‘I—’ Liz looked at her for a long, uncertain moment. ‘You’re different. I thought that from the beginning when you got off the plane, but it’s more than just surface, more than just how you look. You’re really different. You got … strong.’

‘In Morganville, you only get strong,’ Claire said. ‘Or, I guess, dead. But yes. And I know this isn’t Morganville, but we can still act for ourselves. Come on. First lesson is how to defend yourself with what’s around you …’

Liz hesitated when Claire pulled her toward the kitchen, and stared toward the door. ‘Is he still there, do you think?’

‘Maybe,’ Claire said. ‘I don’t really care. Let him get frostbite out there, or get arrested for trying to peep. Don’t play his game. Play yours.’

‘I don’t have a game.’

‘You will,’ Claire promised her, and gave her a smile that was probably every bit as scary as anything Derrick had in him. ‘You will.’

Myrnin hadn’t given Claire a whole lot of information about her new mentor, only a name (Irene Anderson) and the fact that she had once lived in Morganville, and been Myrnin’s assistant. It was fairly impressive that she’d survived the experience, but that hadn’t given Claire much context for what Anderson would be like.

Turned out that she was awesome.

For one thing, she was a whole lot younger than Claire had expected – mid-thirties, maybe. And when Claire knocked on her office door, she thought she’d arrived in the wrong place, because the petite woman standing there had no desk, and was wearing overalls that had seen better days, and was using some kind of very small handheld blowtorch on a pile of metal.

‘Just a sec,’ she said, without taking her eyes off what was happening. It was more like ten seconds, but then the woman shut off the burner, set it aside, and made a quick note on a pad of paper nearby. ‘There. Got it. So, you’re my ten o’clock, right?’

‘I’m Claire Danvers. You’re—?’

‘Dr Irene Anderson.’ The woman shoved goggles back on her head, and they slid off to hang hilariously off of her blonde ponytail, then clattered off to the floor. ‘I know, not what you were expecting, am I? Everybody says that. Including my own family. Hi.’ She came around the workbench and offered Claire her hand to shake. It was a decisive, firm grip, and she held Claire’s gaze long enough for it to be evident she had blue eyes to go with the blonde hair. Shane probably would have called her hot, though Claire was never sure exactly what his scale seemed to be … it had more to do with attitude than type. ‘Good to meet you. You’re young to have survived a year or two doing what you were doing.’

‘Are we not supposed to mention …?’