Page 37 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

The kid had been struggling with his art or whatever, and Charlie knew how frustrating that could be, because she’d seen it with Stevie.

Which was another reason she didn’t mind him staying at the house.

She knew how bad that kind of doubt and strain could be on a young mind.

Even one as arrogant as Kyle’s. He was still a kid, but prodigies took their work so seriously that to dismiss his stress was just a recipe for trouble.

“As long as you’re remaining positive, kid,” she teased.

“Was that CeCe álvarez that just walked through here?” he asked.

“Yes. Want to meet her?” Apparently the She-badger was some well-known artist, and her work sold for six to seven figures apiece.

“Meet her? Why?”

“She’s a fellow artist, right? Maybe she has some ideas for getting you through your current slump? Oh. Or are you a fan? Are you shy about meeting her?”

“I’m not a fan.”

“I see.”

Chewing another bite of his muffin, he glanced up at the ceiling, then said, “I’ve always found her work a little derivative.

Honestly, Basquiat did it better, and her particular brand of politics is so obvious.

I find it irritating. Honestly, if I wanted to see some random artist’s political stance, I’d check out Picasso again.

Some people think he actually had something to say. ”

“Okay,” Charlie said, keeping her tone light. “Don’t ever say any of that in front of álvarez, you know . . . ever. In your lifetime.”

“But—”

“No, no. It’s rude. We both know it’s rude and, unlike your big sister, I am not going to have hours-long discussions with you, debating if saying something like that to a fellow artist is actually rude or not.

Instead, I will happily beat you. Without shame or guilt.

Just like I do with Max when she gets mouthy. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Charlie moved away from the kid and to her kitchen.

But she stopped in the doorway and stared.

At the kitchen table sat her half-sister, Nat; Shay’s young daughter, Dani; Stevie’s panda, Shen; and Max’s best buddy, Dutch, a wolverine that Max, Stevie, and Charlie had known since high school.

They were all eating breakfast and chatting; Nat was speaking sign language to Dani, who easily responded back in ASL.

Besides the fact that Charlie loved how the ten-year-old had already been taught another language with the help of her uncles so she could always be close to her aunt, Charlie also realized something possibly much more important . . .

She did collect strays.

Dear God! It was just like Berg had said.

Her house was literally filled with strays that she’d blindly welcomed into her home.

Was she an animal hoarder? Would the neighbors soon complain about the smell until the house was condemned by the city?

And she was forced to live under a bridge like the strays she’d attempted to save?

Moments from going into a full-blown panic about her future under a bridge—where was her valium?

Her doctor had given her valium just for these moments—Stevie walked into the kitchen from her basement lair, where she’d been attempting to produce a counter-agent to the poison the de Medicis had been using in an attempt to kill as many honey badgers as possible.

Throwing her arms wide, Stevie announced, “I’m a failure, and we’re all going to die! And it will be all my fault!”

Instead of staying quiet, Dutch joked, “I see those new drugs your doc has you on are working great, Stevie-weevie!”

Dutch laughed at his own joke until he caught sight of Charlie in the doorway. He pushed away from the table and announced, “If you’ll excuse me. I’m going to now go outside and run into a tree.”

“I better hear the thump,” Charlie warned before the back screen door closed behind him.

Pausing from eating from his bowl of raw bamboo with milk, Shen asked, “He’s running into a tree?”

“When I still lived with the Pack,” Charlie explained, grabbing Dutch’s bowl and putting it into the sink, “I used to throw him into trees any time he pissed me off. He has a surprisingly hard head, so it never really affected him, but it usually did the job of curbing his tongue. Now what’s going on, Stevie? ”

“Well—” Stevie began, but Charlie raised a finger, stopping her words. She listened carefully until she heard a loud thump from the yard. With a nod of approval, Charlie said, “Sorry, sweetie.” She motioned to the others in the room. “Could you guys give me and Stevie a moment?”

Shen grabbed his bowl of bamboo and stood. He leaned down, kissing Stevie on the forehead before whispering against her skin, “I love you.” Without another word, he walked out.

Dani started to follow, saw that Nat wasn’t because she was too busy on her phone, and went back to grab her aunt’s arm and pull her toward the back door.

“I can’t even hear them!” Nat complained, but she could read lips better than she let on. So the kid was being wise beyond her years.

“Okay,” Charlie said, when they were alone. “What’s going on?”

“What if I can never figure it out?” Stevie asked Charlie. Although she could hear the panic in her sister’s voice, she could also sense the panic. It came off the badger-tiger hybrid in giant waves. Like a tsunami. “What if all the honey badgers die, and it’s all my fault? What then?”

Giving herself a few seconds to think, Charlie walked over to the counter and slapped at the grizzly paw reaching through the narrow window to grab whatever Charlie had cooling on it.

“Wait until I bring treats out, please,” she reminded the interloper.

She then walked over to the window that looked out over the side yard.

Relieved to see Dani and the weirdly sensitive Rutowski chatting—with actual smiles—while the kid petted the five Malinois at Rutowski’s feet, Charlie felt she could now relax.

Rutowski’s friends and Nat were silently using the lounge chairs around the pool, so she didn’t have to worry about that dynamic either. Good.

She glanced at Stevie. “Want a cinnamon muffin?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“It has a strudel topping,” she said in a singsong voice.

Stevie glanced off. “Still warm?”

“Of course.”

Her sister angrily stomped over to the kitchen table and sat down, arms folded over her chest. “Fine, then.”

Charlie put a plate of four regular-sized muffins in front of Stevie and then gave her a steaming hot mug of coffee. While allowing her sister a few seconds to enjoy the first muffin, Charlie poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down on the other side of the table.

“Okay. Talk to me.” Charlie ordered, after taking a sip of the French brew.

“I can’t figure out this poison that they’ve been using against honey badgers. I’ve looked at everything, and I’ve just run out of ideas. How can I create an antivenom if I don’t know how they made the venom in the first place?”

“You’re getting frustrated.”

“ Very . I thought about burning the house down to hide my failure, but I knew you wouldn’t like that.”

“I really wouldn’t.”

“But I feel like such a loser.”

“What did I tell you about using that word to describe yourself and not just our father?”

She sighed. “That you’d make me kiss Max on the cheek and tell her how much I love and respect her.”

“Is that what you want?”

“You know I don’t.”

“Then stop it. You haven’t failed. You probably just need more information.”

“Where can I get that? It’s not like I can find a de Medici and ask them where they got this shit from.”

When Charlie saw her sister’s gaze move to a spot behind her, she quickly told her, “Stevie MacKilligan, you are not going to track down the de Medicis and ask them anything.”

“What? No. I would never—”

“Don’t lie to me, Stevie-anna.”

“That is not my name.”