Badger to the Bone (Honey Badger Chronicles #3) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,118
out, and into what he hoped would be his new life.
* * *
Max put her beer on the coffee table and started after Zé. But she stopped just as she reached the end of the couch.
It was true, she didn’t have much family. With her mom in prison, her father an asshole, and both sides of her family wanting nothing to do with her. But Carlie, Charlie’s mom, had told her from the day she’d arrived at their little Connecticut home, “Max Yang-MacKilligan, you will always have a place with us. Do you know why? Because you’re family, baby. And family is family. Now please stop choking Mrs. Merchant’s cat and put it back out on the fire escape. I know it scratched you, but it’s just a cat, Max.”
“Family is family.”
That’s what Carlie had taught Max.
But it was Charlie who’d taught Max that family only mattered “if they are in it with you. To the end. Do or die.”
Carlie had been Max’s family because she’d been in it until the end and she had died trying to protect three little girls, only one of whom was actually her responsibility. She could have grabbed Charlie and run, leaving Max and Stevie behind, but she hadn’t. She’d fought to protect them all.
Could that have been the wrong choice? Maybe for others, but not for Carlie. Because she had lived to do what was best for her girls. It had always been about “her girls.”
Max looked over her shoulder at Zé’s grandfather, and she didn’t see a man with an irrational hatred of shifters or a selfish bastard who didn’t want a freak for a grandson. She saw devastation on that face because of the past choices Xavier had made. But until grandfather and grandson talked this out, Zé would never know if those choices had been made with his best interests in mind or not.
Max looked around the living room but didn’t see any writing paper. Making a tough choice, she grabbed one of the books off the shelves, grabbed a pencil that was lying on the coffee table, and jotted down the address of her Queens home. A move that would have Charlie gasping in horror. She didn’t have much time for reading but she treated books like gold.
“When you’re ready,” Max told Xavier as she placed the book on the table and rushed out the door.
She didn’t bother with the elevator but instead ran down the stairs, hoping to catch Zé before he left the building. But she was too late. She rushed through the front door, past the people hanging out in front of the building because it was too hot in their apartments with only shitty fans to fight the summer heat.
A few men whistled at her or made comments but when she looked directly at them, they all quickly turned away. If she were in a different mood, she might amuse herself by torturing them, but she didn’t have the time or energy. Instead, she walked toward the street a few hundred yards away, again hoping to find Zé before he took off.
“Max.”
She stopped and turned. Zé sat on a bench. As if he’d just given up halfway into his “stalk off.”
Relieved, she walked over and stood in front of him. He didn’t look at her or say anything. Just sat there with his head bowed.
Max kind of wished Nelle was here. She was really good with the emotional stuff and could tell Max what to do. This was definitely not Max’s thing. She was all about the action, about rectifying problems rather than discussing them. And, more than once, Stevie had pointed out how horrible Max was with “anything that has to do with human emotion.”
Still . . . she was all Zé had at the moment.
Reaching out, she placed her hand on Zé’s head and, when he didn’t jerk away, dug her fingers into his hair.
He wrapped his arms around her legs and pulled her close, pressing his cheek against her stomach.
They stayed like that a while, neither one speaking or noticing the world around them.
chapter TWENTY-TWO
Berg walked up to Charlie’s house, and the first thing he noticed was that the door was new. He didn’t want to think too much about what had happened to the old door because he was sure it was something bad.
He entered the house and saw damage to the wall from where—he was guessing—the old door had hit it, justifying his earlier concern.