Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)(11)

He blinked, then said, “Assist?”

Tock bared a fang, but before she could bite his claw off, a door at the back of the plane opened. She relaxed into her seat and prepared herself for the next annoyance in her life.

“Emmy.”

The cat’s eyebrows went up and Tock knew he was trying not to laugh.

“Do not call me Emmy,” Tock growled.

“We’re cousins. I can call you what I want.”

“Not if you want to keep your face—”

“Hi!” the cat loudly announced, making both badgers glare at him. Most badgers weren’t fans of loud, annoying noises. “I’m Shay Malone.”

Her cousin looked the cat over for a good ten seconds before turning back to Tock and asking, “What is that doing here?”

“I brought him.” She made it sound as if she’d done so willingly, but that was because she didn’t need to get into another fight with one of her cousins.

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“Why didn’t you bring your little friends instead?”

Tock’s left eye twitched a bit at her cousin’s tone. “Because my teammates were busy, and you know why I didn’t bring them.”

“Whatever.” She handed Tock a plain, gray folder with pockets. “Have this memorized by the time you leave the jet. At the appropriate time, a vehicle will be waiting for you outside the hanger. You know what to do.” She glanced at the cat again, sniffed, and returned to the back of the plane, shutting the door to the private cabin firmly behind her.

Letting out a long sigh, Tock opened the folder. That’s when she heard the cat say, “She seems fun.”

Smirking, she looked up, expecting to see the cat also smirking or outright laughing. But he wasn’t. And she realized he was serious.

“Maybe not friendly,” he added. “But . . . yeah . . . fun.”

“My cousin,” Tock slowly explained, “is third in command of the shifter division of a very dangerous organization. Trust me when I say, she’s not fun.”

“I bet she’s more fun than you.”

Pissed at the very idea he’d say such a thing out loud, Tock lifted her right hand and unleashed her claws. She was about to slash them across the cat’s stupid face when he suddenly pressed his giant cat paw against her much smaller badger one.

“Look at that!” he enthused. “The size difference. Fascinating, isn’t it? But look how long your claws are, considering the size and all. Do you ever paint them? I know a tigon that paints her claws the colors of her favorite football and hockey teams. Do you ever do that?”

It was in that moment Tock thought about putting a bullet in the cat’s head and ending this situation right here and now. She could easily dispose of the body and, after a shower with good soap and extra-strength shampoo for her hair, she was sure his brothers would never know that Tock had been with Shay Malone in the last few minutes of his life.

But no. She would not do that. Why? Because she wasn’t her grandmother. Either one of them. One was a descendent of Caribbean pirates who had quietly but firmly owned the seas, and the other was from a very long line of Polish Jews that were always on the side of any resistance. Both were from matriarchal families that had no patience for weakness. Tock, however, had promised herself she wouldn’t just remove people who got in her way or simply annoyed her. Life was too short to be that angry all the time.

So, after letting out a very long, slow breath, Tock refocused on the papers her cousin had handed her and began to read. Moments before she exited the jet, she would set these same papers on fire to get rid of evidence, and do her best not to do the same to the cat sitting across from her, who was busy focusing his attention on a new piece of thread he’d just found on his own seat.

*

“Nice building,” Shay noted, looking the office building over from his spot in the passenger seat of the black SUV. “It’s kind of weird, though, being out here in the middle of the night.”

Once they’d landed at the private airport, they’d waited on the plane for hours. It had been a long and boring wait because Tock wouldn’t talk to him. She’d spent her time going through those papers her cousin had given her as well as a small notebook she carried in one of her many pockets. Unable to get a conversation started, he just watched videos on his phone. He ended up having to use his ear buds, though, because she’d snapped at him when the Marvel heroes got a little too loud for her. Who didn’t want to listen to superheroes destroy entire cities in an attack that no full-human could ever hope to survive?

He heard Tock sigh at his comment about the building. “I thought you were the quiet one.”

“Quiet? I guess I can be. If I have nothing to say. But if I do—”

With a small growl, she got out of the vehicle. He followed, closing the door behind him.

“What are you doing?” she asked, when she reached his side of the SUV.

“Going with you.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Yeah, but—”

“In exactly five minutes, you will switch to the driver’s side of the vehicle and start it. You will be ready to drive away from here when I return. Do you understand?”

That seemed reasonable to him, so he replied, “Yeah. Sure.”