High (Book One in the Fallen City Series)

Everyone just wants a Rush. That perfect
combination of emotions that make you lift off,
that makes everything more clear. The more you
mix, the better it gets. Just be careful not to
overdose.

I don't know how the city got this way. It was never
supposed to end like this and now I know that I can't do
anything to turn back time and make it all better.

People have been disappearing, bodies found laying around the
once clean streets. The past hundred years have been like a
wrecking ball to our city, to Orsia. There is a constant fear
that you'll be next, that your emotions will be drained
straight from your body. That what happens to people around these
parts. If you're not rich or upperclass, that you'll
probably be next.

After you've been harvested, your emotions go through the
long process of being concentrated and pressed into tiny little
pills. These pills are far more valuable than anything
you'll ever see. Food, water, even diamonds. Only the snobs,
the super rich, or the stupid theives will get their hands on
these. Drug runners are all over the city, sending them from
place to place.

Looking back, I guess I see how it all happened, as much as
I'd like to deny it. After the president was killed, it just
seems like everything is getting worse and worse, like some sort
of fucked up chain of events. I just want it to stop. Now, the
drug industry is running wild and I'm stuck in the middle of
it. I don't really have a place around the industry, but one
important factor is keeping me around. I'm Lyra. The
dictators daughter.