Badger to the Bone (Honey Badger Chronicles #3) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,66
bastard who hates him is looking for him.”
“And you thought he’d be here?”
“Your father has no money. You know that as well as I do. And he’s hoping your little sister will give him some. Just like she always does.”
“Talk about my sister—while sneering—again and I’ll tear your handsome little face off and wear it as a Halloween mask.”
It must have been something that either Max had done before or people had no doubt she’d actually do, because her cousin immediately changed his tone.
“Look, my father, bastard that he is, is really pushing me to find your father . . . bastard that he is. I could use your help.”
“If he were here, you know I’d tell you. So would Charlie. But he hasn’t come near us since Charlie threw him in the street and he got run over by a truck. You know, after that funeral.”
Zé glanced off, not sure he’d heard that story correctly.
“All right, but if you do see him . . .”
“Wait.” Max looked at the house. “I’m gonna check the house. Stay here.”
She went to the back door of the house and let herself in. Lights came on in the kitchen and Zé realized that he could actually hear her moving around inside.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Dougie asked.
“I can hear her,” Zé replied, fascinated by all the new things he could see and hear and . . . smell.
He focused on Dougie. “What the fuck have you been eating?”
“Copperhead snake in a spicy black mamba sauce.” He grinned. “I was out for nearly an hour. Clinically dead for at least fifteen. Totally worth it.”
Max returned. She was munching on something from a bag, and he was relieved to see that the bag was a small plastic one. Not big enough for some poisonous viper. But, as she got closer, he saw that she had something hanging from her mouth.
When she was just a few feet away, he realized it was a scorpion. A live scorpion putting up a fight.
“He’s not in there,” she said, around the thing stinging her while she offered the bag’s contents to her cousin. He happily pulled out another live scorpion and immediately bit its head off.
“I appreciate you taking a look, cousin.”
“Well, I know MacKilligan luck. I swear all over the place he isn’t there, you leave, I go inside, and BAM! There he is.”
“Yeah, that is our luck.” He swallowed the rest of the crunchy scorpion. “But if you hear from him . . .”
“I’ll let you know. Unless Stevie sees him first.”
“Oh, come on.”
“You know how she is when it comes to our dad. And she knows what your dad is going to do to him. I can’t be the one who rats the fucker out if that happens. But if I see him and she hasn’t . . . I’ll call.”
“Thanks.” He motioned to the plastic bag. The one that, to Zé’s horror, he now realized was a wiggling plastic bag. “Can I have a few more?”
“Oh, here, take it. I have more in the basement.”
“Aw, thanks, luv.”
He walked off, waving as he went, another scorpion hanging from his mouth.
Max smiled at Zé. “So,” she purred, “where were we?”
* * *
She expected all sorts of responses to her very obvious offer, but “Nope. No way. Not in this life,” had not been one of them . . . or, in this case, three of them.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, following him into the house.
“I just watched you share a bag of scorpions with a man.” He stopped at the kitchen table and faced her. “Live scorpions! In what universe is that a normal thing to do?”
“We had this discussion at the restaurant. Remember? Different breeds and species eat different—”
“I get that. What I didn’t expect was to see you snacking on live scorpions! Like, ‘Hey, want a Twizzler? Maybe some M&Ms? How about a live scorpion?’ How are you not worried about dying? And before you say”—he dropped his low voice even lower—“ ‘I’m a honey badger,’ there has got to be more to it than that!”
“Uh . . . okay. When I was born, still in the cradle and, you know, before my mother went to prison, she used to give me live scorpions to play with. They’d sting me, I’d cry, but eventually I built up a tolerance for their poison. Now I eat them as a tasty snack because scorpion venom doesn’t hurt me. I barely feel their stings against my skin. And,