Contender

Raised from the ashes of the sixth World War, the International Perpetuation Federation conceals the idea of human extinction behind the captivating notion of brutal live entertainment, order and silence. The Board of Independence, led by Madame Camille Baskerville, watches over everything. Every month the lower-class members of society are injected with one of two liquids, a deadly poison or a sample of the cure to the plague that often strikes their closed-off world. The three people that get infected every month, the victims, can only be saved by selecting a single champion to compete in a series of deadly challenges constructed by the Federation.
But when seventeen-year-old Gunner Ward thinks he can save his family by getting them out of the city, he’s captured and taken prisoner within the Federation’s most inescapable compound. Instructed that he must either compete in the Tournament or be killed in a public execution, Gunner initially goes into the first round convinced he can easily fail and save himself because unlike the rest of the contenders, he doesn’t have anyone to fight for. It’s only when Gunner discovers he’s actually competing for the life of the most important girl in the entire world, Joy Baskerville, the daughter of the head chairman of the Board of Independence, that he must decide between saving himself and failing the Tournament, or risking his life to save the girl that could be his key to finding happiness in the light of the end of the world. But there’s something different about this girl, and Gunner knows it. She could be the cure the world is looking for. The one with the answers to saving everyone.
Gunner must become a contender to be this world’s last defender.
But Gunner’s sister got out. And she has a story too.
What’s outside the Federation could destroy everything they’ve ever believed in. Syrena Ward has a plan to bring it all down. Is she strong enough to defy everyone, even the ones she trusts the most