Killer instinct The Naturals #2

The rules just changed, I thought. The Naturals program just got some oversight," Agent Sterling replied. "There are going to be some new regulations. New protocols. And they'l1l mean something. No more special exceptionsnot even from me." Her expression was stern, but Michael must have seen something I didn't, because he broke into a grin. Agent Sterling smiled, too--directly at me. "We're going to need those regulations," she added, “because as of tomorrow, the five of you are cleared to consult on active cases." They weren't shutting us out. They were letting us in. Instead of taking away my purpose, they'd given it new life. This was a whole new world.

If I’d chosen Michael, Dean would have understo0d. I started walking toward the porch, toward Dean, my pace gaining with each step. Michael's voice called after me. "Cassie" There was a hint of genuine emotion in his voice just a hint of something, but I couldn't tell what. I looked back over my shoulder, but didn't turn around. Yes?" Michael stared at me, his hazel eyes holding a mixture of emotions I couldn't quite parse. "If it had been me in the woods, if I'd been the one to go with Briggs, if I'd been the one you saw at the exact second..." Would it have been me? He didn't finish the question, and I didn't answer it. As I turned back toward the house, he went back to knocking the windows out of that broken, battered car. "Yeah," he said, his voice carrying on the wind. "That's what I thought."

Michael looked up and caught sight of me, as if my thoughts had somehow made their way from my mind to his. He studied me, the way he had the first day we'd met, before I'd known what he could do. "That's it, then?" he asked me. I didn't answer. I couldn't. My eyes darted toward the porch. Toward Dean. Michael gave me a careless smile. You win some, you lose some," he said with a shrug. Like I'd never been anything more than a game. Like I didn't matter. Because he wouldn't let me matter anymore. "It's just as well," he continued, each word a calculated shot to my heart. "Maybe if Redding's getting some, hel finally loosen up." I knew, objectively, what this was. If you cant keep them from hitting you, you make them hit you. That didn't stop his words from cuting into me.

Dean pulled me gently toward him. His lips brushed lightly over mine. The action was hesitant, uncertain. My hands settled on the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe when the smoke cleared, things would look different. But I couldn't stop it, couldn't keep living my life on maybes if I wanted to live. I rose up on my toes, my body pressed against his, and returned the kiss, the pain in my face fading, washed away with the rest of the world, until there was only this moment-one that I hadn't thought I'd live to see.

"I was wrong," he said, "when I said I just felt something." He was breathing heavily. I couldn't breathe at all. "When I said I wasn't sure it was enough."

“But how did you- "Your ankle tracker." "Agent Sterling said she hadn't activated it." Briggs smiled wryly. "She hadn't, but since she was on a playing-by-the- rules kick when she checked it out, she filled out all the paperwork. I's were dotted. T's were crossed. We had the serial number and were able to activate it remotely."

He brought the gun to his shoulder. The tip of the barrel was less than three feet away from my body. It hovered over my midsection for a few seconds, then settled just over my forehead. I closed my eyes. "Take them. Free them. Track them. Kill" He cut off, suddenly and without warning. It was only later that my brain processed the sound of gunfire, the rush of footsteps coming toward me. "Cassie. Cassie."

I did the only thing there was left to do. I jumped. The gun went off. The shot went wide, and I Crashed into him, feet first. We both went down in a tangle of limbs. He kept hold of the rifle, but I was too close for him to point it at me. Three seconds. That was how long it took for him to get the upper hand, to wrestle me to the ground. He pinned me with one hand, then rose to a crouch and slammed a foot into my chest, replacing his hand. Head wound bleeding heavily, he stood. From my position on the ground, he looked impossibly tall. Invincible.

Please don t see me. Please dont see me. Please don't see me. His eyes were on the ground. Tracks. I'd left tracks-and they stopped right under this tree. I knew the second he was going to look up. I only had time for one thought, one silent plea. Don't miss. My arm whipped the rock at him so hard, I nearly knocked myself out of the tree. He looked up. I didn't miss.

"Why couldn t you just do what I asked? Why did you make him bring you, too?" The anger drained out of her voice from one sentence to the next until all that was left was a terrible, hollow hopelessness. "Because," I said, nodding toward my right foot and wincing when my head protested, "I'm wearing a GPS tracking anklet." Sterling's head was bowed, but her eyes found their way to mine. "The minute I left the property, Briggs got a text message," I said. "It won't take him long to realize that you're missing, too. He'l pull up the data from my tracker. He'll find us. If I'd let you go alone..." I didn't finish that sentence. "Briggs will find us." Sterling lifted her head to the ceiling. At first, I thought she was smiling, but then I realized she was crying" ”I never activated the tracker. I thought wearing it was deterrent enough." The tracker was supposed to go off. It was supposed to lead Briggs right to us.

not going to cut them. This time, you think, we're doing it my way. knock her out-and oh, it feels good. It feels right. You're not going to hang them. You're not going to brand them. You're You have the One Who Got Away. You have his useless litle son's girl. You make the FBI agent put the girl in your trunk, climb in herself. You You slam the trunk. You climb into the car. You drive away. The student has become the master:.

"Eyes on me, Cassie." Sterling shifted her focus from the UNSUB to me just long enough to issue that instruction. It took me a moment to realize why. She doesnt want me to see him. "Knock her out. Leave her here. She wasn't part of the plan. Your plan." Sterling's voice was steady, but her hands were shaking. She was playing a dangerous game. One wrong word and the UNSUB could kill me as easily as he could knock me out. "She can't identify you. By the time she wakes up, you'll be long gone, and I'l be yours. You won't lose me, the way Redding did. You'll take your time. You'll do it your way, but they won't find you. They won't find me if you stick to the plan."

"Take me. That's what you came here for. I'm the one who got away from Redding. Proving you're better than his other apprentices, killing them isn't enough. You want to prove you're better than him. To show him." The grip on my neck relaxed, but the gun never wavered. I sucked air into my burning lungs, gasping for just one breath, then two.

"Call Briggs, and Ill go to bed," I promised. Even in the dark, I could make out the annoyance on her face. Fine," she said finally, pulling out her phone and waving it at me. "T"l call him." "No," a voice said, directly behind me. “You won't." I didn't have time to turn, to think, to process the words. An arm locked around my throat, cutting off my air supply and jerking me to the tips of my toes. My body was pulled flat against my assailant's. I clawed at the arm around my neck. It tightened. I couldn't breathe. Something metal and cool grazed my cheek and came to rest at my temple.

"What if Christopher wasn't the one communicating with this girl online? What if he didn't choose her?" Clark chose Emerson. Christopher chose his mother. They both had ironclad alibis for the murders of the women they had chosen. What if they weren't the only ones? «You think there's a third." Sterling put the possibility into words. That made it real. I braced the heels of my hands against the edge of the bed, steadying myself. "Did Christopher confess to Emerson's murder?" I asked. "Is there any physical evidence tying him to the scene? Any circumstantial evidence?

«That's the difference between the two of us," Michael told me. “I don't just want you." Now both of his hands were on my face. “I want to want you. Michael wasn't a person who let himself want things. He certainly didn' admit to wanting them. He didn't let anything under his skin. He expected to be disappointed. "Pm here, Cassie. I know what I feel, and I know that when you let your guard down, when you let yourself, you feel it, too." He ran his fingers lightly over the back of my neck. “I know that you're scared."

Do you--Dean, I need to know what you feel. For me." Any second, things could change. "I feel...something." Dean's words came unevenly. He turned toward me, his leg brushing against mine. “But I don't know if I can--I don't know if it's enough." He closed my hand around the tube of lipstick I was holding., his hand covering mine. I don't know if I can...." Can what? Open up? Let go? Risk letting something mater so much that losing it could push you off the edge? Michael appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Dean let go of my hand. "They found him," Michael said, coming to a standstill and looking up at us. “Briggs's team found Christopher Simms."

"Alfred Hitchcock," Sloane chimed in. “1951 film. One hour and forty- one minutes long. The movie postulates that the most foolproof way to get away with murder is for two strangers to take out each other's targets." «That way," Briggs said softly, each killer has an alibi when their target dies." Like Clark had been in a room with hundreds of others taking a test when Emerson had been killed. The dominoes fell, one by one in my head. Like Christopher Simms was in a meeting with Briggs when someone killed his mother.

"Because a match came up in the system." Briggs shrugged off his suit jacket and folded it neatly over one arm. It was a restrained action, one that didn't match the look in his eyes in the least. "Clark's DNA matches the sample found under Trina Simms's fingernails." I took a moment to process the implication. Sloane was obliging enough to put it into words. "So what you're saying," she replied, "is that Gary Clarkson isn't just victim number four. He's also our second UNSUB."

Two UNSUBS. UNSUB 1 was organized. He'd killed Emerson and Clark- and quite possibly the professor. UNSUB 2 was disorganized. He'd murdered Trina Simms right after we'd gone to visit her.

She jerked out of his grasp. "Then whose fault is it? The other deception reader in the room who is apparently completely useless?" "What if you're not?" Sloane interjected. Her eyes weren't quite focused on the here and now. I could practically hear the gears in her head turning. “Not useless, I mean," she said, haphazardly pushing white-blond bangs out of her eyes with the heel of her hand. "What if he was telling the truth, every single time?" Lia shook her head hard enough to send her ponytail swishing. "That's not possible." "It is," Sloane said, "if there's more than one apprentice."

"Is your apprentice a college student?" I asked. Redding didn't hesitate, not even for a second. "Yes." "Is your apprentice someone who's never been to college?" If Redding thought it odd that I was asking two versions of the same question, he gave no indication of it. "Yes." "Is your apprentice under the age of twenty-one?" «Yes." "Is your apprentice over the age of twenty-one?" He smiled. "Yes." "Is your apprentice someone you met through the mail?" Yes." "Is your apprentice someone you met in person?" Yes."

Briggs exhaled loudly. Then he turned to me. "There was one other thing." "No." Dean's objection was immediate and absolute. "Dean- "I said no." “That's not your decision to make," Briggs told Dean. "The hardest part of this job isn't being willing to put yourself on the line your safety, your sanity, your reputation. The hardest part is letting people you care about do the samne." Dean turned toward the kitchen. I thought he would walk away, but he didn't. He stood there, his back to the rest of us, as Agent Briggs told us about Redding's parting shot. "He said that if we wanted to talk to him sooner, rather than later, that Dean wouldn't come alone next time."

"We have DNA," Briggs allowed himself a brief smile-the FBI agent's version of dancing a jig. "Trina Simms got our UNSUB with her fingernails."