Killer Instinct (The Naturals, #2)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

threw my arms around Dean. A moment later, I bounced out of his grip and launched myself at Michael.

pick a side bro

Lia eyed me. She eyed Michael. She eyed Dean. “Honestly,” she said, “I doubt that anyone is as happy as Cassie is at this exact moment.”

LMFAOO THE ROAST

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.”

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.

LMAOOOO

“Tell me, Townsend,” she said, practically purring. “Do you feel lucky?” This did not bode well.

drama bro drama

“I take it you’re Michael,” she said. “The emotion reader with the attitude problem who’s continually doing stupid things for girls.” “That’s hardly a fair assessment,” Michael replied. “I do plenty of stupid things that aren’t for girls, too.”

im cryingg

“Director Sterling is my father.” Agent Sterling’s voice was neutral—too neutral, and I wondered what daddy issues she had.

HELPPLPP

Every similarity was salt in an open wound. Every difference was, too.

pretty wording

“She was also his wife.”

NAURR WTFFFF

Dean was the son of a serial killer. Michael had anger management issues and a father who’d traded him to the FBI for immunity from prosecution on white-collar crimes. Lia was a compulsive liar—and apparently had some kind of juvie record. Sloane had her catapult aimed at Agent Sterling’s head. And then there was me.

Stop why did i laugh at this

“Let’s see what Mommy and Daddy are up to, shall we?” Lia said, eyeing the TV greedily and waiting for the fireworks to commence. “Lia, I will give you one thousand dollars to never refer to Sterling and Briggs as Mommy and Daddy again.”

IM DYINGGG BROOO

“Bind them. Brand them. Cut them. Hang them,” I said softly. “That was how your father killed his victims.” I didn’t phrase it as a question, because I knew. Just by looking at Dean, I knew. “Yes,” Dean said, before lifting his eyes to look at the still-muted TV. “And I’m almost certain that’s what was done to this girl.”

UHM WTF

“Dean likes Cassie,” Sloane announced,

BAD TIMING GIRL

I should have known that she was my last connection to my mother. I should have known that she wasn’t what she seemed. I should have known, and I didn’t, and people had gotten hurt.

“Maybe,” I said softly, “to do what you and I do, we have to have a little bit of the monster in us.”

OMGGGGG DAMNN

“My father made me watch.”

HOLY CRAP BRO

“If I’m a bad boy, you’ll take away my keys?” Michael wiggled his eyebrows in a way that was both suggestive and ridiculous. “No,” I replied without even thinking about it. “If you’re a bad boy, I’ll give your car to Dean.”

LMFAOOO SAVAGE BRO

“There was only ever one case they couldn’t solve.”

ERMM WHAT

A profiler, an emotion reader, and a lie detector went to a party.…

We will see what happens right after a short ad

“‘To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.’”

ok bars

“The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said that anyone who fought monsters had to fight becoming a monster himself. ‘If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.’”

woah why did i get reminded of dean

Quite frankly, I thought that tools who lived in tool houses probably shouldn’t throw stones.

DANG OK

“Do tell, Michael. What did you think of the TA who was such a promising lead that Cassie left the party to go with him, with you on her heels?”

lia is such an instigator LMFAO

Most people built walls to protect themselves. Dean did it to protect everyone else.

woah.

“My father won’t tell you anything. The only person he’ll talk to is me.”

HOLY CRAP BRO DONT GO

“I put a call into the warden. I’m afraid the two of you are going to have to come with me.”

wtfff why do i hate him

A brand, in the shape of the letter R.

HOLY CRAP WTFFFFDF NO WAY WHATF TGE HELL

“If you can’t keep them from hitting you,” Michael said, “you make them hit you. At least that way, you’re ready. At least that way, it’s not a surprise.”

woah.

“I think they found the professor,” I said again, “but our UNSUB found him first.”

DAMN IT

“It’s considered impolite to talk above seventy-five decibels,” Sloane sniffed. “I believe it’s called shouting.”

LMAO NOT THE TIME FOR SARCASM SLOANE

Someday, I was fairly certain that Lia would write a book entitled Making an Awkward Situation Worse.

LMFAOOO I ACTUALLTG CANT

“Okay, I’m calling it,” Michael announced when the quiet got to be too much. “I’m turning on the radio. There will be singing. I would not be opposed to car-dancing. But the next person whose facial expression approaches ‘brood’ is getting punched in the nose. Unless it’s Cassie. If it’s Cassie, I punch Dean in the nose.”

LMAO NOT HIM THREATENING THEM

“Touch her again,” Michael told Christopher conversationally, “and Dean will be the one trying to pull me off of you.”

AHHHHHH AHSSSHSHHS

It’s not the bad memories that tear a person apart. It’s the good ones.

aw.

Christopher Simms had reported Dean to the police? I hadn’t seen that one coming.

UHM WOAH WTF

“The victim is Trina Simms, and neighbors heard screaming and called 911 while her son Christopher was at the police station with Briggs.”

WTFFF

“I met her. I didn’t like her. She died.”

HOLY CRAPPPP

“Our UNSUB and Redding aren’t partners,” I said. “Men like Daniel Redding don’t have partners. They don’t think they have equals.” I searched for the right word. “The person we’re looking for isn’t a partner,” I said finally. “It’s an apprentice.”

HOLY CRAPPP

“Or does he still think it was me who drew the knife slowly down her shoulders and thighs, me who sank the brand into her flesh?”

HOLYYYY FUCCCCCCCC

Tell him how I went to cut her—how you took the knife from my hand, not to save her, but to do it yourself. Tell him how you made her bleed. Tell him how she screamed when you burned an R into her flesh. Tell him how you asked me for her.” Redding closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling, like a man offering thanks to his gods. “Tell him she was your first.”

OMGGGG HOLY HELLLLL

“I didn’t escape, Daniel. Dean let me go. He covered for me.”

I LOVE DEAN OMG

“Sometimes you do what you have to in order to survive.”

wise.

“He said, Next time, bring the girl.”

OH SHOOOOTT

“Okay. Let’s try this one: you will never find the man who murdered your mother.”

HOLY FUCK WTH NO WAY HOW DID HE BRO

“So what you’re saying,” she replied, “is that Gary Clarkson isn’t just victim number four. He’s also our second UNSUB.”

what in the actual hell

Like Christopher Simms was in a meeting with Briggs when someone killed his mother.

OH MY GODDDCBRO

You have the One Who Got Away. You have his useless little son’s girl. This time, you think, we’re doing it my way. You make the FBI agent put the girl in your trunk, climb in herself. You knock her out—and oh, it feels good. It feels right. You slam the trunk. You climb into the car. You drive away. The student has become the master.

OH MY-

Some people said that broken bones grew back stronger. On the good days, I told myself that was true, that each time the world tried to break me, I became a little less breakable. On the bad days, I suspected that I would always be broken, that parts of me would never be quite right—and that those were the parts that made me good at the job. Those were the parts that made this house and the people in it home.

awww

awww

“When the odds are bad,” she said, removing something from one of them, “you change the rules.”

DANGGG