First published 2013
Gabe has nothing left. The economic collapse took most of what mattered, and his small town holds only the wreckage of a life he wants to leave behind. Becoming a skiptracer looks like the one exit still open to him. The work is brutal and the odds are against him, but Gabe takes his first assignment anyway. His target is a young girl who refuses to speak. She is small, she is guarded, and she is nothing like what he expected. Gabe needs to deliver her to collect the score that could change his circumstances. What he does not expect is how much she changes him instead. Set in the world of Alexandra Bracken's The Darkest Minds, this short story runs alongside the events leading into Never Fade. It fills in corners of that world through Gabe's eyes, a man outside the central story who stumbles into its gravity. The tension sits between what Gabe came to do and what he finds himself unable to do. That gap is where the story lives.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, contemporary, thriller, young-adult
Vibes: dark, emotional, gritty, introspective, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, protective-relationship, redemption-arc, reluctant-hero
Setting: small town
Period: 21st century
89 pages · Kindle Edition · Disney Publishing Worldwide
Content warnings: abuse, violence