Finn knew it wasn’t Mads attacking his brother. She had lighter fur, which got even paler when she was human. She liked to say it was the Viking in her that gave her that blondish fur. But it could be any of her teammates. He had no idea. The hospital was currently filled with honey badgers. And Keane, when angry—and he was almost always angry—could make a Benedictine nun aggressive as any of the nuns in their Catholic high school could attest.
Taking a breath, Finn reached out and attempted to grab hold of the fighting badger. But as soon as it felt fingers brush against its fur, it spiraled around, slashed at him—nearly taking his eye out—dropped to the ground, and ran into Shay’s room. It kicked the door closed with its back feet and by the time Finn and Keane made it into the room, it was standing on the bed facing them. Its back legs were on Shay’s chest, the front legs on his knees. When they moved toward it, the badger hissed so viciously that they immediately backed up, which was just weird. Amur tigers didn’t really back up for anybody. They didn’t have to. But seeing that angry badger face, Finn kind of understood why lions avoided these guys in the wild.
They were nuts.
After a beat, Keane tried to step forward again, but his motion unleashed another hiss that had Finn remembering he really should update his will.
“I think,” Finn suggested, “we leave.”
“Are you nuts? Do you want it to finish the job it started?”
Finn frowned. “Are you saying that’s Tock?”
“Yes. And she’s insane.”
Actually, she was the most rational of Mads’s group. It was why he liked Tock so much. But, more importantly, he understood Tock. So he immediately relaxed.
“Maybe she’s just pissed you keep calling her ‘it.’ And she’s clearly protecting him,” he told Keane.
“What?”
“She’s protecting him. Look.”
“She’s the one that almost killed him.”
“That was an accident. She didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I don’t care. She should suffer.”
“She was poisoned. Then poisoned again by Stevie. Then she ate something that poisoned her—”
“I’m pretty sure she enjoyed that last part.”
“I think she’s suffered enough, don’t you?” He glanced over at the hospital bed that his brother lay in. Tock—appearing more like a weirdly shaped, medium-sized dog than a badger—stood on top of him, still hysterically hissing at them, attempting to warn them away from Shay.
Finn couldn’t imagine his brother being any safer.
“Let’s go. We should find out what the hell is going on, anyway.”
“Going on with what?”
“The badgers.”
Keane shrugged. “I don’t care what’s going on with them.”
“And that’s probably why your wounds are still bleeding.”
*
“Were you ever going to tell the other badgers in the world that our kind is under threat? Or just let us all die from some unknown poison like we’re diplomats in a foreign country?”
“Awesome burn, Sis!” burst from the other side of the room and Nelle briefly closed her eyes to keep from laughing. Some days she really wished she could just gag Max. Of course, she’d tried that once but the little psycho just chewed through the leather.
“And my sister’s right,” Max went on. “We’re all out here at risk, and you guys aren’t warning anyone.”
“We’ve been working on an antidote,” one of Tock’s cousins explained, “but our supposed experts are having trouble figuring out what kind of drug it is.”
“Hey!” Stevie sat up in her chair, glaring across the room. “Is that directed at me? Tock is alive and attacking people because I fixed the problem!”
“You took a gamble with my cousin’s life. You could have killed her!”
“Do you really think I’d use something on Tock without having tested it at least once?”
Charlie’s eyes narrowed. “Tested it on who?”
“It’s whom,” Stevie corrected, which meant she was about to lie. Nelle had been studying Max’s baby sister ever since she’d met her. She found the nervous genius absolutely fascinating. Especially when Stevie thought no one was watching. Just the other day . . . she’d had a verbal spat with a squirrel before it chased her back into the house. See? Who needed television or social media when you had a MacKilligan to watch?
“Stevie?” Charlie pushed.
“Rats, okay? I used rats. Like all scientists that don’t care about animals.”
“Rats die from rat poison that you can get at any grocery store. Meaning that we both know they couldn’t handle a snake poison of any kind much less the deadliest ones in the known world. So on whom did you test it?”
“Well . . .”
Charlie slammed her fist on the end table next to her, cracking it in the middle.
“Max!” she bellowed.
“How is this my fault?” Max immediately wanted to know.
“Because you allowed yourself to be a test dummy yet again!”
“I was bored and she needed answers. I was trying to help.”
“I thought you didn’t know what was going on,” one of the cousins annoyingly pointed out.
“I didn’t,” she said with a shrug. “Stevie just asked whether I’d mind if she shot me up with a few combinations—”
“A few?”
“—of snake poison,” she continued, ignoring Charlie’s further bellowing, “and I said sure.”
The panther that Max had been dating for a little while now turned to look at her and asked what all of them were thinking. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
“I told you. I was bored.”
“Max,” Charlie sighed out, “how many times do I have to tell you not to let Stevie test shit on you?”
“But I need her,” Stevie argued. “She’s incredibly resilient.”
“Yeah,” Max agreed. “I’m . . . that. Super that. And, after twelve or thirteen years, I’ve only died, like, three times.”
“Actually, it was four. But I always brought her back,” Stevie quickly added when Charlie’s eyes grew wide. “You know all my labs are equipped with defibrillators and—”
“And that stuff they use on meth addicts when they O.D.”
Stevie nodded at Max’s contribution. “Exactly.”
Charlie abruptly stood, her chair loudly scraping the ground.
“I’m going home now,” she announced. “Because if I don’t . . . I’m going to kill everyone in this room, including you two.” She pointed at her sisters, who reared back. Max in mock shock and Stevie in real shock. “And I will feel no remorse about any of it. So to avoid that . . . I’m taking my Black ass home, and I’m going to take a couple of Xanax when I get there. I can do that now, because I have a prescription. My psychiatrist strongly felt I needed something extra on days that my family pisses me the fuck off!” She cleared her throat, calm once again. “We’ll talk more tomorrow when I don’t want to stab all of you in the eyes.”
In silence, they watched Charlie walk out of the room and disappear around a corner.