Killer Instinct (The Naturals, #2)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“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.”

Nonna considered the putting of food in bellies one of her major missions in life, and woe be to the unfortunate soul who stood in her way.

But I would waltz into hades and make nice with the devil himself for Dean,

The only real immortality is doing something worth remembering.”

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

‘If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.’

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

Michael and Dean weren’t so enthused. “Cassie’s not going.” The two of them spoke in unison. “Well, this is awkward,” Lia commented, looking from one boy to the other. “Are you two going to start braiding each other’s hair next?” Someday, I was fairly certain that Lia would write a book entitled Making an Awkward Situation Worse.

“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.”

“Keys.” “Spatula,” Michael replied. She narrowed her eyes at him. “We aren’t just saying random nouns?” he asked archly.

“ ‘Doubt thou the stars are fire,’ ” Redding responded in a singsong tone. “ ‘Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar. . . .’ ” Briggs finished the quote for him. “ ‘But never doubt I love.’ Shakespeare.”

Liars are like magicians: while you’re watching the beautiful assistant, they’re slipping the rabbit out of a sleeve.”

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.

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