Thais Fenwick was eleven years old when civilization fell, devastated by a virus that killed off most of the world's population. For seven years, Thais and her family lived in a community of survivors deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. But when raiders attack her town, she and her blind sister are taken away to the East-Central Territory, destined to live the cruel and unjust kind of life about which her late mother warned her.

Atticus Hunt is a troubled soldier in Lexington City who has spent the past seven years trying to conform to the vicious nature of men in a post-apocalyptic society. He knows that to survive, he must abandon his morals and conscience and become like those surrounding him. But when he meets Thais, morals and conscience win over conformity, and he risks his rank and life to help her. They escape the city and set out together on a long and dangerous journey to find safety in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Struggling to survive in a world without electricity, food, shelter, and clean water, Atticus and Thais shed their fear of growing too close, and they fall hopelessly in love. But can love survive in such dark times, or is it fated to die with them?