PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE“Hey. Hey, kid.”Again the seat jerked forward and Mads Galendotter did what she’d been doing for the last ten minutes: focus on the white, red, and blue basketball she had clutched between her hands.This was her first day of junior high. She would be trying out for the junior high basketball team later today. She knew she was good enough to make it, but she had to be sure nothing happened between now and tryouts right after school. So she wasn’t about to blow it by getting involved. Even though that’s exactly what her cousins were hoping she’d do.They really knew how to get to her, didn’t they?They were two years older than Mads. In ninth grade. By all rights, they should be in the very back of the bus with all the other ninth graders, harassing the nerds like everyone else. But her cousins hated her as much as Mads hated them. So they’d plopped themselves down in the seat right behind her and then this poor kid had put herself right beside Mads. Now, instead of harassing Mads, her cousins were harassing the kid. Because they knew that would bother Mads more than if they harassed her directly. Hell, she was used to them harassing her. She’d been tortured by them since birth. It was rumored that when she was a baby, they’d used a stray cat to suffocate her. If her great-grandmother hadn’t walked in and found them shoving the screeching animal on top of her face . . .So, yeah, she’d been emotionally prepared for her cousins to make her entire school year a nightmare until they finally graduated to the high school a few blocks away. But now they had a new victim to abuse. This poor kid. She was a cute little thing—Asian, with pigtails and an actual lunchbox. Her parents hadn’t even given her a brown-paper-bag lunch like everyone else in junior high. Or lunch money. Even worse, her lunchbox had Barbie on it. Barbie! She might as well have put an actual target on her back.“Hey, kid!” Mads’s twin cousins pushed the seat again before they kicked the back of it.Both Mads and the kid jerked forward.Mads let out a long, slow breath. She could tolerate this sort of thing for ages. All the way to the school’s front door. But she knew if she looked at the kid’s face, she’d probably see tears welling or something. Hell, by now, those tears could be silently pouring down the poor kid’s cheeks.She glanced around at everybody else on the bus. They were busy talking to each other, tormenting the nerdy kids, or simply praying that no one noticed them. They had no idea what was happening right in front of them. At least not yet. Plus, Mads had picked a seat close to the front of the bus. She’d sat there in the hopes that her cousins would want to sit in the back with everyone else.They weren’t completely alone, though.Close to them were two other girls sitting in the seat across the aisle. One was reading a book on time management. The other, another Asian girl who appeared way too old to be in junior high, was staring out the window. In the seat in front of them was a third girl, with long brown hair. She sat alone so she was able to sit with her back against the window and her feet up on the seat. She was readingVanity Fair magazine.And there was definitely no point in talking to the bus driver. None. Mads wouldn’t even bother.Meaning that no one was going to stop her cousins from tormenting the poor kid sitting next to her, and they were still some distance from the school. There was more than enough time for her cousins to give this poor kid years of future therapy needs.The seat jerked forward again.“Hey, kid. What’s your name? At least tell us that.”“Yeah. Come on. We’re just being friendly.”Unable to take any more—because her cousins were never “just being friendly”—Mads finally looked at the twins over her shoulder and said as calmly as she could manage, “Leave her alone.”Two sets of cold brown eyes turned in unison to Mads.“You say something, cousin?” That came from Tilda. She talked more than Gella. She talked and Gella hit. It was a partnership that worked well for them.No use in backing down now. Signs of weakness just meant they’d come for her harder. Her cousins always ran down the weakest. They couldn’t help themselves. It was instinctual. “I said leave her alone.”Gella giggled and Tilda asked, “Or what?”“Or I’ll rip your face off.” That response was instinctual, too. For Mads anyway.Gella jerked forward, ready to leap on Mads, and Mads was nearly on her feet when the kid next to her spun around, resting on her knees and smiling sweetly at Tilda and Gella as she placed her little Barbie lunchbox on the back of their seat.It was such a weird development that Mads immediately stopped what she was doing and Tilda blocked Gella with her arm.“Hi!” the kid said with a sweet smile. “I’m Max.”Mads’s cousins just stared, completely confused by what was happening.The whole thing was so weird that even the other three girls in the seat across the aisle were now watching them.“If I had lunch money, I’d give it to you,” Max went on, “but I’m poor. But I can give you my lunch.”“From your little Barbie lunchbox there?” Gella cruelly teased.“It’s really good. It’s my favorite lunch in the whole world.”Christ, this poor kid! She was so innocent. Just a walking victim. She seemed way younger than thirteen. Mads knew her cousins wouldn’t be satisfied with this kid’s tuna sandwich and Snickers candy bar. She knew they’d want blood. But as Mads listened to the conversation going on between her cousins and the kid, her “other hearing” kicked in. This was the hearing her great-grandmother called her “real” hearing. “The one that makes you better than all those little full-human bastards you are around all day, every day,” she’d say. Mads picked up a different sound. A sound coming from inside the kid’s Barbie lunchbox. Something scratching against the metal of what Mads realized now was an old metal lunchbox. A more secure lunchbox than the plastic ones made these days.“My mom always gives me the best stuff,” the kid promised Mads’s bitchy cousins.Max unlatched the lunchbox and slipped her hand inside. Mads again glanced around the bus. The only ones paying attention to them were the three other girls across the aisle.By the time Mads looked back at the kid, she’d pulled her hand out. It was balled around whatever she now held and when Tilda leaned in, openmouthed, to see what the kid held, the kid shoved in something black and moving past Tilda’s lips.She tried to scream, but the kid wrapped her hand around Tilda’s face, using her fingers to pin her mouth shut.Tilda’s eyes grew wide in panic, her hands reaching, pawing and slapping at the hand pressed against her face. Gella let out a startled giggle while trying to move the kid’s arm, but that “innocent” kid couldn’t be budged.Mads grabbed the lunchbox and opened it. There were at least seven, maybe ten, black scorpions inside the box. This kid was carrying around venomous scorpions in her Barbie lunchbox!One of the scorpions crawled out and onto Mads’s hand. It immediately stung her, but Mads barely blinked. Instead, without really thinking about it, she simply brought her hand to her mouth and scooped the arachnid with her tongue. She was in the middle of eating it when she realized that she was doing something very weird in the middle of a bus filled with full-human children.Shit.Everything was so strange at the moment, she’d forgotten to pay attention to her surroundings!Slowly, she looked up and across the aisle at the three girls who, at the very least, she knew had been watching the small drama playing out. They were still watching but now they just appeared . . . curious. And . . . and hungry?The one sitting alone took a quick glance around before scrambling over and sticking her hand into the lunchbox Mads still held so she could grab her own scorpion. Ignoring the stings she now had all over her hand, she shoved the scorpion into her mouth, crunching on it as if it was peanut brittle and smiling seconds before the other two girls followed suit.Mads watched, shocked. Like Mads, they were all stung. Multiple times. But none of them had a reaction. Unlike her cousin. Who, by now, was having seizures, foam leaking from the corners of her mouth. Her eyes even rolled to the back of her head so all they could see were the whites.And the kid? What was she doing? Still holding Tilda’s mouth shut. Still ignoring the punches and slaps from both Tilda and Gella. And still smiling. Happily.Boy, Mads was going to get it tonight when she went home, but she didn’t care. For once, she was enjoying herself! How could she not when her cousins were the ones on the receiving end of—ack!A big hand wrapped around Mads’s throat and lifted her off the seat. She almost lost control of the still-open lunchbox, but one of the other girls grabbed it and secured the latch, trapping the rest of the scorpions inside.Mads and the kid were both yanked away from the twins and carried to the front of the bus.Mads hadn’t even realized the bus had been pulled over or that the driver had come to get them. She should have. The bus driver was her aunt. And the twins were her cubs. Not her favorites but she liked them way more than she liked Mads. Her aunt opened the doors and threw Mads and the kid out of her bus. A few minutes later two of the other girls came flying out. But the other Asian girl, who looked too old for junior high, walked off herself. For whatever reason, Mads’s aunt didn’t lay a finger on this one, even though she appeared to be easy prey in three-inch heels, which seemed highly inappropriate for a thirteen-year-old. Fortunately, she carried everyone’s backpacks and lunch bags and even Mads’s basketball. A kind gesture they all appreciated.The bus shifted into gear and rumbled off, leaving the five of them standing on the sidewalk with their stuff by their feet.“I love breaking in the new bus drivers!” the kid finally announced with a wide smile, throwing her arms up in the air like she’d actually won something.“Does she know the closest hospital is the other way?” the girl with the long hair asked.Mads shook her head. “She’s not taking them to the hospital. She has other daughters she likes better. So if they don’t make it . . .” Mads shrugged. “She’ll get over it.”Max wiped away her concern—what there was of it—with a wave of her hand. “Such whining from those two. Those scorpions weren’t even that poisonous. I’ve eaten way more deadly ones.”“Centruroides sculpturatus,” the reader stated, but when everyone just stared at her she simply added, “Arizona bark scorpion. That’s what those were. Poisonous but probably not deadly to a healthy hyena adolescent.” She paused a moment before pointing at the watch on her wrist and announcing, “We’re going to be late.”“Is that a Minnie Mouse watch?” Mads wanted to know.The girl quickly covered the watch with her free hand. “For now. But I am saving up for something much better.”“Late for what?” Max asked.“School.”“That’s a big concern for you?”“Being late is always a big concern for me,” the reader explained. “I don’t like being late.”The kid shrugged. “I don’t like school. We should ditch! How about the mall?”“Don’t you think someone will notice us in the mall?”“We’ll tell ’em we’re homeschooled.”“I’m not ditching,” Mads told them. “I’m trying out for the basketball team today. I’m not missing it.”“How far is school?” the other Asian chick asked. “I’m not wearing my walking heels.”“How old are you?” Mads had to ask.“Thirteen.”“Really? Because you look twenty-three.”“Awwww.” She smiled warmly. “Thank you.”“We need to start walking if we’re going to get to school on time,” the reader pushed, tapping her watch face again and again. It was a little . . . obsessive.“We’ve got, like, twenty minutes to get there.”“Anything could happen between here and there. Anything.” She leaned in closer. “Anything.”“What about the bus driver?” long hair asked.“What about her?” Max replied.“You did poison her children.”“Only one.”“She won’t say anything,” Mads assured them. “It would be too hard to explain why her child survived a Utah meowing tarantula.”“An Arizona bark scorpion.”“We go to school,” Mads continued, ignoring the reader’s annoying correction, “and act like nothing happened.”“Perfect!” Max cheered. “As long as my sister doesn’t find out about this . . . fuck!” She looked down at the ground. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”“What?” Mads demanded. She felt like the worst thing ever was coming for them. Because this was the first time she’d seen the kid look . . . worried. About anything.“Tell me your names,” she ordered. “Quick!”“I’m Mads.”“Emily,” the reader said. “But my family calls me Tock.”“Cass. Future star of stage and scr—”“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about you, supermodel?”“Gong Zhao. From Hong Kong.” When Max just scrunched up her face and shook her head as if completely confused by the simple Asian name, the supermodel rolled her eyes and sighed. “Americans. Just call me Nelle.”“Why?”“Because I said so. And that’s Nelle with two Es. N-e-l-l-e. Get it right.”“Fine. Whatever.”Forcing a large smile onto her face, Max turned around as a very old, very battered convertible sputtered to a stop at the curb in front of them. The vehicle was filled to capacity with older teenage girls. It was a mix of girls of all races, but Mads knew from the scent they were all one species. Wolves. A black teen illegally sitting on the top of the backseat—how did they not get pulled over?—stared hard at Max for several long seconds.“Hey!” Max called out.The teen didn’t respond. Instead, she stepped over and around all the teens illegally shoved into the car, and jumped free. She was taller than Max. Bigger. She moved like a wolf, like a stalking animal. Although she did smell a little different. Canine, but also . . . not.“What’cha doing out here, Max?”“Just hanging out with my friends,” Max easily answered.She stopped in front of her. “You don’t have friends.”“Ouch,” Cass said.“So what did you do?” the teen pushed. “Who did you piss off? Am I going to get a call? Is Pop getting a call?”“No.”What poured out of the older teen next was an explosion of panic and borderline hysteria. “Because if Pop gets a call, I’m going to get really upset. There’s already so much going on and Stevie’s already stressed out. I had to calm her down this morning because she’s worried about taking the SATs. I don’t know why. We all know she’s going to blow them out of the water, but you know how Stevie is, so if you’ve already been kicked out—”“Would you stop! Nothing’s wrong! We’re just hanging out. Me . . . and my friends.”Eyes narrowing, she leaned back and studied Max. “You . . . and your friends?”“Yeah. I have friends now. It’s junior high.”“What kind of friends?”“Friends.”“What kind of friends, Max?”She shrugged. Sighed. “Honey badgers.”“Honey badgers. You managed to find a group of honey badgers in the middle of this town?”“They’re not a group. We just happened to be on the same bus.”“That seems strangely unlikely.”“You make it sound like I set this up! I’m thirteen! Even I couldn’t manage to arrange something like that. This is just—”“Luck? We’re MacKilligans. We don’t have any luck.”“I do. And I found friends who get me.”“You mean friends who’ll get you in trouble.”“No. They won’t! I promised you last night, no more problems.”“Did you bring scorpions to school?”“No.”“Then where are they? I looked for them in the case under your bed and didn’t see them.”“I had breakfast.”It took Mads a second, because they really didn’t look alike, but she realized that this teen was the sister Max had been talking about. Her sister. They weren’t stepsisters either. Half, maybe, but they were definitely blood related. They had the same shoulders. Like fullbacks for the Detroit Lions.The teen looked over Max’s honey badger “friends,” and that’s when Mads saw Cass hide the lunchbox with the remainder of Max’s scorpions behind her back. She almost frowned at that move, confused. Why was Cass protecting this girl? Yeah, they were all honey badgers—well . . . Mads was only half honey badger—but they barely knew one another. Why would they get involved in all this drama?“So you guys are close?” Max’s sister asked.“Close enough.”“Then what are your friends’ names?” the teen questioned. It was like an interrogation.Max gestured at each of them and correctly remembered their names, “Emily, but we all call her Tock. Cass. Mads. Nelle. With two Es.”“Uh-huh.”The teen opened a random backpack, which turned out to be Tock’s, and checked out her notebooks. They were completely empty, so she searched out her wallet. It was black and closed with Velcro. It had several forms of ID in it. She also found several passports for different countries. Slowly, the teen looked up at Tock with one raised eyebrow. Tock merely shrugged and asked, “What?”The teen put everything back in the bag and stood, handing the pack to Tock.“So what are you and your not-causing-trouble friends planning for today?” the teen asked. But before Max could answer with some lie, the teen pointed her finger at Mads. “You tell me.”Mads blinked and simply replied with the truth. “Basketball tryouts. After school today. That’s my plan.”“Our plan.”The teen faced her sister. “See? You always go too far, Max MacKilligan. Because even Stevie wouldn’t buy that line of bullshit.”“It’s true.”“You? You expect me to believe that you are going to basketball tryouts? To try out for basketball? You?”“Why do you say it like that? I can play basketball.”“First off, you’re a munchkin. And second, you hate team sports. You hate gym. And when Stevie tossed a tennis ball at you, you slammed it back at her and threatened that if she ever threw a ball at you again, you were going to remove all her teeth.”“She chucked that ball at me—”“It was a toss.”“—and she started it. But none of that means I dislike team sports. I am absolutely dying to be a team-sports girl. In the wonderful world of . . . um . . .”“Basketball,” Mads prodded.“Right! Basketball.”“Name one basketball player,” her sister tested. “Any basketball player.”Mads, trying to help while the teen had her back to her, lifted up her leg and gestured to her foot. Specifically the Nike Air Jordans she was wearing. Everybody knew Michael Jordan, right? Even people who didn’t know anything about basketball knew that man. Mads had no idea why she was trying to assist this lying kid, but now she felt as invested in this situation as Cass, who was still hiding that stupid lunchbox behind her back.And even the others were trying to assist by gesturing to Mads’s Jordans and mouthing Michael Jordan over and over again.But the confused look on Max’s face told Mads that the kid had no idea who they were talking about.Her sister, with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, began to turn away when the kid suddenly burst out with, “James!”The teen turned back around and waited.“Uh . . . La . . . LaBronnie James.”“Who?”“LeBron James,” Mads corrected. “But close enough.” When the teen stared at her, she lowered her still raised leg and said, “He’s on the Cleveland Cavaliers. A rookie, but a pretty decent player.”You know . . . for a full-human dude.“See, Charlie?” Max pushed her sister with a big smile. “I love the basketball.”“Great!” the older teen pushed back. “Then I’ll see you guys this afternoon. At the tryouts. Can’t wait to watch you all try out for the team!”Without another word, Max’s sister got back into the overloaded convertible, and with another smile and a wave, she told the teenage girl in the driver’s seat to go.Once they’d driven far enough away, Tock threw up her arms in frustration. “Why do I have to go to tryouts? I don’t want to play basketball!”“You have to come! She’ll be expecting all of us,” Max said.“She’s not my sister!” Tock blinked, then asked more calmly, “She is your sister, right?”“Yes, she’s my sister. Racist!”Tock’s jaw tightened and she looked at Mads. All Mads could do was quickly look away. Because she had to laugh. Tock appeared part Black, so the accusation was pretty funny.“And you people don’t know my sister,” Max went on. “She’s crazy. If we’re not all there, then we all die.”The group gawked at Max for several long seconds, and then Cass asked, “Why would we all die?”“Yes,” Nelle agreed. “Why wouldn’t just you die? You should be the only one who dies.”“Because she’s crazy.”“Are you lying?” Tock asked. “I sense you lie a lot.”“Of course I lie a lot. That’s how I survive. By lying.”“To your sister?”“Yes.” She shrugged. “And to the government.”Mads frowned. “Why are you lying to the government? You’re thirteen.”“You certainly ask a lot of questions.”“Actually, I don’t. But what I do know is that I don’t care what you guys do. I’m going to be at the tryouts today and I’m going to get on the school team. Because I’m going to be in the WNBA.”“What’s the WNBA?” Cass asked.Mads started walking away. “It’s sad you have a vagina.”“So I’m not getting points for remembering LaBronnie James?” Max demanded.Mads spun around and yelled in Max’s face, “It’s LeBron!” Of course, the kid didn’t even blink. “His name’s LeBron James. Not LaBronnie! How did you even know about him anyway? I mean, he’s blowing up the NBA, but you are clearly not a fan. I mean, you called it the basketball and couldn’t even pull Michael Jordan’s name out of your ass and everyone on earth knows him.”“Oh, I needed some extra cash last week and I saw this kid walking around with these brand-new sneakers that I knew I could sell for a really high price. So first, I asked him about them and he bragged they were LaBronn—” She briefly paused when Mads growled and self-corrected. “LeBron James’s newest shoes or whatever. So when he separated from his friends, I tackled him, dragged him into the bushes, beat him up, and stole his shoes.”Horrified, Mads gasped. “You what?”“I needed the money!”“So you had to beat up a child?”“He wasn’t a child. He was, like, seventeen. And I had to bail my father out of jail again, but you can’t tell Charlie because if she finds out, she’s gonna lose it. Again. But Stevie was hysterical. She knew that if Charlie found out Dad was in jail again, she was going to have him killed while he was stuck there.”Tock folded her arms over her chest. “Your sister would have your father killed while he’s in jail?”“She’s been a little angry since she discovered Dad used our Social Security numbers to not only steal our identities but also for some long con he was working that eventually and typically blew up in his face.”“Is that why he was in jail?”“Oh, no. He was in jail because he stole a car with a baby in it, which just happened to belong to the mayor of some little town. Both the car and the baby, unfortunately. Honestly, it’s just another day with my dad and normally I wouldn’t care. I’d leave him there to rot in prison or I’d happily help Charlie hire a dude to hang him from the bars. Either of those options would work for me. But Stevie got really hysterical and when Stevie gets hysterical, Charlie starts freaking out, and when she starts freaking out—”“Okay, okay.” Mads held her hands up, palms out. Essentially giving up. “Forget I asked.”“Look, you guys don’t owe me anything. But if you come to the tryout this morning—”“Afternoon.”“Whatever. She just has to see me line up and, I don’t know, dribble a ball or something. If she can see me doing something normal, for once, it might actually get Charlie off my back so I can get through the next few days . . .”“Until you break out the poisonous snakes?” Mads joked.And that big grin returned. “I did find a couple of timber rattlers on Pack property. If you guys are interested, you can join me for some fine honey badger dining.”“They’ve probably slithered off by now,” Tock warned her.“No. They’re in a duffel bag under my bed.”Max headed off down the street until she seemed to realize that the rest of them weren’t right behind her. That’s when she stopped and turned to find them all watching her aghast that she’d left a bag of poisonous snakes under a bed in a wolf-pack house. Throwing her arms out at her sides, she asked, “What now?”