Elijah Goldsmith has nightmares he needs to ignore. Why would a rich kid from Manhattan dream three straight nights about a dragon and the destruction of St. Peter’s Basilica? He’s never even been to Rome. It’s bad timing, too. He’s graduating soon and applying to be a spy in the International Security Agency. That’s where he meets Naomi. She’s the kind of girl who makes boys like Elijah want to share their secrets.

Cipher wakes up in the Blue Tower with no memories of his former life. He discovers he is not alone. Dozens of boys and girls must compete in a battle called the Scouring against four other towers - Red, Green, Yellow, and Black - each with its own rules and powers. In his first Scouring, Cipher captures Emma, a girl from Yellow, whose memories from Victorian England move Cipher to uncover his own past. He must learn who he was before he can figure out why he's here...and how to get out.

Twenty years after the horrific nuclear events that devastated the world's population, an organized city of survivors sends out a small exploratory force consisting of scientists and their military escorts. Their mission is to locate new supplies of food and water for the growing community. Few have ventured from the city since the war and fewer returned. Lucas Sanderson is one of four Historians.

Olivia is excited for university. She will be on her own in a new place, hopeful to meet new friends. On the night she moves in, she is taken off the street by two masked men. She is placed in a room that is little more than a cell. A pink cell. A room made for a doll. She is now part of their collection.

"The Earth died in less than a minute. Maybe that's an exaggeration. It's not like the planet ceased to exist altogether. It just seemed like it. Cities were reduced to rubble. Millions of people died that day. I've since been told that 95 percent of the Earth's human population was wiped out. I don't know if that's true - I mean, who can know that for sure? It's not like we still have any of the technology that we once used to determine such things. But I do know that it was almost empty of people - live ones, that is..."