“What’s going on?” Nelle asked.
“That bitch was here. From earlier today.”
“Which bitch?” Tock asked. “There were a lot of bitches in that room. Bitches and bastards. Unless you’re specifically talking about the canines. Then the room was also filled with sows and boars and—”
“Please stop,” Max begged her teammate. “The older black chick. Who didn’t do anything except watch us.”
“Ohhhhh,” they all said.
“Wait,” Nelle said. “She was here? Why was she here?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. More importantly, who does she work for?” When her teammates all shrugged, Max said, “Nelle—”
“I’ll find out.”
“Good. Find out and then I’ll know if I need to kill her. I won’t let her push my sister into something she doesn’t want to do just to protect us.”
“I’m on it.”
“Did you see your mother?” Mads asked.
Max nodded. “Yeah.”
“How did it go?”
“Amazing.”
“And?”
“She’s already talking about us working together.”
Mads frowned. “Seriously? ‘Hey, honey. Boy, have I missed you these past two decades. Let’s go rob some people’?”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that,” Nelle argued, shoving Mads aside with a very nice hip bump. “She was just probably really excited to see you and wasn’t thinking.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Max agreed. “Anyway, I’ll see her again later. I’m not going to worry about it right now.”
“So,” Streep interjected, “we’re not going to talk about the fact that on our off-time we’re all thieves? Except for Mads, I mean.”
“I steal magazines from doctors’ offices all the time,” Mads admitted.
“Why are you in doctors’ offices?” Tock asked.
“To steal magazines.”
“Okay.” Max went over to the metal shelf where she kept still-boxed basketballs and took one out. “Let’s go practice a little before we eat.”
“Why?”
“So when Coach is busting our proverbial balls about not being at practice today, we can tell her—without lying—that we still practiced.”
“Niiiiice,” her teammates quietly cheered before heading outside.
Max started to follow but Kyle’s voice stopped her. “You MacKilligan sisters do live fascinating lives.”
Walking to the table where he was working, Max wrapped her arm around him and rested her chin on his shoulder.
“I thought those were noise-canceling headphones.”
“They are. But I’m a jackal.” He rested his smudge-covered hands on her arm. “I can hear someone washing dishes, like, six blocks away. These just cut down on the noise. Nothing truly cancels it out for me.”
“I’m sorry. Did we scare you?”
“Not at all. I like you guys. I especially like Nelle.”
“Everybody likes Nelle. But you are too young for her and too poor.”
“But I will be rich and will need a beautiful woman on my arm to impress people I do not care about.”
Max laughed and kissed the kid’s cheek. “You are too cute.”
“Forget it, MacKilligan,” he teased. “You’re much too short for me.”
* * *
It was the dark chocolate cupcake that made it clear to Zé why the bears had come into the MacKilligans’ yard and then patiently waited. He’d never tasted anything so amazing before and he was a connoisseur of dark chocolate. Whether it was truffles or cake or ice cream. A very picky connoisseur, in fact, but Charlie had made a believer out of him.
She even used a proper dark chocolate ganache on those cupcakes.
When he went to grab four more and some polar bear attempted to get between him and what he wanted, Zé bared his fangs and hissed. When the polar paused to wipe the spit from his eyes, Zé grabbed his treats and walked away. He sat down in a lounge chair and watched Max and her teammates playing ball against a few of the locals. To say they were wiping the floor with those guys would be an understatement.
“Hey!”
Zé let out a very long, very loud sigh.
“Damn,” Dutch complained. “I haven’t even said anything. Yet.”
“Just your presence annoys me.”
“People love me.”
“I doubt that.”
“And after I did you a favor.”
“Really?” Zé asked, licking chocolate ganache off his fingers. “And what favor was that?”
“I took care of everything with your company so that they and your girlfriend know you’re alive but don’t know you’re a shifter.”
“Shit,” Zé snarled at himself, lowering the half-eaten cupcake. “I forgot to call Kamatsu again. And she is not my girlfriend. She’s my team leader.” He looked at his watch, winced at the time. “I’ll call her in the morning.”
“Why are you going to call her?”
“Because she’s my friend. Do you have friends? Do you know what that’s like?”
“I have friends. And you can’t call her. What are you going to tell her?’
“What do you mean?”
Dutch moved his chair closer. “What are you going to tell her about where you’ve been? What you’ve been doing? How you healed so fast? Your blood was all over the place.”
“I’m sure I can come up with something.”
“Come up with something—or admit the truth? Because you look like someone who thinks he can get away with telling the truth. Except you can’t. Not now. Truth is off the table.”
“But isn’t it easier to—”
“What? Explain to her how you can shift into a big cat? That Max is a honey badger? Max’s best friend is a wolverine? That Max plays on a pro basketball team filled with shifters? Do you really think you can tell her all that and not have her think you’ve gone insane or, even worse, believe you, and tell the world?”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“I know you believe that, because she’s your friend. But what if you’re wrong? Then what do you tell these people”—he looked out over the bears filling the MacKilligans’ yard—“when your friend’s government comes for them and their kids?”
Zé wanted to tell the man he was wrong. That he didn’t know Kamatsu. That his battle buddy would never betray him. But Zé also knew the risk was too great.
“So you’re saying I have to give up my entire life?”
“No,” Dutch said with a dismissive wave. “Don’t be stupid.”
“But you said—”
“Just don’t tell her the truth. Have your story ready before you see the woman. Then lie your ass off.”
“And my old job? Can I go back to that?”
“If you want, but now that you know what you can do, why would you want to?”
“What does that mean?”