And, again, Charlie and Max looked at their sister in surprise. Usually she wanted to help everyone. She felt for everyone. Maybe now, though, with the help of her new medications, she understood that not everyone deserved her help.
“Because part of that is our money,” Bernice reminded them. “And Will is so pissed, he’ll just kill your father without waiting to find out where it is. It could be anywhere in the world, and the family wants it back.”
“Except the family doesn’t consider us part of it,” Max reminded her.
“Well, if ya wanna be, get our money back.”
“Yeahhhhh, we don’t.”
Bernice’s eyes narrowed and she took a step toward Max, but Charlie quickly stepped between them.
“Let’s play nice, ladies,” Charlie said, before telling their aunt, “Although my sister has a point. Why should we get involved? This is Dad’s fuckup and your fuckup for letting him get away with it in the first place. I don’t think that falls on us.”
“You ungrateful little—”
“We’re being ungrateful?” Stevie suddenly yelped, moving around a stunned Charlie so she was right in their aunt’s face. “All of you went out of your way to make sure we felt as excluded as possible; you let Charlie’s poor grandfather take the full financial responsibility of raising three girls even though only one was his actual blood relation, when any of you could have taken us in or just sent us a little money to get by. And you have the nerve to stand there and call us ungrateful?”
“What’s happening? ” Max asked Charlie. Like her older sister, she was stunned and impressed by Stevie’s outrage and ability to explain it without breaking down into sobs or shifting into a two-ton animal that could destroy the neighborhood.
Bernice pointed an angry, damning finger at Stevie, and Max waited for the vitriol that would follow. But, after a few seconds, she lowered her hand and softly admitted, “You’re right. We were cunts.”
“Seriously, Charlie,” Max said, turning to her sister, “what’s happening? ”
* * *
There were three of them. Big. Tall. With black hair and gold eyes.
The one in front, the biggest of the three, barged in, those gold eyes sweeping the room.
“Where is she?” he growled out.
Since Zé didn’t know what or whom he was talking about, he didn’t respond.
The man stormed closer. “I said”—now he stood over Zé—“where is she?”
The roar of words blew Zé’s hair off his face and he went from a human wondering what was going on to a cat that sensed danger.
He backed up, moving into the living room, his fangs easing out of his gums, claws bursting from his fingers. He shifted, shook off his clothes, and let out his own roar.
The raging man took a moment to look at the two men with him. Then he shifted and turned into what kind of looked like a tiger, but not one Zé had ever seen before. Because despite a few orange stripes he could barely make out, most of the tiger’s fur was black. As black as Zé’s.
Then, still towering over Zé, the tiger roared. It wasn’t like a lion’s, but it made Zé’s sound like a squeak. Yeah, it was loud and powerful and shook the windows of the house.
At that point, Zé was pretty sure he was dead, but that had never stopped him before. He charged the much bigger cat, but ended up flying across the room and out the window with one paw-slap to the head.
* * *
Max ran into the room just in time to see poor Zé slapped out of a closed window, the glass exploding across the yard.
Pissed, Max hissed and launched herself at the tiger, shifting in midair.
“Badger!” one of the other tigers warned. “Badger! Badger! Badger!”
She landed on the shifted cat’s back and dug her fangs into his fur-covered neck, hoping to reach an artery.
The tiger shook himself, sending Max flying. She hit the wall, dropped to the floor, and scrambled back to her feet. She hissed again and charged. The cat tried to slap at her again, but she ducked under his legs, ran under his chest, and latched onto his balls. As she sank her fangs into the skin, he went up on his hind legs and roared, trying to slap her off with his front paws.
“Jesus Christ!” one of the other tigers yelled. “Get her off! Get her off!”
Human hands grabbed her around the waist, but a separate fist began punching her.
“Let him go!” one of the other men yelled at Max.
A flash of black dashed past Max and Zé returned, tackling the one punching her. That man shifted to tiger and their roars and growling rumbled across the floor as they knocked over furniture and got dangerously close to the TV Max loved. Small price to pay, though, for this much fun.
“Fuck!” the last human male exploded. “More badgers!”
Her teammates leaped onto the Siberian tiger and did their best to work their way either up to or down to major arteries. Behind them, Zé and the other tiger rolled by. Considering how much smaller he was than the other cat, Zé was doing pretty well for himself.
They all heard it then, and everyone froze. Because they all knew the sound of a Mossberg 500 tactical pump-action shotgun. Okay, maybe no one but Max actually knew that’s what it was, but still . . .
Charlie stood under the archway, her grip on the weapon steady and in control.
Christ, Max adored her big sister.
“Now,” Charlie began, their aunt Bernice standing behind her, “we can all relax and retract fangs and claws from important body parts, put our clothes back on, and have a calm, rational conversation. Or,” she added with a big grin, “I can start murdering everyone that’s not related to me by blood!”
That’s when Max’s teammates made a run for it, disappearing up the stairs. Disgusted, Max released her grip on the tiger’s balls, dropped to the ground, shifted, and yelled after them, “Are you fucking kidding me? She didn’t mean you!”
Charlie shrugged. “I kind of meant them. Wouldn’t do to have witnesses.”
* * *
Zé had claw marks on his sides and back, and fang bites on his neck. There was blood pouring from his wounds and his head hurt, but despite all that . . . he’d never felt so fucking amazing before in his life.
He pulled on jeans, and a now dressed Max came over to clean up his wounds.
“Don’t sweat it,” she said to him. “The bleeding will stop in a few minutes, these will be completely healed in less than twenty-four hours, and you’ll probably only have one or two scars where that tiger went a little too deep.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Max kept her face down, focused on his wounds.
“Keep looking at me like that,” Max warned, “and I’m going to fuck you right here.”
“Promise?”
“Hey!” that growly voice barked at them. “I want my sister! Where the fuck is she?”
Max handed Zé the alcohol wipes and started to walk across the room to the tigers, but Charlie said, “No, Max.”
Max stopped immediately. When they’d started training with their neighbor, Charlie had made Max agree to one thing: “When I tell you to stop, you stop.” Even then, at fourteen, she’d had that calm delivery. Not soft-spoken so much as rational. Very rational.