Holo-play actor Emma Sloan teeters on the edge of death after a studio accident leaves third degree burns over eighty-percent of her body. In a last-ditch effort to save her life, desperate doctors bring her into an experimental program that replaces her damaged skin with a bio-engineered organism. The artificial skin saves her life, but it turns her into a monster. She will never again appear on a holo-stage. Horrified by the hideous change in her appearance, Emma has hardly begun to grieve her death when six previous test subjects break out of their controlled environment. The last symbiont still in human custody, Emma has to choose between tracking them down and getting them back under control or being put down like an animal herself. Nick Archer mourned Emma Sloan's death along with the rest of the world. Now he's been assigned as her handler. His job-to get the escaped symbionts back under control any way he can, and if he thinks he's losing control of Emma, to kill her. But Nick keeps making excuses to keep Emma alive, and the skin's adaptability surpasses anything its creators imagined, combining human cunning with the skin's adaptability. By the time Nick makes up his mind, Emma won't be easy to kill.