It doesn't matter how she ended up in this four-walled room. What matters is she gets out. ***** After a night out in New York City, Liliana Rossi wakes up in a windowless room with no recollection of how she got there. And she's not alone. The dark and tattooed Mateo Aguilar is also held captive. As the two struggle to survive and hatch an escape plan, they also struggle with growing attraction toward each other, facing Lili with the biggest question yet: is Mateo the reason she's here, or the one who's going to save her? ✨ Wattys 2018 Shortlist & Featured Story ✨ Content warning: this story references themes that readers might find triggering, including drug use and sexual assault. [[word count: 60,000-70,000 words]] Cover designed by Stefanie Saw

Nobody expects something supernatural to happen to them. Those kind of things only happened in comics. Fairy Tales. Unrealistic dreams that you'd fall asleep to, silently wishing for them to come true. At least, that was what these three teenagers thought. It turns out that there is so much more to their simple universe than they ever could have imagined. After each finding a strange alien artifact, the teens are suddenly thrusted into an intergalactic war. Alien species everywhere are trying to hunt down the most powerful weapons in the galaxy. And they are the ones in possession of it. When they run into a girl that claims to be from another planet, the three kids learn about the power given to them and the responsibilities that come along with it. Instantly, they are the most popular people in the galaxy. And for once, popularity couldn't feel more like a curse. Fighting grudges, fear, and distrust, the Chosen humans must travel to the one place on Earth where they might be safe. And with strange new powers, the teenagers struggle to live in the unfamiliar world they thought they knew so well.

It's been 15 years since the New Regime won the last war and took over. Since the war began many, many years ago, the fragile order that was once democracy in the United States has been replaced with a brutal dictatorship. When it ended, cities were destroyed from the fighting, and poverty spread to those both involved or innocent. The children of the defeated were forced into labor camps that produce anything from cloth to ammunition to help stock the Regimes armys. Those who rebel are killed, those who are loyal are rewarded. Under this massive suppression some who are courageous enough to reject the Regimes rule spend their lives to fight against it, to free the country's youth from a life of forced labor and tyranny. They are known as The Wanted.