Moving as quietly as she could, she gathered her big drawing pad and the colored pencils and pastels that Jackson had bought for her. She started to turn the top page of the pad. Then she stopped and looked at the drawing she’d made just before going to bed last night. She didn’t know if it meant anything, but the last thing she’d added before blinking out of the trance she fell into sometimes when she drew pictures were the words “For Meg.”

She removed the drawing and placed the paper on the desk in her room. Returning to the bed, she sat cross-legged and set the drawing pad in front of her. But the patchwork quilt, which usually delighted her with its shapes and colors, was a distraction now. Pushing it aside, she pulled off the top sheet—white because the Others didn’t feel the need for colors in things that wouldn’t be seen once you turned off the light—and placed it on the floor. Then she settled down, picked up her pencils, and began to draw.

The shapes. Yes, she remembered the shapes. And the sky. And...

She searched through her pencils and pastels. Nothing! How could she not have the necessary shade?

She sprang up, pulled open a drawer in the desk, and removed the silver folding razor that had been used exclusively on her when she had lived in the Controller’s compound. Jackson had been told to let her keep the razor because, if she felt compelled to cut, using the razor was safer than all the other things that could be used to slice through fragile skin. Jackson and Grace had bought her paper and pencils, had allowed her to draw, so she had tried so very hard to be good and not cut, but...

“Need it,” she muttered, all her thoughts focused on the drawing taking shape on the paper. “Need that shade.”

When the color began to flow, she tossed the razor aside, dipped her fingers into the color, and continued drawing.

•••

The scent of blood snapped Jackson Wolfgard out of a sound sleep moments before Hope screamed. Scrambling to his feet, he leaped for the bedroom door, aware that his mate, Grace, was right behind him. The Wolves who had slept on the porch or on the ground surrounding the cabin were awake and howling an alarm—or getting the pups away from potential danger.

Still shifting to human as he shoved the door open and stepped into the room, Jackson vaguely remembered some rule about adult males in human form not appearing unclothed in front of female puppies or juveniles, but he wasn’t concerned about human rules, not when Hope was staring at the drawing pad on the floor and blood from a deep slice in her left forearm dripped onto the paper and the sheet bunched up beneath it.

“Oh, Hope.” Grace sounded heartbroken.