In this gripping, high-octane sequel to The Line Between , which New York Times bestselling author Alex Kava calls “everything you want in a thriller,” cult escapee Wynter Roth and ex-soldier Chase Miller emerge from their bunker to find a country ravaged by disease. Six months after vanishing into an underground silo with sixty-one others, Wynter and Chase emerge to an altered world. There is no sign of Noah and the rest of the group that was supposed to greet them when they surfaced—the same people Wynter was counting on to help her locate the antibiotics her gravely ill friend, Julie, needs. As the clock ticks down on Julie’s life, Wynter and Chase embark on a desperate search for medicine and answers. But what they find is not a nation on the cusp of recovery but one decimated by disease. What happened while they were underground? With food and water in limited supply and their own survival in question, Chase and Wynter must venture further and further from the silo. They come face-to-face with a radically changed society, where communities scrabble to survive under rogue leaders and cities are war zones. As hope fades by the hour and Wynter learns the terrible truth of the last six months, she is called upon again to help save a nation she no longer recognizes—a place so chaotic she’s no longer sure it can even survive. With Tosca Lee’s signature “beautifully written and deeply unnerving” (Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author) prose, A Single Light is a breathless thriller of nonstop suspense. "Fans of the first novel will be anxious for this one, and Lee’s vivid style will also thrill readers of survival fiction like Erica Ferencik’s The River at Night." — Booklist "Fast-paced and taut, A Single Light is a breathless thriller of nonstop suspense about the risks of living in a world outside the safe confines of our closely-held beliefs and the relationships and lives that inspire us." — Book Reporter Tosca Lee is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of The Progeny , Firstborn , Iscariot , The Legend of Sheba , Demon: A Memoir , Havah: The Story of Eve , and the Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestseller Ted Dekker. She received her BA in English and International Relations from Smith College. A lifelong adventure traveler, Tosca makes her home in the Midwest with her husband and children. A Single Light DAY 14 I miss ice cream. The way it melts into a soupy mess if you draw out the enjoyment of eating it too long. That it has to be savored in a rush. I miss the Internet, my cell phone, and Netflix. I was halfway through the first season of Stranger Things when the lights went out. I miss the sky. The feel of wind—even when it carries the perfume of a neighboring pasture. The smell of coming rain. But even fresh air is a small price to pay to be sane and alive. To be with the people you love. The ones who are left, anyway. My five-year-old niece, Truly. My mom’s former best friend, Julie, and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Lauren. And Chase—my (what? boyfriend?)—who has made it his mission to keep me safe since we met three weeks ago. We’re five of the lucky sixty-three who have taken shelter from the flu-borne pandemic in an underground silo west of Gurley, Nebraska. I used to hate that word—lucky. But there’s no better way to describe the fortune of food and water. Amenities like heat, clothing, and a bed. Not to mention an infirmary, gymnasium, library, hydroponic garden, laying hens, and the company of uninfected others. All safe and living in relative comfort due to the foresight of a “doomsday prepper” named Noah, who thought of everything—including the pixelated walls and ceiling of the upper lounge aglow with a virtual meadowscape of billowing grasses and lazy bees beneath an artificial sky. We spent the first four days confined to two of the silo’s dorm levels with the rest of the last-minute arrivals, waiting to confirm the rapid tests administered upon our arrival. Mourning the loss of Julie’s husband and Lauren’s father, Ken, and my sister, Jaclyn—Truly’s mother. Stiffening at any hint of a cough across the communal bunkroom, fully aware that there is no fleeing whatever we may have brought with us; the silo door is on a time lock, sealed for six months. By which time the grid will be back up and the disease causing fatal madness in its patients should have died out with the flu season . . . Along with most of its victims. Luckily (there’s that word again), the tests held true and we emerged from quarantine to find our places in this new community. That was nine days ago. Nine days of meeting and learning about the others, of feeding chickens on the garden level, starting a formal children’s school, and assuming new responsibilities on the kitchen, laundry, and cleaning crews. Of speculating about what’s happening in the world above as we watch the electric sunset after dinner. That first week