Breaking Badger by Shelly Laurenston

Author:Shelly Laurenston [Laurenston, Shelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2021-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

chapter ELEVEN

Finn woke up when he smelled the muffins. They were blueberry and he really wanted one. Or maybe six. Or a dozen. He wasn’t finicky. He just knew he was hungry. It had been hours since he’d eaten. Hours!

They’d left Chinatown the night before, driven to the badger house in Queens, and that was kind of the last thing he remembered. They were all exhausted by the time they got to the house . . . except the two MacKilligan sisters. He recalled both of them being awake enough to still be bickering as he’d stepped out of Keane’s battered SUV. How long that had gone on after he’d fallen asleep, he had no idea.

Lifting his head off the back of the couch, Finn realized it wasn’t just the smell of muffins that had jogged him awake. It was the sound of crunching. He forced his eyes open despite the bright sunlight in the badger living room and looked around. It looked like people had pretty much dropped wherever they could find a space. Nelle was elegantly curled up on a stuffed chair tucked into the corner opposite the giant sofa he was on. Streep was asleep on the floor, tightly packed into the space between the wall and the chair that Nelle was asleep in. The badger seemed surprisingly comfortable in such a tiny space.

Tock was also asleep on the floor but, unlike her friends, had her back against the wall so she faced the entrance; she had an automatic weapon across her lap, her finger on the trigger. When Finn’s eyes passed over her, she woke up long enough to look at him, judge him nonthreatening, and go back to sleep.

Keane was on the far end of the same couch that Finn was on, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest, his hair covering his face. Shay was next to him in pretty much the same pose except for the loud snoring. It was like sleeping next to a moose. Finn turned his head and found the source of the crunching.

It was Mads. She sat with her back against the armrest of the couch, her bare feet tucked under his thigh as she silently stared at him and chewed something decidedly crunchy now that her broken jaw had healed. He thought maybe cereal or nuts until she opened the wooden box she held in her hand and pulled out a very black, very terrifying-looking scorpion, then put the struggling thing in her mouth. It was a good-sized arachnid, so it didn’t go all the way in, the stinger remaining outside her lips. Finn watched in horror as that part jabbed her over and over, most likely injecting her with its venom several times while she chewed and stared . . . at him.

They sat like that for a good—he didn’t know—maybe five minutes? Then, unable to help himself, Finn started laughing. Not loudly. He didn’t want to wake anybody up.

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