Elena watches the tall Hispanic man intently as he talks to two other almost equally fit men. She has been playing a protracted game of cat and, well, wolf for the past few weeks and has come to some interesting conclusions.

First, Ramon is a very, very dangerous man. Also, his instincts are quite good. She can tell that he can sense something shadowing him, and has just barely evaded his detection a multitude of times. Her training in surveillance and her own instincts have prevented her being seen, but he is starting to get a little…. not jumpy, per se, but definitely aware.

Second, Ramon cares about his people, even those beyond his pack. Some of his patrols in Grapevine and Fort Worth remind her uncannily of her own patrols in the Dallas area. She is developing some professional respect for him, even though some in his pack have it out for one in her own small circle.

Third, if she is ever confronted by the whole pack, she is gonna run like it’s nobody’s business. She is pretty certain she can out-sneak all of them, and when darkness is her cover (as it usually is), she knows she can lose them. She has seen them train, and there is no way she could ever take the core six by herself, even trained and armed as she is. She has also seen at least nine others frequent the training, so the pack seems to number just over a dozen, although some of them are pretty low on the totem pole. One on one, though, Elena is pretty confident she could take any of them.

Elena is uncertain that even her core group could take them all at once, as she has watched the pack train as a fighting unit. Their drill sergeant, as it were, was a very powerful, aggressive woman who was paired off with Ramon. Elena guessed that the woman was second in command, probably, with the way she almost literally barked at some of the other pack members and the way they quickly responded to her bidding. Facing the whole pack in combat would be a tough fight at best. Elena knows that she and her friends are really just a group of solos thrown together by situations and oddness, and although Elena knows they are starting to get a feel for each other’s strengths, that is nothing compared to a squad that actively trains together.

Carlos, physically the most imposing of the lot, is still steamed about the confrontation from two weeks before, and she could hear him shout obscenities about both Content Not Found: erica and the cat. Elena studies Carlos for a moment, while he gesticulates and growls. She can’t hear Ramon’s response, but it’s terse and causes Carlos to fume, turn on his heel, and stalk off. The redheaded chica who had been watching from the other side of the room slinks off after Carlos.

Elena is undecided whether or not to approach Ramon. She’s not entirely sure what the deal is between them and Erica, other than what transpired at Belle’s party two weeks ago. Something about their cat? Or is it Erica’s cat, and they’re mad at it? What did the cat do, anyway? Get into their trash? Pee in their flower bed? Cats can be pesky, but sheesh!

She decides to watch them another week, and if they haven’t moved against Erica before then, she’d move back to her normal, actually evil, prey.