For nineteen years, Sterling Bentley has known only one world: the isolated Grace compound, where obedience is demanded, questions are dangerous, and faith is built on fear.
Then Sterling runs.
Exhausted, injured, and carrying secrets he barely understands himself, he stumbles into the outside world-and into the life of Adrian Chen, a fiercely independent young woman whose curiosity has already gotten her into more than a little trouble.
Adrian knows there is something different about Sterling. He is afraid of ordinary things, suspicious of simple kindness, and haunted by a family he refuses to discuss. But the more she learns about the place he escaped, the more questions she has.
And the Graces don't like questions.
What begins as an unexpected connection between two strangers soon pulls Adrian into a world hidden beyond the Arizona desert-a community ruled by Pastor Andrew Grace and his devoted followers, where disappearances are explained away, loyalty is absolute, and those who escape are never supposed to tell their stories.