eyes.
“Oh, and just a side note . . .” She lowered her voice a bit in case Charlie was anywhere within hearing range. She had excellent hearing. “Any time my father is mentioned, Charlie goes off on a whole thing about how much she hates him. Just let her rant. I mean, it’s all true. She hates him. Not that thing in books and movies where she loves-him-but-hates-him either. It’s just pure hate. But it makes sense, when you think about it. Her mother was murdered and my mom is in prison because of our father. Although, I should clarify, he didn’t actually kill her mother and the Bulgarian cops put my mom in prison. But the men who killed her mother were looking for our dad, and he was part of the crew that my mom got busted with and he left her there with the rest of the gang to be picked up by the cops. Actually,” she added, realizing, “the reason Devon is trying to kidnap me is because he got out of prison and whatever loot they kept from the heist that the cops didn’t find . . . he wants it back, thinking my mom has it, but she doesn’t. But he thinks he can get my mom to tell him by kidnapping me and maybe sending her a finger or whatever. Honestly . . . I’m thinking if there was any loot left, my dad probably grabbed it, but I’m sure he’s lost it all by now. Probably to women and gambling . . . and liquor. And very bad Ponzi schemes. My dad is the worst criminal,” she admitted.
He was still just staring at her, so she asked, “So what made you join the Marines?”
“No, no,” he quickly cut in. “No. Just no.”
“No what?”
“Whatever crazy story you just told me—”
“All true.”
“Sure it was.”
“Who’d make that shit up? Well,” she reasoned, “maybe Stephen King. But then it would involve murderous clowns or haunted hotels or . . . the end of the world. Have you read The Stand?”
“Is this how Manson worked?”
“Manson who?”
“Charles Manson. Did he just vomit up incredibly weird stories while convincing nubile young girls that they had special powers that allowed them to shift into things?”
“Shifting isn’t a special power.”
“It’s not?”
“No,” Max admitted. “Our kind is no different from full-humans. We’re just better.”
“How is that not different?”
“Look, there are a lot of reasons there are shifters. Most involve ancient magic and ancient people, but whatever happened back then, it eventually led to a genetic—”
“Defect?”
Max had been talking with her hands, as she liked to do. But when he said that, she dropped her hands into her lap.
“Seriously?” she asked.
“What?”
“Being a shifter isn’t a defect or a superpower. It just is. We are just what we are.”
“And no one knows?”
“We know. Those we love, some of whom are full-human, know. But our kind has spent centuries making sure that we are never found out so that full-humans don’t turn us into their personal guard dogs or do Mengele-like tests on us in an attempt to steal our genetic gifts.”
Vargas frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you get it? In order to protect our kind we’ve got people everywhere, we’ve infiltrated everything.”
“So, you’re saying . . . your people are in our government.”
“We’re in all governments. We have to be. How else do you think we protect our kind?”
“How high up . . . ?”
“As high as we can get.” His eyes narrowed and she guessed what he was thinking. “Hello? Teddy Roosevelt?” His eyes narrowed even more. “The Teddy Roosevelt?” His lips pursed in disbelief. “Oh, come on! The Teddy Bear? In fact . . . Eleanor Roosevelt was one of us, too, but not FDR.”
“And how did that happen?”
“Bloodlines. He was a distant cousin of Teddy’s. Like a fifth cousin or something. And it’s MacKilligan lore that our family is very distantly connected to—”
“Braveheart or Robert the Bruce?” he asked, now sounding bored and unimpressed.
“Neither. Those two were full-human. I’m talking about the Black Douglas. Distantly, of course. Because we’re honey badgers and the Black Douglas was a wolf.”
“Okay,” he said, slapping his hands against his thighs. “We’re done. I can’t hear any more of this craziness. I just can’t. I’m not a cat. You’re not a badger—and why anyone would want to be that, I do not know—”
“We’re hard to kill, that’s why.”
He sighed and then went on. “And I just can’t do this anymore. Plus, I can’t stop thinking