Sixteen year old Aine lives in the Colony, and his whole life was decided before he was born. In two years he will marry the girl next door, Brin, who was assigned as his Other at birth. Then he will be given a position in the Colony's workforce that best suits his talents. Each night he takes four pills, like everyone else in the Colony, and he knows the pills keep them safe and their world in order. Everything is fine. Perfect, in fact. Until Aine accidentally drops one of his pills. Terrified, he tries to hide the mistake, but when he dreams for the first time in his life, he discovers all he's been missing. What scares him more than not taking the pill, though, is how alive his dreams make him feel. Because it isn't Brin he dreams of but his best friend Kyer. Another boy. Suddenly Aine's world turns upside down, and he doesn't know what to think or who to trust. All he knows for sure is he's falling in love with Kyer, which is forbidden by the Colony's Code, and he will do anything to protect their budding relationship. Even if it means defying the Overseer and leaving the Colony behind.

The Colony Book 1: Rebellion

My hand fisted in the loose fabric of Kyer’s shirt as I pulled him close. “It can’t be,” I told him. “It feels too right.”


And it did. More right than the sloppy kiss Brin and I had shared on our birthday. More right than any of the touches or looks or intimate moments I’d ever shared with her. More right than the chimes in the morning or the pills at night.


Thiswas what I was meant for, and I knew it. This boy beside me, these arms around me, this mouth pressed to mine. Despite everything the Eugenics Center might have tried to code into my genes, they couldn’t remove the one thing I was truly made to do.


“They can’t know,” he said. “Brin or Lyra, or anyone at all. They’d make us take the pills again. They’d force them into us—”


I added, “They’d keep us apart. They can’t. They can’t.”


There, in the dark, where the screens couldn’t see us, I believed him.


Chapter 30