Beth sobbed. “I swear I’ve never been so happy to be hit in my life.”
Buster squinted. “You’re getting tears on my fur,” he rasped. “Pull yourself together.”
He shifted, testing a back leg. His ears flattened in pain, but he managed to right himself, dignity at half-mast. “What hit me? Did the apocalypse finally arrive?”
Beth ran a hand over his head as gently as she could. “The shelf fell during whatever the hell that was. Can you move? Is anything broken?”
Buster hissed through his teeth and flexed his tail. “Nothing broken. Maybe sprained. I’ll live. Unlike you all, who are screwed.”
Daniel looked about ready to throw a chair. “Why? Who the hell was that, and why does he want to wreck your office, Beth?”
Buster fixed us with a look that could’ve cut stone. “You’re not listening. That was Python. You just wouldn't believe me. The guy is evil, but he’s also smarter than the four of you put together.” He tried for a dramatic pause, but it lost somethingwith him lying sideways in Beth’s lap like a fainting goat. “He’s not just some villain. He isthevillain. If he’s out, you should all start updating your last wills right about now.”
Beth looked like someone had unplugged her at the base. “But he was a mouse. For years. I used to watch him eat cardboard. You’re telling me that was an evil mastermind this whole time?”
“Undercover,” Buster said. “Patience of a saint, teeth of a demon. He’s got plans you can’t even imagine.”
Python might be out there, plotting the next evil chapter, but he’d just made a serious mistake.
He’d picked a fight with the wrong group of misfits.
