After the World Ends

Dessa has plans. She plans to stay out of trouble in the group home where she lives. She plans to work crazy hours at the grocery story to save for her own place. She plans to get her little brother back, soon, from his foster parents. But when a zombie apocalypse arrives, it wrecks all of Dessa's plans. With the city falling into chaos, Dessa must use her street smarts to survive. Her only weapon against the zombies is a pillowcase of tuna cans. And there's only one plan left in the entire universe that matters. Find and save her brother before it's too late. 

An apocalypse ruined all of Dessa's plans. She's reunited with her brother and plans to hide with him and her friends, while waiting out the zombie apocalypse in safety. But an unexpected crisis throws Dessa's group into a race against time. They need some zombie-blocker meds, and they need them fast. Unfortunately, Dessa and her friends will soon learn that the outside world has more than just zombies standing in their way. 

Separated from her brother by vigilantes and military groups working under secret orders, Dessa and her friends search for her brother, and all of the children involved in Project Polus, to administer the zombie-blocker meds in time. But when Dessa discovers the meds will soon stop working, she and her friends must travel with a military escort into the heart of a city to find a new, more powerful treatment in time to keep the children from turning. Unfortunately, more than a million souls infected with the ravenous Lyssa virus stand in their way.

Dessa is running out of time. The side effects from the zombie-blocker meds have become too great to bear, and so Dessa and her friends must bring all the Project Polus children to a special government facility called Sanctuary to get them help. But when rogue soldiers attack, the group is split. Now, in order to reach Sanctuary in time, Dessa and her companions must brave the dangers of almost a hundred miles of swampy river. Unfortunately, zombies can swim.

What is sanctuary hiding? Dessa and her friends have brought the children in Project Polus to the safety of Sanctuary’s walls—yet not all is what it seems. Scientists, Security, and Support run a caste-like facility that forces people with the combo cure—people like Dessa’s friends—to live outside.

Dessa and her friends reach the safety of the surface, mourning the death of one of their own, only to discover everything has changed. Old alliances have failed, and more than half of Sanctuary's staff mutiny—they will do whatever it takes to wrest control of Sanctuary from the scientists. Sanctuary is fighting a civil war, but the kids from Project Polus are trapped deep underground with Super V's on the loose and on the hunt. Dessa and her friends must risk it all to raid Sanctuary, save the kids, and make their home safe again. But what if Sanctuary can't be saved?

Everything falls apart. Separated from her friends, Dessa is desperate to reunite everyone and make Sanctuary safe again. But Sanctuary reveals surprise plans for Dessa that undermine everything she thought she knew. And when strangers show up at Sanctuary's front gate, demanding to trade, she must race to uncover the real reason for their arrival before it's too late.

A last chance. The situation for Dessa and her friends looks bleak. Sanctuary’s final end game is revealed. They have one chance to survive this, but the cost might be too great to bear.