“I’m sorry,” Uri snapped back at his sister. “I’ve been busy saving the world. I don’t have time to run around reading newsletters like I’m part of a club run by our grandmother. No offense, Savta.”
“I understand,” her grandmother soothed, petting Uri’s big badger shoulders.
“Of course you understand him,” Shira snapped back. “He has a penis.”
“Disgusting child!”
“Sister!”
Shira waved their grandmother and her sibling away. “We all know you are nice to the boys, Savta. And yet you treat the girls like they are naturally stupid and thickheaded. Who knew a uterus was such a handicap?”
“Ewww,” another cousin announced from outside Tock’s eyeline. “She’s drooling.” She leaned in and practically yelled, “Do you think you can stop drooling? It’s really grossing me out.”
“I don’t think she can stop drooling,” Shira said. “She’s been poisoned. She might be dying.” Shira looked down at Tock and loudly asked, “Are you dying? Tell us if you’re dying.”
And snap.
Using every bit of will she had, Tock raised her arm and grabbed Shira by the throat, doing her best to strangle the life from her even as the rest of Tock’s body was unable to move.
She didn’t care. She might be dying, but she’d make sure she didn’t go alone into the next world. Nope! She was dragging her idiot cousin with her!
Shira slapped at her arm and her other cousins attempted to pull Tock’s hand off, but Tock used all the power she had left to end Shira.
Her grandmother rolled her eyes before motioning to someone just outside of Tock’s limited view.
Then, Shay was there. He was human and leaning over her so he could look her right in the eyes.
“Let her go, Tock. I have to get you to a hospital.”
“Will a hospital help?” Uri asked. “She looks pretty far—”
With one big hand, Shay sent Uri flying out of Tock’s sight, which she greatly appreciated. So she relaxed her hand and dropped her arm.
Without waiting, Shay picked her up and started walking.
“Where are you taking her?” Tock heard her grandmother ask the cat.
“Away,” he said to her family before adding, “from all of you.”
“Why would you need to do that?” her grandmother asked drily. “We’re delightful.”
Chapter 3
Once the elevator doors closed and they were heading down to the first floor, Shay looked into Tock’s eyes. She still couldn’t blink, so her eyes were wide open and looking right at him, but she didn’t appear terrified so much as pissed off. Whether that anger was directed at her family or at the ones who had done this to her, he couldn’t say. He didn’t know her well enough.
He knew honey badgers, though. Not only from his recent dealings with Tock and her teammates but from his own little sister. Keane might want to pretend that Natalie was “only half badger” but she really wasn’t. She was all badger. In every way. Which meant that from the time she’d been born, she showed no fear. Even when she lost her hearing completely, she didn’t seem to care or notice or cry about it. She just learned sign language and how to read lips and, when necessary, used her loss of one sense to get what she wanted from those she called “too stupid to be worth treating with respect.”
Shay actually found it funny when his sister manipulated people by suddenly being unable to read lips or speak or acting lost and terrified. True, he’d made her give the million dollars’ worth of diamonds back to the dealer after fooling him into thinking she was having a breakdown in the middle of his store; when he went to call 911, she’d swiped the diamonds from the counter while another customer attempted to help her. She’d almost swallowed them before Shay gripped her hand and made her drop the damn things. She didn’t even want that stuff. She never wanted diamonds or pearls or any jewelry to wear. It had just been something she could do and, in the moment, he’d laughed. But he refused to let his sister become an outright thief. The Malones had enough felons in their family.
Despite all his knowledge of badgers, he still felt as if his heart had been ripped out of his chest when he stared down at Tock’s face and saw tears leaking from her eyes. Logic told him that the tears were simply protecting her from dry eye because she couldn’t blink; but with her in his arms, unable to move, she seemed so vulnerable. Honey badgers never seemed vulnerable. Despite their tiny size and big mouths. He wanted to wipe her tears and kiss her forehead, but he knew better. Tock was not a woman who would appreciate being tended to like a wounded fawn.
So, instead, he simply said, “Don’t worry. We’re going to get you better.” That’s what he said out loud. Inside, he thought, I will never let anything happen to you until you can rip throats from necks again.
The elevator dinged when they hit the first floor, and the doors slid open. That’s when he looked away from Tock and into the face of an armed man he did not know.
Shay roared but when the man didn’t back away or start shooting, he quickly realized he was dealing with another badger cousin.
“Found them!” he yelled to someone. Of course, “found them” seemed inaccurate because he had done nothing but stand in front of an elevator while it came down. It should have been, “Here they are.”
Shay didn’t have time to point that out, though, as the badger gripped his shoulder and pulled him out of the elevator with Tock still held tight in his arms.
“With me, with me,” the badger ordered, pushing Shay toward the front doors. “We have transport outside.”
And they did. An actual helicopter, waiting on the lawn in front of the building. A nice one, too.
The helicopter door was opened from the inside and the female who had been on the private jet with them motioned him forward.
“Come on!” she yelled over the engine noise.
Scrunching down as far as he could so the top of his head wasn’t taken off by the rotating blades, Shay got into the copter. He had settled into a seat with Tock in his arms but she was quickly removed by someone else, and the clothes he’d left behind on the ground were shoved into his now-empty arms.
“Put something on,” the female complained. “No one wants to see your big tiger dick.”
Lovely.
While Shay struggled into his clothes without being able to stand up, he looked over his shoulder to see IVs being put into Tock’s arms and blood being drawn. They’d also closed her eyes.
“Stop worrying,” the female ordered him. “We’re pretty sure she’ll be fine.”
“Pretty sure?” he barked back.
“What? You want absolutes in this life?” She sniffed. “There are none. Better get used to it, kitty cat.”
Yeah. He was positive now. As the helicopter took off while another landed to retrieve the rest of the badgers they’d left behind, Shay felt positive he hated these people.
*
Once her cousins closed her eyes, Tock couldn’t see anything. But it was a relief not to have them stuck open. That had been particularly unpleasant. Of course, now she could only guess what was happening around and to her from the prodding hands and annoyed voices.