Elle awakes from her fever forever changed. Her touch is lethal and power courses through her veins like liquid fire. With four orphaned children depending on her, Elle is terrified of more than Alaska’s brutal winter and the collapsing city—she’s terrified of the darkness growing inside her.

Jackson lost everything to the outbreak: his family, his purpose, his hope. Trading his badge for a bottle of bourbon, he holes himself away, desperate to numb the pain. But when Elle and the kids need help, the walls around his heart begin to crack. Determined to get everyone to safety, Jackson leads them into the wilderness, relying on instinct and the traditions of his people to keep them safe.

Only, in a world where the greatest threats aren’t the cold or starvation, but what humanity has become, new monsters lurk in the shadows, capable of impossible things.

The longer Jackson clings to his grief and Elle hides her devastating secrets, they risk losing not only each other, but everything they’re fighting to save. And to survive what’s coming, they’ll have to shed the past. Because family isn’t about blood, it’s about who you’d die to protect and who you’d dare to live for.