Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)

All of them. All of them came into the room.

“Where is she?” Tock’s grandmother asked.

Shay grimaced. How do you tell an entire family that the person they’d been waiting for all night had run out on them?

You don’t. You don’t tell them anything. Instead, he simply looked up at the ceiling and all the badgers followed suit.

“Huh,” one of her cousins said, still staring at the opening. “Well, that’s rude.”

But Tock’s grandmother only chuckled. “That girl. She is just like her mother, which is probably why I want to punch her in the neck right now.”

And there it was for Shay to finally see: the family resemblance between Tock and her grandmother.





Chapter 6


Shay and his two brothers got into the SUV Keane had rented at the airport. He thought the badgers would be driving with them, but they’d opted to rent their own car, which Finn seemed glad about. “Max always drives, and she drives like a suicide bomber.”

Shay stretched out in the backseat. Although “stretched out” wasn’t exactly correct. The SUV was of average size. Fine for most people but not for a Malone brother. He had to bend his knees, and his back rested against the left-side passenger door.

He was glad to be out of the hospital, though. Glad he was okay. Now he could just relax until he got home.

Closing his eyes, Shay easily fell asleep but snapped awake when he heard his eldest brother growl, “What the unholy fuck . . . ?”

Shay sat up and looked around. “What? What’s wrong?”

Keane still drove, their vehicle now on a two-lane road. He was going pretty fast, but Keane always drove fast. Shay didn’t see anything in their way. So he wasn’t sure what his brother was complaining—

Another vehicle sped up behind them, trying to pass. The entire crew of honey badgers occupied the passing SUV—except for Tock. Tock wasn’t inside the SUV. She was on the outside. Climbing up the front grill while they raced along whatever road this was.

Horrified, the three brothers watched Tock—now in a hospital gown, which seemed a waste because it wasn’t tied so most of her naked body was exposed to the world as the material flapped wildly in the wind—make her way up to the hood. Once there, she paused to catch her breath, then started moving on all fours toward the front windscreen.

“Are we racing?” Keane suddenly asked.

Finn leaned back so he could see out Shay’s window. “Max is driving. So . . . yes. You’re racing. You better slow down,” he ordered. “Let her go a—”

“Shit!” Keane abruptly slammed on the brakes; Shay was thrown against the front seats. It was a necessary move, though. A truck came from around the corner, going in the opposite direction, and all Max did was speed up while heading straight for it. Tock still occupied the hood of the SUV.

The SUV cut into their lane just before the truck could obliterate them, the driver blasting his horn and yelling.

Tock briefly paused once more—this time so she could raise her arm high and give the truck driver the finger—before she continued making her way across the hood.

She finally reached the windshield.

Shay couldn’t see her for a few seconds; then he spotted her clinging to the side of the vehicle and finally crawling into the now-open passenger side window.

The window closed and Max hit the gas; the group disappeared around the next bend.

The brothers were silent for a bit as they drove on, all three staring out the front window.

Then Keane finally said, “I am so glad you risked your life saving that one. She so clearly needs to be saved.”

Shay could only shrug. “At the time . . . it seemed like a solid idea.”

“Yeah. And I’m sure it had nothing to do with that ass.”

“Well . . .” Shay began, but what was the point of fighting the truth? “Yeah. It was definitely that ass.”

*

Tock changed into fresh clothes in one of the private airport’s bathrooms and stepped out of the stall. Mads had brought her overnight bag from Detroit, which was great. Tock had no desire to travel in a hospital gown all the way back to New York. She didn’t want anyone assuming she was an escaped mental patient because there was nothing Max would love more than leaning into that joke until all of them were racing away from law enforcement and emergency services.

Exiting the bathroom, she stopped to look around. Saw nothing out of the ordinary and rechecked every means of escape from this airport should it become necessary. She didn’t do this because she was suddenly feeling paranoid. Her grandmother had begun the drill when she took her to the mall at five years old. “Always know in and out, my little one,” she’d say. “In case you need to make a run for it.”

Satisfied, Tock walked over to the chairs and tossed her bag by those—where did he get sneakers that size?—big feet before dropping into the seat next to Shay. She let out a sigh and started scrolling through her phone. She was annoyed. She’d had stuff planned for the last few hours. A nice, neat schedule, but it had been shot to hell because of all this unnecessary drama.

“Do you not see me glaring at you?”

Tock looked away from the schedule app on her phone that she’d built herself because most schedule apps didn’t give her what she needed, and found herself staring into the glaring face of a big cat.

“Don’t you always look like that?” she asked after a moment.

“No.” He pointed at another set of attached seats where two of her teammates were hanging out. “He always looks like that.”

She hadn’t even noticed Keane sitting next to Max. He was also glaring but not at Tock or Max or Streep, both of whom sat close to him. He was just glaring in general, his gaze locked on a blank wall. He was so focused on that wall, he didn’t even notice or acknowledge a group of loud rich guys walking in, talking about the private jet they were about to take to Cancun. What entertained Tock, though, was watching those loud, annoying men spot Keane and, despite his having no interest in them at all, purposely stop, stare at him for a few seconds, and then walk in a big circle around their group. They ended up sitting on the opposite side of the airport, with Keane’s back to them.

Once those full-human men sat down and she felt certain that Max wouldn’t start a fight with them because she was bored waiting for Nelle’s family jet to be fueled, Tock went back to her phone. She moved a few things around in her app, added a few things on the to-do list app she’d also made herself, and slipped her phone into the back pocket of her jeans.

As she relaxed in her chair, she realized the cat was still glaring at her.

“What?” she asked.

“I didn’t think we were done talking.”

“We’re not?”

He threw up his hands and angrily turned away from her.

She thought that was the end of it but as soon as she relaxed again, he turned to face her once more and asked, “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

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