With his mouth open, he watched Charlie toss off all those bears and cats until she was able to stand up and brush herself off. She didn’t even look annoyed. Instead, she tried to take off her helmet but it got caught in her curls and she began to yelp. One of the team’s African-American She-wolves ran over to help her get her hair untangled and they had a moment of friendly laughter discussing the helmet and their hair. He didn’t care so he didn’t really pay attention.
“Okay,” Julie said, facing him. “How do I hire her? I must have her.”
“That’s going to be tricky.”
“Why?”
“She has another job. An insane life. And the bears in her neighborhood expect her to bake.”
“Get high?”
“No. Actually bake. Food.”
“Oh! Does she work at a bakery? Is her job to bake?”
“No. From what I can tell, her job is to kill. Bad guys. She’s not a murderer or anything. Not my definition of a murderer anyway.”
Julie pushed her mesh cap emblazoned with the team logo away from her forehead so she could scratch her scalp, bury her head in her hands, and sigh long and deep before lifting her head and looking into his eyes. Finally, after all that, she asked him, “Why . . . why do you make my life so hard?”
“I honestly don’t try to do it. It just happens. But I will say this . . . you’re not the only one who has made that accusation. My brothers say the same thing about me all the time.”
* * *
They waited for their team to be announced so they could run out with their coach. Unlike the shifter hockey teams, they didn’t announce each team member individually. Something Mads appreciated. She didn’t need all that. A bullshit nickname and stats about how many times she’d been put in timeouts or how many fistfights she’d had or the number of artery surgeries she’d endured.
Basketball was basketball. It wasn’t about all that unnecessary drama. It was about the sport and athleticism. Which was all she cared about.
Coach Fitzgerald walked up and down the line of her team, looking them over one last time. She stopped next to Mads.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Mads replied, constantly moving. She wouldn’t stop moving until the last buzzer sounded.
“I need you and Max to be the assholes tonight.”
Mads nodded without even looking at her coach.
“This team has a lot of great shooters, but they’re arrogant, with short tempers. Fuck with them.”
Mads smiled. “Got it.”
Coach patted her shoulder. “That’s my angry badger.”
The announcer began his introduction of their team: the Wisconsin Butchers. Coach moved to the front of the line and waited for the explosion of yellow and white lights. When it came, she ran out and the team jogged out after her. Mads went into her “zone.” It was the space where she ignored all the applause, the cheering, and the hate, and focused on nothing but her team, the other team, the ball, and the net. For the next four quarters, nothing else mattered.
There were a lot of lions on the other team, meaning the players mowed their opponents down like tanks, then exploded with sudden speed toward the basket. The few cheetahs and She-tigers that were also on the team dashed around with ease, slamming the ball into the net so confidently it could be painful to watch.
And yeah, sure, Max might not seem to care about any of this until she was actually at the game and in the moment, but that wasn’t really true. Every day, she sent out videos of other teams’ games. How she got those videos, no one knew or asked. Shifter games were not supposed to be filmed for a myriad of reasons. But Max had them. Even better, the videos focused on the team they would be facing in the next playoff. They’d been watching videos of these players for a couple of weeks.
So when that She-tiger who liked to do those three-point shots sent a ball to the basket, Mads was there to jump up and slap it away. Then she grinned. Or smirked. Or snarled. Or glared. Or whatever else she knew would annoy the particular player she was trying to irritate. Max had sent a list to the team titled “Facial Expressions That Will Piss Off This Team’s Best Players.”
It was working really well, too. She knew that when one of the She-lions body-checked her right into the middle of the audience when she was about to make her own three-point shot. Not because she had to make such a show-off shot, but because she could.
“Are you okay?” she heard someone ask as they lifted her up over the crowd and got her back to the court. But Mads was too angry to answer or notice who it was. She barely managed to choke back a hysterical laugh. She swallowed, closed her eyes. She would not allow herself to lose it during a playoff game. Besides, her team had already retaliated, with Max wrapped around the head and neck of the She-lion who’d body-checked Mads. The rest of the team was engaged in a general fistfight. But the refs were already stepping in and pulling people apart. The She-lion was out of the game, although they had to pry Max away from her; some of the She-lion’s hair dragged out by the fistful. That led to roaring. She-lions complained about the vanity of their males, but the females could be just as bad about their hair.
With the drama over, Mads was given three unguarded free throws.
Tock came over to her and handed her a towel with the team logo on it. Mads wiped the sweat from her face and especially her eyes, which gave her a few precious seconds to put her boiling rage back where it belonged—buried deep down in her soul where all her resentments and disappointments lived.
Blowing out a breath, she handed the towel back to her teammate and walked to the free-throw line. The ref tossed her the ball and Mads began to dribble, carefully lining up her shot until something broke through her usual intense focus.
Low roaring that she felt in her fingertips.
She could usually block out roaring with ease . . . so why was she unable to block it this time?
Holding the ball, she looked over her shoulder, her gaze quickly scanning the crowd until it came to rest on a large group. They were all in matching football jerseys and hats, some of them chanting her name over and over. But it was the trio of tigers roaring at four male lions decked out in the other team’s gear that really threw her off.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered to herself. “What is happening?”
* * *
Finn had been heading to the lockers when Keane grabbed him by his shoulder pads and yanked him toward Charlie and Julie.
“I need you to do some of that fast talking you’re famous for,” Keane had told him.
“That is not what I’m famous for.”
“Whatever it is you do, do it.”
His brother had pushed him toward the two females, and immediately he regretted not fighting his brother off.
“I’m not sure being in the same place every day at the same time is a good idea,” Charlie was calmly explaining to Julie. “Lots of people try to kill me.”
“And . . . why is that?”
Charlie shrugged. “It’s mostly because of my father. Because he’s done something stupid. Or because my family has stolen something. Or someone’s forced me to kill—”
“Okay!” Finn quickly stepped between the two females, taking the team jersey off Julie’s shoulder. “Why don’t you let me handle it from here, Julie?”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good—”
“It’ll be fine. Great for the team! We already love her.”
“We do?” one of his teammates asked, which was dumb because it just got him a helmet to the head from Shay.
“Of course! Go on, Coach. We’ll take it from here. You guys can work out all the details later.”
“All right, but—hey!” she barked when Keane pushed Julie toward the rest of the coaching squad several feet away, allowing the entire defensive line and Shay to surround Charlie.
“Are you sure about this?” Charlie asked.
“You did great in the tryouts,” Shay reminded her.
“I guess, but . . . what position?�
��
“Defensive end,” Keane told her. “You’ll be working with Finn. That way he’ll be able to help train you since you have no idea what you’re doing.”
Charlie looked up at Finn for a few seconds. Then the rest of the line.
“You really think it’s a good idea for me to play against guys built like all of you?”
Keane’s entire face expressed his disbelief before he reminded her, “You put a grizzly through a wall.”
“You told me to stop the guy with the ball.”
Taking the jersey from Finn, Keane placed it over Charlie’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”
“Any plans for the night?” Finn asked Charlie as she looked her new jersey over.
“I figured I’d suck up the pain and go see Max play. It is a game . . . of some kind.”
“Not a basketball fan?”
“Not really. But that could be because everyone at my school kept expecting me to play. You know . . . because I’m Black. So I went out of my way not to like it.” She pointed at the training field. “But I like this. It allows me to release all my rage and aggression,” she said with complete calm.
“Have a lot of rage, do you?”
“Yes. It’s my father’s fault.”
“You say that a lot. That things are your father’s fault.”
“That’s my father’s fault, too. That I say that a lot. You want to come with me to the game?” she suddenly asked. “Mads will be playing.”
“So?”
“You like her.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Of course you do. Don’t be an idiot.”
“I’m not an idiot. And even if I did like her, that doesn’t mean she likes me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Really.” Finn let out an annoyed grunt. “You’re not one of those girls, are you?”
“Pardon?”
“The kind that’s always trying to fix up a single guy? Because that’s going to really get on my nerves.”
“First off, I have never been, nor will I ever be, any kind of one of those girls. Do you know why? Because I actually have shit to do. Always have, always will. Second, if you want to go through life alone and bitter because you’re afraid to make a move on probably the only female on this planet who could ever put up with your annoying ass . . . that’s on you. I was just trying to help a Mongolian brother out.”
“Again, she may not like me.”
“Really? Because I heard you said something remarkably shitty about her precious basketball earlier today.”
“All I said was—”
“He told her basketball was not a real sport,” Shay pointed out.
“That’s what you told her?” Charlie said with a harsh laugh.
“Well, it’s not really.”
“And you still have your skin?”
“It’s not that big a deal.”
“Tell that to the guy she shoved into a bonfire.”
“What?”
“Yeah. It was their senior week. You know, at the end of high school. She’d been dating the guy for, like, two months. He was drunk . . . well, everybody was drunk. He said something stupid about basketball and he ended up in the bonfire. Luckily Tock got him out pretty fast, because the rest of them were laughing so hard, they didn’t even try, so he was only a little charred. But Mads almost didn’t graduate. Luckily, I’d already had some dealings with the principal over Max and a cheerleader incident . . . so I was able to handle it. But yeah . . . she does not take the mocking of basketball well. So you still walking around with both your balls . . . that means she likes ya.”
Charlie was silent a moment before she added, “I get it, though. Basketball was her escape from a shitty life and a shitty family. That’s why she’s so protective of it and her friends.”
“Now you’re making me feel bad.”
“How cute! I didn’t think cats could feel things.”
“That’s very nice.”
Charlie laughed and pulled her new jersey over her head. It was huge; hung to her knees. “Classy! Okay. Come on. Let’s go see my sister torture girls way bigger than her . . . and Finn’s new girlfriend that he already insulted.”
“I was just being honest.”
“Don’t be honest. Or you’ll be alone a lot.”
“We’re tigers. We’re supposed to be solitary.”
“You know, all you cats say that, but the cats I’ve met lately . . . you’re always hanging around somebody. And you three”—she motioned to Finn and his brothers—“you live with each other, your baby brother, your sister, and your mother. And have rude aunts who visit. How solitary is that? You might as well have a girlfriend. It’ll make you look less pathetic when you’re living with your mother.”
Charlie motioned to the entire defensive line. “Why don’t we all go? That way Finn won’t look disgustingly desperate and we can all bond as a team. Won’t that be nice?”
She gave them all a big smile and started walking toward the exit, stopping to grab her backpack and motion to the rest of them. One of the grizzlies grabbed Finn’s arm and growled, “I want to hate her . . . but I just can’t. Why can’t I? I can usually hate anybody! I’m a grizzly!”
“I don’t know. There’s just something about her.”
“And even after all that sweating for the last few hours . . . why does she smell like cake and cookies?”
They trooped up a couple of floors to one of the arenas and, because there were seats available and they were on a pro team, they were allowed to go in for free. As soon as they sat down with hot dogs, popcorn, and beer, Finn was immediately annoyed.
“Even our crowds are better.”
“I agree,” Keane muttered between sips of beer.
Finn glared at some male lions a few rows down. They wore the other team’s color and were cheering loudly, forcing Finn to announce equally loudly, “I hate male lions.”
“Me, too.”
“Yeah,” Shay nodded. “They’re the worst.”
Half their defensive line glared at the brothers. “Hey!” one of their male lion teammates barked.
“We mean you, but . . .” Finn began. “Nah. We just mean you, too.”
“Wow,” another lion teammate gasped, pointing at the honey badgers. “Look at their hair. It’s fabulous!”
“Look how it glows under the lights.”
“I bet I know which conditioner they used.”
“Dude, you’ve gotta tell me. I absolutely need that stuff.”
“This is also why we hate you,” Finn pointed out.
“They’re really good,” Keane said, gesturing to the court with his hot dog made out of wild boar.
It was the whole group out there. Mads, Max, Nelle, Streep, and Tock. And it was interesting to watch them work as a team under the bright arena lights, doing something that didn’t involve. . . you know . . . mass killing.
What was especially fascinating was how much smaller they were than the other team. They were currently playing against two lions, a cheetah, a mountain lion, and a jaguar. But the badgers had fast hands and even faster feet, keeping the ball in play and away from the other team with surprising ease. An ease their opponents didn’t really appreciate.
He glanced up at the scoreboard and saw that they were in the third quarter with Mads’s team twenty points ahead. He smirked at the team name. Full-humans seemed to use either animal names or names that managed to piss off an entire race of people. But shifters went with honest names. For Mads’s team, it was the Wisconsin Butchers. Not exactly subtle, but truthful.
Finn heard the crowd roar and looked back at the court. Mads had the ball and was heading to the basket. A She-lion was blocking the hoop, and when Mads got near she tried to steal the ball. That’s when Mads, still in motion, performed an amazing three-sixty spin and passed the ball to Max. The badger, whose ponytailed hair was now a vibrant pink, caught the ball, zipped past a startled cheetah, and slammed it into the net. It was stunning.
>
The other team got the ball and, during a pass, Mads quickly stole it and started back to her team’s hoop. That’s when the She-lion body-checked Mads so hard she flew . . . right at him.
“Oh, shit!” Finn dropped his beer and half-eaten hot dog and raised his hands, catching the flying badger hybrid before she could slam her ass into his face and rearrange his nose.
“Look at you,” Keane said, something like pride in his voice, “acting like a wide receiver.”
“Are you okay?” Finn asked the back of Mads’s head.
She let out a weird barking laugh that made most of his team rear back. Except the lion males. All those manes turned toward her and fangs were bared.
Deciding to get her back to the court as quickly as possible, Finn passed her down across the crowd, who eagerly helped, until she was back on the floor. By then she seemed calmer, as did the rest of his defensive line. Probably because they were all distracted by the fight happening between the two teams because of that personal foul. Especially Max, who’d attacked the offending She-lion by wrapping herself around the female and punching her repeatedly in the head.
The male lions wearing the opposing team colors must have been from the She-lion’s Pride because they began roaring at Max. Feeling strongly that—for once—the honey badger had a true reason to strike first in this fight, Finn politely asked those particular cats to “Shut the fuck up!”
The lion males looked back at Finn’s defensive line, which included lion males from other Prides, and the angry roars began. Because that’s what cats did when they were angry. The bears, however, kept eating. And so did Max’s boyfriend, Zé, who’d tagged along with them to the game. As a jaguar, he should instinctively want to jump in with the lions and roar his little house cat heart out, but nope. He’d just kept eating and, occasionally, yelling out, “Get that bitch, baby!”
Now, the fight was being broken up, and Mads was getting some free throws. Still, Finn and his teammates didn’t stop roaring because the other lions didn’t stop roaring. At least they didn’t stop until they all heard a bellowed, “Hey!”
Breaking Badger Page 24
