In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,68
do math to save her life and science didn’t really exist for her. She also couldn’t draw, she was adamant that technology was out to get her, and she never read nonfiction anything unless it was a juicy gossip tell-all about celebrities. But when it came to fashion and art . . . Kiki had something not many people had. And she was positive she knew what was right and what was wrong; what was in and what was out. No one could tell her different, either. It made her an influential force to the world and an occasional pain in the ass to her baby brother.
All I’m going to say is . . . she sounds cute.
At that point, Shen just dialed his sister.
“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded as soon as she picked up.
Kiki sighed. “I really should start having my assistant answer my cell phone. Suze, put my brother on the do-not-answer list, would you?” she called out.
“On it!” Suze replied.
“Look,” he said, ignoring both women, “I just want to make it clear—”
“That you have a girlfriend and you didn’t tell your sisters about her?”
“She is not my girlfriend!”
“Really? Because she told Steinberg she was your girlfriend.”
“Oh my God! Seriously?”
“Shen . . . you’re not going out with that girl who wanted you to meet her parents on the first date, are you?”
“No! She’s a friend of my client. She needed to get out of her house for a little while. I was helping. But I’m starting to think she’s delusional.”
As Shen spoke, he glanced out the glass doors looking out over the channel. Stevie stood on the railing, facing the water.
“Oh, shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid she thinks she can fly.”
“Oh! Is she a bird shifter? Wait . . . do we even have bird shifters? I’ve heard rumors of crows. Although who’d want to shift into an angry black bird?”
Shen couldn’t listen to his sister’s rambling and deal with a delusional MacKilligan. Not at the same time.
“I’ll call you back.”
“What about eagles? Do we have any eag—”
Shen disconnected the call and pulled open the sliding door.
“Uh . . . Stevie?” He kept his voice calm. Rational. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Listening to music.”
Except there was no music and she didn’t have on earbuds.
“O . . . kay. Does the music talk to you?”
“Music always talks to me. And right now it’s talking to me about flying over the ocean.”
“Oh God . . . you do think you can fly.”
She opened her eyes, looked at him. “No, I don’t think I can fly.” Then she added, “Go fuck off.”
“I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. Ballet,” she said, closing her eyes again and facing the ocean and the wind coming off it.
“What about ballet?”
“Can’t you see it?”
Shen didn’t answer; he just closed the sliding door and looked at his phone again. He zipped through his contacts list and speed-dialed the number he needed.
“Yeah?” a voice said on the other end.
“I don’t want you to worry, but I think your sister is having a nervous breakdown.”
There was silence, a deep breath, then Charlie asked, “Okay. I’m not going to have an anxiety attack. Instead, I’m going to calmly ask you some questions and you’re going to calmly respond. Can you do that for me?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. What makes you think my sister is having a breakdown?”
“We’re at my sister’s Freeport house. By the water. She’s standing on the railing. I’m afraid she thinks she can fly.”
“Oh. Oh! My sister loves the water. She especially loves when the wind is coming off the water.”
“Yeah. She’s facing the wind.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“She also said she hears music. There is no music.”
“My sister can hear music in her head. Like you listening to a radio. Hearing music when there is none, is totally normal for her.”
“Then she suddenly said ‘ballet.’ For no obvious reason I could ascertain.”
“That probably means she’s writing a ballet in her head. The music for a ballet anyway. Most likely because of Oriana. She’s probably inspired.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Just so you know, my sister isn’t delusional.”
“Manic?”
“No. She doesn’t have huge highs. She has inspiration, which might make her seem manic, but it’s just excitement over new ideas. Her depression can get bad, but she usually just crawls under her bed and cries for a while. Her anxiety is the thing you have to watch out for. She gets freaked out by—”
“Crowds?”
“Crowds of bears. Squirrels. She doesn’t like hamsters. Crowds of people, however, are fine.”
“Hamsters?”
“Anything that skitters. Oh, she doesn’t like snakes