''You think God has a loophole for people who don't have a choice?'' Jamie shrugs. ''Hope so, otherwise we're screwed.'' Evie doesn't have a choice. One day she's an ordinary seventeen year old, grieving for her mother. The next, she's a Shield, the result of a decades - old experiment gone wrong, bound by DNA to defend her best friend from an unknown killer. The threat could come at home, at school, anywhere. All Evie knows is that it will be a fight to the death. And then there's Jamie. Irresistible. Off - limits.