The Girl They Fear

Five hundred and sixty-nine years after nuclear war almost destroyed civilisation, humanity survives in isolated settlements surrounded by a world transformed by radiation. The old nations are gone. Cities lie in ruins beneath ancient forests. Mutated creatures stalk the wilderness. And a small number of humans have developed extraordinary powers known as Abilities. Ability Users are feared. They are outlawed. They are hunted. Eighteen-year-old Nancy Longman has never questioned why. Raised by her father, Derek, in a remote hunting cabin outside the settlement of Greywater, Nancy knows how to survive. She can track dangerous creatures, fire a bow, set traps and navigate forests where one wrong decision can get you killed. Life is hard, food is never guaranteed, and every hunt matters—but Nancy understands the rules of her world. Then, during a hunt, Nancy and Derek encounter something far more frightening than any mutated predator. A man. An Ability User. Nancy watches as lightning explodes from his hand. She and Derek run. They report him to the authorities. Armed hunters are sent into the wilderness, and Nancy thinks they have done exactly what responsible citizens should do. After all, Ability Users are dangerous. Everyone knows that. As Nancy graduates into adulthood, she receives the AI Ring carried by every adult citizen: advanced technology connected directly to her mind, capable of monitoring her health, measuring her attributes, analysing creatures and tracking her development. According to every test it performs, Nancy Longman is completely normal. But something is changing in the wilderness around Greywater. Powerful creatures are being found slaughtered. Strange tracks appear where they shouldn’t. Something is hunting predators that Nancy has spent her entire life being taught to fear. And soon, during a hunt that goes catastrophically wrong, Nancy will discover that the greatest danger in the forest might not be a creature at all. Because when death finally comes for her, something impossible happens. Something moves. Nancy didn’t touch it. Her Ring cannot explain it. And Nancy is forced to confront a terrifying possibility. She may be becoming the very thing she was taught to fear. Nancy already knows what happens when an Ability User is discovered. She helped report one. She watched the hunters come. She knows how quickly the roads are closed, how efficiently the wilderness is searched and what people say about those being hunted. Now the rules Nancy trusted are turning against her. The hunter is about to become the hunted. And neither Nancy, her father nor the people hunting her yet understand what Nancy Longman may eventually become. In a world terrified of people with power, they are about to discover the girl they should fear most.

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