Jenny

“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.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Killer Instinct

“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.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Killer Instinct

“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.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Killer Instinct

“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.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Killer Instinct