Bad Blood

Dean is a deuteragonist and a foil to Naturals colleague Michael Townsend. As a profiler, Dean has a skillset similar to Cassie’s, but his focus often shifts to the UNSUB’s perspective, providing a necessary counterpoint to her target-centric approach. Dean’s defining conflict is his relationship with his father, notorious serial killer Daniel Redding. The physical and emotional scars his father inflicted are constantly present, shaping his protective nature and his deep-seated fear of his own capacity for violence. In actively fighting his father’s legacy, a struggle that thematically embodies The Loyalty and Support of Found Family Versus Blood Ties, Dean chooses the supportive, loving family of the Naturals over his fraught lineage. This internal battle makes him a dynamic and round character.

Dean’s primary motivation is his relationship with Cassie. He’s fiercely protective of her, understanding the psychological toll their work takes. His knowledge of his father’s manipulative tactics makes him wary of Cassie’s interactions with him, not because he doubts her, but because he knows the price of emotional engagement. He shares a sibling-like bond with Lia, built on years of shared experience before the others joined the program, which affords them a unique and sometimes contentious shorthand. His dynamic with Michael is one of rivalry and begrudging respect. They’re two sides of the same coin, as they both have monstrous fathers but process their trauma in opposite ways: Dean internalizes and controls his emotions, while Michael externalizes them, using them to provoke others.

Michael is a deuteragonist and an emotion reader whose abilities are a direct result of surviving his abusive father, Thatcher Townsend. His character thematically explores The Duality of Power and Control, as he uses his perceptual skills to manipulate situations and protect his found family, yet he’s also trapped in a self-destructive cycle with his father. Michael often provokes his father’s violence in a desperate attempt to control inevitable abuse. This behavior is rooted in the belief that if he can’t stop the abuse, he can at least control when it happens, revealing how a deep psychological wound can make enduring pain a form of victory. This internal conflict makes him a dynamic and round character.

Michael’s defining relationship is with his father, a man who views him as a possession and a continuation of the Townsend name. This toxic bond contrasts sharply with his fierce loyalty to the Naturals, particularly Lia and Sloane. His on-again, off-again relationship with Lia is a volatile mix of genuine affection and weaponized vulnerability, as both use their past trauma to alternately hurt and protect each other. The reappearance of Michael’s childhood friend and half-sister, Celine Delacroix, forces him to confront a past he tried to leave behind, further complicating his identity and his understanding of what family means. His rivalry with Dean is rooted in their parallel experiences with abusive fathers, making them both foils and mirrors for each other as they grapple with their violent inheritances.

As another dynamic and round deuteragonist, Lia is the team’s human lie detector, a skill she honed during a traumatic childhood in a cult. Her entire persona is a defense mechanism: She uses sarcasm and constructed identities, or masks, to keep others at a distance and protect her deeply buried vulnerability. Lia understands that survival often requires deception, and she wields lies as both a shield and a weapon to protect herself and the people she cares about. When she distracts Dean from Cassie’s visit to his father, it’s an act of fierce, if unconventional, loyalty. Her decision to infiltrate Serenity Ranch alone demonstrates her deep-seated need to confront the ghosts of her past and protect her found family from a danger she feels uniquely qualified to handle. This act thematically embodies The Moral Compromises Necessary for Survival, as she uses the manipulative tactics she learned as a child for a greater good.

Lia’s relationships are complex and intensely guarded. She shares a deep, sibling-like bond with Dean, the only person who has been a constant in her life since she escaped from the cult. Her romantic relationship with Michael is a battlefield of wits and emotions, where both use their skills to test and push each other, finding a strange solace in being with someone who understands the need for protective walls. Her outward cynicism masks a protective instinct, especially toward Sloane, whom she shields from the harsher realities of their work. Lia struggles to accept affection, often deflecting genuine emotion with a biting remark, but her actions consistently prove that her loyalty to the Naturals is absolute.

Sloane is the group’s analyst and statistician. She’s a round and dynamic character who processes the world through data, a coping mechanism that helps her make sense of the emotional chaos and violence that surrounds her. Her literal interpretation of language and social cues often provides moments of levity, but it also highlights her emotional vulnerability, particularly concerning the murder of her brother, Aaron. Sloane’s grief is palpable, driving her need to feel useful and her fear of being a burden. Her intellect is her primary contribution to the team, and her ability to see patterns where others see chaos proves crucial when she deciphers the musical code from Laurel that reveals a Master’s true name. Her development involves slowly learning to navigate the emotional world, guided by the protective instincts of her found family.

Sloane’s bond with the other Naturals is central to her character. She views them as her only real family, a stark contrast to her neglectful father. She shares a particularly strong and protective bond with Michael, who understands her vulnerabilities and often shields her from emotional harm. Likewise, Lia and Cassie instinctively protect her. Celine’s arrival introduces a new dynamic, as her straightforward flirtation confuses yet intrigues Sloane, offering her a rare opportunity to be seen for who she is without judgment. Sloane’s unfiltered honesty and unwavering loyalty make her the emotional heart of the group, even if she can’t always process those emotions herself.

Though physically absent for most of the novel, Lorelai Hobbes is a powerful and enigmatic figure whose presumed death and actual captivity drive the entire plot. Her character is revealed through Cassie’s fragmented memories and the horrifying clues the Naturals uncover about the Masters’ cult. As the Pythia, she occupies a paradoxical role of both a revered judge and a tortured captive, forced to sanction the Masters’ killings to survive. Daniel Redding’s suggestion that after years of captivity, “She might be quite the devil herself” (9) introduces the central question surrounding her character: Has her ordeal corrupted her? This thematic exploration of The Moral Compromises Necessary for Survival makes her a tragic and complex figure. The revelation that she developed a dissociative identity, “Cassandra,” to endure the trauma adds another layer of psychological depth, illustrating the extreme measures necessary to survive unspeakable horror. Her final act, forcing Cassie to kill her to save both her daughters, is a sacrifice, a desperate and brutal choice to free her children from the cycle of violence.

The manipulative, psychopathic serial killer Daniel Redding is one of the novel’s antagonists. Though incarcerated, his influence extends far beyond his cell, particularly over his son, Dean, and, by extension, over Cassie. He thematically embodies The Duality of Power and Control, using information and emotional leverage to maintain a sense of dominance even while he’s physically powerless. His interactions with Cassie are high-stakes games of verbal chess, and he takes sadistic pleasure in exploiting her vulnerabilities, especially her relationship with Dean. He views his son not as a person but as an extension of himself, an object that is “[his] to hurt” (4). He’s a static character in that his malevolent nature never wavers, but he’s round in his disturbingly articulate and intelligent approach to manipulation.

As a powerful and abusive patriarch, Thatcher Townsend is one of the novel’s antagonists. On the surface, he’s charismatic and charming, a master of manipulating appearances, which connects to the recurring imagery of faces and masks. However, beneath this polished exterior lies a violent and tyrannical man who demands absolute control over his family, particularly his son, Michael. His abuse isn’t just physical but psychological, shaping Michael into a person who can read the most subtle emotional cues as a survival mechanism. Thatcher’s fury upon learning that Celine is his illegitimate daughter reveals his obsession with legacy and control; her existence is an insult not because he cares for her, but because it represents a situation he couldn’t dominate, making him a static but round antagonist.

FBI agents Veronica Sterling and Tanner Briggs are the primary adult authority figures and parental substitutes for the Naturals. Their past marriage complicates their professional partnership, creating tension that mirrors the conflicts within their young charges. Sterling is controlled, logical, and deeply protective, driven by the guilt she carries over the death of her best friend, a past failure that makes her wary of taking unnecessary risks. Briggs is more ambitious and driven, and his desire to win sometimes clouds his judgment, which creates friction with Sterling. They’re united, however, in their fierce dedication to the Naturals, providing the structure and guidance that the teens need while navigating the dangerous world of serial killers. Sterling and Briggs’s journey involves learning to trust each other again and to balance their protective instincts with the necessity of allowing the Naturals to use their skills.

As the steadfast guardian of the Naturals, Judd is a former Marine sniper who provides both protection and quiet emotional support. He’s the moral compass for the adult agents, often checking Briggs’s ambition and Director Sterling’s calculated risks. Having lost his own daughter to one of the Masters, his investment in the Naturals’ safety is deeply personal. He’s a man of few words, but his actions reveal his fierce, paternal loyalty. Judd understands the psychological weight the teens carry and knows when to enforce rules and when to offer quiet understanding, making him the anchor of their found family.

The novel introduces Celine as a missing person, but she quickly evolves into a complex supporting character who catalyzes plot developments and self-reflection in the other team members. She’s bold and artistic, and her sharp wit masks deep-seated family trauma. Her staged kidnapping is an act of rebellion against her emotionally distant parents and her biological father, Thatcher Townsend, a desperate attempt to seize control of her own narrative. The revelation that she’s Michael’s half-sister adds a new dimension to the theme of The Loyalty and Support of Found Family Versus Blood Ties. Like Michael, she’s a Natural: Her gift is an uncanny ability to perceive facial structures, which proves crucial in identifying bodies and solving a key part of the central mystery.

Cassie’s four-year-old half-sister, Laurel, is a darkly tragic figure who embodies the devastating impact of the Masters’ cult. Raised in captivity, she’s both a target and an heir to their violent ideology. Her behavior alternates between that of a normal child and “Nine,” the persona she adopts to play “the game” her captors taught her. This psychological split illustrates the severe trauma she endured. Laurel is a living clue, providing Cassie with the coded song that leads to a Master’s identity, but she’s also a constant, painful reminder of what Cassie’s mother has become and the life that was stolen from them both.