Kendra Griffin

The Pox Ward Kendra Griffin

"Not having a future is like living in a house with no roof. We're helpless dolls for the universe to reach in and move around. Move to bathroom: Lose lunch. Move to Recovery: Lose blood. Move to Chop Shop: Lose lung. Have fatal reaction: Lose game."UBracelets that track your every move. Curfews. Police states. Pox Cops. This is Pablo Napolitano's Post-Pox life. Eight years after a deadly viral pandemic leaves Pablo orphaned in NYC, he's learned to love his adoptive family and come to at least tolerate life in the newly-recovered Northern Corridor. But when his UBracelet flashes red, Pablo is relocated to a Terminal Ward filled with dying, desperate teens plucked from the NYC streets and foster centers. Painful blood cleanses, blacked-over windows, paper-thin pillows and the fear of dying or losing the misfit friends he's grown to love consume his life. With the help of his streetwise roommate, Prez, Pablo realizes he must escape the Ward before it harvests his organs and kills him. Because as Pablo writes, "In one way or another, the Ward always steals your heart."The Pox Ward is a young-adult thriller with a diverse cast of orphaned teenagers who are being exploited in a corrupt medical Ward after surviving a world-wide plague. This book is the prequel to The Pox Series.