading my dress out around her. “For your entertainment this evening: Truth or Dare.” She paused, raking her eyes over the rest of us. “Any objections?”

Dean opened his mouth.

“No,” Lia told him.

“You asked for objections,” Dean said.

Lia shook her head. “You don’t get to object.”

“Do I?” Michael asked.

Lia considered the question. “Do you want to?”

Michael glanced at me, then back at Lia. “Not particularly.”

“Then, yes,” Lia replied. “You do.”

Beside me, Sloane raised her hand.

“Yes, Sloane?” Lia said pleasantly. Apparently, she wasn’t concerned that our resident numbers girl might object.

“I’m familiar with the gist of the game, but I’m unclear on one thing.” Sloane’s eyes gleamed. “How do you win?”

Michael grinned. “You have to love a girl with a competitive streak.”

“You don’t win Truth or Dare,” I said. In fact, I deeply suspected this was the kind of game that everybody lost.

“Is that an objection?” Lia asked.

From across the room, Dean was telegraphing the words SAY YES to me, as clearly as if he’d hired a plane to write them in the sky. And if I’d been in a room with any other teenagers on the planet, I would have. But I was in a room with Michael, who I couldn’t quite profile, and Dean, who’d said the other day that Naturals didn’t work on active cases anymore. I had questions, and this was the only way I was going to get to ask them.

“No,” I told Lia. “That wasn’t an objection. Let’s play.”

A slow smile spread across Lia’s face. Dean banged his head back against the fireplace.

“Can I go first?” Sloane asked.

“Sure,” Lia replied smoothly. “Truth or dare, Sloane?”

Sloane gave her a look. “That’s not what I meant.”

Lia shrugged. “Truth. Or. Dare.”

“Truth.”

In a normal game of Truth or Dare, that would have been the safer option—because if the question was too embarrassing, you could always lie. With Lia in the room, that was impossible.

“Do you know who your father is?”

Lia’s question took me completely off guard. I’d spent most of my life not knowing who my own father was, but couldn’t imagine being forced to admit that in front of a crowd. Lia seemed fond of Sloane, more or less, but clearly, in Truth or Dare, the kid gloves came off.

Sloane met Lia’s eyes, unfazed. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“A swing and a miss,” Michael murmured. Lia gave him a dirty look.

“Your turn,” she told Sloane, and from the look on her face, I guessed she was bracing herself for payback—but Sloane turned to me.

“Cassie. Truth or dare?”

I tried to imagine what kind of dare Sloane might come up with, but drew a blank.

“Statistically, the most common dares involve eating unpleasant food, making prank phone calls, kissing another player, licking something unsanitary, and nudity,” Sloane said helpfully.

“Truth.”

Sloane was silent for several seconds. “How many people do you love?”

The question seemed harmless enough until I started thinking about my answer. Sloane’s blue eyes searched mine, and I got the distinct feeling that she wasn’t asking because she thought it would be amusing to hear my answer.

She was asking because she needed data points to compare to her own.

“How many people do I love?” I repeated. “Like … love how?”

I’d never been in love, so if she was talking about romance, the answer was easy.

“How many people do you love, total?” Sloane said. “Summing across familial, romantic, and all other variations.”

I wanted to just choose a number at random. Five sounded good. Or ten. Too many to count sounded better, but Lia was watching me, very still.

I’d loved my mother. That much was easy. And Nonna and my father and the rest—I loved them. Didn’t I? They were my family. They loved me. Just because I wasn’t showy about it didn’t mean that I didn’t love them back. I’d done what I could to make them happy. I tried not to hurt them.

But did I really love them, the way I’d loved my mom? Could I love anyone like that again?

“One.” I barely managed to get the word out of my mouth. I stared at Lia, hoping she’d tell me that wasn’t true, that losing my mom hadn’t broken something inside of me and I wasn’t destined to spend the rest of my life two shades removed from the kind of love that the rest of my family felt for me.

Lia held my gaze for a few seconds, then shrugged. “Your turn, Cassie.”

I tried to remember why I’d thought playing this game was a good idea. “Michael,” I said finally. “Truth or dare?”

There were so many things I wanted to ask him—what he really thought of the program, what his father was like, beyond the issue of tax fraud, whether there had ever been more to his relationship with Lia than trading verbal barbs. But I didn’t get a chance to ask any of those questions, because Michael leaned forward in his seat, his eyes gleaming. “Dare.”

Of course he wasn’t going to let me dig around in his brain. Of course he was going to make me issue the first dare of the game. I racked my brain for something that didn’t sound lame, but also didn’t involve kissing, nudity, or anything that might give Michael an excuse for trouble.

“Hit me with your best shot, Colorado.” Michael was enjoying this way too much. I had a feeling he was hoping that I would dare him to do something a little bit dangerous, something that would get his adrenaline pumping.

Something Briggs would disapprove of.

“I dare you …” I said the words slowly, hoping an answer would present itself. “… to dance ballet.”

Even I wasn’t sure where that came from.

“What?” Michael said. Clearly, he’d been expecting something a little more exciting, or at the very least risqué.

“Ballet,” I repeated. “Right there.” I pointed to the center of the rug. “Dance.”

Lia started cracking up. Even Dean bit back a smile.

“Ballet is a tradition of performance body movement hailing back to the early Renaissance,” Sloane said helpfully. “It is particularly popular in Russia, France, Italy, England, and the United States.”

Michael stopped her before she could orate an entire history of the art. “I’ve got this,” he said. And then, a solemn expression on his face, he stood up, he walked to the center of the room, and he struck a pose.

I’d seen Michael do smooth. I’d seen him do suave. I’d felt him push a piece of hair out of my face—but this. This was really something. He stood on his tippy-toes. He twirled in a circle. He bent his legs and stuck out his butt. But the best thing was the look in his eyes: cold, steely determination.

He capped the performance off with a curtsy.

“Very nice,” I said between hysterical giggles. He sank back onto the sofa and then turned dagger eyes on Lia.

“Truth or dare.”

Not surprisingly, Lia chose truth. Of all of us, she was probably the only one here who could lie and get away with it.

Michael smiled, as genial as Lia had been when she’d started this whole thing. “What’s your real name?”

For a few brief seconds, vulnerability and irritation passed over Lia’s features in quick succession.

“Your name isn’t Lia?” Sloane sounded strangely hurt at the idea that Lia might have lied about something as simple and basic as her own name.

“Yes,” Lia told her. “It is.”

Michael stared at Lia, raising his eyebrows ever so slightly.

“But once upon a time,” Lia said, sounding less and less like herself with every word, “my name used to be Sadie.”

Lia’s answer filled my mind with questions. I tried to picture her as a Sadie. Had she shed her old name as easily as she changed clothes? Why had she changed it? How had Michael known?

“Truth or dare …” Lia dragged her eyes across each of us, one by one, and I sensed something dark slowly unfurling inside of her. This wasn’t going to end well.

“Cassie.”

It didn’t seem fair that it was my turn again already, when Dean had yet to go, but I stepped up to the plate.

“Dare.” I don’t know what possessed me to choose that option, other than the fact that the look on Lia’s face convinced me that she’d make Sloane’s question look about as personal as an inquiry about the weather.

Lia beamed at me, and then beamed at Michael. Payback.

“I dare you,” Lia said, relishing each and every word, “to kiss Dean.”

Dean reacted to that sentence like he’d been electrocuted. He sat straight up. “Lia,” he said sharply. “No.”

“Oh, come now, Dean,” Lia cajoled. “It’s Truth or Dare. Take one for the team.” Without waiting for his reply, she turned back to me. “Kiss him, Cassie.”

I didn’t know what was worse, Dean’s objection to the idea of being forced to kiss me or the sudden realization that my body didn’t object to the idea of kissing him. I thought of our lessons with Locke, the feel of his hand on the back of my neck. …

Lia watched me expectantly, but Michael’s eyes were the ones I felt on my face as I crossed the room to stand in front of Dean.

I didn’t have to do this.

I could say no.

Dean looked up at me, and for a split second, I saw something other than deadly neutrality on his face. His eyes softened. His lips parted, like there was something he wanted to say.

I knelt next to the fireplace. I put one hand on his cheek, and I brought my lips to his. It was a friendly kiss. A European hello. Our mouths only touched for a second—but I felt it, electric, all the way to my toes.

I pulled back, unable to force my eyes away from his lips as I did. For a few seconds, we just stayed there, staring at each other: him on the fireplace and me kneeling on the rug.

“Your turn, Cassie.” Lia sounded pretty darned satisfied with herself.

I forced myself to stand up and walk back to the sofa. I sat down, still able to feel the ghost of Dean’s lips on mine. “Truth or dare, Dean?”

It was only fair: he was the sole person present who hadn’t been in the hot seat yet. For a second, I thought he might refuse and call an end to this game, but he didn’t.

“Truth.”

This was the opportunity Michael hadn’t given me. There were so many things I wanted to know. I concentrated on that, instead of what had passed between us a moment before.

“The other day, when Locke said she couldn’t take Lia to the crime scene, you said that wasn’t what the program was anymore.” I paused. “What did you mean?”

Dean nodded, as if that were a perfectly reasonable question to ask after you’d kissed a person. “I was the first one,” he said. “Before there was a program, before they started using the term Naturals, it was just Briggs and me. I didn’t live with Judd. The FBI brass didn’t know about me. Briggs brought me questions. I gave him answers.”

“Questions about killers.” I wasn’t allowed a follow-up question, so I phrased it as a statement. Dean nodded. Lia cut in, breaking off all conversation.

“He was twelve,” she said, clipping the words. “Your turn, Dean.”

“Cassie,” Dean said. That was it—no “truth or dare.” Just my name.

Beside me, Michael’s jaw clenched. Lia’s payback had hit its target—and then some.

“Truth,” I said, trying not to dwell on Michael’s reaction or what it might mean.

“Why did you come here?” Dean asked, looking at Lia, at his own hands, at anything but me. “Why join this program at all?”

There were a lot of answers to that question that would have been technically true. I could have said that I wanted to help people. I could have said that I’d always known that I’d never quite fit in the regular world. But I didn’t.

“My mother was murdered.” I cleared my throat, trying to say the words like they were just any other words. “Five years ago. Based on the blood spatter, they think she was stabbed. Repeatedly. The police never found her body, but there was enough blood that they don’t think she could have survived. I used to think that maybe she had. I don’t anymore.”

Dean didn’t react visibly to that confession—but Lia went unnaturally still, and Sloane’s mouth dropped open as she averted her eyes. Michael had known about my mother, but I’d never said a word to any of the others.

Truth or dare, Dean. I wanted to say the words, but I couldn’t keep asking Dean questions. Already, we’d kept this game between the two of us for too long. “Truth or dare, Lia?”

“Truth.” Lia said the word like a challenge. I asked her whether she was messy or neat. She lowered her chin, raised her eyebrows, and stared at me.

“Seriously,” she said. “That’s your question?”

“That’s my question,” I confirmed.

“I’m a mess,” she said. “By every sense of the word.” She didn’t give me time to meditate on the fact that I’d pegged her right before she targeted Michael for the next round. I expected him to pick dare again, but he didn’t.

“Truth.”

Lia ran dainty hands over her dress. She gave him her most wide-eyed, innocent look. Then she asked him if he was jealous when I kissed Dean. Michael didn’t bat an eye, but I thought Dean might actually throttle Lia.

“I don’t get jealous,” Michael said. “I get even.”

No one was surprised when Michael aimed the next round at Dean.

“Truth or dare, Dean?”

“Truth.” Dean’s eyes narrowed, and I remembered Lia saying that if Dean had a temper, Michael would have been dead by now. I waited, my stomach heavy and my throat dry, for Michael to ask Dean something horrible.

But he didn’t.

“Have you ever seen The Bad Seed?” he inquired politely. “The movie.”

A muscle in Dean’s jaw twitched. “No.”

Michael grinned. “I have.”

Dean stood up. “I’m done here.”

“Dean—” Lia’s tone was halfway between mulish and wheedling, but he silenced her with a look. Two seconds later, he was stalking out of the room, and a few seconds after that, I heard the front door open, then slam.

Dean was gone—and a person didn’t have to be an emotion reader to see the look of satisfaction on Michael’s face.