Love, Life and Everything

 Camila is a hypnotized empath with no feelings of her own.  She's also a teacher at Encantado Elementary.  She's almost completely blank and does the bidding of those in control of her.  However, she can feel and manipulate emotions. She tries this numerous times on Ricky.  She isn't successful, and she's later punished for letting him escape.  The Twins work through her when she is in a semi hypnotic state when Laura and her team search the warehouse.

  Jose is Ricky's former best friend.  He was also Laura's friend at one point.  But after a botched brainwashing (discovered later in the book), when he sees new recruits going through some sort of initiation, he becomes angry, manipulative, and fixates on Laura being a witch.  The "bad guys" let him believe that he saw a witch's ritual, and that Laura was one of the ones he saw since it works to their advantage.  He later kills Ricky's father in an attempt to kill Laura.  He is going through intense deprogramming to undo the botched brainwashing and to get any information about the other agency to help Laura and the others find the rest of the missing children. 

  No one knows much about the Twins, except they have ill intent and are mediaries between their boss and the other "recruits."  They are telepathic and finish each other's sentences in a way that confuses their victims so they can be controlled.  This acts as a start to the brain-washing process that most of the recruits appear to undergo.  They can also cause those in a certain hypnotic state to speak their words for them. 

  Dax is Laura's partner. He has an extremely keen sense of hearing and only wears a wire so that others can hear him.  He has a crush on Laura but keeps it under wraps.  Ricky and Laura are the only ones that know.  He respects Laura's relationship with Ricky.  He's later compromised by The Twins and nearly kills Laura as a result.  Murphy is able to undo the mind control, and while he's able to return to his duties and help them find compromised children, he still feels bad about himself for allowing The Twins to get to him.