A young woman wakes up among the trash in a fetid alley. The side of her head is burned and red. In the darkness, the chirp of an overhead security aircar and cries of a bloodthirsty mob ignite a single instinct inside her: Run.

Hurt, coinless and alone, she takes cover in another alley and soon comes to an uneasy truce with its only occupant. Rat is a man typical of Shantytown, a Trodden non-citizen who can barely survive in this slum that surrounds Waytown like a noose. Unable to remember her past, her only option is to learn from the Trodden to eke out an uncertain future.

Survival takes priority over discovering her identity, until she comes to realize that what happened to her was no accident. The few friends she manages to make, the hopeless Rat, the disgraced Doc Reynolds, the handsome Sadler, may regret ever taking her into their lives. But if she can remember what she can do, the powers she can wield, then she will become the hunter.

Scorched, a romantic suspense novel set in a dystopian future, follows the mystery of one woman's struggle to regain her identity and discover the reason why a powerful force wants her dead.