Honestly, as long as the new girl came through during battle, she should be okay. Even if she mostly hung out with the Ravens.

Erin stretched her neck and went back to sketching a future tattoo for one of her best clients. She was just finishing when she saw Kera walk out the sliding back doors into the yard. Something that normally wouldn’t concern Erin in the least . . . except for the clipboard she was holding. Why was the new girl holding a clipboard?

Good God, why did she have a clipboard?

Leigh suddenly clamored over the several other deck chairs between them until she reached Erin’s.

“Why does that woman have a clipboard?” Leigh demanded.

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Is she . . . is she organizing?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”

Kera spotted Erin and Leigh, and immediately made her way over to them.

“There you are,” Kera said.

“Yes. Here I am. Relaxing,” Erin told her, hoping she’d understand.

“Uh-huh. I have a few questions for you.”

“Okay.”

“What kind of training program do you guys have in place?”

“Training program?”

“Yeah. Early morning? Or later in the afternoon? Or do you have several over the course of the day?”

“We really don’t have a training schedule.”

“But you guys go out at night, right? That’s when you do your gods-sanctioned killing?”

Leigh’s hands clenched into fists and she closed her eyes, while Erin tried to figure out the best way to handle this situation.

“We all have such varied schedules that we just train on our own.”

“Really?” Kera briefly stopped to note that on the notepad attached to her clipboard. Her horrifying clipboard. “That doesn’t seem the most effective way to make this work.”

“Except it’s been working for more than thirteen hundred years.”

“But it can be better, right?” But before Erin could answer that stupid question, Kera replied, “Exactly! And I think I have some good ideas for that.”

Leigh, unable to contain her panic a moment longer, jumped up, yanked the clipboard away from Kera, pulled back her arm, and then pitched the whole fucking thing right into the pool.

“There!” she nearly screamed. “We’re done!”

“I’m not sure why you did that,” Kera replied calmly. “But I can successfully keep most information in my head, so I don’t really need it. I just like having things written out so when I type it into a very helpful handbook, I have less work to do.”

“Oh my God!” Leigh barked at Erin. “Do something! She’s your problem, Amsel, do something!”

They watched Leigh stomp off to the fully stocked bar on the other side of the pool.

“Wow, she’s kind of moody.”

“Because you’re becoming a problem,” Erin told Watson.

“A problem today, a solution tomorrow.”

“A solution to what? We don’t need a solution.”

“You don’t think you need a solution, but based on what I’ve seen today, this place desperately needs a solution. And don’t worry, by the time I’m done, everything will hum like a well-oiled machine.”

“Don’t you have a dog to take care of or something?”

“She’s off jogging or something with a couple of other Crows. Oh, that reminds me.” She pulled out a smaller notepad from the back pocket of her cut-off shorts and began writing something down. “I need to get her food and put a schedule in the kitchen so the other girls don’t overfeed her while we’re here.”

Erin sat up and placed her hand against Kera’s hip. “Look, I know you need to feel like you’re in control of something, but this isn’t it. You can’t control the Crows. That’s kind of the whole point of us. We refuse to be controlled by anyone.”

“Sure. I get that,” Kera replied, glancing off. “So,” she suddenly asked, “have you guys tried meditating? It’s a really good way to center yourself. I learned about it in the Marines, believe it or not, and I do it every day. It’s good for you.” She nodded, wrote something down in her little notepad. “Yeah. I’ll get a schedule together for meditation sessions, as well as training sessions. I think that’ll help. A lot. Don’t you?”

“ No. ”

“Yeah. It’ll help.”

“You’re not even trying to listen to me.”

“When you make sense, I’ll listen. But to keep doing things the wrong way just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t make sense to me. Not when there’s a better way to do things.”

“But you know nothing about us. You know nothing about the Clans. About what we do. How we function.”

“Are you planning to teach me all that?” When Erin didn’t answer immediately, Watson nodded. “That’s what I thought. I’m on my own here, which is fine, but then I’ll do things my way. And if there is one thing the United States Marines has taught me . . . organization is key.”

“We’re not the Marines.”

“No. But you’re a fighting force and the Marines are one of the best fighting forces in the entire world. What can’t you learn from us?”

“Them.”

“What?”