Page 47 of Darling Beasts

“Hmm,” dos Santos mused, spinning his black wedding band around his finger. “Maybe it’s yourreactionto the ‘doom’ that’s causing the disturbance.”

“My reactions are incredibly normal! Today, for instance. My brother showed up out of nowhere, and it was like,yikes, because we’re supposed to be... We have this new family business.” I wasn’t sure why I felt compelled to lie, but I was still embarrassed about the whole thing. “Ozzie tends to get into ‘scrapes,’ by his own admission! Things with the, um, business are precarious, so when I saw him...” I grimaced. “I wasn’t thrilled.”

“Interesting.” Dos Santos clasped his hands together. “Did you confess your feelings?”

“Of course not! But honestly, those feelings were very short-lived. I’m glad he’s here. I love my brother. We’re super close, and his ‘scrapes,’ well, we can live with them.” At the end of the day, Ozzie wasn’t a bad kid. Every boy I’d ever met had a list of childhood shenanigans that included at least one to three misdemeanors. Ozzie wasn’t any worse than the rest. He just tended to be the one who got caught.

“It sounds like you were conflicted?” dos Santos said, looking almost joyful about it. “Bad with humans” indeed.

“For a second, maybe? But then I remembered this was Ozzie.” My brother was about more than screwing up. I made a mental note to remind Talia of this since she came into every interaction with him already hot.

“I’d like to offer an observation,” dos Santos started, only to be interrupted by a loud, blaring tone.

“Dr. dos Santos?” said a woman’s disembodied voice. Where was it coming from? His phone? A hidden speaker? The fakeficus tree? “There’s a Mr. Khan here to see you. He says it’s an emergency.”

“You can send him in, Jane.”

Before I could remind the doctor that I wasn’t a black-footed cat and humans deserved medical privacy, the door flew open. In walked Raj, wearing his customary plaid button-down shirt.

“What’s going on?” dos Santos said as he stood.

Raj shook his head. He looked rumpled, and red-eyed, and notably worse for wear. “It’s Stuart’s wife. She’s been injured. Theythinkshe’ll pull through. But... But... it was a grizzly bear.”

“Oh my God,” I said, a hand clapped over my mouth as Raj told us that Stuart from the discussion group flared a grizzly bear and it tried to devour his wife, likely because it mistook her for a giant fish. The poor woman. And poor Stuart. Fish odor disease wouldn’t solve his problems, after all.

Raj sank into a chair. He chucked his glasses onto dos Santos’s desk and buried his face in his hands. “What hope do any of us have?” he asked quietly.

“I’ll reach out to Stuart when we’re done,” dos Santos said, walking around to our side of the desk. He sat on the corner, like a teacher getting real with his class. “This is horrible news, but you can’t extrapolate. Especially not with something as unpredictable as PBS.”

“Are stink badgers even dangerous?” I asked, realizing how unhelpful this was a beat too late. I suspected Raj was worried about Stuart’s wife, yes, but also his own romantic prospects.

“The unpredictability,” dos Santos continued, “is one of the most aggravating things about the disease.”

“Syndrome,” I reminded everyone.

Raj lifted his tear-mottled face. “I saw your texts,” he said to me. “You’re flaring? With what?” He glanced around.Shit. I’d been so fixated on Frosty and my siblings and the others at the Ranch, I’d forgotten I was putting everyone else in danger, too.

“I should go,” I said, leaping to my feet. “I’ll wait this out... in the middle of a field or something.” I strode toward the door but froze short of it. My heart skipped a beat as I lifted one arm.

My skin was cool.

My rash had disappeared.

The air smelled like bad coffee instead of burnt hair.

“Itstopped,” I said to myself. “I was flaring, and it stopped.Again.” I whipped around, my pulse racing triple-time. “It’s you,” I said to Raj, locking eyes. “You’re my cure.”

Chapter Thirty

Talia

Talia hopped into Mindy’s golf cart. It was a real “ask forgiveness, not permission” situation, but what’s the worst that could happen? She wasn’t afraid of a rattlesnake stick.

Ozzie. Talia couldn’t believe he was here. The campaign had enough problems without her brother strutting around, making “content,” landing his “heli” on the lawn. Plus he had a penchant for distracting Gabby. Fair or not, Talia felt like he’d come to ruin things with the campaign, with everyone.

Talia parked the golf cart and jumped out. In front of her stood Mom’s art studio and she took a minute to soak it in, heart thwapping wildly in her chest. Gabby had some questions about Mom, and apparently Talia did, too.

The door opened easily, and Talia stepped inside, her eyes sweeping the familiar space. Sketches tacked to the walls, canvases shoved into racks, countless discarded brushes and twisted, flattened tubes of paint. On the worktable sat half a dozen crusty Mason jars, a coffee mug, and a bottle of moisturizer.

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