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"Keep your room like nothing's changed. Try to love but it's not the same. I damn near broke when I heard your name. You had to go you couldn't stay." (Save you a seat - Alex Warren)
AGENT BRIGGS
The worst thing about death was that the world kept moving.
We had learned that the hard way.
A year ago, Judd's Scarlett had been alive. She had been laughing in the kitchen, stealing food off his plate. She had been Veronica's best friend, Judd's daughter, and one of the few people who could make me feel like I was something other than an FBI agent.
Now she was a just photograph in Judd's house. A photograph on Veronica's bedside table until she packed everything and left. A photograph in my mind that appeared at the most inconvenient moments.
I could still remember the phone call. I vividly remembered every second of that horrible day. I remember Judd's scream when he found out. People aren't supposed to be able to scream like that.
I remembered thinking it was a mistake. It had to be a mistake.
Scarlett was young. Scarlett was clever. The sort of person who always had an excuse, always had a plan B. She always had another reason to believe everything would work out in the end.
But Nightshade knew exactly where, and how, to hit us where it would hurt.
Scarlett was supposed to be safe in her lab whilst we went and dealt with all the outside threats.
Scarlett wasn't supposed to die.
I had spent years looking at death from the outside. I knew how to examine a crime scene, how to read a suspect, how to look at a grieving family and offer words that were supposed to help.
I fully understood how useless those words were when I had to offer them to Judd.
And then there was Veronica.
Scarlett had been there for the wedding. She had been there throughout our marriage. She'd even helped me plan the proposal
After Scarlett died, something inside both of us had broken and neither of us knew how to put it back together.
We had tried. I had tried. Neither of us had known what to say or do. Love wasn't always enough. It couldn't be the cure to a broken heart.
Eventually, Veronica had left and I couldn't blame her.
Now, a year later, I was standing in my office, staring at a file that had the potential to change everything or ruin it completely. I wasn't entirely sure which.
The file contained the story of a twelve year old boy called Dean Redding.
The first natural.
I had encountered plenty of gifted people in my career. I had met forensic scientists who could identify a killer from a single hair, interrogators who could make hardened criminals confess in under an hour, and analysts who could find patterns in evidence that everyone else had overlooked.
Dean was different. He understood people. He was a profiler. Dean could look at someone's posture, their expression, the words they chose, and understand what lay beneath them. He could reconstruct personalities from the smallest details and predict behavior with unsettling accuracy.
It wasn't magic. I knew that. It was observation, intelligence, and an extraordinary ability to understand the way people worked. It was a gift.
Dean's father had been a serial killer. And Dean had grown up learning to recognize the signs.
I closed the file. The circumstances that had brought Dean to my attention were still fresh enough to make me feel sick.
The boy was damaged. He had been forced to do, and witness things nobody should ever have to witness in their lives. I wasn't naive enough to pretend otherwise. There were gaps in his history, inconsistencies in his behavior, but there was something else, too.
Potential.
For months, an idea had been taking shape in the back of my mind. It had begun as a vague thought after Scarlett's death, when I had found myself wondering how many victims might still be alive if someone had noticed the right detail at the right time.
Then Dean had come along. What if I could find other young people like him?
Young people with extraordinary abilities. People who saw what others missed, who understood things that couldn't easily be taught. People whose difficult lives had given them skills they never should have needed.
What if, instead of leaving them to navigate the world alone, I could teach them to use those abilities for something good?
A program. A team. The Naturals. A family.
It sounded ridiculous now that I thought about it. Almost childish. But it fit. These kids wouldn't be ordinary recruits. They wouldn't have to spend years working their way through the Bureau before anyone noticed what they could do. They would be trained to recognize patterns, analyze behavior, and solve crimes alongside experienced agents.
They would be given a chance to turn the things that had hurt them into something useful. And most importantly, they wouldn't have to do it alone.
There was only one problem. I couldn't do it by myself.
The children would need somewhere to live. Somewhere safe, away from the people and circumstances that had made their lives what they were. They would need someone who kept them fed, stopped them from doing anything spectacularly stupid, and reminded them that they were still children even when their minds worked like those of seasoned investigators.
Someone who could handle difficult people. Someone who knew what it meant to lose everything and keep going anyway. Someone who I trusted.
There was only one person I could call.
Judd answered on the fourth ring.
"What?"
I held the phone away from my ear for a moment.
"Good to hear from you, too."
"If you're calling to tell me you need help moving something heavy, I'm busy."
I smiled faintly. It was the first time I'd smiled that morning, which probably said more about my life than I wanted to consider.
"Can I come over?"
"Why?"
"I need to talk to you about something."
Judd sighed on the other end of the phone. "Fine," he said gruffly.
"I'll be there in twenty"
The line went dead, I stared at the phone for a moment before slipping it into my pocket.
I hadn't told Judd about the program yet. I hadn't told anyone, actually. The proposal was still incomplete, and there were questions I couldn't answer. This program was never going to be properly approved of by the FBI. It would have to function off the books.
But none of that mattered if I couldn't find someone to help me. And Judd was the only person I could imagine trusting with it.
Judd's house looked lived in. It also looked abandoned.
"You've lost weight," Judd noticed as he opened the door.
"Missed you, too."
"Coffee?"
"Please."
Judd turned and walked toward the kitchen without waiting for an answer.
I followed. For a moment, neither of us spoke. Judd filled two mugs and pushed one across the counter. I accepted it, wrapping both of my hands around the ceramic.
There were photographs on the walls. Most were old: Judd in his Marine uniform, Judd with me and Veronica at some event she had dragged us to, Judd standing beside Scarlett when she was young enough to have missing front teeth.
My eyes lingered on that last one.
Judd noticed. He always noticed. "Don't," he said quietly.
I cleared my throat, "I've been working on something."
"I have a feeling you're about to ask me to do something I'll regret."
I set my mug down, "I want to start a program."
Judd raised an eyebrow, "Of course you do."
"It's called the Naturals. It's for teenagers with exceptional abilities. People who can recognize behavioral patterns, analyze evidence, understand people. Things like that."
"You want to teach them to be FBI agents?"
"Eventually. First, I want to train them. Give them the tools to work on what they're good at."
Judd studied him over the rim of his mug.
"How many kids?"
"I don't know yet."
"Where are they going to live?"
"With me."
Judd lowered his coffee, "Excuse me?"
"I'll provide the house. They'll live there while they're in the program. I'll handle the arrangements, the funding, their training schedules... "
"Tanner."
"........and I'll make sure they're supervised."
"Tanner Briggs."
The use of my full name made me stop talking.
Judd stared at me like I was crazy, "You seem to think that you can supervise a group of kids whilst having a job at the FBI at the same time?"
"When you say it like that......"
"How else am I supposed to say it?"
"It's a good program."
"It might be. That's not what I asked."
"They need stability, Judd. They need someone who understands what they've been through. Someone who can help them adjust."
"Tanner you can't help everyone."
"I think I can try."
The answer seemed to surprise us both.
Judd looked down at his mug. For a moment I thought he would refuse. It would have been understandable. Judd had barely been able to take care of himself since Scarlett died. Some mornings, he didn't get out of bed until the afternoon. He threw himself into meaningless tasks because sitting still meant remembering. Asking him to take responsibility for a group of teenagers seemed almost cruel.
But it could also be what saved him.
"I can't replace her," Judd said at last.
My throat tightened, "Of course."
"I'm not going to be some kind of father figure to a bunch of kids just because you think it might make me feel useful."
"I wouldn't ask you to."
"Good," Judd sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, "But I could help."
I looked up. Judd shook his head, as if he were already regretting the words.
"I could help you keep them alive, at least. Make sure they don't do anything stupid. Teach them some discipline."
"That's all I'm asking."
"No, it isn't."
I didn't answer. Judd knew me too well for that.
"I know what you're like. You want to give these kids a home. You want me to help you make sure they have a home," Judd continued. "You want to make sure they have someone to come back to when things get bad."
My fingers tightened around my mug, "Yes."
Judd stared out the kitchen window.
For a long moment, I could see the man I had always known beneath the grief: the Marine who had taught me how to keep my head in a crisis, the father who had once driven three hours in the middle of the night because I had called and said I needed help.
The man who had loved Scarlett more than anything.
"I'll meet them," Judd said finally. "Before I agree to anything permanent."
"That's fair," I exhaled.
Judd picked up his mug again, "So. When does this little experiment start?"
"Tomorrow," I grinned.
Judd closed his eyes, "Of course it does."
JUDD HAWKINS
Dean Redding arrived at the house the following afternoon with a suitcase, a shoulder bag, a guarded expression, and the most rigid posture I'd ever seen.
The boy stood on the front step while I unlocked the door. He was tall and lean, with dirty blonde hair that fell across his forehead and eyes that seemed to take in everything without settling on anything for too long.
There was something about his face that suggested he had been forced to grow up too quickly. But the way he held his bag, the way his fingers curled around the strap, reminded me that beneath all that intelligence was still a kid.
A kid who had spent too much of his life in danger.
"Dean," Tanner said, stepping aside. "Come in. I want you to meet someone."
Dean studied me for a second.
"You're Judd."
"Depends who's asking."
"Dean Redding."
"I gathered."
Tanner sighed. "You two are going to get along wonderfully."
We both ignored him.
Dean shifted his bag to his other hand. "You're retired military," he said.
I raised an eyebrow. "Am I?"
"Your posture gives it away. And the way you stand. Your hands are rough, but not from manual labor. And you keep looking at the windows."
I glanced toward the window he'd been standing beside, "Do I?"
"Yes."
"Anything else?"
Dean hesitated. For the first time since arriving, he looked uncertain, "You're grieving."
I went still. Dean seemed to recognize the shift immediately. His gaze dropped to floor in front of him.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have said that."
"No," I replied. My voice came out rougher than usual. I cleared my throat.
"No, you shouldn't have."
Dean nodded once, accepting the reprimand without argument. I studied him. There was no smugness in the boy's expression, no satisfaction at having guessed correctly. If anything, he looked uncomfortable.
He hadn't said it to hurt me. He'd simply seen it.
I understood then why Tanner had chosen this boy first.
Dean Redding didn't just notice people. He noticed the things they tried hardest to hide.
"Well," I said, stepping away from the window, "if you're going to be living here, there's something you should know."
Dean looked up.
"This house has rules. You follow them, we get along. You break them, we'll have a problem."
"Understood."
"And you don't analyze every person you meet."
Dean blinked, "I don't?"
"No. Sometimes you can just let people be people."
For a moment, Dean looked as if he'd never considered that possibility. Then, very slightly, his shoulders relaxed, "I'll try."
I nodded toward the hallway, "Come on, then. I'll show you where you'll be sleeping."
Dean followed me inside.
AGENT BRIGGS
I watched them go, feeling something loosen in my chest that had been tight for a very long time.
It wasn't happiness. I wasn't naive enough to mistake it for that.
Scarlett was still dead. Veronica was still gone. The past hadn't changed, and nothing about this eccentric new program could bring back what we'd lost.
But I could now imagine a future for Judd and I, that wasn't simply an endless repetition of the worst day of our lives.
Behind me, Dean had asked a question about whether the house had gym equipment.
Judd stopped walking, "Why would you need a gym?"
Dean considered the question, "I don't know yet."
I closed my eyes. The Naturals had officially begun.
And God help us, I already had a feeling it was going to be a disaster.