Page 65 of Bears Behaving Badly
Annette held it out of Nadia’s reach. “No. That’s a one-of-a-kind phone case.”
“It’s a Sonix Sushi case, and there are thousands of them. Give.”
“Ab-so-lute-lynot.”
“I will pull your eyes right out of your head, Annette!”
“Which, while upsetting, won’t stop me from tearing you in half, Nadia!”
“Ladies.”
Like boxers going to their corner to take a break, they pulled back and looked at David. “What?”
“I get all that, I get what you’re saying about Gomph, but why areyouhere, Nadia? Like I said, the bad guys sent by the player to be named later are no longer a threat. The—”
“Yes, about that. How many?” Nadia’s eyes brightened with interest. “And what did you do? And where are the bodies? Also, good on you.”
“Yeah, I’d like to get the deets on that, too,” Oz said. “I just saw the gory aftermath.”
Annette sniffed. “Don’t say ‘deets’ like you’re young.”
“I’m twenty-five!” Oz protested.
“Hush.” To Nadia: “Three. David shifted and got two, I grabbed the shotgun and got the other one.”And then I stuck my tongue down David’s throat. All in all, not my worst Wednesday.
Nadia cocked her head to one side. “Shot him? How restrained.”
Annette shrugged. “I thought one of us should keep our opposable thumbs, at least for the first couple of minutes. Which is all the time it took.”
“And how fares Patrick-or-Patricia?”
“It’s just Pat, and he’s fine. Couple of bites. The kids are fine, too. Like I said, it was quick.”
“Oh. Very good.”
“Why are you here, Nadia?” David asked, tenacious as a…a…something that was tenacious. A terrier? A squid?How many times is he going to ask that question?But Annette knew: as many times as it took to get an answer.
“I’m checking on my partner, you half-wit,” she snapped. “Who disappeared? With a taciturn man no one really knows? Who pulled her off the grid but not really? And then I pulled her brother-slash-nemesis into it for reasons that now escape me?”
“Archnemesis,” Oz corrected.
“And I am dismayed,dismayed, by what I’ve found so far. Except for the part where you killed the villains. And the part where Pat wasn’t terribly injured. Though I’m not happy about your leave-the-corpses-where-they-lie policy. And where are Pat and Dev now? Wait! Don’t tell me, not if the goal is keeping me ‘clean.’ Or at least granting me the power of plausible deniability.”
“They’re temporarily as safe as can be.” And wasn’t that awful? She was hiding children in her roommate’s grain-silo-turned-studio because she feared they’d come to harm in IPA custody. The thought was
(it’s not supposed to be like that)
as infuriating
(IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT)
as it was disorienting. It was almost enough to make her glad that Oz was with them, since she knew well his policies on authority figures covering up rampant child abuse.
“So now what?”
“You keep asking that, David,” Nadia snapped. “Are you trying to trick me up?”
“It’s ‘trip you up,’ and no.”
