Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)(2)

Kerry dropped his spoon into the gallon ice cream container and took her hand. “Baby, you can’t deny what our daughter is.”

“I’m not denying what all of us are. I’m simply working to ensure that—”

“She ignores her instincts?”

“No. That she finds a . . . better path.”

He blew out a breath and told his wife, “Baby, our daughter— Emily ‘Tock’ Lepstein-Jackson—is, and always will be . . . a honey badger.”

“Being a honey badger doesn’t mean she has to be—”

“Rude? Mean? Dangerously unstable? Of course, it does. Because it’s in our blood like your Uncle Ishmael’s giant forehead and my grandmother being able to run marathons back in the day even though one leg is shorter than the other. Our baby is what she is. And what she is, is a snarling, snapping, seventeen-year-old thief who has a very good eye for jewelry, fine art, and kitchen cabinets where she and her badger friends can spend the night. You can’t change that.”

“I changed. I’m pleasant—”

“But it’s a struggle.”

“—I don’t steal—”

“But we all know you want to. Especially when something’s shiny.”

“—and I go out of my way to do the right thing.”

“So does your daughter. That’s why she almost got expelled three weeks ago for attacking that football player who got handsy with some tenth grader she doesn’t know.”

Ayda shook her head. “I had to do some fast talking with the principal on that one.”

“Fast talking or lots of threatening?”

“Combination. But she was right!” Ayda suddenly announced. “What he did was not okay and I fully support her protecting the sisterhood.” She looked out the sliding glass doors and gave a little sigh. “But . . . still . . .”

“Stop,” he ordered. “She’s fine. She’ll always be fine. So she probably robbed some mall jewelry store and took all their tacky wedding rings and those low-quality tennis bracelets worthless husbands buy their wives when they clearly have nothing but contempt for them.”

“That seems a little harsh.”

“I would never waste my talents on getting that sort of thing for you. You get only the best of what I can get off the black market or steal from the quality jewelers. Just like my daddy does for my mom.”

She tried to hide her smile but he still saw it. And loved it.

“Our baby,” he went on, “is only testing her skills. She and her little friends plotting a heist from a mall store is just healthy teens scratching an instinctual itch.”

She scrunched up her nose in that way he absolutely adored. “You can’t really believe that.”

“Of course, I do. That’s how I got started. At one of those chain jewelry stores where most people buy their wedding rings for second and third marriages. Besides, how cute were they? All trying to pretend that the bags were filled with nothing more than stuff they bought at the game. Let them have their moment. It will build their confidence.”

After staring at him, her mouth hanging open, Ayda asked, “You really think this is helpful?”

“This is helpful. And I am helping. I’m helping you. Because the one thing you don’t want to do is get on the wrong side of our daughter, which is what you’re about to do. Tock can be mean. My Aunt Lucille won’t even speak to her anymore. Said she is Satan’s minion.”

Ayda pulled her hand from his and began to rub her forehead. “Our daughter is too young to be pulling heists with her friends. She doesn’t know how dangerous they can turn. I could easily still be doing time in South Africa because of that heist that went bad.”

“First off, it wasn’t a heist, sweetie. You took over a diamond mine and started a military rebellion. Didn’t they make you their queen?”

“No!” she lashed back. “They made me the ‘goddess of our enemies’ blood,’ which was an honor, I’ll have you know.”

“And your mother was the one who got you out of the country and the reason we can’t visit some of my cousins.” He shook his head. “South Africa does not want you back, baby.”

“I am aware. And I don’t want any of that for our daughter.”

He frowned. “She wants to go to South Africa?”

Ayda slammed her fists on the table. “Goddamnit, Kerry!”

A loud thud outside the glass doors startled them out of the fight they were about to indulge in, and they looked over to see a man lying facedown on their lawn.

“Who the fuck is that?” Ayda wanted to know.

“I have no—”

Another body hit the ground, followed by two more. A few seconds later, Tock and her four honey badger teammates silently landed beside the men, each dropping from the second-story landing.

“What in the world . . . ?” Ayda softly gasped.

For varying reasons, none of the girls had returned to their homes after the team bus arrived at the school to drop them off. While the full-human teammates had gone off with the team captain for a huge celebration party at her parents’ house, Tock and her friends had come back to the house for steaks and shrimp and fresh, still-scrambling scorpions; locally sourced, of course.