Jennifer Lynn Barnes - The Naturals стр 13.

Dean wiped his hands on his jeans, grabbed a nearby towel, and sat up. Thanks, he told Sloane.

Torque, she said, instead of youre welcome . The role of the lever was played by my arms.

Dean stood up, his lips angling slightly upward, but the moment he saw me, the fledgling smile froze on his face.

Dean Redding, Michael said, enjoying Deans sudden obvious discomfort a little too much, meet Cassie Hobbes.

Nice to meet you, Dean said, pulling dark eyes from mine and directing those words at the floor.

Lia, whod been remarkably quiet up to this point, raised an eyebrow at Dean. Well, she said, thats not strictly

Lia. Deans voice wasnt loud or hard, but the second he said her name, Lia stopped.

Thats not strictly what? I asked, even though I knew that the next word out of her mouth would have been true .

Never mind, Lia said in a singsong tone.

I looked back at Dean: Light hair. Dark eyes. Open posture. Clenched fists .

I cataloged the way he was standing, the lines of his face, the dingy white T-shirt and ratty blue jeans. His hair needed to be cut, and he stood with his back to the wall, his face cast in shadows, like that was where he belonged.

Why wasnt it nice to meet me?

Dean, Michael said, with the air of someone imparting a fascinating bit of useless trivia, is a Natural profiler. Just like you.

Those last three words seemed more aimed at Dean than me, and as they hit their target, Dean lifted his eyes to meet Michaels. There was no emotion on Deans face, but there was something in his eyes, and I found myself expecting Michael to look away first.

Dean, Michael continued, staring at Dean and talking to me, knows more about the way that killers think than just about anyone.

Dean threw down the towel in his hand. Muscles taut, he brushed by Michael and Sloane, by Lia, by me. A few seconds later, he was gone.

Dean has a temper, Michael told me, leaning back against the workout bench.

Lia snorted. Michael, if Dean had a temper, youd be dead.

Deans not going to kill anyone, Sloane said, her voice almost comically serious.

Michael dug a quarter out of his pocket and flipped it in the air. Wanna bet?

my own skin and put on someone elses.

Lias.

I started with the physical things. She was taller than I was, and lithe. Her hair was longer, and instead of sleeping with it tucked under her head, she would spread it out on the pillow. Her fingernails were painted, and when she had energy to burn, she rubbed the thumbnail on her left hand with the thumb on her right. In my mind, I turned my headLias headto the side, peering into her closet.

If Michael had leveraged a car out of Briggs, Lia would have gone for clothes. I could almost see the closet, full to overflowing. As the room came more into focus, I could feel my subconscious taking over, feel myself losing the real world in favor of this imaginary one Id built in my head.

I let go of my bed and my closet, my physical sensations. I let myself be Lia, and a rush of information came at me from all sides. Like a writer getting lost in a book, I let the simulation run its course. Where Sloane and I were neat, the Lia in my head was messy, her room a multisensory archive of the past few months. There was no rhyme or reason to the organization of the closet. Dresses hung half on and half off the hangers. There were clothesdirty, clean, new, and everything in betweenon the floor.

I pictured getting out of bed. In my own body, I had a tendency to sit up first, but Lia wouldnt take the time. Shed roll out of bed, ready for action. Ready to attack. Long hair fell on my shoulders, and I twirled a strand of it around my index finger: another of Lias nervous habits, designed to look like it wasnt nervous at all.

I glanced over at the door to the room. Closed, of course. Probably also locked. Who was I keeping out? What was I afraid of?

Afraid? I scoffed silently, my mind-voice sounding more and more like Lias. Im not afraid of anything .

I walked over to the closetlight on my toes, hips swaying gentlyand pulled out the first shirt I touched. The selection was completely random, but what came next wasnt. I built the outfit up around me. I dressed myself up like a doll, and with each passing moment, I put that much more space between the surface and everything underneath.

I did my hair, my eyes, my nails.

But there was still that little voice in my head. The same one that had insisted I wasnt scared. Only this time, the one thing it kept saying, over and over again, was that I was herebehind this locked door with who knows what waiting outsidebecause I had nowhere else to go.

YOU

You know that there are other people like you. Other monsters. Other gods. You know youre not the only one who takes keepsakes, things to remember the girls by, once their screams and their bodies and their begging-pleading-lying lips are gone.

You walk slowly to the cabinet. You open it. Carefully, gingerly, you place this whores lipstick next to all the rest. The authorities wont notice its missing when they search her purse.