In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,115

with one strong tug, Roy was moving again, his claws leaving a deep trail across the floor.

“It’s when some of you MacKilligans think,” Charlie continued, “you can get away with bullshit when it comes to me and my sisters. You think that I’ll let you get away with bullshit. After all these years, some of you still think that. Still believe that.”

She reached the door and dropped the cord. Leaning down, she grabbed her cousin by the back of his jacket and lifted him off the ground. She jerked him around so he was in front of the door, but she spun his body so he faced her.

And that’s when he punched her in the jaw.

The thing was, Shen didn’t think Roy meant to do it. He’d been tossed around and his arm had just been . . . swinging. Unfortunately, it had swung at Charlie.

Even scarier . . . despite the fact that Roy had punched Stevie’s sister really hard, snapping Charlie’s head to the side, she didn’t stumble, she didn’t cry out, she didn’t do anything but stand there a moment.

Berg and Dag jerked away from the wall they’d been leaning on, but their sister caught their arms, held them back. She knew better. Shen knew better.

Especially when Charlie slowly turned her head and looked at Roy. Just looked at him.

“Uh-oh,” Stevie whispered. She was in Shen’s arms and she seemed very happy to be there. Very relieved.

Eyes wide, mouth open, Roy brought his hands up, palms out, and begged, “I didn’t mean to! I swear! I swear!”

But it was too late. Shen knew that even though Charlie’s expression never changed. He was sure, in most instances, Charlie would have forgiven the punch. But she’d never forgive that he’d touched her sister’s ass.

Charlie’s head moved and Shen realized she was locating a sound. Listening for something. Her ears even twitched a bit. Then, her expression still not changing, she leaned back and, to his amazement, brought both her legs up in one, fluid movement, and rammed them forward into Roy’s chest.

The badger flew out of the bar and into the Jersey street. A second later, Shen heard a truck horn blare and brakes being jammed as the driver tried to stop in time. But nope. He and everyone else in the bar could hear that truck hit Creepy Roy.

Grinning, Max sort of danced out the door, but returned quickly. “He’s alive!” But then she added with a brutal laugh, “But he’s fucked up.” She looked at Charlie. “Unlike Dad, he didn’t roll with it.”

* * *

Stevie cringed. She’d hoped that a good beating from her and Max would be enough to keep Charlie out of it, but no. It hadn’t. Instead, Roy had been thrown in front of a truck. And he hadn’t rolled with it. One of the first things her sisters had taught her when they were growing up was how to “roll with it,” when hit by a moving vehicle. A skill that had saved Stevie’s life more than once.

And if Roy wasn’t such a reprehensible creep, she’d feel bad for him. But she didn’t. And she wouldn’t. He simply wasn’t worthy of her sympathy.

“You ready to go?” Shen asked.

“I am.”

But Stevie still had to figure out how to get her sisters to the club where the wild dogs were going to be. They had a few hours, but she knew her siblings. Once they got back to the house in Queens and put on some comfortable clothes, they were in for the night. So she needed to come up with an idea and quick.

As she tried to think of something, Shen gently placed her on the ground, and a few of her younger cousins came in through the front door, carrying several boxes.

One of them jerked a thumb behind him. “What happened to Creepy Roy?”

“Don’t worry about it,” one of the uncles said. “Have you got it?”

“We sure do!”

They pried the top off one of the boxes and Stevie watched in horror as her cousins dumped a ball of snakes onto the floor. A hissing, rattling, undulating ball of snakes!

Screeching, Stevie jumped back into Shen’s arms. But that didn’t feel like enough, so she climbed up his body until she was basically wrapped around his head. Her legs hung over his shoulders, and her hands were over his eyes.

“So you’re terrified of snakes too,” Shen calmly noted.

“They can swallow you whole!”

“These aren’t pythons or boas, sweetie,” one of her aunts happily called out. She