For an empath, "How do you feel?" is never just a question. Not when it can kill you. These are the rules: 1. Rare and powerful empaths never escape the compound. (Bastian Lucas escaped a year ago, and just because he’s been dragged back doesn’t mean he won't escape again.) 2. Compound officers don’t ask questions. (Captain Henry Mortimer has always followed orders, but Bastian’s arrival—and the disappearance of one of Henry’s team—have him wondering things he probably shouldn't be wondering.) When Major Valentine orders Bastian and Henry to investigate a series of murders committed by an asset with powers similar to Bastian’s, it brings to light more than just a cover up. Things like why an empath who shouldn't exist is killing senators, what’s really behind the compound’s sinister asset program, and whether Bastian and Henry will live to see the end of this case. Because they're in danger of breaking rule number three as well: 3. Don’t fall in love.

The Compound Network nearly killed them. Now they’re the only ones who can save it. The rules have changed. 1\. The compound can’t be saved . . . unless it can. (Major Henry Mortimer is determined to fix the organization that almost destroyed him and everyone he cares about—even if his “supporters” seem to be working against him.) 2\. Empaths are doomed to self-destruct . . . unless they aren’t. (Bastian Lucas thinks he’s accepted that his power is killing him—until a questionable ally offers him a dangerous way out.) 3\. Failed experiments get buried . . . unless they don’t. (Laurel was done looking back, but when a presumed-dead asset turns up at the compound very much alive, she has the opportunity to right past wrongs—or to make everything worse.) With their fledgling new compound sinking into chaos, Henry, Bastian, and Laurel must come together to unravel a conspiracy that starts where their pasts inexplicably meet . . . before everything they've been trying to rebuild goes up in flames.

If the rules exist only to break you, you have to learn to break them first. 1\. A prickly empath can't be a hero. Trapped in a compound run by a mysterious new major, Bastian Lucas only cares about one thing: finding out what happened to the man he loves. But he can't escape the fact that his fellow assets need him to be the hero he definitely isn't. 2\. A beaten officer can't get back up. Forced to use his power against the assets he tried to protect, Henry Mortimer has lost the will to fight—along with any hope of seeing Bastian again. But the compound leaders who betrayed him have set bigger plans in motion, and Henry might be the only one who can turn the tide. 3\. A ragtag team of assets can't change the world. When Bastian launches a desperate plan to rescue Henry, it brings the simmering tensions between assets and compounds to a boil. And as he and Henry gain new allies and lose old friends, they'll have to decide if they're willing to risk everything to bring down the Compound Network for good.