The Naturals

Dean is a 17-year-old profiler like Cassie with innate skills for studying human behavior. He is standoffish and aloof, and he fights his instant attraction to Cassie. She at first believes that he dislikes her and resents her presence in the program, but she soon discovers that he keeps people at a distance to protect them from himself. He actually resents her recruitment into the program because, having experienced the dark side of human nature firsthand, he believes it will put her life at risk. Dean’s father is Daniel Redding, a prolific serial killer who tortured and murdered 12 women before he was finally caught five years ago.

Dean struggles with the guilt of believing he should have stopped his father and saved those women. He confesses to Cassie that he did not know about his father “at first,” suggesting that there was a time before his father was caught when he was aware of what his father was. Because of this perceived inability to act against his father, Dean believes that he is a monster too. He fears losing control of his anger and becoming his father. Thus, he has low self-esteem and believes he is unworthy of Cassie, pushing her romantically toward Michael at times. Even so, his animosity with Michael is further fueled by Michael’s attentions to Cassie, as well as Michael’s romantic past with Lia, who is like a sister to Dean.

After his father was apprehended, Dean caught the attention of Agent Briggs at the FBI. As a 12-year-old, Dean helped Briggs catch serial killers by using his intimate knowledge of his father’s activities and mindset to profile how killers think. This was done secretly, without the FBI’s knowledge, which eventually led to Briggs establishing the official Naturals program with the rule of not allowing the teens on current cases.

 Dean allowed himself to be used by Briggs because he believes in using his gifts to help others. Unlike Cassie, who uses “you” to refer to an UNSUB while profiling to keep them at a mental distance, Dean uses the word “I” and slips easily into the mind of the killer. He and Cassie play off each other in this way, and although he tells her that they are not partners, it becomes apparent that they have a special connection, being the only profilers in the house. He calms her and keeps her grounded, while she holds the faith that he is not a monster like his father; she sees the good in him. Indeed, he proves to be morally self-flagellating, punishing himself constantly for who his father is and how he thinks. He feels guilty for not adequately protecting Cassie from Locke, even though he repeatedly warns Cassie away from the program and acts without hesitation when taking her to the safe house. Ultimately, Cassie encourages him to begin seeing the goodness in him that exists because of his past. She acts as a catalyst for his growing faith in himself and the program.

Michael is another member of the Naturals program, an emotion reader recruited by Briggs after his wealthy father was indicted for tax fraud. Cassie guesses that to help his father avoid jail time, Michael was forced to join the program against his will, which is why he seems to resent Briggs and the program itself. Briggs allowed him to keep some of his family’s expensive cars as part of the recruitment deal. Michael seems to resent his wealthy family’s apparent coldness and extravagance. After spending more time with him, Cassie infers that someone in his life was physically abusive to him, and she guesses it was his father.

From the beginning, Michael is confident, flirtatious, and sarcastic. He seems to take nothing seriously, making it hard for Cassie to profile him accurately. He is constantly using his ability to make people uncomfortable, calling out their facial expressions, gestures, and body language to garner further reactions from them. Cassie notes that he wears metaphorical masks upon masks to hide his real feelings. He is afraid of showing his true self, so he changes his appearance and clothing often. He also likes to provoke Dean by reminding him of his father, and he flaunts his intimate knowledge of Lia, with whom he had a previous romantic relationship.

Cassie is able to see beneath Michael’s masks on a few occasions, and by the end of the novel, she grows to trust him. When Cassie seemingly rejects him after their passionate kiss, and when he notes that Cassie is briefly afraid of him at the safe house, his vulnerability shines through his nonchalant exterior. This is what he has always been afraid of: losing control over his carefully crafted persona and appearing weak or genuine. However, as we get to know him through Cassie’s eyes, we learn that he is also protective, kind, loyal, and reliable. He follows through at the safe house, playing the hero role by killing Locke to save Cassie; he even romanticizes his injuries in a very characteristic and charismatic way. In the end, he maturely accepts Cassie’s indecision toward himself and Dean, and he tells her that he will wait for her to choose one of them. His feelings for Cassie are never quite hidden, and his intention to pursue her romantically is obvious.

Lia’s name is a play on her talents: She is both a human lie detector and an expert liar recruited mysteriously to the Naturals program. Like Dean, she was an early member of the Naturals. She and Dean presumably grew up in the program together when it was still in its unofficial infancy, making them close enough to consider each other adopted siblings. She is extremely protective of him, telling Cassie to stay away when she sees how Cassie and Dean have bonded.

Like Michael, Lia enjoys using her skills to cause tension and deflect from her past, and she constantly changes her clothing to conceal her true, vulnerable identity. She often antagonizes the FBI agents and the other Naturals. She is unafraid of bluntly telling the truth, but she also enjoys obscuring and manipulating it. Cassie tries to profile her by imagining herself as Lia. In Cassie’s imagination, Lia is messy and keeps her true self hidden because she is afraid of something or someone from her past. Although she is careful not to disclose much about her life prior to joining the FBI, we learn during the game of Truth or Dare that she once went by the name “Sadie.” Additionally, when it comes to her complicated romantic relationship with Michael, Lia admits that she wants to tell Cassie to stay away from him, but she will not actually do so. Still, Lia seems vindictive and spiteful toward Cassie when she first joins the Naturals. However, by the end of the novel, although she is not openly affectionate, Lia reveals that she hopes Cassie will stay in the program.