Page 30 of The Naturals

Lia considered the question. “Do you want to?”

Michael glanced at me, then back at Lia. “Not particularly.”

“Then, yes,” Lia replied. “You do.”

Beside me, Sloane raised her hand.

“Yes, Sloane?” Lia said pleasantly. Apparently, she wasn’t concerned that our resident numbers girl might object.

“I’m familiar with the gist of the game, but I’m unclear on one thing.” Sloane’s eyes gleamed. “How do you win?”

Michael grinned. “You have to love a girl with a competitive streak.”

“You don’t win Truth or Dare,” I said. In fact, I deeply suspected this was the kind of game that everybody lost.

“Is that an objection?” Lia asked.

From across the room, Dean was telegraphing the words SAY YES to me, as clearly as if he’d hired a plane to write them in the sky. And if I’d been in a room with any other teenagers on the planet, I would have. But I was in a room with Michael, who I couldn’t quite profile, and Dean, who’d said the other day that Naturals didn’t work on active cases anymore. I had questions, and this was the only way I was going to get to ask them.

“No,” I told Lia. “That wasn’t an objection. Let’s play.”

A slow smile spread across Lia’s face. Dean banged his head back against the fireplace.

“Can I go first?” Sloane asked.

“Sure,” Lia replied smoothly. “Truth or dare, Sloane?”

Sloane gave her a look. “That’s not what I meant.”

Lia shrugged. “Truth. Or. Dare.”

“Truth.”

In a normal game of Truth or Dare, that would have been the safer option—because if the question was too embarrassing, you could always lie. With Lia in the room, that was impossible.

“Do you know who your father is?”

Lia’s question took me completely off guard. I’d spent most of my life not knowing who my own father was, but couldn’t imagine being forced to admit that in front of a crowd. Lia seemed fond of Sloane, more or less, but clearly, in Truth or Dare, the kid gloves came off.

Sloane met Lia’s eyes, unfazed. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“A swing and a miss,” Michael murmured. Lia gave him a dirty look.

“Your turn,” she told Sloane, and from the look on her face, I guessed she was bracing herself for payback—but Sloane turned to me.

“Cassie. Truth or dare?”

I tried to imagine what kind of dare Sloane might come up with, but drew a blank.

“Statistically, the most common dares involve eating unpleasant food, making prank phone calls, kissing another player, licking something unsanitary, and nudity,” Sloane said helpfully.

“Truth.”

Sloane was silent for several seconds. “How many people do you love?”

The question seemed harmless enough until I started thinking about my answer. Sloane’s blue eyes searched mine, and I got the distinct feeling that she wasn’t asking because she thought it would be amusing to hear my answer.

She was asking because she needed data points to compare to her own.