She never expected killing her best friend would be just the first horrific thing she would ever do.
They say your brain eventually shuts down in solitary confinement-all but the primitive part-the lizard brain-the part that keeps you alive. After six months in the dark, she prayed for the only thing they had not yet taken from her. She prayed for them to take her life.
Ten thousand souls, survivors of a great catastrophe, have taken refuge aboard a massive space station floating high above Earth. Centuries before, their ancestors escaped a cataclysmic environmental collapse. Now, their sanctuary is being inexorably pulled into Earth's toxic atmosphere. To save themselves, the magistrate has reconditioned one of the old starships. But it can only carry a tiny fraction of the station's inhabitants. The youngest of those remaining, those under the age of eighteen, will have to fight for places aboard a few ancient and unreliable escape pods.