All In: (The Naturals #3)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  The white flower in the photograph that Nightshade had sent Judd. White flower. Something stuck in the back of my brain, like food caught in between the teeth. Nightshade always sent his victims the bloom of a white nightshade plant. White. White flowers.

  I walked into the kitchen, scrambled until I found what I was looking for. I pulled out the evidence envelope, opened it, removed the photo inside.

  Not white nightshade. The photo Nightshade had sent Judd wasn’t of a white nightshade bloom. It was a picture of a paper flower. Origami.

  I stumbled backward and grabbed the edge of the counter for balance, thinking of Beau’s last moments, the words he’d said.

  I don’t believe in wishing.

  I saw the little girl in the candy store, staring at a lollipop. I saw her father come and put her on his shoulders. I saw her beside the fountain, holding the penny.

  I don’t believe in wishes, she’d said.

  There was a white origami flower behind her ear.

  In my mind, I saw her mother come to get her. I saw her father, tossing a penny into the water. In my mind, I saw his face. I saw the water, and I saw his face—

  And just like that, I was back on the banks of the Potomac, a thick black binder on my lap.

  “Enjoying a bit of light reading?” The voice echoed through my memory, and this time, I could make out the speaker’s face. “You live at Judd’s place, right? He and I go way back.”

  “Nightshade,” I forced out the word. “I’ve seen him.”

  Lia looked almost concerned despite herself. “We know.”

  “No,” I said. “In Vegas. I’ve seen him here. Twice. I thought…I thought I was watching him.”

  But maybe—maybe he was watching me.

  “He had a child with him,” I said. “There was a woman, too. The girl, she came up next to me at the fountain. She was little—three, four at most. She had a penny in her hand. I asked if she was going to make a wish, and she said…”

  I couldn’t coax my lips into forming the words.

  Dean formed them for me. “I don’t believe in wishing.” His gaze flicked to Michael’s, then to Lia’s. “The same thing Beau Donovan said when Sterling told him he only wished he were Nine.”

  Right before he died.

  “You said Nightshade had a woman with him,” Dean said. “What did she look like, Cassie?”

  “Strawberry blond hair,” I said. “Medium height. Slender.”

  I thought of my mother’s body, stripped to the bones and buried at the crossroads. With honor. With care.

  Maybe they weren’t trying to kill you. Maybe you weren’t supposed to die. Maybe you were supposed to be like this woman—

  “Beau said the ninth member was always born to it. How did he phrase it?”

  Dean stared at a point just to the left of my shoulder and then repeated Beau’s words exactly. “The child of the brotherhood and the Pythia. Blood of their blood.”

  Seven Masters. A child. And the child’s mother.

  The woman at the fountain had strawberry blond hair. It would be red in some lights—like my mother’s.

  Nine members. Seven Masters. A woman. A child.

  “The Pythia was the name given to the Oracle at Delphi,” Sloane said. “A priestess at the Temple of Apollo. A prophetess.”

  I thought of the family—the picture-perfect family I’d looked at, knowing to my core that it was something I’d never have.

  Mother. Father. Child.

  I turned to Dean. “We have to call Briggs.”

  The man we knew as Nightshade stared back at me from the page. The police artist had captured the lines of his face: strong jaw, thick brows, dark hair with just enough curl to make his remaining features look boyish. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes told me he was older than he looked; light stubble masked the fullness of his lips.

  You came to Vegas to take care of a problem. Watching me, tormenting Judd—that, you enjoyed.

  I felt someone take a seat next to me at the kitchen table. The FBI had taken the sketch and run with it. They were monitoring the airport, bus stations, traffic cameras—and, courtesy of Sloane, the casinos’ security feeds.

  You look like a thousand other men. You don’t look dangerous.

  The man in the sketch looked like a neighbor, a coworker, a Little League coach. A dad. I could see him in my mind, hoisting the little red-haired girl up onto his shoulders.

  “You’ve done everything you can.”

  I tore my gaze from the police sketch to look at Judd. This man killed your daughter, I thought. This man might know what happened to my mother.

  “Trust Ronnie and Briggs to do what they can,” Judd continued.

  A manhunt didn’t fall under Naturals’ jurisdiction. Once the FBI figured out who the man in the picture was, once we had a name, a history, information, maybe we could be of some use, but until then, all we could do was wait.

  By then, a voice whispered in the back of my head, it might be too late. Nightshade might disappear. Once he left Vegas, we might never find him again.

  Judd wouldn’t get justice for Scarlett’s death. I wouldn’t get answers about my mother’s.

  Beside me, Judd let himself look at the police sketch—made himself look at it.

  “You do what you can,” he said, after seconds of silence had stretched to a minute, “to make sure your kids are safe. From the second they’re born…” He stared at the lines of Nightshade’s face, the ordinariness of it. “You want to protect them. From every skinned knee, from hurt feelings and punk kids who push smaller ones into the dirt, from the worst parts of yourself and the worst parts of this world.”

  This man killed your daughter. She died in pain, her fingernails torn, her body contorting—

  “Briggs saved my life.” Judd forcibly shifted his eyes away from the man in the picture and turned to look at me. “He saved me, the day he brought me Dean.”

  Judd’s right hand slowly worked its way out of a fist. He closed his eyes for a moment, then reached for the picture of his daughter’s killer and turned it facedown.

  You do what you can to make sure your kids are safe.

  This was Judd, trying to protect me. This was Judd, telling me to let it go. I thought about the little red-haired girl, about Beau Donovan, about seven and nine, the symbol carved into my mother’s coffin, the pattern of murders stretching back over years and generations.

  I didn’t want anyone’s protection. I want Nightshade. I want answers.

  Judd responded like I’d said the words out loud. “You have to want something else more.”

  “Home isn’t a place, Cassie. Home is the people who love you most.” Standing on the back porch, looking out at the safe house backyard, I let the memory wash over me. I lost myself to it. I needed to remember. I needed my mom to be my mom—not a body, not bones, not a victim—my mom.

  We’re dancing, right there on the side of the road. Her red hair escapes the scarf. It frames her face as she moves—wild and free and absolutely unabashed. I spin in circles, my hands held out to the side. The world is a blur of colors and darkness and snow. She tilts her head back, and I do the same, sticking out my tongue.

  We can shed the past. We can dance it off. We can laugh and sing and spin—forever and ever.

  No matter what.

  No matter what.

  No matter what.

  I didn’t want to forget—the smile on her face, the way she’d moved, the way she’d danced like no one was watching, no matter where we were.

  I sucked in a breath and wished—fiercely, vehemently—that I didn’t understand how a stranger could have looked at her and thought, She’s the one.

  They were watching you, I thought. They chose you.

  I’d never asked myself what my mother’s killer had chosen her for. I thought of the woman I’d seen with Nightshade—the little girl’s mother. Do you know what he is? I asked the woman, holding the image of her in my mind. Are you a part of this group?
Are you a killer?

  Seven Masters. The Pythia. And Nine. I thought of the hundreds of people who’d passed through my mother’s shows. Seven Masters. Had one of them been there? Had they seen her?

  Did you expect my mom to go willingly? I asked them silently. Did you try to break her? Did she fight you?

  I looked down at my wrists, remembering the feel of zip ties digging into them. I remembered being stalked, hunted, trapped. I remembered Locke’s knife. I remembered fighting—lying, manipulating, struggling, running, hiding, fighting.

  I was my mother’s daughter.

  They didn’t know what they were getting into with you, I thought, my mother still dancing in my memory, fearless and free. My mom and Locke had grown up with an abusive father. When my mom got pregnant with me, she got out. She left her father’s house in the dead of night and never looked back.

  “Dance it off.”

  My mother was a survivor.

  The back door opened. After a moment’s pause, Dean came to stand behind me. I leaned back into him, my hands held palms up in front of me, my eyes on my wrists. Webber had bound them behind my back. Did they bind your arms, Mom? Did they give you a chance to win your freedom? Did they tell you that yours was a higher purpose?

  Did they kill you for fighting?

  By the time they killed you, did you want to die?

  “I’ve been trying to imagine,” Dean said, “what this is like for you. And instead…” His voice caught in his throat. “I keep imagining seeing her, choosing her, taking her—” Dean cut off abruptly.

  You hate yourself for imagining it. You hate how easy it is to put yourself in the mind-set of my mother’s killer—or killers.

  You hate that it makes any kind of sense at all.

  “I imagine taking her,” I told him. “I imagine being taken.” I swallowed. “Whatever this group is, they operate by certain rules. There’s a ritual, an uncompromising tradition….”

  Seven Masters. The Pythia. And Nine.

  Wordlessly, Dean reached around my body. He took my right hand in his. His thumb grazed my wrist, exactly where Webber’s zip ties had dug into my flesh.

  Like mother, like daughter—

  All thoughts cut off as Dean lifted my wrist to his lips, pressing a soft, silent kiss to the once-abused skin. He closed his eyes. I closed mine. I could feel him, breathing behind me. I matched my breaths to his.

  In. Out. In. Out.

  “You don’t have to be strong right now,” Dean told me.

  I turned, opened my eyes, caught his lips in mine. Yes. I do.

  Like mother, like daughter—I was a fighter.

  My neck arched. I pulled back from Dean, my face less than an inch from his.

  “You should really put a tie on the door or something.” Lia sauntered onto the back porch, utterly unremorseful about interrupting us. “Serial-killing cults and citywide manhunts aside, a little discretion on the PDA front goes a long way.”

  I took that to mean Lia hadn’t received any updates on the case. Briggs and Sterling hadn’t called. Nightshade’s still out there. The FBI is still looking.

  “Lia.” Dean’s tone clearly requested that she vacate the premises.

  Lia ignored him and focused on me. “I told Michael to put on his big-boy pants,” she informed me. “I think the near-death experience might have put a damper on his downward spiral, and besides…” Lia met my gaze. “I told him it was your turn.”

  There was a beat of silence as I absorbed the full meaning of Lia’s words. She was here for me. Michael was here. Sloane—shattered, grieving Sloane—was here.

  Briggs saved my life, Judd had said. He saved me, the day he brought me Dean.

  I wanted Nightshade behind bars. I wanted answers—but when I let myself, I wanted this more. Dean and Lia and Michael and Sloane—home is the people who love you most.

  Forever and ever.

  No matter—

  “Guys.” Michael stood frozen at the back door. Behind him, I could see Sloane, dark circles ringing her eyes.

  I knew, then, that there was news. The thudding of my heart, the roar in my ears—I knew there was news, and I was terrified to let Michael say a single word.

  “They got him.”

  Nightshade.

  The man in the picture.

  They got him.

  “The woman?” I heard, as if from a distance. My voice. My question. “The little girl?”

  Michael shook his head, which I took to mean that they hadn’t been with Nightshade.

  The Pythia. The child.

  My heart raced as I thought of the man I’d seen, the man I’d remembered.

  You killed Judd’s daughter. You killed Beau. You know why that symbol was carved onto my mother’s coffin.

  “What aren’t you telling us?” Lia’s voice was low. “Michael.”

  I couldn’t read Michael the way he would have been able to read me, but in the second it took him to reply to Lia’s question, his expression was enough to knock the breath from my lungs.

  “Nightshade stuck Briggs with some kind of needle.” Michael looked from Lia to Dean to me. “Injected him with something. They don’t know what.”

  My mouth went dry and the roaring sound in my ears surged. Poison.

  One last trick up Nightshade’s sleeve. Your grand finale. Your au revoir. I’d been worried that the FBI wouldn’t catch him. It hadn’t occurred to me, even for a second, to worry about what might happen once they did.

  Undetectable. Incurable. Painful. I didn’t want to remember what Judd had said about Nightshade’s poison, but the words kept repeating themselves in a loop in my head.

  “Cassie.” Judd appeared, his face grim. “We need to talk.”

  What else was there to say?

  Undetectable. Incurable. Painful.

  Sloane’s lips were moving as she silently went through a list of every poison known to man. Dean had gone ashen.

  “He claims there’s an antidote,” Judd said. Our guardian didn’t specify who “he” was. He didn’t have to.

  Nightshade.

  “And what does he want?” Dean asked hoarsely. “In exchange for that antidote?”

  I knew the answer—knew it based on the way Judd had said my name, the number of times I’d seen Nightshade, the time he’d spent watching me.

  My mother fought, tooth and nail. She resisted whatever it was you people wanted from her, whatever you wanted her to be.

  I looked from Dean to Judd. “He wants me.”

  I stood on one side of a two-way mirror and watched as guards escorted the man I’d identified as Nightshade into the room on the other side. The man’s hands were cuffed behind his body. His hair was mussed. A dark bruise was forming on one side of his face.

  He didn’t look dangerous.

  He didn’t look like a killer.

  “He can’t see you,” Agent Sterling reminded me. She looked at me, her own eyes shadowed. “He can’t touch you. He stays on that side of the glass, and you stay here.”

  Behind us, Judd placed one hand on my shoulder. You won’t put me in the same room as Scarlett’s killer, I thought. Not even to save Briggs.

  I tried not to think about Briggs and instead focused on the man on the other side of the glass. He looked older than he had in my memory—younger than Judd, but significantly older than Agent Sterling.

  Older than my mother would have been, if she’d lived.

  “Take your time,” Nightshade said. Even though I knew he couldn’t see me, it felt like he was looking directly at me.

  He has kind eyes.

  My stomach twisted with unexpected nausea as he continued. “I’m here when you’re ready, Cassandra.”

  Judd’s grip tightened slightly on my shoulder. You’d kill him, if you could, I thought. Judd wouldn’t have lost a single night’s sleep over snapping this man’s neck. But he didn’t make a move. Instead, he stood still, with me.

  “I’m ready,” I told Agent Sterling. I wasn’t, but
time was a luxury we didn’t have.

  Judd met Agent Sterling’s gaze and gave a curt nod. Sterling stepped to the side of the room and hit a button, converting the two-way mirror in front of us to a clear pane.

  You can see me, I thought as Nightshade’s eyes landed on mine. You see Judd. Your lips curve slightly. I kept my face as blank as I could. One last card to play. One last game.

  “Cassandra.” Nightshade seemed to enjoy saying my name. “Judd. And the indomitable Agent Sterling.”

  You watched us. You get off on Judd’s grief, on Sterling’s.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” I said, my voice unnaturally calm. “Talk.”

  I expected the man on the other side of the glass to say something about Scarlett or about my mother or about Beau. Instead, he said something in a language I didn’t recognize. I glanced at Sterling. The man opposite us repeated himself. “It’s a rare snake,” he translated after a moment. “Its venom is slower-acting than most. Find a zoo that has one, and you’ll find the antivenom. In time, I hope.” He smiled, and this time, it was chilling. “I always have had a certain fondness for your Agent Briggs.”

  I didn’t understand. This man—this killer—had brought me here. He’d used the only bargaining chip he had to bring me here, and now, having seen me, he was handing it in?

  Why? If you enjoy tormenting Judd and Sterling, if you want to leave them with the taste of fear in their mouths, with the bitter knowledge that the people they love will never be safe, why cure Briggs?

  “You’re lying,” Agent Sterling said.

  We should have brought Lia, I thought. And a second later: I shouldn’t be here. The feeling started in my gut and snaked its way out to my limbs, weighing them down.

  “Am I?” Nightshade countered.

  “Incurable. Painful.” I spoke the words out loud without meaning to, but didn’t pull back from talking once they’d made their way out of my mouth. “You wouldn’t just hand away your secret. Not this easily. Not this fast.”

  Nightshade’s eyes lingered on mine a moment longer. “There are limits,” he admitted, “to what one might say. Some secrets are sacred. Some things you take to the grave.” His voice had taken on a low, humming quality. “But then, I never said your Agent Briggs had been afflicted with that poison.”