“Are they in town?”
Mads blew out a breath.
“Why? For a heist?”
Mads scratched her neck.
“Shit. For what? Jewelry or bank?”
She rubbed her eye with her fist.
“Oh, God. A bank heist?”
Yeah. They’d been playing ball together for a long time. Words didn’t mean as much to them when they were stressed.
Max gave a low whistle and in less than a minute, Nelle, Streep, and Tock were in the hallway with them.
It took even less time and a single look to get across the problem.
“I can’t believe your family is going to hit a bank,” Streep said, pacing.
“They want you involved, of course,” Nelle guessed. Not exactly shocking. As honey badgers they were all really good at stealing, whether it was a basketball from a really bitchy point guard or a terra-cotta soldier from an archeological dig in China . . . badgers were good thieves. Their only real competition being foxes, but the canines always preferred long or short cons to actual break-ins that might require weaponry and heavy equipment.
“I told her no,” Mads said, leaning against the door, her arms folded over her chest.
“Her” was the matriarch of Mads’s Clan. A very unfriendly female who felt Mads owed her because the matriarch hadn’t killed her when her father had first brought her home.
“But she’s continued to move forward on this plan.”
“That woman does love a heist,” Tock muttered.
Although it wasn’t just her. Most hyenas loved a good heist. Anything that required them to strong-arm innocent people: home invasions, car jackings, bank and jewelry heists, and celebrity tabloid reporting.
“Are you at the team hotel?” Nelle asked.
“Yeah.”
“You can’t stay there. They’ll come for you and drag you out of bed.”
“She’s right,” Max said. “You’ll stay at my house in Queens.”
“No!” all her teammates said together.
Max raised her hands, palms out. “Calm down. The bears won’t bother her.”
“It’s not the bears we’re worried about.”
Max rolled her eyes. “You guys are still scared of my sister?”
“Yes!” they all said together.
“Oh, come on!”
“You guys can stay at my apartment,” Nelle offered. “But only if you’re mean to my sister.”
Her teammates easily agreed to that, but before Max could argue her point about her own sister, the dining room door opened and Zé stepped out.
He looked at Nelle. “I hate your friends.”
She nodded. “So do I.”
He walked off and Max asked, “Are you going back to my house?”
“Can I tell anyone I’m still alive?” he asked, continuing to move away.
“Uh . . . I’m not actually sure.” Because that depended on Zé.
“Then I guess I’m going back to Queens.”
“Hold up. I’ll go with you.” She looked at her teammates. “I’ll text you guys tomorrow. Any problems,” she said, looking directly into Mads’s eyes, “you call me. Understand?”
Nelle put her arm around Mads’s shoulders, yanking her back when she attempted to pull away from the show of affection. “Don’t worry. We’ll be safe at my place.” She jutted her chin toward Zé and winked in a way that made Max want to tear her eyes out. “Have fun.”
“Ew.” Max shook her head at her teammate. “Don’t be that girl, Nelle. Just don’t.”
* * *
They got into the back of the car that Max had called up on her phone. The driver, thankfully, was not chatty so they sat in silence most of the way until Zé finally asked, “So exactly when can I tell my friends I’m not dead?”
“Never.” She looked at him and the passing streetlights reflected in her eyes, making them appear almost white, like something out of a horror movie. “Not unless you want them all to die.”
Zé felt a brief moment of panic but it went away so quickly he asked, “Are you fucking with me?”
“Yes.” She laughed. “Sorry, couldn’t help it.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” he sighed out.
“But it seems like you truly get it.”
“It?”
“What you are. What you will always be. What you have always been.”
“Ahhh.”
“Now that you understand everything, you can tell them whatever you want except the truth. Just remember that each time you do tell a full-human about what you are, you’re not just risking yourself, you’re risking all of us. Even the cubs you occasionally like to eat,” she added with a wink.
“She’s right,” the driver suddenly added, his gaze watching them in the rearview mirror. “Most of them will never understand.”
Zé pointed at the driver’s seat and mouthed, Him?
“No,” Max said aloud. “He’s full-human, but he reeks of dog.”
“My wife’s a jackal,” the driver happily offered.
Max gave him a thumbs-up but Zé asked, “Can you go back to being quiet now?”
“Cat?” the driver asked Max.
And Max’s response was just to throw her arms up in faux exasperation, her hand nearly hitting his nose.
He pushed her hand away. “Do you mind?”
“Are you mad about something?”
Zé thought a moment, finally admitted, “No. The food, as you promised, was amazing. The drink . . . delicious. Your teammates were not nearly as annoying as Nelle’s friends. And Nelle’s friends went out of their way to avoid me.”
“That’s because you don’t look like you have money.”
“Good. Anyway, all in all, it was a pretty great night.”
“Then why are you so cranky?”
“This isn’t cranky. At least not my cranky.”
“Dear God, what is your cranky?”
“Me,” he answered, “but more.”
“What’s terrifying is, I kind of get what you mean.”
They fell silent again and Zé wondered if he should apologize for making her think he was mad at her. He wasn’t. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he kind of enjoyed hanging around Max. Or maybe it was simply the way people sometimes feel toward doctors or nurses who save their lives. She had saved his life, literally, and had shown him his true self. So maybe he was simply giving her more leeway than he would normally give any cute girl who kind of irritated him, but was so cute he didn’t care.
Eh, he thought, dismissing the idea of apologizing. He wasn’t going to suck up to her. So, instead, he relaxed back into the seat and thought about the kind of phone he was going to get tomorrow so he could call his team leader and let her know he was not dead.
As he stared out the window, he felt Max’s head rest against his arm.
Assuming she’d fallen asleep, he glanced down at her. But she was wide awake.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Resting on your arm.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to.”