had been but Charlie and Stevie were adamant. If he pulled out the sledgehammer again, they were going right to Toni. Just the thought of his sister’s lecture had him tossing the hammer aside and simply moving his least favorite sculptures to the back of the garage so he didn’t have to see them whenever he walked in.
So far that plan had worked just as well as hitting them with the hammer.
Kyle rubbed his nose, then lifted his head. He sniffed the air, surprised by the strange scent filling the garage. That’s when he saw her standing in front of his work. She was in a long black skirt, a black T-shirt with some no-name band on it, and bright yellow Doc Martens boots. Her black hair was long and separated into three pony tails, one of them hanging in front of her face.
The “lost” MacKilligan sister, as he’d started calling her when he’d discovered who she was. When Charlie had let out that scream of rage at her father, Kyle simply went into the garage and got to work. He didn’t want to get in the middle of his own family’s drama, much less someone else’s. But now he had the lost sister roaming around his workspace. Uninvited. Badgers and cats . . . they had absolutely no respect for other people’s boundaries, did they?
Although he did have questions. For instance, would Natalie turn into a giant tiger-striped honey badger like Stevie? Or would she simply be a honey badger? Or maybe shift into a tiny tiger? Or . . . would she shift into something even more interesting than any of those options?
Yeah, see? He had so many questions!
* * *
Natalie was impressed by the work she was seeing. Not only the statues that took up so much space, but the rough drawings tacked to the wall.
She wasn’t an artist herself. She could doodle a bit, but only when her computer was doing something that required her to wait until it finished. Otherwise, she was all about computers and games. She loved games! Of course, she’d have to convince her brothers that she should go to college to get a degree in game engineering, rather than just engineering. She was already dreading that conversation. Her mother knew what she wanted but her mother left almost all decisions about her only daughter to her eldest sons. Especially Keane.
Natalie loved Keane more than seemed possible, but he tended to drown her in concern. He was convinced she was this weak kitten he’d found dying under his house. He had no idea what Natalie and her friends got up to when he wasn’t around. What had happened with Freddy MacKilligan was nothing, really. And she’d only gone off with him so she could spend some time with the man who was her father.
Ech! What a mistake. He was such an idiot. She could deal with almost anything, even pure evil. But pure stupidity? Who had time for that?
About to move over to another statue, Natalie abruptly realized that someone was right next to her. She looked over the kid standing at her side. She’d seen him in the house earlier, before he’d slipped away. He smelled like dog.
“What?” she finally asked.
“What do you look like when you shift?”
Natalie blinked. She had her hearing aids on and she could kind of read his lips, too. But the question was so bizarre that she immediately assumed she’d misread and misheard him.
“What?”
“Oh,” he said. “That’s right. You’re deaf.” That didn’t stop him from talking, though. Only he spoke a little slower and used his hands a lot more. Not to speak in ASL, but to gesture.
“When you shift . . . are you all honey badger? Or all cat? Are you a giant”—he lifted his arms in the air—“tiger? Or a giant honey badger?” He brought his arms down and spread his hands a couple of feet apart. “Or a tiny tiger? Do you have fangs? Or are you fangless? Do you have a snaggle-fang?”
A snaggle-fang? Oh, boy.
“Um . . . who are you?”
“I’m Kyle. I’m a genius. Literally . . . a genius.”
“I’m walking away now.”
“Can’t you answer any of my questions?”
“I don’t want to answer any of your questions.”
“Is it because you’re shy?”
“No. It’s because you’re weird.”
“I am weird. But that’s because I’m a genius.”
“Of course it is.”
After a much-deserved eye roll, Natalie walked away from the kid, but he caught up to her at the door. He took her hand so