When do you keep your head down…and when do you fight to survive?In what remains of a destroyed United States, Missy Strongfield was raised to be the ultimate soldier by her father, the rebel General Strongfield. She knows how to hunt, farm, and take down a man twice her size.

But most of all, she knows how to survive, no matter what. That’s why, when Missy and other rebel teens are taken hostage to pay penance for the supposed sins of their fathers, survival is the goal.

They may be in the most dangerous prison in New Atlanta, but if they can just fade into the background, go unnoticed, and wait it out, they’ll get out alive. That’s the plan.

But after one of them is gravely wounded, everything changes. Now, Missy is playing a dangerous game—one that requires her to walk a fine line between obedience and rebellion.

With the prison warden breathing down her neck, whispers of war echoing through the prison walls, and her friends’ lives hanging in the balance, Missy will discover just how costly survival can be. Whatever the price, time is running out.

Penance is the riveting first book in a new young adult dystopian series. .