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Chapter no 45

Killer Instinct (The Naturals, 2)

Hโ€Œe pulled a knife out of his boot. I pictured it coming toward me. Iโ€Œ

feltย it slicing through skin and muscle, peeling the flesh from my bone. But instead, our captor knelt. He trailed the flat of the blade down the side of my cheek. He paused at my neck, then moved slowly down towards my wrists. The blade hovered over my arm for a moment. He traced the tip lightly over a vein, but didnโ€™t press down hard enough to cut.

With one slash, my hands were free.

He returned the knife to his boot and untied the rope around my torso by hand. He relished the task, drinking it in, savoring it. His hands brushed against my stomach, my side, my back.

Soon, I was free. I glanced over at Agent Sterling. Sheโ€™d wanted to go first, wanted to buy me timeโ€”but for what?ย Thisย was the only way out. If he really gave me a head start, if I ran hard enoughโ€ฆ

You want me to think I have a chance, donโ€™t you?

Even knowing that, I still clung to the hope that two minutes might be enough time to disappear in the woods outside.

There was a way out of thisโ€”I had to believe that. I had to fight.

He put a hand in the middle of my back and pushed me roughly toward the door.

โ€œCassie.โ€ Agent Sterlingโ€™s voice broke as she said my name. โ€œYouโ€™ve been buried alive in a glass coffin with a sleeping cobra on your chest.

Thereโ€™s a way out. Thereโ€™sย alwaysย a way.โ€

Our captor didnโ€™t give me the chance to turn around. To say good-bye. An instant later, I was on the porch. Sterlingโ€™s earlier description was spot- onโ€”we were completely surrounded by woods, but at its closest point, the edge of the woods was about fifteen yards off. The trees were denser farther in. Iโ€™d need the cover.

I needed a plan.

โ€œTwo minutes. Starting now.โ€

He shoved me off the porch. I stumbled. My face throbbed. I ran.

I ran as hard as I could, as fast as I could, for the densest trees I could find. I reached cover in secondsโ€”less than ten, more than five. I tore my way through the brush until my lungs started to burn. I looked back. I couldnโ€™t see him through the forest, which meant he couldnโ€™t see me.

How much time had passed? How much did I have left?

Thereโ€™s always a way out.

Running wasnโ€™t a solution. The man hunting me had a longer stride than I did. He had a runnerโ€™s build, and he didnโ€™t need to catch meโ€”he just needed to get me in his sights.

Two minutes is nothing.

My only hope was losing him, sending him one way while I was going the other. It went against every instinct I had, but I backtracked. I split off from the trail Iโ€™d laid the first time, stepping lightly and staying low, ducking into heavy brush and hoping to God heโ€™d follow my original path and not this one.

A twig snapped somewhere nearby. I went deathly still.ย Please donโ€™t see me. Please donโ€™t see me. Please donโ€™t see me.ย Another snap. Another footstep.

Moving away from me. Heโ€™s moving away.

I didnโ€™t have much time before heโ€™d realize his mistake. I didnโ€™t have anywhere to go. I couldnโ€™t keep running. Could I climb? Bury myself in brush? I crossed a small stream, wishing it were a river.ย Iโ€™d toss myself in.ย I heard a yellโ€”almost inhuman-sounding.

He must have hit the end of my original trail, discovered my little trick.

Heโ€™d be moving fast now, determined to recover lost ground.

Youโ€™re not angry. Not really. This is the game. You know youโ€™ll find me.

You know I wonโ€™t escape. Thereโ€™s probably nothing to escape to.

I had no idea where we wereโ€”all I knew was that I had to doย something.

I knelt down and grabbed a rock. It barely fit in my hand. With my other hand, I reached for a branch overhead and gritted my teethโ€”which made the pain worse, not better.

No time. No time for pain. Climb. Climb.ย Climb.

I could only grip with one hand, but I made use of the other arm, hooking it around branches, ignoring the way the bark tore at tender skin. I went as high as I could before the branches became too thin to support my weight and the leaves too sparse to cover me. I transferred the rock from my left hand to my right and used the left to steady myself.

Please donโ€™t see me. Please donโ€™t see me. Please donโ€™t see me.

I heard himโ€”fifty yards away. Forty. Thirty. I saw him when he stepped into view, crossing the stream.

Please donโ€™t see me. Please donโ€™t see me. Please donโ€™t see me.

His eyes were on the ground.ย Tracks.ย Iโ€™d left tracksโ€”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.

Donโ€™t miss.

My arm whipped the rock at him so hard, I nearly knocked myself out of the tree. He looked up.

I didnโ€™t miss.

The rock caught him just above the eye. He went down, but didnโ€™t stay down, and as he climbed from his knees to his feet, bleeding and dazed, but very much alive, I felt the adrenaline that had pushed me to this point evaporate. There would be no superhuman feats of strength or speed. This was it: him aiming the rifle into the tree, and me clinging to a branch fifteen feet up in the air, shaking and bleeding, with nothing left to throw.

โ€œOut of tricks?โ€ he called up, his finger toying with the trigger.

I thought of Agent Sterling back in the cabin. Heโ€™d go for her next, run her through this sick little game.

No.

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.

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.

โ€œTake them. Free them. Track them. Killโ€”โ€ 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.

โ€œCassie.ย Cassie.โ€

I didnโ€™t want to open my eyes. If I opened my eyes, it might not be real.

The gun might still be there.ย Heย might still be there.

โ€œCassandra.โ€ There was only one man in the universe who could say my full name in exactly that tone.

I opened my eyes. โ€œBriggs.โ€

โ€œWebberโ€™s dead.โ€ He clarified that point before asking me if I was okay. โ€œWebber?โ€ I croaked. I knew the name, but my mind couldnโ€™t process it,

couldnโ€™t process the fact that the man whoโ€™d done this to me evenย hadย a name.

โ€œAnthony Webber,โ€ Briggs confirmed, doing a cursory check of my injuries, tallying them, down to every last detail.

โ€œSterling?โ€ I managed to ask. โ€œSheโ€™s safe.โ€

โ€œHow did youโ€”โ€

Briggs held up a hand and dug his phone out with the other. The call he made was brief and to the point: โ€œIโ€™ve got her. Sheโ€™s fine.โ€ Then he turned his attention back to me and answered the question I hadnโ€™t even finished asking. โ€œOnce we realized the two of you were missing and unaccounted for, the director threw the entire agency behind finding you. He kept saying that Veronica had tried to tell him something was off about this case.โ€

โ€œBut how did youโ€”โ€ โ€œYour ankle tracker.โ€

โ€œAgent Sterling said she hadnโ€™t activated it.โ€

Briggs smiled wryly. โ€œShe hadnโ€™t, but since she was on a playing-by-the- rules kick when she checked it out, she filled out all the paperwork.ย Iโ€™s were dotted.ย Tโ€™s were crossed. We had the serial number and were able to activate it remotely.โ€

It was ironicโ€”Iโ€™d saved Agent Sterlingโ€™s life by breaking the rules, and sheโ€™d saved mine by following them.

Briggs helped me to my feet. โ€œMy teamโ€™s on their way in,โ€ he said. โ€œWe left straight from the house, so we had a head start.โ€

We?

โ€œCassie.โ€ Dean broke through the brush.

โ€œI told him to wait at the cabin,โ€ Briggs said to me. โ€œI told you to wait at the cabin,โ€ he reiterated to Dean, annoyance creeping into his voice. But he didnโ€™t stop me from taking three steps toward Dean, or Dean from crossing the remaining space between us in a heartbeat. The next second, he had a hand on each of my shoulders, touching me, confirming that I was okay, that I was here, that I wasย real.

โ€œWhat are you doing here?โ€ I asked him.

His hands went from my shoulders to my face. His right hand cupped the left side. His left gently bypassed my injuries, burying itself in my hair and holding my head up for me, like he thought my neck might not be able to do the job.

โ€œActivating the tracker was Sloaneโ€™s idea. Everyone else forgot about it. Briggs was at our place when we got the coordinates. I may have arranged it so that I was in his car when he went to leave.โ€

Briggs wouldnโ€™t have wasted even a second trying to kick him out. โ€œWhat happened?โ€ Dean asked me, his voice thick with emotions I

couldnโ€™t quite identify. I knew he was probably asking about the abduction, about my face, about being tied up in the cabin and scrambling for my life, but I chose to interpret the question slightly differently.

โ€œI hit him in the head with a rock. Then I jumped on him from up in that tree.โ€ I gestured vaguely with one hand. Dean stared at me, his expression unreadable until the ends of his lips began to turn slowly upward.

โ€œI was wrong,โ€ he said, โ€œwhen I said I just feltย something.โ€ He was breathing heavily. I couldnโ€™t breathe at all. โ€œWhen I said I wasnโ€™t sure it was enough.โ€

He was scared, like me. But he felt it, and I felt it, andย he was there. Iโ€™d spent so long tryingย notย to choose, tryingย notย to feel, and in an instant, I felt something inside of me break, like floodwaters bursting through a dam.

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, pullingย himย closer.

Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe when the smoke cleared, things would look different. But I couldnโ€™t stop it, couldnโ€™t keep living my life on maybes if I wanted toย 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 onlyย thisย momentโ€”one that I hadnโ€™t thought Iโ€™d live to see.

 

 

I

 

โ€Œspent the night at the hospital. I had a concussion, bruising on my neck from nearly being strangled, and countless cuts and abrasions on myโ€Œ

hands and legs. They had to pry Dean away from me.

I was alive.

The next morning, the doctors released me into Agent Briggsโ€™s custody.

We were halfway to his car before I realized that he was being too quiet. โ€œWhereโ€™s Agent Sterling?โ€ I asked.

โ€œGone.โ€ We climbed into the car. I gingerly pulled on my seat belt.

Briggs pulled out onto the road. โ€œHer injuries were minimal, but sheโ€™s on a mandated leave until a Bureau psychologist gives her the green light for fieldwork.โ€

โ€œIs she coming back?โ€ My eyes stung as I asked the question. A week ago, I would have been glad to be rid of her, but nowโ€ฆ

โ€œI donโ€™t know,โ€ Briggs said, a muscle in his jaw ticking. He was the kind of person who hated admitting uncertainty. โ€œAfter Redding captured herโ€” after Dean helped her escapeโ€”she fought to get back to active duty. She threw herself into work.โ€

That was then. This was now. Iโ€™d thought Agent Sterling was coming around to the idea of the program, but I couldnโ€™t stop thinking about the look on her face when sheโ€™d asked meย why. Why hadnโ€™t I listened to her? Why had I made the madman take me, too?

All sheโ€™d wanted, in those last moments, was to believe that I would make it out of that hellhole alive.

โ€œShe blames herself?โ€ I askedโ€”but it wasnโ€™t really a question.

โ€œHerself. Her father. Me.โ€ Something in Briggsโ€™s tone told me that Agent Sterling wasnโ€™t the only one shouldering that guilt. โ€œYou were never supposed to be in the field,โ€ he told me. โ€œNone of your lives were ever supposed to be on the line.โ€

If the Naturals hadnโ€™t worked this case, Christopher Simms would have killed that girl. If I hadnโ€™t gone with Agent Sterling, sheโ€™d be dead. No matter how much what Iโ€™d been through haunted Agent Briggs, I knew in my gut that at the end of the day, he would be able to live with the risks of this program. I wasnโ€™t sure that Agent Sterling could.

โ€œWhere are we going?โ€ I asked when Briggs drove past our exit on the highway.

He didnโ€™t say anything for several minutes. Mile blurred into mile. We ended up at an apartment complex across the street from the prison.

โ€œThereโ€™s something I want you to see.โ€

Webberโ€™s apartment had two bedrooms. His life was highly segmented. He slept in one roomโ€”hospital corners on his bed, blackout curtains on the windowsโ€”and he worked in the other.

Briggsโ€™s team was cataloging evidence when we walked in: notebooks and photographs, weapons, a computer. Hundredsโ€”if not thousandsโ€”of evidence bags told the story of Webberโ€™s life.

The story of his relationship with Daniel Redding.

โ€œGo ahead,โ€ Briggs told me, nodding toward the carefully documented bags. โ€œJust wear gloves.โ€

He hadnโ€™t brought Dean to this crime scene. He hadnโ€™t brought Michael or Lia or Sloane.

โ€œWhat am I looking for?โ€ I asked, slipping on a pair of gloves. โ€œNothing,โ€ Briggs said simply.

You brought me here to look at this,ย I thought, slipping back into profiling mode without even thinking about it.ย Why?

Because this wasnโ€™t about processing evidence. It was about me and what Iโ€™d been through out in the woods. I would always have questions about Locke, the way that Dean would always have questions about his father, but this UNSUBโ€”this man whoโ€™d tried to snuff out my lifeโ€”didnโ€™t have to be some larger-than-life figure, another ghost to haunt my dreams.

Hospital corners and hunting rifles.

Briggs had brought me here so that I could understandโ€”and move on, as much as a personย couldย move on after something like this.

It took me hours to go through it all. There was a picture of Emerson Cole tucked into the side of a journal. Webberโ€™s writingโ€”all capital letters, angled to one sideโ€”marked the pages, telling me his story in horrific, nauseating detail. I read it, sifting through those details, absorbing them and building a profile.

Six months ago, you transferred onto Reddingโ€™s cell block. You were fascinated with him, mesmerized by the way he played the other prisoners, the guards. The prison was the only place you had any power, any control, and when another rejection came in from the police academy, that wasnโ€™t enough anymore.

You wanted a different kind of power. Intangible. Undeniable. Eternal.

Webber had become obsessed with Redding. Heโ€™d thought he was successfully hiding that obsession until Redding had offered him a very special job.

He recognized your potential. You needed to prove yourselfโ€”to prove that you were smarter and better andย moreย than everyone who looked down on you, rejected you, and shoved you to the side.

Redding had asked Webber to do two things: keep tabs on Agent Briggs and find Dean. Webber had proven himself on both fronts. Heโ€™d followed Agent Briggs. Heโ€™d found the house where Dean was living. Heโ€™d reported back.

That was the turning point. That was the moment when you knew that to eclipse that mewling little brat in Reddingโ€™s eyes, youโ€™d have to do more.

There was a newspaper article folded up and stuck between two of the pages in the journalโ€”an article Webber had given Daniel Redding to read, then hidden away in his work room.

An article about FBI Special Agent Lacey Locke. A wolf in sheepโ€™s clothing. A killer who was one of the Bureauโ€™s own.

Shortly after that, Redding had said that you were ready. You were his student. He was your master. And if there were others competing for your role, well, youโ€™d take care of them in time.

I flipped from one page to the next and back again, rereading, building a time line in my mind. Redding had begun laying the groundwork for this series of โ€œtestsโ€ for his apprenticesโ€”or, as Webber liked to refer to it,ย what would beโ€”the day after heโ€™d read the article about the Locke murders.

Donโ€™t you think itโ€™s weird?ย Iโ€™d asked what seemed like an eternity ago.

Six weeks ago, Locke was reenacting my motherโ€™s murder, and now someoneโ€™s out there playing copycat to Deanโ€™s dad?

Sitting there, re-creating the series of events that had led to the murder of Emerson Cole, I realized that it wasnโ€™t weird. It wasnโ€™t a coincidence.

Daniel Redding had started thisย afterย reading about the Locke murders.

Dean understood killers because of his father; it went without saying that Daniel Redding understood them, too. And if he understood Lockeโ€”what

drove her, what motivated her, what she wantedโ€”if heโ€™d had Webber keeping tabs on Dean, if he knew who I was and what had happened to my motherโ€ฆ

Locke killed those women for me, and Redding stepped up to the challenge.

There were still so many questions: how Redding had known who I was; how heโ€™d drawn the connections he must have drawn to figure out what had happened with Locke; whatโ€”if anythingโ€”he knew about my motherโ€™s murder. But Webberโ€™s journal didnโ€™t hold those answers.

Once theย testย started, Webberโ€™s writing became less focused on Redding.

You worshipped himโ€”but then you became him. No, you became somethingย better. Something new.

Five people were dead. By his own confession in these pages, Webber had killed four of them: Emerson, the professor, and both of his competitors. The original planโ€”laid out by Redding to each of the three, with Webber enabling the communicationโ€”had been for each of the three to choose one victim and kill one of the othersโ€™.

In your mind, there was never room for any others.

There were pages in this journal describing Webberโ€™s fantasies of what it would have been like if heโ€™d been the one to kill Trina Simms. Heโ€™d pictured it, heโ€™d imagined it, and Clark had died for the sin of notย doing it right.

Christopherโ€™s days were numbered the second he got caught.

And then there was one.

โ€œCassie?โ€ Briggs said my name, and I looked up at him from my spot on the floor. โ€œYou okay?โ€

Iโ€™d been here for hours. Briggs had achieved his objective: when I closed my eyes, I wasnโ€™t caught back up in the horror of being hunted like an animal. I didnโ€™t feel Webber looming over me, or his arm cutting off the air

in my throat. Those memories werenโ€™t gone. They would never be gone. But for minutes, hours, maybe even days at a time, I could forget.

โ€œYeah,โ€ I said, closing the journal and tearing the gloves off first one hand and then the other. โ€œIโ€™m good.โ€

By the time we got back to the house, it was almost dark. Lia, Dean, and Sloane were sitting on the front porch, waiting for me. Michael was taking a sledgehammer to the cracked windows of the junkyard car.

Every time he took a swing, every piece of glass he shattered, I felt something shattering inside me.

He knew.

From the moment Dean had come back to the house, from the moment Michael had laid eyes on him, he knew.

I didnโ€™t mean for this to happen. I didnโ€™t plan it.

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 weโ€™d met, before Iโ€™d known what he could do.

โ€œThatโ€™s it, then?โ€ he asked me.

I didnโ€™t answer. I couldnโ€™t. My eyes darted toward the porch. Toward Dean.

Michael gave me a careless smile. โ€œYou win some, you lose some,โ€ he said with a shrug. Like Iโ€™d never been anything more than a game. Like I didnโ€™t matter.

Because he wouldnโ€™tย letย me matter anymore.

โ€œItโ€™s just as well,โ€ he continued, each word a calculated shot to my heart. โ€œMaybe if Reddingโ€™s getting some, heโ€™ll finally loosen up.โ€

I knew, objectively, what this was.ย If you canโ€™t keep them from hitting you, youย makeย them hit you.ย That didnโ€™t stop his words from cutting into me.

The bruises and scrapes, the pounding in my headโ€”it all faded away under Michaelโ€™s casual cruelty, his utter indifference.

Iโ€™d known that choosing would mean losing one of them. I just hadnโ€™t imagined losing Michael like this.

I turned back to the house, willing myself not to cry. Dean stood. His eyes met mine, and I allowed myself to go back to the moment in the woods

โ€”and all of the moments that had led up to it.ย Holding his hand, tracing my fingertips along his jawline. The secrets weโ€™d traded. The things that no one elseโ€”Natural or not, profiler or notโ€”would ever understand.

If Iโ€™d chosen Michael, Dean would have understood.

I started walking toward the porch, toward Dean, my pace gaining with each step. Michaelโ€™s voice called after me.

โ€œCassie?โ€

There was a hint of genuine emotion in his voiceโ€”just a hint of something, but I couldnโ€™t tell what. I looked back over my shoulder, but didnโ€™t turn around.

โ€œYes?โ€

Michael stared at me, his hazel eyes holding a mixture of emotions I couldnโ€™t quite parse. โ€œIf it had been me in the woods, if Iโ€™d been the one to go with Briggs, if Iโ€™d been the one you saw at the exact secondโ€ฆโ€

Would it have been me?ย He didnโ€™t finish the question, and I didnโ€™t answer it. As I turned back toward the house, he went back to knocking the windows out of that broken, battered car.

โ€œYeah,โ€ he said, his voice carrying on the wind. โ€œThatโ€™s what I thought.โ€

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