Project Nemesis

It's been happening since Min was eight. Every two years, on her birthday, a strange man finds her and murders her in cold blood. But hours later, she wakes up in a clearing just outside her tiny Idaho hometown - alone, unhurt, and with all evidence of the horrifying crime erased.

It's been happening since Min was eight. Every two years, on her birthday, the same man finds her and murders her in cold blood. But hours later she wakes up in a clearing just outside her hometown - alone, unhurt, and with all evidence of the crime erased. Across the valley, Noah just wants to be like everyone else. But he's not. Nightmares of murder and death plague him, too, though he does his best to hide the signs.

Noah Livingston knows he is destined to survive. The 64 members of Fire Lake's sophomore class are trapped in a place where morals have no meaning and zero rules apply. But Noah's deaths have trained him - hardened him - to lead the strongest into the future...whatever that may be. And at any cost. Min Wilder knows that survival alone isn't enough. In a violent world where brute force passes for leadership, it's tempting to lay back and let everyone else battle it out. But Min's instincts rebel against allowing others to decide who lives and who dies. She's ready to fight.

The 64 members of Fire Lake's sophomore class have managed to survive the first two phases of the Program - and each other. Now, they alone have emerged into the dawn of a new era on Earth, into a Fire Lake valley that's full of otherworldly dangers and challenges. Although staying alive in this broken world should force Min, Noah, Tack, and the others to form new alliances, old feuds die hard, and the brutality of the earlier Program phases cannot be forgotten.