"It is your choice," he said, stepping so close to me that our lips were almost touching. "Either do what I say - or get another job." My heart stood still as I gazed up into his deep, dark, dangerous eyes... In a world where women's only role in life is to sit at home and look pretty, Lilly is determined to fight for her freedom. There's only one problem: a powerful man blocking her way.

In the quiet desert village of Dey, living among the sand dunes and mirages, existed an anomaly - me. I was different, born without the ability to read, write or keep long memories. My scientist father hailed my uniqueness as a miracle, but my life was far from ordinary. To the village, I was just an oddity, a walking puzzle with missing pieces. My only solace was my best friend, always standing by me, his unspoken love for me etched in his affectionate gaze. We lived under a cruel regime with a population no more than a hundred. Every year, one of us would be chosen on the Counting Day, a ceremonious banishing ritual, to become yet another outcast to the floating prison island far off in the ocean - our village's dreaded version of population control. Our past criminals, defiant to government, and more terrifyingly, our loved ones gone missing, were thought to inhabit that island, their fate, a terrifying enigma. This year, as the Counting Day approached unrelentingly, and my loved one's life rested on borrowed time, I made a decision. I volunteered to be casted out. It was my turn to face the unknown with a hidden purpose - to locate my lost father who was sent there years ago.