Before she is sold off by her father, the Medicine Girl must escape the Florida Penal Colony. But where? Environmental degradation has rendered the few former states uninhabitable while other regions have declared themselves sovereign nations. While Militia-Men wage war against each other, she knows choosing the wrong faction means the difference between a hard life and a painful death. The Medicine Girl must use her wits and vast knowledge of natural remedies to barter her way through a wasteland. But her mother's directive to "alleviate suffering" in a place with endless hardships makes her question all that she's ever known.