Instead, she was a secret

Sixteen-year-old Kai Mendelsohn has been kept on strong medication and a short leash her entire life. When her loving but overprotective father brings her to a remote research station and promptly disappears, Kai sets off on a rescue mission, losing her pills along the way.

As she travels through the wilderness, accompanied by three local “leftover” kids who are seeking family members of their own, she begins to experience strange brain glitches—knowing things she shouldn’t, like translations of words in languages long banned under the United States and Territories’ policy of forced cultural assimilation. It’s almost as if she’s had cybernetic implants, except that every single implanted person died from a plague fifteen years earlier.

But the glitches become the least of her worries when she starts to get sick. With time running out, Kai must accept that her father has been lying to her about the nature of her illness—and that the fate of the planet depends on solving its mystery and staying alive.

A searing story of survival, resistance, and reclaiming what was stolen—perfect for readers who loved The Marrow Thieves and Under This Forgetful Sky.