Devon had made it clear that they had to threaten the back of her head. Not the front or the side. Must be the back. He had been very insistent.
“Are you going to move that gun off me?” she demanded.
“No.”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You have no one to blame but yourselves.”
Amused, he asked, “For what?”
She didn’t respond. Just looked off. But he noticed his men. It started on their faces. Their noses twitching, their eyes watering. They began to gasp, hands going to their throats. A few coughed, the others just gagged.
When he looked at her again, she repeated, “No one but yourselves . . .”
* * *
The bar had no signage and was what Stevie would definitely call a “hole in the wall” that was buried deep in Jersey. Anyone who came to a bar like this didn’t come here to see and be seen. They came here to hide from anything that could get back to the cops.
No wonder the MacKilligans came here for their after-funeral drinks. It was a very typical MacKilligan-type bar.
As soon as Stevie walked inside, she paused at the door, her eyes watering, her skin itching, and her nerves suddenly wildly alive.
She was going to panic. She was going to freak out. Because she scented bears. Grizzlies. Grizzlies she didn’t know.
Stranger grizzlies would eat her! She knew it! They knew it! The world knew it! Everyone knew stranger grizzlies were going to use her bones like tooth—
“Want a beer?” Shen asked, placing his hand on her shoulder.
“I want a beer,” Kyle said, coming in behind Shen.
“You can have a Shirley Temple and you’ll enjoy it, child.” Shen smiled down at her. “Or something stronger?” He leaned in and whispered, “You look like you need something stronger.”
“There are bears here.”
“You mean the triplets?”’
“Of course I don’t mean the triplets.” She pointed across the bar toward the back. “I mean them.”
“Those old bears?” he asked. “You’re worried about old bears?”
“Old bears are just as dangerous—”
“Think they still have their teeth? Or do they just sit under beehives hoping honey drips into their open mouths?”
“They’re going to kill us all. Most of us are honey badgers. Nearly everyone in this room has consumed large amounts of honey in the last few days. They’re all like sacks of honey just waiting to be punctured.”
“Uh-oh,” Kyle said, gazing at her. “She’s spiraling.”
“I am not spiraling. I am stating the truth, and another thing—”
“Where’s Max?” Shen asked and Stevie suddenly realized that he was right. Where was Max?
“You haven’t seen her?” she asked.
“We left her at the graveyard . . . with your Dad.”
She spun around, her gaze searching for Charlie. “I know they’ve killed him. I mean, I wanted to kill him. I just have restraint. Max has no restraint!”
* * *
Shen watched Stevie march through the mass of her relatives in order to find her oldest sister.
“You handled that masterfully,” Kyle remarked beside him.
“What are you talking about?”
“What I’ve learned from living among canines—”
“You mean your family?”
“—is that the best way to get a wild animal off your back is to distract it. You tried one way with her and, when that didn’t work, you went with another. Brilliant.” The boy patted Shen’s shoulder. “Look at you. Thinking through those issues.”
“Is this why you never went to high school like normal kids?”
“Of course it is. Kindergarten was a nightmare of abuse. Like it was my fault they were still learning their ABCs while I was reading Chekov.”
“Who?”
The kid cringed. “Good Lord,” he muttered as he started off toward the bar. “She is really taking a step down with you, isn’t she?”
“A minute ago I was brilliant.”
* * *
“Where is Max?”
Charlie faced her sister. “I have no idea.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. I don’t know where she is.” Charlie swept her arm in a half circle. “She is out in the wild. And I forgot to tag her.”
“Amusing.”
“She’ll be here.”
“When? And will Dad still be alive?”
Charlie blinked. “What does Dad have to do with anything?”
“We left him in a filled-in grave.”
“And we both know he’ll be fine.”
“Not if you sent Max after him.”
“I didn’t send Max after him. I already told you that.”
But her sister’s pursed lips suggested she didn’t believe Charlie, which Charlie found a little insulting.
“If I ever got to the point where I’d send Max to finish him off, I’d not only tell you about it, I’d have you locked in a secure room and stuffed into a titanium cage until it was over because we both know that you’d bring down the building to save that worthless motherfucker for no other reason than he put his semen in our mothers!”
* * *
As soon as Charlie started yelling, Stevie knew she’d made a mistake. Not because she’d caused her sister to yell. Charlie was kind of a yeller by nature. It was that although she had grasped how much their father’s performance at the church and graveside had mortified and embarrassed her big sister, she had failed to see how much their father had managed to hurt Charlie . . . again. Even when you hated your father, you didn’t actually want to know that he’d never cared. At all. That he’d only wanted sons and not the amazing daughters he’d been lucky enough to have.
Daughters that other people would have been proud to have.
Stevie glanced around, saw that everyone was watching them. Not wanting all these nosy badgers in their business, she grabbed her sister’s hand and dragged her to the other side of the establishment, heading toward the hallway where the four old grizzlies were standing.
As she neared the bears, one pointed at her and began, “This area is off—”
“Bears!” she screamed, startling the four males and sending them off in different directions. Stevie didn’t know why she’d screamed that, but it was the only way she could think of to alleviate her panic in that moment. She wanted a quiet place for her and her sister to talk without all their relatives listening. But that meant she had to get past the bears she’d been terrified of.
So she’d screamed. She’d screamed, “Bears!” And it had worked! Which was very nice. She’d have to try it again . . . at some point.
Stevie went down the hall and opened the first door she came to. And that’s where she and Charlie froze, gazing at the two females across the room from them. One sat on a card table. She looked vaguely familiar but clearly not important enough for Stevie to make sure she remembered her down the line. But the other woman . . . the one standing by that card table . . .
That was the woman Stevie had accidentally mauled at the Jean-Louis Parker rental house.
Eyes wide, her prey . . . er . . . the poor female stared like she was afraid Stevie was going to come for her again. Not surprising, her fear, considering the damage Stevie had done to her.
Bruises covered her face and ran down her body. Easy to see since she wore a tank top and shorts. Anything exposed seemed to have a bruise or cut on it.
Stevie felt horrible. She’d never meant to hurt anyone that way. And her cousin Mairi didn’t count because she’d hurt their dog!
While Stevie and her victim stared at each other, her friend’s confused gaze continued to bounce back and forth between them.
They were all silent for several very long seconds until Charlie said, “Hey! Aren’t you the dumb-ass who hugged my sister?”
That’s when Stevie yanked Charlie from the room, slamming the door behind them.
* * *
“That’s the woman that kicked your ass?”
Blayne faced her best friend in the world. “You didn’t see her, Gwenie! She was huge!”
“She’s not a hundred pounds soaking wet. And honey badgers are like—”
“She’s also half tiger.”
“So am I. When I shift, I’m three hundred pounds. Pop-A-Cherry,” she went on, using their one-time team captain’s derby name, “is about a thousand pounds when she shifts—”
“I don’t care. I’m telling you that girl was, like, a billion pounds.”
Gwen smirked. “Just admit you were beaten up by a little girl.”
“I was not!”
* * *
Stevie pushed her sister into an empty room, closed the door, and then locked it. She rested her head against the wood and tried not to cry.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She faced Charlie. “Are you kidding? Did you see that poor woman?”
“Yeah, I saw her. And she shouldn’t have grabbed you. Someone grabs me, I beat the shit out of them.”
Stevie crossed her arms over her chest and began pacing the room. “This is why I should look into—”
“If this is about fucking with your DNA again . . . just forget it. I mean it.”
“You can’t tell me what to do. I’m an adult. And if I want to get—”
“Something that is unnatural and not fair to you?”
“Was it fair that I beat that woman to hell and back?”
“She shouldn’t have touched you. It’s not like you sneezed and accidentally shifted. And we’ll get your panic disorder under control. I have faith.”
“Wouldn’t you at least like to stop worrying about that part of me?”
“That part of you is you. I want you the way you are. Gaining control of something is not the same as eliminating it forever.”
“It’s not like I’m getting anything surgically removed. I don’t know why you’re so against this—you don’t shift.”
“Right. But I was born this way. You were born your way. I’m not going to have you ashamed of what you are just because some little bitch decided to hug you. She’s just lucky it was you and not Max.”
“She did hug Max. She thought Max was Livy.”
Charlie smirked. “And what did Max do?”
Stevie let out a sigh. “She . . . tried to kill her. But the woman’s hockey player husband stopped her. At least that’s what Max told me.”
“Uh-huh. And you think you’re worse than Max? You think you’re worse than me?”
“It isn’t about better or worse. It’s about keeping people safe.”
“Aw, sweetie,” Charlie said, gently pressing the palm of her hand against Stevie’s cheek. “No one is ever safe around a honey badger.”
* * *
Cella stood in the middle of the Jersey forest. Her equipment told her that the vehicle Smith had tagged was here but she didn’t see anything.
She could smell something, though. Something awful.
“What is that?” she finally asked when she couldn’t stand it anymore, covering her nose and mouth with her hand.
“Someone unleashed their anal glands,” a lion male informed her, a bandana wrapped around his nose and mouth. Not that she thought that would help cut down on the power of the smell.
“Anything that can smell like that should be destroyed at birth,” a female snow leopard complained.
“I think I’m forced to agree.” Cella spat, because the smell had settled in the back of her throat.
The lion male motioned to his least-favorite She-wolf.
Eyes now watering, Cella called out, “Hey, Smith.”
“Yeah?”
“Where are they?”
The She-wolf faced the rest of the group and Cella was annoyed that whatever that smell was didn’t seem to bother Smith at all.
“Well?” Cella pushed when Smith just stood there, staring at them with those “dead dog eyes” as Cella’s mother called them.
Smith tapped her foot against the ground, and, Cella was embarrassed to admit, it took a bit for her to understand what the wolf was showing them.
That where she was tapping her foot . . . there was metal underneath.
Cella asked, “The SUV’s . . . buried?”
Smith grinned, ignoring the fact that the snow leopard had suddenly passed out from the odor.
“I have to admit, as much as it galls me . . . I think those MacKilligan girls might be growin’ on me. Because that’s an inventive way to get rid of men trying to kill or kidnap ya.”
At that point, Cella could barely see because her eyes were watering so badly and stung so much. Plus, she was having trouble breathing. At any moment, she might pass out like the snow leopard. But still . . . she had to say it.
“Smith . . . only a dog could tolerate someone who can make that smell.”
* * *
Stevie and Charlie both raised their noses at the same time and sniffed the air.
“Oh, my God!” Stevie gasped, her hand covering her mouth and nose. “What the fuck?”
Choking, Charlie gasped out, “It’s gotta be Max.” She went to the back door of the room and pulled it open. Their sister stood outside. Naked, covered in dirt, and grinning, she waved at her sisters. But as soon as she tried to step into the room, Charlie held her free hand out—the other one was covering her nose and mouth—and motioned away with her forefinger.
“But—”
Charlie stomped her foot and gestured again.
“Fine!”
Max walked off and Charlie followed. Stevie debated about going after them, decided not to, then just as quickly changed her mind. She found her sisters behind the bar, which thankfully was surrounded by a high wood fence. Probably to keep the locals out of the bar owners’ illegal business.
While Max stood in front of the fence, Charlie grabbed a nearby water hose. She turned it on, walked back over to where Max was, and, without hesitation, hit their sister with a blast of powerful water.
Charlie hosed Max down like she was a horse, taking her time, hitting every part of her until she was sure that Max was not just clean of all the dirt and grime but—more important—that she was also odor free.
But Stevie didn’t feel confident water alone would do the job. She ran back into the building, knowing there had to be soap somewhere inside.
* * *
Lachlan “Lock” MacRyrie relaxed against the washing machine in his uncles’ bar, popping honey-covered cashews into his mouth while his Uncle Duff bitched about the fact that “my bar has been taken over by weasels!”
“Didn’t they pay for this?” Lock asked. “To use the bar for an after-funeral event?”
“I don’t like ’em. And at the moment I don’t like you.”
“Thanks, Uncle Duff.”
Uncle Hamish stepped inside. “How much longer are they going to be here?”
“You do know this event is to mourn a loved one . . . right?”
“Those people don’t love anyone. And they’re cleaning out our supply of honey-covered peanuts.”
Lock mockingly gasped. “Not the peanuts!”
Duff slapped the plastic jar of cashews out of Lock’s hand.
“That was not mature.”
A small, thin woman appeared in the doorway. She was looking down the hallway but when she turned to them she immediately screamed out, “Bears!”
Hamish jumped back, his hands raised like he was trying to ward her off.
“Bears! Bears! Bears!” she loudly chanted, running into the room, grabbing the liquid detergent off the cart next to the washing machine they used to clean the bar rags. Then, still chanting, “Bears! Bears! Bears!” she ran back out, squealing a final, “Thank you!” as she disappeared around the corner.
“What the fuck was that?” Duff demanded.
But, to be really honest, Lock had absolutely no idea.
* * *
&nbs
p; Stevie returned to her sisters. “Got detergent!” She ran to Max’s side, holding her breath, and dumped what was left in the half-filled bottle directly on her sister’s head and shoulders.
“Scrub that shit in!” Charlie ordered.
“Is this Tide?”
“Probably,” Stevie admitted, now standing by Charlie.
Max rubbed the household detergent on her body for a couple of minutes, then Charlie hit her with more water from the hose.
Stevie still didn’t know what her sister had been up to, but she knew one thing for sure. Max hadn’t gone near their father. Releasing her anal glands would work on almost everyone as a weapon except other badgers. Because Charlie and Stevie were hybrids, they found the smell gross and annoying, but it wouldn’t knock them out. Or suffocate them.
Yet Stevie had to admit, at least to herself, she felt a little bad for whoever had forced Max to go this particular battle route. It was the height of unpleasantness.
Max walked over to Charlie and bared her neck. “Well?”
Grudgingly, their big sister leaned in and took a couple of whiffs. She nodded. “I think we got it all.”
“Now can I go inside?”
Charlie waved her on before rolling her eyes at Stevie and following Max.
Once they were inside, with the door closed and bolted behind them, Charlie threw her arms wide and said to Max, “Should I even ask what happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I expected you to meet us here in a taxi. Maybe a little blood on you, if you had no other options. But you come back smelling like you’ve been engaged in biochemical warfare and covered in so much dirt that I can only assume you’ve been burrowing.”
“You could definitely say that things got a little . . . out of hand.”
Max ended the statement with a shrug that had Charlie rolling her eyes and Stevie doing the only thing she could think of—laughing.
* * *
“So what do I have to do?”
Shen, who’d been keeping his focus on the cranky, hard-drinking honey badgers, rather than his client, now looked at Kyle.
“What do you have to do about what?”
“About getting you to hook me up with your sister, Kiki?”
“You are a child. Way too young for her. And she has a wife.”
In a Badger Way Page 29