She found the body. He found a reason to never let her go.

Sheltered eighteen-year-old Mari Lloyd has spent her life inside the Work—a secluded religious Community where obedience is safety, marriage is assigned, and girls like her are expected to be grateful for whatever future Council chooses.

Mari has always seen the dead.

But when she sneaks beyond the walls of the Girls' Home and discovers Ava Moore's mutilated body beside a mountain stream, her secret gift draws the attention of one of the most dangerous men in the Community.

Alden Warrick is a Councilman's son, a respected member of the Order, and a married man who has already spent months waiting for Mari in the dark. He offers her everything she has never been allowed to have: an identity, an Outside pass, a job—and the illusion of choice. As Ava's murder is quietly buried, Alden's interest in Mari becomes an obsession she cannot escape.

Meanwhile, a young, ambitious Vincent Hale is being pushed through brutal Order training years ahead of schedule. As his questions about Ava's death expose the violence, secrecy, and corruption beneath the Work's promises of protection, his faith in the future he has spent his life pursuing begins to fracture.

The closer Mari and Vincent come to the truth, the more dangerous the Community becomes. And some sins cannot be washed away.