TORN

Located around what was formerly Central Florida, Florida Island is now, as the name suggests, surrounded entirely by water and is roughly sixty miles from the mainland. It is the home of TOR-N, the Territories’ Operational Research—on Narxis, part of aseries of TOR facilities each focused on different health risks and issues. This one’s really a prisontype fortress where people from all the Territories who are carriers of Narxis are quarantined, studied, and eventually left to die.

Davis has spent eight months on Florida Island in a facility known as TOR-N, allegedly a research facility but, in reality, a place where the people sick with Narxis are treated like lab rats before they die. Davis thinks constantly of Cole and of escape.
But escape won’t be easy. Ninety percent of everyone who arrives at TOR-N dies, and the island is on military-style lockdown. However, a small group of “Neithers”—people who are neither Imp nor Prior, but bear some genetic characteristics of each--resist the disease for longer, perhaps indefinitely. One Neither is a hot boy named Mercer, and after a botched escape attempt (Davis attempts to smuggle herself off the island on a boat bearing supplies), she and Mercer bond. They rapidly develop feelings for each other—together they’ve seen and survived atrocities others would never understand.
Then, a very, very pregnant Vera arrives at Florida Island. She explains what Davis missed in Columbus over the last eight months: Thomas Worsley banded with some eminent scientists to find the cure for Narxis. They sought volunteers for a special fertility operation; they believe that the lasting cure for Narxis lies in the “Neithers,” in the insertion of part of the Imp genetic sequence into the afflicted Priors. Vera volunteered for the cause—believing it would make her indispensable. She is now pregnant with the fetus that may in fact hold the secret to the cure in its blood.
Davis knows she must get Vera back to Columbus so she can give birth to the unborn child in safety. Time is running out; the doctors tell Vera she has less than a week to live. Mercer agrees to help, and so begins their harrowing escape.
Meanwhile, in Columbus, marshal rule is in effect, allowing no one to come and go within the region—meaning Cole hasn’t been able to get out and rescue Davis. He’ll need money to bribe enough officials to let him pass—lots of money. Then he sees his chance: The Olympiads have been reinstated with a new twist. Priors are inviting Imps to participate in the competition. Everyone knows it’s a twisted way for the Priors to publicly demonstrate their superiority, a PR blitz after the devastation of the Narxis epidemic. But Cole decides he will not only enter but he will win the Olympiads, bringing him enough fortune to leave Columbus, rescue Davis, and start a new life with her somewhere beyond the borders. He must train intensely for the Olympiads, and Worsley agrees to help, hoping Cole’s victory will lead to a new era of Imp-Prior cooperation.
At the height of the Olympiads, Davis reunites with Cole and, torn between her past as a Prior and her future as a Narxis-bearing Neither, she must choose between Cole and Mercer. As Davis reaches deep into her heart for the answer, Vera dies giving birth to the cure.