The Naturals Killer Instinct Quotes

It's not the bad memories that tear a person apart. It's the good ones.

Maybe, to do what you and I do, we have to have a little bit of the monster in us.

When the odds are bad, you change the rules.

None of us had normal childhoods," Sloane said quietly. "If we had, we wouldn't be Naturals.

Sterling turned to Michael. I expected her to ask him something, but instead she just held out her hand. "Keys." "Spatula," Michael replied. She narrowed her eyes at him. "We aren't just saying random nouns?" he asked archly.

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

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.

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

Home is the people who love you most, the people who will always love you, forever and ever, no matter what.

If you can't keep them from hitting you, you make them hit you.

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.

If one starts with the anatomical difference, which even a patriarchal Viennese novelist was able to see was destiny, then one begins to understand why men and women don't get on very well within marriage, or indeed in any exclusive sort of long-range sexual relationship. He is designed to make as many babies as possible with as many different women as he can get his hands on, while she is designed to take time off from her busy schedule as astronaut or role model to lay an egg and bring up the result. Male and female are on different sexual tracks, and that cannot be changed by the Book or any book. Since all our natural instincts are carefully perverted from birth, it is no wonder that we tend to be, if not all of us serial killers, killers of our own true nature.

Quite frankly, I thought that tools who lived in tool houses probably shouldn’t throw stones.

I’d gone my whole life without romance. I didn’t need it, not the way I needed this: being part of something, caring about people in a way that I hadn’t realized I still could. Not just Michael and Dean, but Sloane and even Lia. I fit here. I hadn’t fit anywhere in a very long time. Maybe ever. I couldn’t screw that up.

Sloane?” Lia turned to her next. Sloane stared at Lia, a blush spreading over her cheeks. “I’m not undressing until we establish a conversion rate,” she informed us tartly, gesturing toward her mountain of chips. “Sloane,” Michael said. “Yes?” “How would you feel about a second cup of coffee?” Forty-five seconds later, Sloane was in the kitchen, and neither of the boys was wearing a shirt.

It’s not the bad memories that tear a person apart. It’s the good ones. - Cassie

Let’s see what Mommy and Daddy are up to, shall we?” Lia said, eyeing the TV greedily and waiting for the fireworks to commence. “Lia, I will give you one thousand dollars to never refer to Sterling and Briggs as Mommy and Daddy again.

All right, already," Lia said, cutting me off. "Enough with the bonding, Cassie. I'll share the ice cream, but we're eating it somewhere else. I'm not in the mood to play well with others, and the next person who asks me to share something dies a slow, painful death.

I met her. I didn’t like her. She died.

It’s considered impolite to talk above seventy-five decibels,” Sloane sniffed. “I believe it’s called shouting.

You say you care about Dean,” she told me, her voice low. “You say you want to help. This will help. I’d lie to you about a lot of things, Cassie, but helping Dean isn’t one of them. I wouldn’t do this for you, or for Michael, or even for Sloane. But I would waltz into hades and make nice with the devil himself for Dean, so either you put on the damn dress or you get the hell out of my way.

If I’m a bad boy, you’ll take away my keys?” Michael wiggled his eyebrows in a way that was both suggestive and ridiculous. “No,” I replied without even thinking about it. “If you’re a bad boy, I’ll give your car to Dean.

Sloane looked on from behind a veritable mountain of Oreos. “I’ll sit this one out,” she said. “Also, I’m entertaining the idea of eating some of my poker chips. Can we agree that an Oreo missing its frosting is worth two-thirds of its normal amount?” “Just eat the cookies,” I told her, eyeing her pile mournfully—and only partially joking. “You have plenty to spare.” Before joining the Naturals program, Sloane had been Las Vegas born and raised. She’d been counting cards since she’d learned to count. She sat out about a third of the hands, but won every single hand she played.

Vanessa Michael Munroe was a killer with a predator’s natural instincts; she could take care of herself. What scared him—terrified him—was what would happen if she was pushed too far. He’d seen that place of destruction, had witnessed firsthand what the darkness could do to her mind, and if whoever had taken her had also taken Logan …

What kind of determination would it take to stab a blade into your flesh over and over again?

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

Someday, I was fairly certain that Lia would write a book entitled Making an Awkward Situation Worse.

Every similarity was salt in an open wound. Every difference was, too.

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?

My father made me watch.

How could a person look at their own child and just say “No, thanks”?

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said that anyone who fought monsters had to fight becoming a monster himself. ‘If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

She was his partner,” he confirmed. Dean’s voice was low-pitched and pleasant, with a hint of Southern twang. Usually, he was a man of few words, but today, he had five more for us. “She was also his wife.

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 I made it to the living room, I wasn’t surprised to see that the only one actually taking a practice GED was Dean. Lia was filing her nails. Sloane appeared to be constructing some kind of catapult out of pencils and rubber bands. Lia caught sight of me first. “Good morning, sunshine,” she said. “I’m no Michael, but based on the expression on your face, I’m guessing you’ve been spending some quality time with the lovely Agent Sterling.” Lia beamed at me. “Isn’t she the best?” The eerie thing about Lia was that she could make anything sound genuine. Lia wasn’t fond of the FBI in general, and she was the type to flout rules based on principle alone, but even knowing her enthusiasm was feigned, I couldn’t see through it. “There’s something about that Agent Sterling that just makes me want to listen to what she has to say,” Lia continued earnestly. “I think we might be soul mates.” Dean snorted, but didn’t look up from his practice test. Sloane set off her catapult, and I had to duck to keep from taking a pencil to the forehead.

Did you know that the average life span of the hairy-nosed wombat is ten to twelve years?” Apparently, Sloane had decided that when I said I was fine, I was lying. The more coffee my roommate ingested, the lower her threshold for keeping random statistics to herself—especially if she thought someone needed a distraction. “The longest-living wombat in captivity lived thirty-four years,” Sloane continued, propping herself up on her elbows to look at me. Given that we shared a bedroom, I probably should have objected more strenuously to cup of coffee number two. Tonight, though, I found Sloane’s high-speed statistical babbling to be strangely soothing. Profiling Sterling hadn’t kept me from thinking about Locke. Maybe this would. “Tell me more about wombats,” I said. With the look of a small child awaking to a miracle on Christmas morning, Sloane beamed at me and complied.

Beside me, Sloane looked at Lia, then at Michael, then at Dean. Then she bounced closer to me. “There’s a forty percent chance this ends with someone getting punched in the face,” she whispered. “Come on, Dean-o,” Lia called. “Join us.” Those words were part invitation, part challenge. Michael’s body moved to Lia’s beat, and I realized suddenly that Lia wasn’t putting on a show for my benefit—or for Michael’s. She was getting up close and personal with Michael solely to get a rise out of Dean. Based on the mutinous expression on Dean’s face, it was working. “You know you want to,” Lia taunted, turning as she danced so her back was up against Michael. Dean and Lia had been the program’s first recruits. For years, it had been just the two of them. Lia had told me once that she and Dean were like siblings—and right now, Dean looked every inch the overprotective big brother. Michael likes pissing Dean off. That much went without saying. Lia lives to pull Dean off the sidelines. And Dean… A muscle in Dean’s jaw ticked as Michael trailed a hand down Lia’s arm. Sloane was right. We were one wrong move away from a fistfight. Knowing Michael, he’d probably consider it a bonding activity. “Come on, Dean,” I said, intervening before Lia could say something inflammatory. “You don’t have to dance. Just brood in beat to the music.” That surprised a laugh out of Dean. I grinned. Beside me, Michael eased back, putting space between his body and Lia’s.

Lia eyed me. She eyed Michael. She eyed Dean. “Honestly,” she said, “I doubt that anyone is as happy as Cassie is at this exact moment.” I was getting better at ignoring Lia’s suggestive little digs, but this one hit its target, dead center. Squished in between Michael and Dean, I blushed. I was not going to go there—and I wasn’t going to let Lia ruin this. A grim expression on his face, Dean stood and marched toward Lia. For a moment, I thought he might say something to her about spoiling the moment, but he didn’t. He just picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. “Hey!” Lia protested. Dean grinned and threw her onto the sofa with Michael and me and then resumed his perch on the edge of the couch like nothing had happened. Lia scowled, and Michael poked her cheek. “Admit it,” he said again. “You’re just as happy as we are.” Lia tossed her hair over her shoulder and stared straight ahead, refusing to look any of us in the eye. “A little girl is going home,” she said. “Because of us. Of course I’m as happy as you are.” “Given individual differences in serotonin levels, the probability that any four people would be experiencing identical levels of happiness simultaneously is quite—” “Sloane,” Michael said, without bothering to turn around. “If you don’t finish that sentence, there’s a cup of fresh ground coffee in your future.” “My immediate future?” Sloane asked suspiciously. Michael had a long history of blocking her consumption of caffeine. Without a word, Michael, Lia, and I all turned to look at Dean. He got the message, stood up, and strode toward Sloane, giving her the exact same treatment he’d given Lia. When Dean tossed Sloane gently on top of me, I giggled and almost toppled onto the floor, but Lia grabbed hold of my collar. We did it, I thought, as Michael, Lia, Sloane, and I elbowed for room and Dean stared on from his position, just outside the fray.

My years of struggling against inequality, abusive power, poverty, oppression, and injustice had finally revealed something to me about myself. Being close to suffering, death, executions, and cruel punishments didn't just illuminate the brokenness of others; in a moment of anguish and heartbreak, it also exposed my own brokenness. You can't effectively fight abusive power, poverty, inequality, illness, oppression, or injustice and not be broken by it. We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. The ways in which I have been hurt - and have hurt others - are different from the ways Jimmy Dill suffered and caused suffering. But our shared brokenness connected us. Thomas Merton said: We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I'd always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we're fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we're shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity. I thought of the guards strapping Jimmy Dill to the gurney that very hour. I thought of the people who would cheer his death and see it as some kind of victory. I realized they were broken people, too, even if they would never admit it. So many of us have become afraid and angry. We've become so fearful and vengeful that we've thrown away children, discarded the disabled, and sanctioned the imprisonment of the sick and the weak - not because they are a threat to public safety or beyond rehabilitation but because we think it makes us seem tough, less broken. I thought of the victims of violent crime and the survivors of murdered loved ones, and how we've pressured them to recycle their pain and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute. I thought of the many ways we've legalized vengeful and cruel punishments, how we've allowed our victimization to justify the victimization of others. We've submitted to the harsh instinct to crush those among us whose brokenness is most visible. But simply punishing the broken - walking away from them or hiding them from sight - only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity. I frequently had difficult conversations with clients who were struggling and despairing over their situations - over the things they'd done, or had been done to them, that had led them to painful moments. Whenever things got really bad, and they were questioning the value of their lives, I would remind them that each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done. I told them that if someone tells a lie, that person is not just a liar. If you take something that doesn't belong to you, you are not just a thief. Even if you kill someone, you're not just a killer. I told myself that evening what I had been telling my clients for years. I am more than broken. In fact, there is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy. When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. You see things that you can't otherwise see; you hear things you can't otherwise hear. You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us.

I have an idea,” Lia said in an overly innocent tone that I recognized immediately as trouble. “We could always take things to the next level.” She unknotted the white kerchief around her neck and tossed it to me. Her fingers played with the bottom of her tank top, raising it up just enough to make it crystal clear what the “next level” was. “It is my understanding that the rules of strip poker specify that only the loser is required to disrobe,” Sloane interjected. “No one has lost yet, ergo—” “Call it a show of solidarity,” Lia said, inching her shirt up farther. “Cassie’s almost out of chips. I’m just trying to even the playing field.” “Lia.” Dean was not amused. “Come on, Dean,” Lia said, her bottom lip jutting out in an exaggerated pout. “Loosen up. We’re all friends here.” With those words, Lia pulled off her tank top.

Bind them. Brand them. Cut them. Hang them,” I said softly. “That was how your father killed his victims.” I didn’t phrase it as a question, because I knew. Just by looking at Dean, I knew. “Yes,” Dean said, before lifting his eyes to look at the still-muted TV. “And I’m almost certain that’s what was done to this girl.

You have the One Who Got Away. You have his useless little son’s girl. This time, you think, we’re doing it my way. You make the FBI agent put the girl in your trunk, climb in herself. You knock her out—and oh, it feels good. It feels right. You slam the trunk. You climb into the car. You drive away. The student has become the master.

Lia’s known Dean longer than any of us,” I said, mentally going through the details of the situation and the personalities involved. “No matter how many people come into this house, to Lia, they’ll always be a unit of two. But Dean…” “Unit of one,” Michael finished for me. “He’s Mr. Lone Wolf.” When things got bad, Dean’s impulse was to put up walls, to push other people away. But I’d never seen him shut Lia out before. She was his family. And this time, he’d left her on the outside—with us.

Briggs has a case.” Michael liked to make an entrance. “He just got the call.” “But his team just got back.” Sloane loaded her catapult again. “The FBI has fifty-six field offices, and the DC field office is the second-largest in the country. There are dozens of teams who could take this case. Why assign it to Briggs?” “Because I’m the most qualified for the job,” Briggs said, coming into the room. “And,” he added under his breath, “because somewhere along the way, the universe decided I needed to suffer.

I looked to Dean to see if he agreed, but he was just sitting there, staring at the silent TV screen. Somehow, I doubted he was enthralled by the weather report. “Dean?” I said. He didn’t respond. “Dean.” Lia reached her foot out and shoved him with her heel. “Earth to Redding.” Dean looked up. Blond hair hung in his face. Brown eyes stared through us. He said something, but the words were garbled in his throat, caught halfway between a grunt and a whisper. “What did you say?” Sloane asked. “Bind them,” Dean said, his voice still rough, but louder this time. “Brand them. Cut them. Hang them.” He shut his eyes, and his hands curled into fists. “Hey.” Lia was beside him in a second. “Hey, Dean.” She didn’t touch him, but she stayed by his side. The look on her face was fiercely protective—and terrified.

By standing there, looking at Michael, the one thing I did know, the way I aways knew things about other people, was that sooner or later, as a part of this program-a part of this team- i was going to find out.

Lia gave me a look and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “If the FBI doesn’t have an official dating policy, I doubt they have one for divorce. Besides, we’re talking about Director Sterling here. The man who basically bought Michael from his father by promising to make the IRS look the other way.” She paused. “The man who had the FBI haul me in off the streets and told me my other option was juvie.” This was the first time I’d ever heard Lia mention her past before the program. Juvie? “Briggs and Sterling both worked my father’s case.” Dean volunteered that information, using his own past to change the subject from Lia’s, which told me that she’d been telling the truth and he wanted to protect her from questions.

Agent Briggs had led that team. Shortly thereafter, he’d started using Dean—the son of a notorious serial killer—to get inside the head of other killers. Eventually, the FBI had discovered what Briggs was doing and, instead of firing him, they’d made it official. Dean had been moved into an old house in the town outside of Marine Corps Base Quantico. Briggs had hired a man named Judd to act as Dean’s guardian. Over time, Briggs had begun recruiting other teenagers with savant-like skills. First Lia, with her uncanny ability to lie and to spot lies when they exited the mouths of others. Then Sloane and Michael, and finally me.

He doesn't want you here, I reminded myself. But at the same time, I couldn't keep from thinking that maybe shutting the rest of us out was less about what Dean wanted and more about what he wouldn't let himself want. there was a change, a good one, that Dean didn't need to be alone as mush as he though being alone was what he deserved.

It ends with you running, Sterling reminded me. You get away. You escape, because you're a survivor. Because someone else thought you were worth saving

I thought that tools who lived in tool houses probably shouldn’t throw stones.

I’m glad you were able to be here for Dean today, Cassie. He needs someone, especially now—but if you’re serious about doing what we do, what I do, emotions are a luxury you cannot afford. Guilt, anger, empathy, being willing to do anything to save a life—that’s a recipe for getting someone killed.

Have you ever tried a role-playing game?” Richard asked me one day over lunch. “I don't know if that's any of your business, pervert.” Richard sneered. “Not sex, idiot. It's a kind of game.” “You mean like, what, Dungeons and Dragons? Wearing a cloak and pretending to cast magic spells with elves? No, I've never done that.” “I'm not talking about pretending to be a elf, dummy. Not every role-playing game is about dragons and gnomes. Some of them are about secret agents, or commandos, or anything else you can think of. A role-playing game is a natural evolution from cops and robbers or cowboys and indians into something much more structured and codified. The principle, however, is the same. A scenario creator posits a challenge, and the participants offer up ways in which they would overcome the challenge, with the creator acting as a referee, determining success or failure.” “If I checked under your bed, I wouldn't find a wizard's hat and a magic wand, would I?” Richard flicked a cracker crumb at me. “It is a tool for training your mind to approach situations analytically, and quickly find a solution to the problem.” “Okay, you win, Bilbo Baggins. Give me a challenge.

THE ACCIDENT   maybe you read it in the paper i was so young just a child i did something stupid   nightstand by the bed found it in the drawer that was so often locked but not this time   sunlight through curtains high noon reflected on polished steel heavy in my hand   pretending to be a cop like my father but more like dirty harry like i saw on tv   my little brother burst into the room four years old just four years old without thinking i aimed   killer instinct squeeze tug bang   slow motion exploding blood not a sound from him as if what happened was completely natural   i replay it again and again efficient little hum that burning memory   pulled the trigger and watched him fold like a house of cards and the questions hammer through my brain and i ask you again   "how much more do i have to pay before becoming whole again?

A profiler, an emotion reader, and a lie detector went to a party.…

It always works, every time; despite the faith, love, morality, and honor we acquire so painfully in our lifelong struggle for self betterment, in moments of crisis what triumphs is a blind instinct for self preservation. In this respect, we humans are worse than animals, who defend their pack until torn to bits.

All roads in Gaither led back to the friendly neighborhood cult,

He’s a doll-maker who likes broken toys, and you know how to play the shattered, broken doll.

Lia eyed me. She eyed Michael. She eyed Dean. “Honestly,” she said, “I doubt that anyone is as happy as Cassie is at this exact moment.

threw my arms around Dean. A moment later, I bounced out of his grip and launched myself at Michael.

Tell me, Townsend,” she said, practically purring. “Do you feel lucky?” This did not bode well.

Beside me, Sloane looked at Lia, then at Michael, then at Dean. Then she bounced closer to me. “There’s a forty percent chance this ends with someone getting punched in the face,” she whispered.

Maybe,” I said softly, “to do what you and I do, we have to have a little bit of the monster in us.

I should have known that she was my last connection to my mother. I should have known that she wasn’t what she seemed. I should have known, and I didn’t, and people had gotten hurt.

Dean was the son of a serial killer. Michael had anger management issues and a father who’d traded him to the FBI for immunity from prosecution on white-collar crimes. Lia was a compulsive liar—and apparently had some kind of juvie record. Sloane had her catapult aimed at Agent Sterling’s head. And then there was me.

She was also his wife.

Dean likes Cassie,” Sloane announced,

If you can’t keep them from hitting you,” Michael said, “you make them hit you. At least that way, you’re ready. At least that way, it’s not a surprise.

I think they found the professor,” I said again, “but our UNSUB found him first.

Our UNSUB and Redding aren’t partners,” I said. “Men like Daniel Redding don’t have partners. They don’t think they have equals.” I searched for the right word. “The person we’re looking for isn’t a partner,” I said finally. “It’s an apprentice.

He said, Next time, bring the girl.

Sometimes you do what you have to in order to survive.

I didn’t escape, Daniel. Dean let me go. He covered for me.

Okay. Let’s try this one: you will never find the man who murdered your mother.

Ja nie tylko cię chce. Ja chcę cię chcieć.

So what you’re saying,” she replied, “is that Gary Clarkson isn’t just victim number four. He’s also our second UNSUB.

Like Christopher Simms was in a meeting with Briggs when someone killed his mother.

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. “I’m

Or does he still think it was me who drew the knife slowly down her shoulders and thighs, me who sank the brand into her flesh?

Here.” Michael tossed his keys to Dean. Dean caught them. “You drive,” Michael said, sauntering over to the passenger side of the car. “You look like you could use it.” Dean’s grip tightened on the keys, and I wondered what game Michael was playing. He never let anyone else drive his car—and Dean was the last person he’d make an exception for. Dean was probably thinking the same thing, but he accepted the offer with a nod.

Here.” Michael tossed his keys to Dean. Dean caught them. “You drive,” Michael said, sauntering over to the passenger side of the car. “You look like you could use it.

Lia

I take it you’re Michael,” she said. “The emotion reader with the attitude problem who’s continually doing stupid things for girls.

Director Sterling is my father.” Agent Sterling’s voice was neutral—too neutral, and I wondered what daddy issues she had.

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.

Touch her again,” Michael told Christopher conversationally, “and Dean will be the one trying to pull me off of you.

It’s not the bad memories that tear a person apart. It’s the good ones.

Christopher Simms had reported Dean to the police? I hadn’t seen that one coming.

The victim is Trina Simms, and neighbors heard screaming and called 911 while her son Christopher was at the police station with Briggs.

Tell him how I went to cut her—how you took the knife from my hand, not to save her, but to do it yourself. Tell him how you made her bleed. Tell him how she screamed when you burned an R into her flesh. Tell him how you asked me for her.” Redding closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling, like a man offering thanks to his gods. “Tell him she was your first.

There was only ever one case they couldn’t solve.

My father won’t tell you anything. The only person he’ll talk to is me.

Do tell, Michael. What did you think of the TA who was such a promising lead that Cassie left the party to go with him, with you on her heels?

A brand, in the shape of the letter R.

I put a call into the warden. I’m afraid the two of you are going to have to come with me.

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

Some things you do because you want to, I thought, and some things you do because you need to.

Dean is just a thing to you,

He’s hands and eyes, a mouth. Something to be molded. Something to own.

I’m in you, boy. In your blood, in your mind, in every breath you take.