Breaking Badger

by Shelly Laurenston

  “Let’s make a run for it,” Streep suggested when they were in the dining room.

  “To where?” Tock asked.

  “And why?” Nelle interjected. “If Charlie wanted to kill us, she would have done it a long time ago. We should go to Mads’s new place.” Nelle smiled at Mads. “I’m sure there’s tons of fabulous seating that we can all take advantage of.”

  Mads jerked forward but someone grabbed her by the back of her T-shirt and yanked her away. She thought it was Max, but she ended up by Finn’s side.

  “That sounds like a great idea, Nelle,” Streep said, smiling.

  Unwilling to let this go, Mads told her teammate, “Only a freak buys someone else clothes and—”

  Finn’s hand covered her mouth, and no matter how she struggled, he wouldn’t move it.

  “What about the muffins?” Shay asked, his facial swelling thankfully reduced. The area was still a bright maroon, though, but Mads was sure the redness would go away in a few hours .

  “Didn’t you get enough muffins?” Keane asked.

  “I didn’t get any muffins. You and Finn ate them all. The only thing I got was scorpions and a near-death experience.”

  “The swelling wasn’t that bad,” Tock told him. “We only said we might have to do a tracheotomy. Might. In the end it was totally unnecessary.”

  “Forget it!” Max barked into the kitchen as she walked away. “I am not working with these cretins!” She stopped when she saw the group standing in the dining room and said directly to Keane, “And yeah, I’m talking about you.”

  Stevie also exited the kitchen. She moved toward the stairs but stopped long enough to say to Max, “Isn’t Charlie amazing? She will make such a wonderful aunt when I have my perfect panda-badger-tiger baby.” For emphasis, Stevie gently petted her stomach before heading up the stairs to the second floor.

  Mads pulled herself away from Finn and dove onto Max just as Tock did, the pair of them tackling their teammate against the opposite wall to stop her from going after her baby sister. With great effort they pinned her there until she calmed down and ordered them, “Get the fuck off me!”

  Motioning to Zé, Shay asked, “Don’t I know you?”

  “One of you . . . three,” he said, gesturing at the Malone brothers, “threw me through the living room window.”

  “No. I remember that. I mean . . . from years ago. I feel like I . . .” He snapped his fingers. “I sacked you!”

  “That sounds weirdly sexual,” Streep noted.

  “High school football. You were running back. I twisted you up like a pretzel.”

  “Yeah. I remember that. You sent me to the hospital,” Zé accused.

  Shay took a step back. “How is that possible?”

  “I didn’t know what I was.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. I didn’t know until”—he looked at Max over his shoulder—“how long have we known each other?”

  “I don’t know. Few days? Ten thousand years. Something in that range.”

  “Yeah. What Max said. You put me in the hospital. Orthopedic surgeon told me I’d probably never walk again. I briefly hated my grandfather because he didn’t seem as concerned about his only grandson as I thought he should be. Then I made a miraculous comeback and was the talk of the school year and even got a write-up in the New York Post. But, hey. Thanks for trying to destroy me.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  “Do you still play?” Keane asked.

  “Football? Not since high school.”

  “You didn’t play in college?”

  “Joined the Marines instead.”

  “Why?”

  Zé frowned, as if he’d never heard the question before. “So I could fight for my country.”

  “Why?”

  “I really don’t know how to answer that.”

  “What position did you play? Quarterback?”

  “Running back.”

  “You should come to practice at Sports Center tonight for our pro team. We’re having our draft. You can try out.”

  “For running back? Aren’t I a little . . . ?”

  “Small?”

  “No. Old. Not that that’s any better. But won’t I be up against twenty-somethings?”

  “Most of them have barely aged out of sub-adulthood. You’ll have experience, strength, and general cat crankiness in your favor. You should stop by. That reminds me . . .”

  The eldest Malone brother pulled his phone out of his front pocket and began typing away with big thumbs. When he stopped a few seconds later, Max heard her sister call from the kitchen, “You want me to come to your football practice tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Uh . . . okay.”

  Annoyed, Max called out, “Charlie, are you coming to my game tonight? It’s the playoffs.”

  “What? I have to go to those now?”

  “Charlie’s going to come to my child’s games, Max,” Stevie yelled from the second floor, “because she’s going to be such a great aunt!”

  Max was halfway up the stairs when Mads and Tock caught her by the ankles and dragged her back down and toward the front door, with her screaming all the way, “We aren’t done discussing this! I will bring you back to those German docs in Switzerland myself!”

  “Why can’t you be nice to your sister?” Mads asked, ignoring the fact that Max’s chin was hitting each of the stoop steps.

  “She’s so sweet,” Tock insisted. “And you’re just so mean!”

  “Oww!” Max complained when they slammed her body up against someone’s SUV bumper.

  “Sorry,” the pair said in unison as they dragged her all the way back to Mads’s new house.

  Evil bitches.

  chapter THIRTEEN

  “You cannot tell your sister what to do with her womb.”

  Finn buried his head in his hands. “Must we talk about this now?”

  “I can if whatever comes out of her womb is going to be a demon,” Max said.

  Apparently they did have to talk about this now.

  “A demon?” Shay questioned.

  “Yes. A powerful entity bent on destroying the world, and only I can stop it.”

  “Or join forces with it,” Mads said.

  “There’s always that risk.”

  “There’s no proof it’ll be a demon,” Tock argued. “It could just be a monster. Something vile and disgusting just oozing out of her like—”

  “That’s it!” Keane bellowed. “I am not here to talk about your sister’s womb. I’m here to find out if you’re going to help us or not.”

  “Never!” Max bellowed back. “I’m never going to help you!”

  Mads, with her elbow resting on the dining room table and her chin resting on her fist, raised her phone with her other hand. She’d already dialed someone, and one word came out of the phone’s speaker . . .

  “Max!” came her eldest sister’s voice, snapping orders. “You’re doing this!”

  With the drapes pulled back from the big bay window, they all had a clear view of the MacKilligan rental house across the street. It was now surrounded by bears. All waiting for morning muffins. For most people, this vision would be something out of a nightmare. For those who had actually come face-to-face with a bear in the wilderness and had survived, it was a horror story told to therapists who specialized in PTSD.

  Yet for the two eldest MacKilligan sisters, a house surrounded by bears wasn’t nearly as worrisome as figuring out how to handle what they considered “family.”

  “But I don’t want to!” Max snapped back.

  “I don’t care!”

  “Fine!”

  Charlie disconnected the call and Mads dropped the phone on the table. That’s when Finn noticed she had her phone in a tough, black plastic case to protect it from falls and other abuse. No cutesy cover like the ones Nelle and Streep had. Nelle’s cover was so covered in diamond-like sparkles, he wondered if the gems were actual diamonds. And Streep’s was very
pink and had the Hello Kitty logo, so he debated whether she’d stolen it from a younger cousin or something.

  But Mads and Tock had cases that would allow their phones to be dropped from great heights; which made sense since Mads had been dropped from a great height right onto Keane’s SUV and Tock had been dropped from a great height into an incinerator.

  “Just like that?” Keane asked Max, appearing very suspicious.

  “Just like what?”

  “You’re going to help us?”

  “Unless I never want to hear the end of it until my death? Then yes. I’m helping you.” She dropped into one of the chairs and put her feet on the ottoman. “So what do you want, Garfield? For me to steal something? Kill somebody?”

  “No! Why would you even ask me that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because you look like a murder-y kind of guy.”

  “Information,” Finn quickly cut in. “We’ve been told you can get it.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Keane growled.

  “Maybe,” she insisted. “I can only ask. And I can only ask the Yangs. My mother’s people. The MacKilligans won’t help. My father has burned a lot of bridges and we’re tainted by association. One of you Malones will have to come with me, though.”

  Finn and Shay both pointed at Keane before he could argue.

  “Why me?”

  “You represent the family,” Finn logically explained.

  “And we don’t wanna go,” Shay stupidly added.

  Max scratched her arm and asked, “What do you want to know anyway? Who tried to kill you the other night?”

  “No,” Finn replied. “We want to know who killed our father. Find that out and you’ll probably find out who tried to kill us, too.”

  “Do you want me to waste whoever killed your father? Because that’s actually a job I’ll happily do.”

  “No,” Keane said. “That job is ours. But thanks for the offer.”

  “When can you get started?” Shay asked.

  “We have playoffs tonight, and practice in two hours,” Mads reminded Max.

  “Then we’ll start tomorrow.” Max stood. “Mads will kill me if I’m not at playoffs tonight.”

  “Actually, I’ll kill you if what happened last night fucks us up for tonight’s game,” Mads threatened, ignoring the ringing doorbell in her new home. “This is for the championship!”

  “Why would you blame me for what happened last night?” Max asked

  As her teammates gawked at her, Shay went to answer the front door since no one else seemed to be making the effort.

  “Anyone send for a lion?” he called out.

  “Me!” Streep suddenly screamed, scrambling off the couch. “Me!”

  She disappeared around the corner, returning a few seconds later with a big cat that Mads recognized as one of the Shaw brothers. The annoying one.

  Lifting at least six store bags, he announced, “Ladies! I have come to rescue all of you!”

  “Rescue us?” Tock asked. “From what?”

  “Damaged hair.”

  “You can’t expect us to go out on that court tonight with our hair looking like this, can you?” Streep asked, digging through the bags the lion still held.

  “You could have just gone to a hairstylist,” Nelle suggested.

  “What would a hairstylist know that one with such a beautiful mane as I does not?” the cat asked.

  Keane moved in behind the lion, towering a healthy five or six inches over him. He leaned in and sniffed until the lion male slowly turned his head to stare into the eyes of a fellow apex predator. It took all of ten seconds before they shifted and were tearing at each other in the middle of Mads’s new living room.

  Streep dove in between the males, screaming to her teammates, “Save the product! Dear God, save the product!”

  Mads touched Finn’s arm. “Want to see my backyard?”

  “Sure. Is it nice?”

  She pushed away from the dining table. “No idea. I forgot to check it out when I bought the house.”

  As they cut through the kitchen, Finn heard Streep yell, “Get the hair serum! We need the hair serum!”

  “She takes her hair care seriously, huh?” he asked Mads.

  “You can’t win major acting awards without amazing hair. Unless, of course, you’re a man.”

  “Is that written down somewhere?” he teased.

  They went through the laundry room and she opened the back door to a good-sized yard. “Awww, sweetie. That’s written everywhere.”

  * * *

  “So what do you think?” Mads asked, looking around the backyard that was now hers.

  “It’s nice. Good size.”

  “Is it?” She took another look around. “Our territory in Wisconsin was acres of land, but the Clan also hunted at night. I don’t really need to do that.” She glanced over the fence at her next-door neighbor’s property. “Although that lovely hive situation they’ve got going over there . . .” She narrowed her eyes a bit. “I think those are African killer bees. Yum. They make the best honey. It’s like angry honey.”

  “You can’t steal your neighbor’s honey.”

  “That would be wrong, wouldn’t it?”

  “That, and I’m pretty sure Max already does it. I heard the bears complaining outside. I think she went raiding last night after the rest of us passed out. When does she sleep?”

  “We stopped asking that question a long time ago. Because I’m honestly not sure she does.” Mads gestured to her yard with both arms. “Do I need to do anything to all this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is it fine as it is? Or is there more I need to do?”

  “You should maintain it. Maybe get a gardener.”

  “A gardener. Okay. Anything else?”

  “For your yard?”

  “Sure. Or the house.”

  She waited for him to make fun of her or to tell her how pathetic she was, but after a quick glance away, he suggested, “Why don’t I get you a list of things you have to deal with involving your house?”

  “A list? There’s a list of things I have to worry about?”

  “Yes. For instance, taxes.”

  “I pay my taxes.”

  “Right. But now you’ll have to pay taxes on the property.”

  “Oh.”

  “And maintenance.”

  “Why? It looks fine.”

  Finn faced the house and lifted his head. He growled, very low. So low, Mads could feel it from the top of her head, down her spine, and straight into her toes. She didn’t know if she wanted to angry-hiss at him in warning, or hang off his neck like a spider monkey.

  After about twenty seconds of his growling, a tile slid off the roof and hit the ground at their feet. They both gazed at it for a moment before Finn pointed out, “That shouldn’t happen. So you’re probably going to need some roof repair. Oh, here.” He pulled out his cell phone and, in a few seconds, had emailed her a file. Mads opened it and discovered a chart listing all the potential costs for a house of the size Finn owned.

  “Just update the stats with the size of the house and property and the costs should automatically update. Then you have spaces next to it with actual costs that you fill in as you pay it. Handy, right?”

  “Uh . . . yeah.” Mads pointed at her phone. “Why are there flowers on this chart?”

  “My niece designed it and she likes to make things festive.”

  “Niece? Keane has a kid?”

  “No. Shay has a kid. She’s ten and she likes numbers . . . and charts. And organizing.”

  “And you let her—”

  “I passed it by our accountant. He said it was bizarrely accurate. For an eight-year-old, which was how old she was when she initially designed it. She uses fewer flowers now. She likes things more streamlined.”

  Scrolling through the disturbing number of things Mads realized she would have to now worry about, she asked, “So . . . do you have any kids?”


  “No. Why?”

  “Just wondering. I mean, no one mentioned that Shay has kids and yet . . . he has a kid.”

  “He finds children entertaining. I, however, only like my niece. So, I’m in no rush to continue my bloodline. And I’m assuming you don’t have any children of your own since you didn’t have a permanent place to live until now.”

  “It did seem like a bad plan to raise a child in someone else’s cabinet.”

  The back door to the house flew open and Shay came down the steps with the coyote tucked under his arm.

  “What are doing with that filthy animal?” Finn demanded.

  “He seemed to be about to jump into the fight between Keane and that lion. I decided to keep him out of it. For his own safety.” He placed the coyote on the ground and it immediately ran under the house. They all crouched down to get a good look.

  “That’s clearly where he’s been living for a while,” Finn noted. “I’m calling animal control.”

  Mads slapped the phone out of his hand. “No, you’re not.”

  “You can’t keep this thing like it’s a stray dog.”

  “It’s a dog. And it’s a stray. I don’t see what the problem is.”

  They all stood up and Finn said, “The problem is that he’s a wild animal living under your house and sometimes in your bed.”

  “Look around.” Mads spread her arms wide and gestured to her yard. “Do you see all the skeletons?”

  “Human skeletons?” Shay asked.

  “Do you see human skeletons?” Finn asked his brother.

  “No.”

  “Then shut up.”

  “I mean animal skeletons,” Mads clarified. “Possums. Racoons. Skunks. Squirrels. They’re all over the place. He’s protecting my property from pests. What he eats doesn’t get into my house. That makes him a perfect non-pest animal.”

  “He’ll bring fleas.”