Maja is the Good One. She knows this, from what she knows of the other teenagers in the pack. She's good, quiet, capable. She builds her identity out of this, because what else is there to build? So much burned away in the fire, including memories. She's left with Being Good or Being Hateful. And the anger that lives beneath the surface, threatening to come out at the worst times, is frightening.

So she buries it beneath the ashes and decides to be Good.

She's on the fringes of the group, ready to walk. Travel is good, she thinks, and yet she cannot shake the visions in her head. The dream came again last night. Now it hangs in her head. Occasionally she glances down at her paws and expects to see bones. When she sees only flesh and fur, she shakes her head and pushes the thoughts away.

This will be an uneventful journey, she tells herself.