Breathless

This book will release 1 December and will ship the day before.

In a world where clean air is no longer free, survival belongs to those who can afford it.

Nineteen-year-old Kai Tanaka has spent his life as a non-citizen, breathing filtered air and following rules written by people who will never have to fear an empty oxygen cartridge. His only clear path forward is the Civic Decade: ten years of service in exchange for the rights people used to be born with.

Then Kai is chosen to join a scientific expedition into the ruins of Chicago, a city where countless people died on the night the air ran out. Deep beneath the abandoned streets, he discovers a strange moss growing where nothing should survive.

When the sample turns out to be the greatest discovery in human history. It could change the world.

But Ruth Industries built its empire on selling the world every breath, and its powerful leader has no intention of letting that future slip away. Soon, scientists are silenced, evidence disappears, and the people Kai loves become targets. Even the truth itself is turned against him.

Caught between privilege and principle, safety and freedom, Kai must decide how much he is willing to sacrifice for a discovery that could change everything and whether becoming the person he wants to be is worth losing the life he could have had.

Because in a world where air is a luxury, freedom begins with one breath.