Dez looked at some papers she held in her hand. “Melanie Kowalski. Nice little sheet you have here, Mel.” She looked up, studied Melly. “Have you been drinking, Miss Kowalski? Because according to what I’ve read here, the judge—”

“All right, all right!” Melly crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll clean up her apartment.” Then, quite suddenly, she burst into tears. “I just don’t know why you’re all being so mean to me!”

It was quick, what Vic saw. But he knew he’d seen it. The way Melly’s cousins had looked at her. If they’d been full-blood honey badgers, they would have torn Melly apart, destroying her for being weak.

“Oooo . . . kay.” Vic glanced at Dez. “Why don’t you and Crush take the ladies to Livy’s apartment?”

“You’ve got it.”

Vic caught Livy’s arm before she could follow her cousins. “Come on. You’re coming with me.”

“I can’t,” she said.

“Well, you can’t stay with Melly.”

“Fine. Then I’ll go somewhere else.”

“Is there a reason you can’t go with me?”

“Because at this moment,” she said flatly, “I can only think about wrapping my hands around your scrawny neck and choking you until you pass out or die.”

Frowning, Vic brushed his free hand against his neck. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said I had a scrawny neck. Even when I was a baby. In grade school, they called me Big Neck Vic.”

“It’s not you,” Livy admitted. “I’m just projecting my feelings for my cousin onto you, which I’ll admit is hardly fair. But I’m . . . unbelievably tense.”

Vic thought about that a moment. “Tense? So tense that if some tourist came up to you and asked you how to catch the J Train, you’re likely to beat them to death in the street?”

Livy shrugged. “Probably.”

Vic opened the passenger door. “Then you better get in.”

“Yeah, but—”

“In. My ‘scrawny neck’ can handle you . . . but some poor full-human just visiting for the day? He or she would probably not be so lucky. So get your ass in the car.”

“I guess you have a point.” Livy walked toward the car.

“So where are we going? Your house?” she asked.

“No. Someplace else. You’ll like it.”

Livy started to get in the SUV, but stopped, looked at Vic. “I . . . appreciate all this, but I’m still not ready to talk about—”

“I’m taking you someplace where you can relax. That’s it. Besides, I’m not really in the mood to fix a bunch of badger holes in my house.”

Her smilewas small, but there. And he was surprised how much he needed to see that smile.

CHAPTER 12

When Livy woke up, she had no idea where she was.

Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she tried to focus on the sights out her window. After a few minutes of staring, Livy finally asked Vic, “Where the hell are we?”

“Massachusetts.”

Livy’s head snapped around. “We’re where?”

“The great state of Massachusetts.”

He sounded so damn cheerful about it, she wanted to deck him.

“Why are we in the great state of Massachusetts?”

“I was trying to think of where I could take you that you could relax. I thought about Lake Baikal.”

“Lake Baikal?” Livy gawked at the man. “In Siberia?”

“Yeah. But that would be a lot of travel.”

Before Livy could respond to that ridiculous statement, he pulled up to a roadblock manned by several uniformed police.

“Great,” Livy muttered. “More cops.”

“Deputies,” Vic corrected. “And be nice.”

Vic stopped his SUV and rolled down the window. One of the deputies walked over, rested his forearm against the window frame, and leaned down to look inside. Because he had to lean way down, and his head nearly filled the entire open window . . . Livy knew this was a bear. One of those bears who had to live out in the middle of nowhere because their ginormous head would freak out the everyday full-human schoolchild.

“You brought me to bear territory?” Livy asked.

Vic shrugged. “It’s one of the few places in the world I feel completely comfortable. And I assume if I feel comfortable, you’ll feel comfortable with me.”

“And that logic works for you?”

“For the moment.”

The deputy eyed Vic, then Livy, then back to Vic.

“What’cha got there, Barinov?” The deputy sniffed the air, his wide nose making a disturbing amount of noise. “Don’t recognize the scent. And we don’t let just anybody into our little town.”

“This is Livy. Honey badger.”

The deputy’s grin was wide. “A honey badger? A real one?” he asked with what sounded like true enthusiasm. “Hey, guys,” he said to the other deputies, “we’ve got a real honey badger here!”

The deputies suddenly crowded around the SUV, all of them staring into the vehicle to get a look at Livy. As if she’d suddenly turned into a carnival sideshow.

“She is just the cutest little thing,” the first deputy said. Then he reached the longest arm Livy had ever seen on a human being across the cab and attempted to “coochie-coo” her face.