“You know, they did take a hard way to ask me a few simple questions. If they’d just asked . . . I probably would have answered.”

Yeah. She probably would have.

“And who was the woman?” Kera asked.

“That was their Seer. Protectors are all men, of course. But their Seers are always female.”

“I’m sure it has something to do with our menstrual flow.”

Erin frowned. “What?”

“Haven’t you ever noticed? Men fear it. It annoys them and they fear it. Because they understand what it represents. The power behind it.”

Annalisa and Leigh walked back into the apartment, their gazes darting back and forth between Erin and Kera until Erin finally asked, “What?”

“Nothing.” Leigh shook her head. “Nothing. You guys ready to go?” She forced a smile.

Kera grunted and grabbed her duffel. “Where’s Jace?”

“Passed out in the back of the SUV. When she goes full postal like that, it takes a while for her to get back to normal.”

“What?” Leigh asked when Kera laughed.

“Nothing. But . . . my mother worked for the post office.”

Still not getting the joke, the three of them watched Kera walk out of her apartment.

Once they heard her go down at least one flight of stairs, Leigh suddenly turned to Erin and said, “What are we going to do with her?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What if she doesn’t have the killing instinct? What if she can’t kill?”

Erin let out a sigh. “What did that big idiot say to you?”

“Who?”

“Engstrom. What did he say to you?”

“What makes you think he said—”

“I am runnin’ out of patience, bitches.”

“He was a little concerned by her reaction to Rundstöm after the Ravens confronted The Silent,” Annalisa explained in her forensic psychologist way. “That’s all. And he’s not wrong. Not only did she stop him from stomping that idiot into the ground, but now, every time Rundstöm comes near her, she freaks out.”

“Do you know the problems we would have had if she’d let Rundstöm stomp Oveson and Voll into the ground?”

“But she didn’t know that,” Leigh argued. “She was doing it out of some kind of . . . morality.”

Erin briefly closed her eyes. She wanted to laugh so badly. But no. This was serious Crow business. She couldn’t laugh. At least not until later when she was retelling this story to the others.

“Well, it is true that Kera does have some sort of tragic . . . morality disease”—that’s when Annalisa snorted—“but we’ll just have to help her. Not everyone comes into this lifeready to do what we do. But we’ll teach her.”

Annalisa cleared her throat. “She’s right, Leigh. We’ll have to work with her. And I promise,” she added, putting her hand on Leigh’s shoulder. “We’ll cure her. I promise.”

“Good.” Leigh grabbed one of the last boxes. “Because that shit can only get in our way.”

Erin waited until Leigh walked out, then she looked at Annalisa, raised her brows.

“Trust me. I’ve diagnosed every bitch in our group. We haven’t had a true sociopath since Penny Matlin retired three years ago. Leigh’s just morality-challenged.”

“But with a great eye for design.”

“Give me a break.” Annalisa picked up another duffel bag and walked toward the door. “There’s not one Crow in our Clan who would not have understood that new girl’s furniture was ugly.”

Kera moved things around so that all the stuff she was taking with her would easily fit in the back of the SUV. She could hear Jace snoring from the next seat over and she had so many questions for her. But she would, of course, wait until she woke up. Hopefully she wouldn’t start crying again.

Once Kera had everything fitted so that the last few things could slide right in, she turned and gasped in shock.

“Don’t do that,” she ordered Vig.

“I was just standing here.”

“Some call it stealthy stalking but whatever.”

“You hate me now, don’t you?”

Shocked, Kera squinted up into his face. “What?”

“You hate me. For what I almost did to Voll.”

“Voll?”

“The Silent who had you by the throat.”

No. Vig didn’t get it. Not that she blamed him for that. No one understood how her mind worked, least of all Kera herself. So how could she expect poor, logical Vig to get it?

“I don’t hate you, Vig.”

“But I scared you.”

“Vig, I was in the Marines for ten years and married to a Navy SEAL for three. Do you really think that was the first time a guy kicked the shit out of some hands-y asshole for me? Hardly.”

“Then what is it?”

Kera didn’t even know where to start or if she wanted to start at all. Her story was not one she wanted to tell to anyone. Least of all Vig, whom she liked so much. What if she scared him off once he knew the truth about her? Once he saw how fucked up she really was?

Thankfully, before she had a chance to reply, Leigh shoved another box in the SUV. “I think we’re almost done.”

“Yeah.” Kera patted Vig’s arm and walked around him. “I’ll go do one more sweep and then we can get out of here.”