chapter TEN
Right after the sun came up, Charlie and her sisters piled into the “clean” car Dutch had found and headed toward the Bronx with Dutch driving.
This whole thing was not exactly what Charlie would call a “good idea,” but it was really all they had. Because if her aunt was right, this would be their only chance to let their Scottish kin know that they should never involve Freddy MacKilligan’s daughters in Freddy MacKilligan’s bullshit.
If he’d really stolen money from his brothers—and Charlie was sure he had—then they should deal with Freddy directly. Not try to use his daughters to get revenge. Freddy’s American half-siblings already knew that, but not the Scottish ones it seemed.
Although there was still a small, sadly hopeful part of Charlie that wanted her assumptions to be wrong. That hoped this would just be a normal meeting between relatives and not a grand plot for something else.
They reached the abandoned building in the Bronx, and while her sisters got out of the backseat, Charlie crouched in the open passenger doorway. “Drive down the street like you’re leaving us here and then loop back after a couple of miles. Okay? Meet us on the other side of the building.”
Dutch nodded. “Got it.” She started to stand but he leaned in a bit and said, “Whatever you guys are doing . . . be careful. And be lucky.”
Pushing her glasses back up on her nose, Charlie couldn’t help but snort. “Luck is not something we MacKilligan girls ever really have. But thanks, Dutch.”
She stood and closed the door, walking toward the boarded-up building.
Looking down both sides of the street and across it, Charlie nodded at Max, and her sister yanked off a few of the boards so they could get into the building in a different way than her sister had the day before. No one else would know they’d already been in the building to prepare for what was happening right now. Max went in first and Charlie helped Stevie through.
Once they were all inside, Charlie took the lead, heading up to the tenth floor of the building on the shaky stairs since the elevators no longer worked.
This had once been a school of some kind and there were still desks and chairs in the classrooms. It reminded Charlie a little bit of her high school days, when she used to spend most of her time protecting her sisters. Max had been a year behind and Stevie was about to start taking college prep classes because she’d quickly advanced out of middle school.
They reached the tenth floor and entered a very large room that was once a science lab. The large, long tables and cabinets were still in place but the equipment had been stolen or damaged by squatters over the years.
One of their cousins stood at the opposite end of the room in a tailored dark suit. His black-and-white hair freshly cut. His black leather shoes expensive. He looked a lot like their dad and, despite herself, Charlie held that against the men of the MacKilligan Clan. She couldn’t help it.
“Cousin Charlie,” Dougie MacKilligan greeted with that lilting accent. He was part of the Scottish side of the family. And, like their American kin, they barely acknowledged that Charlie and her sisters were related by blood unless they needed something from them.
Charlie used to think that their family acted this way because of racial prejudice. But no. It was because they were Freddy’s offspring. It was Freddy they wanted to pretend didn’t exist. Freddy they wished wasn’t blood. And, by extension, his three daughters.
“Long time, Dougie,” she replied.
He motioned them into the room. “Come. Come. Let’s talk.”
The three of them entered the lab, and as soon as they reached the middle of the room, they were surrounded. Not by more MacKilligans, unfortunately, but by military types. Like the ones who’d already come after them.
“This seems a little harsh,” Charlie said to her cousin. “Letting them kill us.”
“Now, now,” Dougie quickly corrected. “That’s not what’s happening here. We’ve worked out a lovely deal for you three.”
Max snorted. “Really?”
“Yes, cousin. Really.” He held up a finger. “One thing, though.”
Two men quickly checked Charlie and Max for weapons, and Charlie was really impressed. Max didn’t kill even one of them.
The guy checking Charlie stepped away from her after a few seconds, but the one checking Max was still finding weapons.
Dougie rolled his eyes. “You haven’t changed, Maxine.”
“It’s Max. Just Max.”
Once a small pile of knives of varying sizes sat on a lab table, Dougie continued explaining the “lovely deal” his father and uncles had come up with for Freddy MacKilligan’s girls.
“Now, we know you lot have no say in the shite your father does. And we also know that threatening any of you with death . . . well, to be honest . . .”
“He’s not going to care,” Charlie reminded him.
Dougie smiled. “Exactly. But, dear cousin Charlie, we know how persuasive you can be with your father. So this is the deal. These gentlemen will take your baby sister”—one of the men grabbed Stevie’s arm and pulled her close; all the men in the room ignoring how Stevie’s eyes widened and her body went completely rigid—“but, and this is an important ‘but,’ they’re not going to kill you and they will never hurt her. In fact, you’ll even be able to get her back.” His eyes locked on Charlie’s. “Once me Da gets his money and she helps out our associate.”
He spread his arms, palms up, smile wide. “That seems fair, don’t you think?”
“You really think you can trust these men?” Charlie asked, a little disgusted by her cousin.
“They want one thing. They want Stevie.”
“Me?” Stevie demanded, her panicked voice hitting new notes that had the wolf in Charlie nearly howling. “What did I do? Why do you want to kill me?” she screamed hysterically.
Dougie’s eyes crossed and he raised his hand toward Stevie. “No one wants to kill you! You are safe. You cooperate and your sisters cooperate, everyone will be fine.”
“Do you really believe that?” Charlie asked her cousin.
“Not everyone’s like your father. I made the deal, it’s solid. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
“But . . . we’re MacKilligans. All we do is stupid things. And I can’t let them take my sister.”
The door leading to the lab suddenly closed and one of the men stood in front of it.
Charlie smirked. “Do you really want to play it this way, gentlemen?”
“Charlie,” her cousin said, his voice calm. “Don’t do this.” He stepped closer and whispered, “These men may be full-human but even a honey badger can’t handle a shot to the head. And once they get over the shock of your shifting . . . that’s exactly what they’ll do. Shoot you in the head—and they’ll still take your sister.”
“I don’t shift,” Charlie whispered to her cousin before moving away and saying loudly, “But I will say that my sweet baby sister has been off her meds for almost . . . twenty-four hours now.” Unable to help herself, Charlie smiled. “And. Stevie. Is. Anxious.”
* * *
They both had their rifles aimed at the building across the street, using their scopes to see what was happening inside the old lab classroom.
They’d been sitting here since before dawn, to make sure they didn’t miss anything, but they didn’t plan to kill anyone unless necessary. Their task was to observe and report to their bosses.
The problem for Dee-Ann, though, was that she didn’t rightly know what the fuck she was observing.
“This just went bad,” Dee-Ann said to Malone. “I don’t like that they’ve locked them girls in with them.”
“Me neither.”
“Then let’s start picking them off.”
“No,” Malone said coldly. “Observe and report. That’s it. We’re just here to see what they do.”
“Don’t seem right. They’re outnumbered. Outgunned.”
“I know but they’re not our problem. Badgers say they take care of their own. We should believe them.”
“Then why are we here?”
“For something new, so could you just calm the fuck down, hillbilly?”
“Their deaths will be on your head,” Dee-Ann muttered before returning her gaze to the scope.
* * *
Dougie moved from in front of the window. He wouldn’t put it past his crazy American cousins to have someone on another building with a rifle and a scope, ready to start shooting them all.
And to think he’d volunteered for this job. Wanting to help his father and to keep things from spiraling out of control. But could anything that involved Freddy MacKilligan not spiral out of control? It didn’t seem so.
Still, he didn’t think these three little honey badgers would be that much of a problem. They had no weapons and although they could shift and start tearing into these men, they’d only end up getting shot in the head and that would be that.
He couldn’t see the oldest one taking such a risk. She was so protective of the other two. Everyone in the family knew that about Freddy’s girls.
But even though Dougie waited, his cousins didn’t shift. The oldest two did nothing but stand there, watchful but seemingly unafraid. The youngest, though, was panting and desperately trying to wiggle out of her captor’s hold.
Max pointed at the man holding her sister and warned, “I’d let her go if I were you.”
The man only smirked as he slammed a syringe in the girl’s neck and pressed the plunger down.
That had been stupid. The human men in this room didn’t understand that to drug a honey badger was a wasted effort. It might knock that thin little thing out for about twenty seconds but beyond that . . .
Stevie didn’t even stagger, though.
Instead, screaming, she slapped at the man’s hand. Problem was, he still had the syringe buried in her neck. The needle broke off and stayed imbedded in her flesh. Not that she felt it. Not as crazy as she was acting.
Dougie had heard Stevie was the high-strung one, but her distraught screaming and the way she yanked herself free from the man stunned him and everyone else in the room . . . except her sisters, it seemed.
“You’re trying to kill me!” Stevie hysterically accused the man. “You’re trying to kill me!”
Had no one taught this girl anything? Did she not listen? Not only could some bullshit drug not hurt a honey badger, but she was the one they wanted alive. The last thing they were trying to do was kill her. One would think she’d be more concerned about her sisters, but she seemed overly involved with herself.
Bent over at the waist, one hand on her upper chest, Stevie panted out, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! My lungs are shutting down!”
Dougie gestured to a bland-faced Charlie. “Are you going to do something about this? Or just let the poor girl give herself a heart attack for nothing?”
“All right,” Charlie said, rubbing her nose. “I’ll do something.” She glanced at her sister. “Max.”
Max grabbed the arm of the man closest to her. She yanked it out straight and shoved her free hand—palm up—forward, breaking the man’s forearm into two pieces.
That man’s scream had the others scrambling to take the safeties off their weapons; clearly their earlier agreement no longer in effect. Not that Dougie blamed them. The two girls would die because their judgment was just as bad as their soon-to-be-dead father’s and hysterical baby sister’s.
Charlie scrambled over one of the lab tables but bullets slammed into her back, sending her flipping forward. With a grunt of pain, she disappeared on the other side of the table and Max grabbed a blade from one of the men’s leg holster. She cut the inside of the man’s thighs, then his throat, before diving behind a nearby pillar; bullets tore into the concrete seconds after she disappeared.
Stevie’s breathing was so hard now Dougie was sure she was truly going to give herself a stroke. And, sadly, she’d witnessed Charlie getting shot in the back. So now she was screaming, “Charlie! Oh, my God! They killed Charlie! We’re all going to die!”
Shrieking and crying, she shoved past two men trying to grab hold of her and dove face first behind a lab table.
As one sister disappeared, another reappeared.
Max and her stolen blade came up behind another man. She cut his throat and slammed the blade into the neck of the man standing beside him.
A new attacker grabbed her from behind, big arms pinning hers to her body. She rammed her foot hard on his instep. Twice. Then bent her knee and brought her foot back against the man’s knee, breaking it.
Another aimed a gun at her and began firing. Max turned hard, bringing the one holding her along for the ride, so his back became her shield. By the time he hit the floor, he was dead from friendly fire.
Dougie sighed and reached for his phone. He quickly texted his father, “It’s all gone to shite, Da.” Something his father would not like, but what could Dougie do?
Bullets flashed past Dougie, but he only moved his head slightly to the left to avoid getting shot.
His phone vibrated, letting him know his father had texted him back, but as he was about to read the message, Charlie appeared behind one of the men blindly shooting at the room, trying to kill Max, who’d managed to brutally knife six more men so far.
Charlie grabbed the man from behind, trying to get his gun. But one of the man’s cohorts came to his rescue, putting a gun to her forehead. She grabbed that gun, though, with both hands, and turned her body into the man’s. Then she pulled the trigger for him, shooting the first man twice in the head. She aimed and shot another and another.
Slamming her foot into the instep of the man she was struggling with, she pulled out of his grip with his gun still in her hand. She shot him twice. In the head.
She dropped the empty magazine, reached down and took another mag from the man she’d just killed. Shoved the full mag into the gun, put a round in the chamber, and turned to find a .45 aimed at her.
As the shooter pulled the trigger, Max came from underneath him, shoving his arms up so the shot went wild; then she finished him with a blade across the throat.
That’s when they all froze. Even his two cousins, which was what made Dougie a tad concerned. Nothing had phased them so far. So . . . what would exactly?
It started out like a low grumble. Then it became a roar. A big cat roar.
Orange, white, and black striped paws the size of massive platters landed on the lab table, crushing the thick slab of granite under the weight of each paw. Like someone putting their hands in snow. Then the biggest honey badger head Dougie had ever seen appeared.
“Oh . . . fuck,” Dougie whispered.
While they all stared, Stevie’s shifted form began to rise . . . and rise . . . and rise. Until her head nearly reached the ceiling. . . and even then, Dougie got the distinct feeling that she wasn’t standing completely straight yet. That she was still bent over.
Staring down at the remaining men, Stevie suddenly leaned forward and roared, shattering the windows throughout the room and, Dougie was sure, the entire building based on the screams he could hear from outside.
No longer thinking about the women kicking their asses, the men aimed their guns at the thing baring rows of massive fangs at them. Honey badger fangs that were quadrupled in size.
Then Stevie did something Dougie didn’t expect from any badger or cat because they weren’t physically capable. She charged up the wall and onto the ceiling. All twenty or so feet of her hung from the ceiling tiles.
Her long tail snapped down and wrapped around the neck of one of the men, tossing him across the room and out the shattered window.
“Kill it!” one of the men bellowed, and the rest began firing.
Stevie skittered across the ceiling until she reached the man who’d given the order. She landed on him, grabbing the wailing man in her maw and dragging him off to the far corner of the lab, ignoring the bullets and screams of the other men.
And while Stevie had their full attention, her sisters, without shifting or unleashing their claws, went around killing. Max stuck with the blade, but now she had two. One in each hand. She moved fast and quiet. With no mercy she killed.
Her sister stayed with the .45, moving through the remaining men with the weapon held in both hands, raised to eye level, but held close to her body. Each of her victims got a head shot unless the male tried to move on her first, in which case she shot twice in the chest and then in the head.
As for Stevie . . . all Dougie could hear were screams. All he could see was her back arching each time she pulled more flesh from bone.
Some men managed to make it out the door, climbing over each other. No longer were they a smart, elite unit of killers. Not after meeting the MacKilligan sisters.
Dougie heard sirens and glanced out the window next to him.
“Cops!” he yelled at Charlie.
She shot another head before she looked at him and nodded.
“Go,” she told him, not even out of breath. No fear or panic or even anger in her dark brown eyes. “And tell Uncle Will we said hi.”
* * *
Max started to go after the men who’d managed to get out the door, but Charlie called her back.
“We have to get Stevie!”
Max glanced around at the carnage. “Where the fuck is she?”
Charlie pointed up and . . . yep, that’s where their baby sister was. Again hanging from the ceiling but now with part of some guy hanging from one of her fangs. A part she was not going to want to give up.
Shifted-Stevie tended to “play” with her prey. And guard it territorially. Like most house cats.
“Dude,” Max told her sister, “we don’t have time to calm her down.”
“I’ve got it.” Charlie moved closer to her sister but not right under her because she didn’t want any more blood dripping on her.
“All right, you,” she said, pointing a finger at her sister. “You get down here right now. Right now, Stevie MacKilligan. This instant!”
Stevie lowered her eyes and made a little mewling sound. She took a step back—still on the ceiling—not wanting to give up her prize.
“Don’t you dare run away from me, Stevie! You come down here right now! This minute!”
Stevie released her grip on the ceiling and came crashing to the floor.
“Spit it,” Charlie ordered her baby sister. “Spit it!”
Annoyed, Stevie spit the torso out of her mouth.
“Shift back to human. Right now!”
With just a thought, Stevie returned to her human form. Now naked and covered in blood, she stood there, eyes downcast. It wasn’t shame, though. Charlie knew that. It was more like contrition. Like a little girl caught tearing the head off her sister’s favorite doll.
“Cops are securing the building . . . and coming up the stairs,” Max announced after checking the windows.
“Let’s move.”
The three of them ran out of the lab and up the stairs until they reached the roof. There was a long summer dress already waiting on the ledge of the building. Max tossed it to Stevie and she slipped it on while Charlie went from corner to corner, trying to figure out where the cops had set up.
She found that they hadn’t made it to the back of the building yet, so she motioned her sisters over.
“Go,” she ordered Stevie.
“Have you lost your mind?” Stevie asked, already beginning the panic process all over again. “When you consider the physics of—”
Pressing her hand against Stevie’s chest, Max shoved her sister off the roof. Screaming, Stevie fell but as she neared the ground, she suddenly turned over and landed on all fours.
“Always with the drama,” Max announced before following her sister over. Sadly, she didn’t have any cat in her, so she landed hard, the concrete under her cracking from the impact.
But the honey badger still got to her feet and shook it off.
Charlie got on the ledge and was preparing to jump when she felt eyes on her. She spun around, gaze searching all the nearby buildings. She saw the scopes, the rifles. The women holding them.
She bared her fangs in rage, and in answer the dark-haired one bared her fangs back.
Well . . . at least they were shifters.
“Charlie!” Max yelled. “Move your ass!”
She knew she couldn’t deal with this right now, but she mentally filed it away for later. Because she had a fear it would come flying back at her at some point.
Charlie jumped, aiming for an abandoned car. Her shoulder hit the roof and she immediately rolled down and off the car.
She tried to shake her shoulder out, but it was too damaged.
“Move!” Max barked.
Charlie started running, ignoring the, “Stop! Police!” behind her.
She dove into the open front door and Dutch hit the gas.
His turn was so wild, the passenger door closed on its own and he was moving.
The way the car handled, Charlie knew Dutch had picked it just for this sort of thing. Getaways. Proving, once again, that he was no good for her sister. He was useful, no doubt about it. But he was also trouble.
Grateful for the man’s driving skills, Charlie held on as Dutch got them away from the cops before they could dispatch a helicopter to follow them. A good thing since Charlie wouldn’t put it past Max to handle a police helicopter the same way she’d handled the chopper in Switzerland.
“Do you know you’ve been shot?” Max said from the backseat.
Charlie spun around, resting on her knees to stare at her baby sister. “Stevie, you’ve been shot?”
Stevie blinked at her. “She was talking to you.”
Frowning, Charlie looked down at herself, but saw nothing except her wounded shoulder. And she just needed to get Max to yank that back into place for her.
Max leaned forward, reached around her and when she sat back, she held up two fingers covered in blood. “Oh. Guess I was shot.”
After a moment, she dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “It’s a scratch. I’ll be fine.”
Charlie settled back in her seat and looked at Dutch. “We need to get rid of this car.”
“Already on it, sweetness.”
She gritted her teeth. “Don’t call me that.”
“Honey pie? Lady divine? Pretty ass?”
Charlie glared at him. “You’re taking advantage of the fact that I owe you, aren’t you?”
Dutch laughed. “Of course I am!”