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

He laughed again, harsher now, mocking. “Teach them what? This is an island, Aine. We are alone out here. Without the pills, we would’ve fought among ourselves until we died off, too, just like all the other creatures on this planet. The last war is all the lesson we need. We can’t be trusted to look after ourselves, and that’s why they chose me to do that for them. Just as they chose you.”


I shook my head. “I don’t want to—”


“What you want has little to do with it.” His smile turned into a smirk, a mean twist of his lips that seeped every ounce of benevolence and light out of his face and left darkness behind. “Honestly, you’re how old? Sixteen. You should know by now the good of the Colony is all that matters.”


My shoulders straightened and I felt courage surge through me. “I won’t do it, then,” I said. “I refuse to. You can’t make me!”


Chapter 48