“Why not?”
“It’s tacky,” the badgers all said as if that answer was somehow obvious.
Shay shook his head and said, “Look, I appreciate all this, and I know it’s important to find out who is doing this, but right this moment, we need to help Tock.”
“Who?” the lion asked.
“Your patient,” Shay spit out between gritted teeth.
“Oh. Yeah.” He nodded. “No. We’ve got nothin’。”
“What does that mean?”
“We have no idea how to treat this poison.”
“You can’t leave her like this.”
She was just lying there. Eyes closed. It was breaking his heart.
“We’ve had subjects that have regained full movement in three days.”
“The latest victims are taking six days,” Stevie explained to the lion from behind Charlie. She’d probably moved there because the lion had talked about biting off heads. She was easily frightened. Despite being half tiger and half honey badger, she had none of the savage bravery that both her species possessed. It was as if in combining, the two had cancelled each other out.
“Every time they use this poison,” Stevie continued, “it’s been stronger and stronger.”
“And you still don’t know what it is?” one of Tock’s cousins demanded.
Before Stevie could reply, Charlie gave a low snarl and warned, “Watch how you talk to my sister.”
The badger took a step forward, clearly not enjoying that warning from a hybrid. Especially since honey badgers didn’t usually get hybrids, no matter who or what they bred with. But the MacKilligan sisters, including his own baby sis, were different. So very different. Not only from the breeds of their parents but from one another.
Another cousin stopped her angry relative and said something in a language Shay didn’t understand. With a nod, the badger took a step back, but Charlie was still tense and ready for a fight. Then again, from what Shay had seen in the short time he’d known her, she was always tense and ready for a fight.
“There is something I can try—” Stevie began.
“Then do it,” Shay said.
She glanced off, appearing uncomfortable. “I don’t know if it’ll work. It’s really just a guess, and I haven’t had time to try it out on any random test subjects to make sure I’m right. So if it goes wrong, it’ll go very wrong and—”
“Just try it!” they all barked except Charlie. She just gave a louder warning growl, and Shay lifted his hands, palms out, and added, “Please, Stevie?”
She blew out a breath, nodded. “Okay.”
Stevie pulled a backpack like the one he used to have in high school off her shoulders and dug inside. She took out a slim, long, silver case and used a code on the keypad to unlock it. When she produced a very large syringe with a very large and scary-looking needle, Shay began to doubt his insistence on subjecting Tock to this treatment. He’d only said “try it” because he knew Tock could handle most things. Like all honey badgers. More important, he knew how brilliant and ethical Stevie was. She wouldn’t try something that she knew wouldn’t work. Especially on a friend of her own sister’s.
But that ridiculous needle . . . And what was that stuff in the syringe?
Stevie went over to the tray beside the lion. While staying as far away from the big cat as she could and watching him with panicked eyes, she pulled on nitrile gloves, took an alcohol wipe from its packaging, and moved over to Tock.
She pushed the blanket off Tock’s leg and moved the gown away from her thigh. Then, after sterilizing the area with the wipe, she took a very deep, long breath, briefly closed her eyes, and after muttering something he couldn’t understand, pushed the needle into Tock. She pushed hard because she had to get through that thick badger skin. The same thing happened any time his mother had taken their baby sister to the doctor for vaccines.
Shay was sure he’d heard a whimper come from Tock, and he brushed his fingers against her cheeks, hoping to soothe her. To let her know she wasn’t alone with these insane people.
Stevie pushed the plunger down on the syringe, waited a few seconds, then pulled the needle out.
“Okay. That should do it.”
“What did you give her?” one of the cousins asked. A question they should have asked a few seconds before, Shay abruptly realized.
“A mixture of forty-seven poisons from some of the deadliest snakes, scorpions, and spiders known to man.”
There was a stunned silence for a long moment before the room exploded with the rage of all those honey badgers.
“You did what?”
“Neither I nor the medical center will be responsible for any of this!”
“Oh, my God!”
“You’ll pay for this, MacKilligan!”
“We’ll need to get the family together as soon as possible for the funeral.”
“No problem. I know a good rabbi.”
“Tock, you’ve always had the worst friends. The worst!”
“I am not telling Savta we allowed this on our watch.”
The explosion of panic ended, though, when they all realized that Stevie had launched herself onto the ceiling and was walking on it until she reached a vent to crawl into. A few seconds later, she reappeared on the other side of the room’s glass window, staring inside.
Charlie moved in front of the glass doors and folded her arms over her chest. The expression she wore was a direct challenge to anyone in the room who wanted to get past her to Stevie.
Not liking the tension in the room, Shay readied himself to grab Tock and evacuate her any way he could.
Then the explosion. Not from any of them. Or some device attached to the building. But from Tock.
Suddenly, screaming the entire time, Tock sat up. Every muscle in her body was distended, straining against the flesh. Veins popping. He could only see the whites of her eyes, and her fangs and claws were out. She thrashed on the bed for a few seconds, then flipped off and landed on the floor.
That’s when everything stopped.
Stevie pushed her way back into the room, muttering under her breath, “Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me,” to everyone else as she made her way to Tock’s side.
Shay already had his arms under Tock when Stevie crouched next to him. “Get her on the bed,” she ordered, and he did as she said.
She pressed her fingers against Tock’s neck, placed her ear against Tock’s chest, then announced, “Her heart’s stopped. Perfect.”
“You killed our cousin,” someone said. “Our grandmother is gonna be pissed.”
“Perfect?” Shay repeated. “How is this perfect?”
“Wait . . .” Stevie said. And they did. But there was nothing. No sound. No movement. Not even a dying gasp. Nothing.
Horrified, Shay leaned over Tock’s inert form on the bed. But with surprising strength, Stevie yanked him back. He didn’t know why until he looked at the bed and didn’t see Tock but just a slash of fresh blood across the white sheets. He only had a moment to wonder where she was and why she was bleeding, when Stevie pressed her hand against his neck and told someone, “Dammit. I think she nicked his artery.”