Badger to the Bone

by Shelly Laurenston

  It was just nice that finally, after all these years, they could do this and enjoy it.

  Mads tapped Max on the shoulder and pointed. Renny stood at the end of the hall, away from the entrance.

  “Shit.”

  “Tell her you’ll talk to her after the game.”

  But Max didn’t want her mind distracted by anything. Not during a playoff game.

  She ran down the hall to her mother.

  “I just wanted to wish you luck,” Renny said when Max reached her. “Some of your aunties are here, too.”

  “They are?”

  “Yes. I also think they have money on the game, though.”

  “Of course they do.”

  “Anyway, given any more thought to my suggestion? About you and me . . . traveling together for a while?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Great. And?”

  “No.”

  Her mother blinked. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  “I mean no. There’s no other meaning for ‘no.’ But let me know when you’re back in town. We’ll go to lunch.”

  Max turned to walk away but her mother caught her arm and pulled her back around. “You have to give me some kind of explanation.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Give me one anyway.”

  “You want an explanation? You had Devon’s money the whole time.”

  “Is that really a big deal? I knew you could handle him.”

  “Of course I could handle him. That’s not the point. You also put my sisters in danger. That’s definitely not okay. You also could have sent us some of the money.”

  “For what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. To give our grandfather’s Pack some cash since they were the ones taking care of your kid. Or we could have given some to Charlie so she could have gone to college. At the very least you could have told me you had it. But you didn’t.”

  “So you’re saying you want a cut now? Is that it?”

  Max pointed at her mother. “And that’s why I’m not going. Appreciate the invite, though.”

  “Max, you can’t just leave it at that.”

  “I’m not leaving it at anything. I’m just not going. I do, however, have a game to play and the announcer’s about to call my name.” She kissed her mother on the cheek. “I do love you, though. Always will.” Then she returned to her teammates and waited for her name and number to be called.

  * * *

  The crowd began cheering and the announcer came on over the loudspeakers, introducing the two teams. Zé watched each player as she came out to cheers and love from the audience but, at least for the Butchers, Nelle was one of the true stars. Especially among the males of the audience. But no one on the team was truly slighted.

  When Max ran out, her sisters jumped up on either side of Zé, cheering almost as loudly as the crowd around them.

  Max and her five friends didn’t start the game, though. Instead, the teams began with more equally sized players.

  The longer Zé watched the game, the more he became concerned about Max’s safety. These two teams didn’t play like the WNBA. Hell, they didn’t play like the NBA. He wasn’t talking about skill. Their skills were on par with those of any pro team. Maybe even better. But the brutality . . .

  Bears hit cats, sending them flying down the court. Cats slashed bears, leaving blood on the court that “cleaners” came out to wipe up. There was blood on the uniforms. Scabbed-over wounds on the players.

  He’d never seen anything quite like it. And if the woman he’d deigned to care for weren’t about to jump in, he’d have enjoyed it much more.

  At the beginning of the second quarter, Max and her four teammates took the floor and Zé’s mouth dropped open. Because there Max stood, in front of a six-foot, seven-inch female who stared down at her with such withering contempt that he wanted nothing more than to go out there, scoop Max up, and make a run for it.

  He had to give it to Max, though. She was putting in a lot of effort. Jumping around, moving her arms a lot. Trying to distract the other player. It didn’t work, but it was a nice attempt.

  The player threw the ball way over Max’s head and the opposition easily caught it. But when that player turned to dribble down the court, Nelle stole the ball and went between the taller woman’s incredibly long legs. She passed it off to Mads, who immediately passed it to Tock. Tock tried to make the shot, but the other team was all over her, so she passed it to Streep who head-faked to her left before passing it to Max, who bounced it under another set of insanely long legs, allowing Nelle to catch it, spin, and take the shot. She made the basket without even breaking a sweat.

  “Holy shit.”

  He didn’t say that, though. That was Charlie. But he totally agreed with her.

  * * *

  Freddy tossed what few clothes he had in his bag and threw that into the trunk of the car he’d stolen two days ago.

  “Come on, come on!” he yelled. Then remembered. She couldn’t hear him. “Fuck.”

  He started back to the motel room when a fist slammed into his stomach. He doubled over and a strike to the back of the neck dropped him hard. His entire body went numb, nerves sending out confused messages to the rest of him. He wasn’t sure he could walk, much less fight.

  Still, he tried to get up but a foot against his spine kept him pinned.

  “Uncle Freddy. So good to meet you at long last.”

  He recognized that Scottish accent but not the voice.

  “I promised Uncle Will I’d bring you in and that’s what I’m going to do. Maybe those daughters of yours will care when you’re dead and skinned and staked to the front of their house.”

  The only things his treacherous, unfeeling daughters would care about was that they would have to clean up the mess. He would have said that, too, but he couldn’t speak.

  Christ, what had the bitch done to him?

  His arms were pulled back and rope wrapped around his wrists. Then his legs, ankles tied to the wrists. Hogtied, he was dragged to another car, his body pulled and pushed into the trunk.

  He landed on his back, so he could look up into his assailant’s face.

  “Yeah. I found ya, didn’t I, Uncle? I never should have focused on you in the first place. But the girl. She’s been in contact with one of her brothers. I found her that way. Pretty disgusting, by the way, what you’re doing. She ain’t even eighteen. Even Uncle Will would never sink so low.” She leaned in. “I hope he lets me have some fun with you before he finishes ya off.” She took a bandana out of her back pocket and shoved it into his mouth. “Now you keep quiet . . . or I’ll start cuttin’ off important bits before we even get to Uncle Wills. Underst—” She stopped speaking and swung around, catching the hand about to shove a blade into her back.

  “Hello, little girl,” his niece said. “You must be me Uncle Freddy’s dirty little secret.”

  * * *

  Charlie had never been so into a game before. She hated sports. Hated them! Always had. But watching not only her sister kick ass, but those weird friends of hers working together as a well-oiled machine was totally worth the price of admission.

  Not only that, but who knew her sister was so damn good! She didn’t even get that many points. Of the five, the ones who earned the most points were Nelle and Tock, with Streep and Mads coming in second. Max got baskets but she seemed to really enjoy stealing the ball away from the other team and passing it off to her girls.

  “I never thought she was a team player,” she admitted to Zé. “I was wrong.”

  “I know. She’s amazing.”

  Charlie leaned closer to him and said loudly, over the roaring crowd as the timer counted down, “Can I start introducing you as ‘my sister’s boyfriend’?”

  “Only if it annoys her greatly.”

  “It will.”

  It was the final minutes and Streep was shoved aside by a player on the opposite team. She didn’t just fall, though. She did a very long stumble for several feet,
until she stretched out on the ground, grabbing her knee and wailing. Loudly. Her teammates ran to her, then Mads threw the first punch at the other team. That led to a small fistfight and, of course, Max was right in the middle of it.

  When the dust had settled and everyone had calmed down, the ref called a hard foul and Streep limped her way over to the free-throw line.

  Wiping tears, she threw the first shot and bam! Nothing but net. The ball was passed to her again and she took a big, deep, shaky breath and boom! Same as the first.

  After waving at the crowd, Streep headed back down the court . . . with no limp.

  At this point, the two teams were neck and neck, but the Butchers fell behind when a cheetah for the other team leaped into the air, spun, and reverse dunked the ball over her shoulders. The move brought the crowd to its feet, screaming. Especially when she hung there, her tongue hanging out, her fangs flashing. If she hadn’t been up against her sister’s team, Charlie would have loved it even more.

  The ball was passed to Nelle and she took it back down the court. From there, the ball was stolen, going back and forth between the teams until there were only four seconds on the clock. The dunking cheetah had the ball again and was racing down the court to the Butchers’ basket.

  That’s when Max got it, dashing in front of the cheetah and stealing it from her. She headed back the other way but the rest of the cheetah’s team was coming right for her. She had no time to reach that basket.

  Charlie assumed Max would pass the ball to Nelle, who was closer. She probably wouldn’t make the basket either but it was worth a try. But when Max realized she was blocked, she made a jump shot, that lateral leap coming into play again. The ball flew over the heads and hands of extremely tall women and whoosh! Went into that basket just as the final buzzer blasted, signaling the end of the game.

  Charlie only had a second to see Max’s hilarious expression before her teammates tackled her to the floor. Her grin wide, her tongue out, and her hands thrown out like, “Of course I made that fucking shot!” Then she was gone under a pile of cheering teammates.

  * * *

  She grabbed the girl’s throat and began to squeeze. She smelled weird. A cat scent Mairi didn’t quite recognize. Then she noticed the girl had something in her ears. Hearing aids.

  “You sick fuck!” she laughed, looking back at her uncle. “She’s fucking deaf? How do you live with yourself? And now you’re making me kill her!”

  She looked back at the girl and yelled, “You’ve gotta die! Sorry about that!”

  Mairi decided to make this quick. No use torturing the kid for no reason. But just as she started to squeeze that skinny little cat neck, her uncle began to completely lose his shit, which seemed strange. He was a bastard. She’d expect him to try to use the distraction to make a run for it. He was badger, after all, and with just a little effort, he could get out of that binding. That’s why she was planning to shoot out both his knees before she drove off.

  Still holding the girl, she leaned down and used her free hand to yank the bandana out of his mouth.

  “What are you trying to say to me?”

  “You kill her,” he said, “Will won’t get his money.”

  “You think you can hold out, do ya? No matter what Will does to you? All for this piece of ass?”

  “No, you dumb twat, she’s the only one who knows where the money is.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Really. You kill her . . . Will gets nothing. The family gets nothing.”

  “All right, then.” She dropped her and the girl bent over at the waist, coughing and taking in big gulps of air. “But then we don’t need you . . . now do we?”

  Freddy’s eyes grew big when she pulled the .45 from the holster attached to the back of her jeans and pointed it at him. But just as she pulled the trigger, her arm jerked. Because her body jerked.

  Two more shots went through her chest and she stumbled forward, then spun around.

  She stared up at the buildings in the distance, trying to see who it was. Who had shot her?

  “Come out, Max! You and your sisters! Show yourselves!”

  It hurt to breathe, but the shots to the chest hadn’t hit the right spot.

  She glanced down and thought it again: The shots hadn’t hit the right spot.

  Whoever had shot her, it wasn’t one of the sisters. They knew how to take down a badger better than anyone.

  Then who—

  The blade slid into the back of her neck. Right where the spine and the skull attached. Blood poured from her mouth and her body began to convulse.

  Mairi turned and faced the deaf girl. She held the bloody blade in her hand; Freddy was still hog-tied in the boot.

  Two more rifle shots hit Mairi in the chest, right through the heart. And she knew where the next shot would be coming. But it didn’t matter. Not anymore.

  * * *

  The last shot went through Mairi MacKilligan’s head and Dee-Ann nodded at Cella Malone. “Not bad.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not bad’?” Malone asked. “I nailed that bitch with each shot. Center mass and head.”

  “But she still didn’t go down.”

  “Not my fault. Bitch is a honey badger.”

  “What about your cousin? Should we go get her?”

  Malone began carefully taking her rifle apart. “No way. I get near her and there will be another civil war between the Malones.”

  “I don’t understand you cats. Smiths never have these problems. Someone gets out of hand, the Pack just turns on ’em, then we go about our day.”

  “It’s always fascinating when you tell your family stories.”

  “Now, now. Don’t be jealous, darlin’. Not everyone can be lucky enough to be a Smith.”

  * * *

  Natalie waited to see if there would be any more shots. There weren’t. Apparently, all they’d wanted was Mairi MacKilligan.

  She stared down at her body. Could still feel the honey badger’s hand around her neck. It had been risky, taking her on. But she hadn’t had a choice.

  She reached down and searched the body. She took some cash and the car keys.

  Once she had what she needed, she looked down at Freddy MacKilligan. The biggest mistake of her life.

  But she was ready to rectify that, too.

  She took the bandana she now held and shoved it into his open mouth. He was probably screaming at her. He always thought if he screamed loudly enough, she could hear him. He didn’t seem to understand what the word “deaf’ actually meant.

  Once she knew she’d made him quiet, she retied his bindings so that he couldn’t slip out of them for a few hours.

  Then she closed the trunk, grabbed her bags and laptop, and got in the car.

  It was a Mercedes, which was a very nice car. She started it up and moved on to the last phase of this huge fuck-up.

  chapter THIRTY

  Their games—playoffs, finals, or otherwise—didn’t end like the ones people watched on TV. There was no media, no interviews, no discussions about gameplay with anyone beyond the coaches. Instead, players just returned to the locker room, showered, changed clothes, and sometimes went to an after-game party or dinner.

  Zé waited with Max’s sisters and friends for her to make her way down the gauntlet of fans. She and the others signed autographs, hair wet from the shower, game bags slung over their shoulders. Looking at Max and the rest of the Butchers’ “Badger Force”—which was what the triplets now called her four honey badger teammates—he couldn’t tell that they’d just taken down a shifter-run kidnapping ring. Quickly, efficiently, and—according to his chat with Charlie during an interesting halftime show with giant panda rappers directly from Hong Kong—without any loss of victims or serious harm to her team.

  That was huge, considering the number of victims they’d had to deal with.

  Because the team had only won their first playoff game—they had quite a few games to go before they made it to the finals—their cele
bration consisted of a dinner at a shifter restaurant in Chinatown. Although Shen pointed out that this particular restaurant was not run by giant pandas but a South China tiger family, Zé noted that the menu still catered to the pandas. He’d never seen bamboo combined with so many things before. And Shen ordered at least half of them.

  As the team and their friends and family enjoyed the night and their win, Max was surprisingly quiet. She didn’t smile as much as she usually did either.

  “Are you okay?” he finally asked her when she rested her head on his arm.

  “We should have been better. Our timing tighter.”

  “During the game? Are you kidding?”

  “No. We did pretty well at the game. I’m talking about . . . before. We were off before.”

  “You got yourselves and the vics out without any losses. That’s impressive. You guys didn’t even train together. And Charlie was a new element.”

  “Charlie and I have worked together most of our lives and I have worked with my teammates since we were all around eleven or twelve. Putting everyone together should have worked just fine, and it did. But still . . . we need better timing.”

  “Does this mean you’re going to keep doing this?”

  “I don’t know. It was nice to help others . . . while still getting to kill assholes. That was very enjoyable.”

  Zé shook his head. “How about we not talk about this? You do your thing. I’ll do mine.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I got an offer from the Group. And then I got an offer from Katzenhaus.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know where you’ll be stationed? Because both those organizations have offices around the world.”

  Zé put his arm around Max’s shoulders. “Don’t worry. I’m not leaving you.”

  “That was not what I was—”

  He put his forefinger over her mouth. “Shhhhh, my love. We’ll talk about your obsession with me later.”

  “I hate you.”

  “You wish.”

  * * *

  When Max woke up the next morning, Zé had already gone downstairs. He was probably hanging out in that damn tree. He loved to lie around in that tree!