In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,17
and his brother Coop. The eldest jackal had his younger brother pushed against the wall and stood in front of him, ready to sacrifice himself for Kyle, should that become necessary.
Standing in front of the damaged entryway to some massive room stood Shen, Kyle’s hired protection. The giant panda was always calm in the face of trouble, but he was definitely out of his depth now. And it showed. His eyes wide, his entire body tense. All those muscles straining and rigid. He was ready to react to anything that might happen.
And a few feet away from Shen was . . . something. Something white and gold with tusks. And out cold.
She pointed. “What the fuck is that thing?”
“Seriously?” Shen barked, abruptly snapping out of his shell-shocked state. “That freaks you out?”
“No need to get terse,” she complained, moving past him. “And at least my sister doesn’t have tusks.”
Having made her point, Max headed to the entryway, Berg by her side. But she stopped him, grabbing his forearm. “Not you.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll just freak her out more.”
“But—”
“Go to the wild dog house across the street,” Kyle told Berg. “Don’t let any of them come over here.”
“Come with me,” Berg suggested to Kyle as he headed to the front door.
“I won’t leave my friend,” Kyle stated dramatically, making Max roll her eyes.
“Now you decide to care about others?” Coop demanded.
Berg headed out alone and Max went to the entryway to stand by Charlie, where they watched their baby sister.
What could they say as they watched her curled in a ball on the floor, a human being caught between her front paws, that she kept . . . gnawing on before she occasionally flipped her prey into the air, caught her, and then rolled to her side again so she could gnaw and toy with her captive.
It seemed the woman was still alive and . . . and . . .
Max narrowed her eyes and stepped farther into the room. She knew that woman. She knew her!
* * *
Charlie was desperately trying to figure out how she could keep her baby sister out of prison for murder when Max suddenly stepped farther into the room and pointed in Stevie’s direction. She thought she was going to order Stevie to put the woman down this instant but instead Max accused, “You hugged her, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
Not dead—thank God!—the woman yelped, “I was just saying hi! Now get her off me!”
“I should let you burn! You deserve it!”
Shaking her head—because Charlie really didn’t know what the fuck was going on—she stepped close to Max and Charlie ordered Stevie to put the woman down.
“Stevie Stasiuk-MacKilligan! You put that idiot woman down right this instant!”
“Hey!” the idiot woman complained while she pressed her legs against Stevie’s front fangs so that they didn’t go into her mouth, “that’s not fair!”
“Shut up!” Charlie and Max said in unison.
Charlie stepped closer and clapped her hands together several times. “Stevie! Put her down! Right now!”
Stevie stared at Charlie for several seconds, but a roar from outside the room had their sister scrambling to her paws and rearing up on her hind legs, that idiot woman still in her mouth.
“Stevie! No!” Charlie cried out seconds before Stevie began burrowing up into the floor above.
If she got into the walls of the house, they might never find her. The fact that she was twenty or so feet long didn’t mean anything. She was still mostly honey badger and she could burrow like a champ. And if she was freaked out enough, they might not find her for days. Weeks. She could end up living in the subway tunnels!
Charlie’s grandfather’s house was never quite the same after Stevie had her first real breakdown and burrowed into the walls. It took many days before they could get her out, but they could hear her scratching away inside the walls, and food kept disappearing from inside the cabinets.
It wasn’t until Charlie had hidden some Xanax in balls of soft French cheese that Stevie finally calmed down enough to come back out and face her fears with her sisters by her side.
Charlie, however, was in no mood to go through that again. But before she could say anything, Max charged across the room and leaped up, grabbing hold of Stevie’s right hind leg. Of course, Max was only about a hundred and twenty pounds while Stevie, in her shifted form, was nearly two tons.
Just as Charlie started to follow after Max, a shifter with tusks—Tusks? Really?—came