Page 57 of The Naturals

“It’s a popular color,” Lia cut in. “If you bribe Sloane with some java, she could probably tell you exactly how many millions of tubes of it they sell every year. Seriously, Cassie. Don’t ask why. Just say thank you.”

“Thanks,” I said softly, but I couldn’t help feeling that the universe was mocking me, and I couldn’t keep from looking down at the tube in my hand and thinking, over and over again, that once upon a time, I’d known someone else who was partial to Rose Red lipstick.

My mother.

YOU

“Hold still.”

The girl whimpers, her eyes filling with tears, her hands pulling at the bindings. You backhand her, and she falls to the ground. There’s no pleasure to be had in this.

She’s not Lorelai.

She’s not Cassie.

She’s not even a proper imitation. But you had to do something. You had to show the people closing ranks around Cassie what happens when they try to stand between you and what is yours.

“Hold still,” you say again.

This time, the girl obeys. You don’t kill her. You don’t even hurt her.

Not yet.

I woke midmorning to slanting rays of light breaking through my bedroom window. Sloane was nowhere to be seen. After doing a cursory check of the hallway, I slunk into the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

Solitude. For now.

I pulled the shower curtain, stretching it across the length of the tub. With a twist of my wrist, I turned on the spray, as hot as it would go. The sound of water drumming against the porcelain tub was soothing and hypnotic. I sank down to the floor, pulling my knees to my chest.

Six days ago, a serial killer had contacted me, and my only reaction had been to crawl into the UNSUB’s head, calm and cool. But last night, wearing the same shade of lipstick as my mother had undone me.

It was a coincidence, I told myself. A horrible, twisted, untimely coincidence that within days of being contacted by a killer who might have murdered my mother, Lia had made me up to look just like her.

“It’s a popular color. Just say thank you.”

Steam built up in the air around me, reminding me that I was wasting hot water, a cardinal sin in a house with five teenagers. I stood and swiped my arm across the mirror, leaving a streak on its steam-covered surface.

I stared at myself, banishing the image of Rose Red on my lips. This was me. I was fine.

Stripping off my pajamas, I stepped into the shower, letting the spray hit me straight in the face. The flashback came suddenly and without warning.

Fluorescent lights flicker overhead. On the ground, my shadow flickers, too.

The door to her dressing room is slightly ajar.

I concentrated on the sound of the water, the feel of it on my skin, pushing back against the memories.

The smell—

Abruptly, I turned off the shower. Wrapping a towel around my torso, I stepped out onto the bath mat, dripping wet. I combed my fingers through my hair and turned to the sink.

That was when I heard the scream.

“Cassie!” It took me a moment to pick out my name, and another after that to recognize that Sloane was the one yelling. Wearing only a towel, I rushed across to our room.

“What? Sloane, what is it?”

She was still clad in her pajamas. White-blond hair stuck to her forehead. “It had my name on it,” she said, her voice strained. “It’s not stealing if it has my name on it.”