The Naturals

“He already signed the papers, No

There was silence. Then a sharp intake of breath. And then an explosion.

I didn’t speak Italian, but based on the emphatic gestures and the way she was spitting out the words, I was able to make an educated guess at a translation.

No

Nobody stages an intervention like my father’s family stages an intervention. The Bat-Signal had nothing on the Battaglia-Signal, and less than twenty-four hours after No

The noise built to a crescendo, and I drew into myself and waited for it to pass. Eventually, they’d notice that I wasn’t saying anything.

“Cassie, sweetheart, aren’t you happy here?” one of my aunts asked finally. The rest of the table fell silent.

“I’m …” I couldn’t say any more than that. I saw the realization pass over their faces. “It’s not that I’m not happy,” I interjected quickly. “It’s just …”

For once, they heard what I wasn’t saying. From the moment they’d learned of my existence, I’d been family to them. They hadn’t realized that in my own eyes, I’d always been—and maybe always would be—an outsider.

“I need to do this,” I said, my voice as quiet as theirs had been loud. “For my mom.”

That was closer to the truth than I’d ever meant to tell them.

“You think your mother would have wanted you to do this?” No

It was meant as a rhetorical question, but I answered it: vehemently, decisively.

“Yes.” I paused, expecting an argument, but I didn’t get one. “I know you don’t like it, and I hope you don’t hate me for it, but I have to do this.” I stood up. “I leave in three days. I’d really like to come back for Christmas, but if you don’t want me here, I’d understand.”

No

A smile tugged at the edge of my lips, and tears burned in my eyes. “Capisce.”

CHAPTER 6

Three days later, I left for the program. Michael was the one who came to pick me up. He parked out at the curb and waited.

“I do not like this,” No

“I know.” I brushed a kiss against her temple, and she cupped my head in her hands.

“You be good,” she said fiercely. “You be careful. Your father,” she added, as an afterthought. “I am going to kill him.”

I glanced back over my shoulder and saw Michael standing with his back to a gleaming black Porsche. From a distance, I couldn’t make out the expression on his face, but I had a suspicion that he wasn’t having any trouble interpreting my feelings.

“I’ll be careful,” I told No

“Eh,” she said finally. “How much trouble can you get into? There are only a few students in the entire school.”

A few students who were being trained to analyze crime scenes, pore over witness testimony, and track serial killers. What trouble could we possibly get into?

Without another word, I hauled my bag out to the car. No

“You are just going to stand there?” she asked.

With an almost imperceptible smirk, Michael took the bag from my hand and hoisted it effortlessly into the trunk. Then he leaned close, into my personal space, and whispered, “And here I’d pegged you as the kind of girl who’d want to do the heavy lifting herself.”

No

“Anything happens to her,” she told Michael, “this family—we know how to dispose of a body.”

Instead of giving in to the mortification and burying my head in my hands, I said good-bye to No

“Sorry about that,” I said.

Michael arched one eyebrow. “About the death threat, or the imaginary chastity belt she’s fitting you with as we speak?”

“Shut up.”

“Oh, come on, Cassie. I think it’s nice. You have a family that cares.”

Maybe he thought that was nice, and maybe he didn’t. “I don’t want to talk about my family.”

Michael gri

I thought back to what Agent Briggs had told me about Michael’s gift.

“You read emotions,” I said.

“Facial expressions, posture, gestures, the works,” he said. “You nibble on the inside of your lip when you’re nervous. And you get this little wrinkle at the corner of your right eye when you’re trying not to stare.”

He said all of this without ever taking his eyes off the road. My gaze flitted to the speedometer, and I realized how fast we were going.

“Do you want to get pulled over?” I squeaked.

He shrugged. “You’re the profiler,” he said. “You tell me.” He eased off the accelerator ever so slightly. “That’s what profilers do, isn’t it? You look at the way a person is dressed, or the way a person talks, every little detail, and you put that person in a box. You figure out what kind of individual you’re dealing with, and you convince yourself that you know exactly what everyone else wants.”

Okay, so he’d had an experience—and not a good one—with a profiler in the past. I took that to mean that the difficulty I’d been having getting a read on him was no accident. He liked keeping me guessing.

“You wear a different style of clothing every time I see you,” I said. “You stand differently. You talk differently. You never say anything about yourself.”

“Maybe I like being tall, dark, and mysterious,” Michael replied, taking a turn so quickly that I had to remind myself to breathe.

“You’re not that tall,” I gritted out. He laughed.

“You’re a

“Would you stop that?” I’d never realized how irritating it was to be the one under the microscope.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Michael said. “I’ll stop trying to read your emotions if you stop trying to profile me.”

I had so many questions—about the way he’d grown up, about his ability, about why he’d warned me to stay away—but unless I wanted him making an intense study of my emotions, I’d have to get my answers the normal way.

“Fine,” I said. “Deal.”

He smiled. “Excellent. Now, as a show of good faith, since I’ve already spent a good chunk of time getting inside your head, I’ll give you three questions to try to get inside mine.”

The puzzle solver in me wanted to ask what kind of clothes he wore when there was no one around to see him, how many siblings he had, and which one of his parents had turned him into the kind of guy who was a little angry at the world.

But I didn’t.

Anyone comfortable driving this fast wasn’t going to shy away from a few little white lies. If I asked him what I wanted to know, all I would get was more mixed messages—so I asked him the only question I was fairly certain he’d answer honestly.