"Once debilitated, always tainted."
Malina is the heart of the story; Spinelia is just the echo no one hears.
Systematically isolated by her former friend Malina, Spinelia loses her boyfriend, her best friend, and her sense of reality all in the wake of her grandmother's death. Caught between a medical diagnosis of paranoia and the terrifying certainty that she is being hunted, Spinelia must survive the "throe of a Spinel".
Is she a victim of a grand design, or is she simply losing her mind?