Inside Blackridge, trust is dangerous—and attachment can get you killed.

Mara Kade was never supposed to stand out. Quiet, observant, and impossible to predict, she survives life inside Blackridge Academy by keeping her head down and following the rules. But when a violent breach exposes the truth behind the academy, Mara becomes the center of something far more dangerous than she ever imagined.

Elias Vance has spent years learning how to survive Blackridge without caring about anyone. Cold, controlled, and always watching, he knows the academy hides secrets beneath its walls. What he doesn't expect is Mara—the one person capable of breaking through every rule he's built around himself.

As students begin disappearing and hidden systems inside Blackridge start to collapse, Elias and Mara are pulled into a terrifying conspiracy involving surveillance, experimentation, and a program designed to turn people into weapons.

Now hunted by the very institution that raised them, they must fight to escape a place built to erase them before Blackridge takes everything they have left—including each other.