The Naturals: All In Part 6

When I was ready, he would be there.

"Fair warning." Lia eyed Dean and me before turning back to Judd. "If you make me go up to the suite right now, there's a very good chance that I will give a full-length performance of The Ballad of Ca.s.sie and Dean. Complete with musical numbers."

"And there is a very good chance," Michael added, "that I will be forced to accompany those musical numbers with a stunning display of interpretive dance."

Judd must have decided that it was in the best interest of team harmony to avoid that performance at all cost. "One hour," he told Michael and Lia. "Don't leave the building. Don't separate. Don't approach anyone related to this case."

"I'll go with them," I volunteered.

Judd eyed me for a moment. Then he gave a brisk nod. "Make sure they don't burn the place down."

It took exactly thirty seconds after we parted ways with the others for Michael to confirm my a.s.sumption that he hadn't been overcome with a need to hit the shops. He came to a stop as we reached the edge of the casino floor. For several seconds, he stood there, his gaze moving methodically from one party of people to the next.

"What are you looking for?" I asked him.

"Curiosity. Irritation." He zeroed in on a group of women coming toward us. "That mollified look people get when they're offered free drinks in exchange for an inconvenience." He hung a right. "This way."

As Lia and I followed, Michael continued scanning faces. As we worked our way from the slots to the poker tables, I could sense an emotional shift in the air, even if I couldn't pinpoint it the way Michael could.

"Incoming," Michael murmured to Lia.

Seconds later, a bouncer was glaring down at us. "IDs, please," the man said. "You have to be twenty-one or over to be in this area."

"As luck would have it," Lia told him, "it's my twenty-first birthday." She said those words with a coy smile and just the right level of underlying giddiness.

"And your friends?" the bouncer asked Lia.

Lia linked an arm through Michael's. "We," she said, "just met. And as for Miss Sweet-and-Innocent-Looking over there, I know for a fact that there are some pretty incriminating pictures of her twenty-first floating around on the interwebs, which is why my clothes will be staying on this evening."

Did she just...My cheeks flushed scarlet as I processed the fact that, yes, Lia had really just implied that my fictional twenty-first birthday had taken a Girls Gone Wild turn.

The bouncer leaned to one side to get a better look at me. If anything, the mortified expression on my face seemed to sell Lia's story.

"I'm going to hurt you," I muttered in Lia's general direction.

"You can't hurt me," she shot back brightly. "It's my birthday."

The bouncer grinned. "Happy birthday," he told Lia.

Chalk one up for the professional liar.

"But I'm still going to need to see some ID." The bouncer turned back to Michael. "Company policy."

Michael shrugged. He reached into his back pocket and removed a wallet. He flashed an ID at the bouncer, who examined it carefully. It must have pa.s.sed muster, because then he turned to Lia and me. "Ladies?"

Lia opened her purse and handed him not one, but two IDs. He glanced at them and raised an eyebrow at Lia.

"It's not your birthday," he said.

Lia executed a delicate shrug. "What's the fun of only turning twenty-one once?"

With a snort, the bouncer handed the IDs back to her. "This area is closing," he said. "For maintenance. If you're looking for poker, you'll want to hit the tables on the south side."

When we were a good ten feet away, Michael turned to Lia. "Well?"

"Whatever this area's closing for," she replied, "it's not maintenance."

I tried to process the fact that Lia had fake IDs for both of us, then caught sight of something about a hundred yards away.

"There," I told Michael. "By the sign that says restrooms."

A half-dozen security personnel were directing patrons away.

"Come on," Michael said, looping around to come at the blocked-off area from behind.

"Back at the restaurant, a man came to get the hotel owner," I said, processing the situation as we walked. "I'd bet a thousand dollars that he's in private security."

There was a beat of silence during which I thought Michael might not reply. "Security was grim, but calm," he said finally. "Shaw Senior, on the other hand, looked shaken, calculating, and like someone had just offered him a plate of rotting meat. In that order."

We came out on the other side of the slot machines. From this angle, it was clear that they were redirecting foot traffic long before people could reach the area surrounding the bathroom.

January first, I thought suddenly. January second. January third.

"Three bodies at three different casinos in three days." I didn't realize I'd spoken the words out loud until I felt Michael and Lia staring at me. "Today's day four."

As if to mark my words, security parted to let Mr. Shaw past. He wasn't alone. Even from a distance, I recognized the suit-clad pair with him.

Sterling and Briggs.

YOU.

1/1.

1/2.

1/3.

1/4.

You strip off your clothes and step into the shower, letting the scalding spray hit you in the chest. The water isn't hot enough. It should hurt. It should burn.

It doesn't.

There was blood this time.

1/1.

1/2.

1/3.

1/4.

It's her fault. If she'd done what she was supposed to do, there would have been no need for blood.

1/1.

1/2.

1/3.

1/4.

It's her fault for seeing through you.

It's her fault for resisting.

You close your eyes and remember coming up behind her. You remember closing your hands around the chain. You remember her fighting.

You remember the moment when she stopped.

You remember the blood. And when you open your eyes and look at the angry red surface of your own skin, you know that water this hot should hurt. You should burn.

But you don't.

The smile spreads slowly over your face.

1/1.

1/2.

1/3.

1/4.

Nothing can hurt you. Soon, they'll see. Everyone will see.

And you will be a G.o.d.

I stayed up until two in the morning, sitting on the couch with my phone on the coffee table, waiting for Sterling and Briggs to call, waiting for them to tell us what they'd found in that bathroom.

Maintenance issues, the bouncer had said.

You didn't call the FBI for maintenance.

My mind went to the UNSUB. You do everything to a timetable. You're not going to stop. You're going to kill one a day, every day, until we catch you.

"Can't sleep?" a voice asked me quietly. I looked up to see Dean silhouetted in the doorway. He was wearing a threadbare white T-shirt, thin enough and tight enough that I could see the steady rise and fall of his chest underneath.

"Can't sleep," I echoed. You can't, either, I thought. A light sheen of sweat on Dean's face told me that he'd been doing sit-ups or push-ups or some other form of physical exercise punishing enough in repet.i.tion to quiet the whispers in his own memories.

The things his serial killer father had told him again and again.

"I keep thinking about the fact that there was probably a body in that bathroom," I said, sharing the source of my sleepless night to keep him from dwelling on his own. "I keep thinking that Briggs and Sterling are going to call."

Dean stepped out of the shadows. "We're allowed to work active cases." He moved toward me. "That doesn't mean they're obligated to use us."

Dean was telling himself that, as much as telling me. When I profiled, it was like stepping into someone else's shoes. When Dean profiled, he gave in to a pattern of thought his early experiences had ingrained in him, a darkness he kept under lock and key. Neither one of us was good at pulling back. Neither one of us was good at waiting.

"I just keep thinking about the first three victims," I said, my voice rough in my throat. "I keep thinking that if we hadn't gone to dinner, if we'd worked harder, if I'd..."

"If you'd done what?"

I could feel the heat of Dean's body beside me.

"Something." The word tore its way out of my mouth.

Agent Sterling had told me once that I was the biggest liability on the team because I was the one who really felt things. Michael and Lia were experts in masking their emotions and forcing themselves not to care. Dean had lived through horrors at the age of twelve that had convinced him that he was a ticking time bomb, that if he really felt things, he might turn into a monster like his father. And though Sloane wore her heart on her sleeve, she would always see patterns first and people second.

But I felt the loss of every victim. I felt my own lack every time an UNSUB killed, because every time that I didn't stop it, every time I didn't see it coming, every time I got there too late- "If you'd done something," Dean said softly, "your mother might still be alive."

I knew what kept Dean up at night, and he knew what I was thinking before I did. He knew why I felt the weight of blood on my hands every time we lost a victim because I wasn't smart or fast enough.

"I know it's stupid." My throat closed in around the words. "I know what happened to my mom wasn't my fault."

Dean picked up my hand, holding it in his, sheltering it in his.

"I know it, Dean, but I don't believe it. I won't ever believe it."

"Believe me," he said simply.

I laid my hand flat on his chest. His hand closed around mine, holding on to it and on to me.

"It wasn't your fault," Dean said.

I could feel him willing me to believe that. My fingers curled inward, his shirt bunching in my hand as I pulled him toward me. My mouth came down over his.

The harder I kissed him, the harder he kissed back. The closer we were, the closer I needed him to be.

You can't sleep, and I can't sleep, and we're here, in the dead of night- I caught his lip in my teeth.

Dean was gentle. Dean was sweet. Dean was self-contained and always in control-but tonight, he buried his hands in my hair and pulled my head back. He captured my mouth with his.

Believe me, he'd said.

I believed that he knew what it was like to be broken. I believed that I wasn't broken to him.

"You're still thinking about what you saw downstairs." Dean ran his fingers gently through my hair, my head on his chest. The threadbare fabric of his shirt was soft against my cheek, the victim of too many washes.