While at this new house during the day, they are attacked by several men with gasoline and guns. The four flee to another house that Iosif owns. Their bonding is initially uncomfortable for all of them, however, as symbionts become addicted to the venom of one particular Ina. Shori adopts Celia and Brook as her own symbionts to save their lives. Shori and Wright meet the only two human symbionts who survived, Celia and Brook. Later, before Shori is able to move in with Iosif, his settlement is burned down as Shori's home was. Further, Shori's dark skin is the result of a genetic modification: the Ina were experimenting to make their kind resistant to daylight. They also learn that Wright and Shori's mutually beneficial relationship makes Wright Shori's symbiont. They eventually meet Iosif, Shori's father, who tells her the burned-out town was once her home where she had lived with her mother and sisters. Shori and Wright return to the burned-out, abandoned village near where she woke up to learn more about her past. While staying at Wright's uncle's cabin, Shori realizes she's in need of more blood, so she feeds on other inhabitants in the town and develops a relationship with an older woman named Theodora. She runs into the ruins where a construction worker named Wright picks her up on the side of the road Shori bites Wright because she finds his scent irresistible, and they begin their relationship. Eating this creature allows her to heal quickly enough to walk and explore on her own. Although she is burned and has skull trauma, she kills and eats the first creature that approaches her. The story opens as Shori awakens with no knowledge of who or where she is, in a cave and suffering from critical injuries. However, withdrawal from this venom will also lead to the human's death. Therefore, their relationships are symbiotic, with the Ina's venom providing significant boost to their humans' immune systems and extending their lives up to 200 years. Though they are physically superior to humans, both in strength and ability to heal from injury, the Ina depend on humans to survive. The Ina are nocturnal, long-lived, and derive sustenance by drinking human blood. The novel tells the story of Shori, a 53-year-old member of the Ina species, who appears to be a ten-year-old African-American girl.

The fledgling octavia