Badger to the Bone (Honey Badger Chronicles #3) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,121
on the couch, despondently gazing up at the ceiling. He was now sitting right next to Charlie, staring at her with his mouth slightly open. He’d known Charlie less than a minute, in the grand scheme of things, and yet he knew this discussion was completely insane.
“I’m destroying you by holding you back. And I can’t let that go on.”
Now truly scared for her sister, Max asked Charlie something she’d never asked her before. “You’re not thinking of . . . hurting yourself . . . are you?”
“What?” she asked, the old Charlie quickly coming back. “No! Of course not.”
“Are you sure? Because you kind of sound like you are.”
“Max, we both know I’d never give Dad or the rest of the MacKilligans the satisfaction.”
Giving the perfect response to Max’s question meant Charlie wasn’t too far gone, but Max still didn’t understand what was bothering her big sister.
That was until Zé softly asked, “Charlie, did you happen to see Max’s mother today?”
At first, Max couldn’t believe Zé had brought Renny up after she’d specifically told him not to. She wondered why he would do such a thing and when this was all over, she planned to yell at him for, like, five seconds over it. But before she could really be mad at him, Charlie snapped back, “What does that have to do with anything?”
Max shifted her gaze back to her sister. What does that have to do with anything? Max repeated to herself. If Charlie didn’t know Renny was back in the States, then her response should have been, “You better tell me that your mom has been granted an early release.” But she didn’t say that, because she already knew. She knew Renny was back because Renny had been here.
“You saw my mother?”
Charlie let out a little breath. “She stopped by,”
“She stopped by and now you’re morbidly depressed and whining about what a horrible sister you are?”
“I wasn’t whining. I don’t whine.”
“You’ve been whining!”
“It was a little whiny,” Zé agreed.
“You let my mother get into your head,” Max accused.
“Don’t be ridiculous. This has nothing to do with—”
“You absolutely let my mother get in there and allowed her to fuck things up. That’s why you’re acting like this. She did this to you!”
“That’s crazy. And not true.”
“Okay. Then what did she say to you?”
“Nothing really. Just that . . . you know . . . she’d like to spend more time with you. Maybe travel together. It’s been a long time. She probably just wants to get to know her only daughter better.”
“Uh-huh. Was that how you felt immediately after the conversation? Or did you feel annoyed and pissed when she first left, but then you started thinking and wondering and worrying that maybe she was right?”
“I wouldn’t say—”
“Charlie.”
“Okay, maybe a little. I was mad, but I realized that she probably had a point.”
“Dear God, woman! That’s what she does! Like a brain-eating disease, my mother worms her way in and destroys from the inside. And you let her do it!”
“That’s not what happened.”
“It is! And do you know how I know that? Because she taught me how to do it. While I was in my crib, playing with live scorpions—”
“That still freaks me out,” Zé muttered.
“—that badger was teaching me how to fuck with people without raising a claw. It’s what she’s really good at. Better than stealing. Better than destroying her enemies. My mother knows how to get into someone’s head and before you know it, you’re covered in guilt and shame. That’s not even a honey badger thing!” Max admitted. “Most badgers just come at you like the infected in 28 Days Later. But not my mother.”
“Oh, my God.” Charlie leaned forward, dropped her head into her hands. She sat like that for about a minute until she finally admitted, “You’re right. That’s exactly what she did.”
“I know. I do it to Stevie all the time.”
“Yes, but you do it so she doesn’t wallow in her misery and then accidentally destroy the world. Not just to get what you want out of her.”
Berg, his brother, and their sister, Britta, came by with more bags of Chinese food. “So much food!” he complained. She knew the triplets were going to eat the majority of it with or without anyone’s help, but she’d let him live in denial.
“Your mother, however,” Charlie continued, “did it just because she wants you to be her jewelry-heist buddy and she wanted me to get you to do it.”