The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne

The first book in the Scarlett and Browne series is set in a post-apocalyptic Britain where the country has fractured into Seven Kingdoms. Fortified communities called Surviving Towns huddle behind high walls, while the wilderness between them, known as the Wilds, teems with mutated predators and cannibalistic creatures called the Tainted. The Faith Houses, religious institutions governed by a High Council, enforce laws against genetic deviation, and anyone born with abnormalities risks exile or death.

Scarlett McCain, a teenage outlaw who walks the Wilds alone, wakes one morning beside four dead men she killed in self-defense. She heads for Cheltenham, a Surviving Town in Wessex, and robs the Cooperative Bank at gunpoint, escaping through a plate-glass window on a stolen bicycle with a bag of banknotes.

Fleeing into the forest, Scarlett discovers a wrecked passenger bus. Predators have killed most passengers, but she climbs inside and finds a locked metal briefcase and a hole blown outward from the bus's interior. In the locked toilet cubicle, she discovers Albert Browne, a pale, malnourished teenager who has survived the crash by hiding inside for days.

Scarlett reluctantly agrees to guide Albert to the next town. A massive bear attacks as they climb the embankment; Scarlett kills it with her knife but is pinned beneath its body until Albert levers the carcass off her. From a hilltop, Scarlett spots six dark-clothed figures with dogs tracking them from the direction of the bus, their pursuit far more aggressive than any bank robbery would warrant.

They camp in a ruined farmhouse, but that night the pursuers throw gelignite into the room. Scarlett and Albert barely escape. They flee to a river gorge, where Scarlett stays behind to cover Albert's retreat. A bearded pursuer engages her at the cliff's edge and reveals a startling truth: The pursuers are after Albert, not Scarlett. In her hesitation, the man stabs a knife through her palm. Scarlett pulls the blade free, shoves Albert into the river, and jumps after him.

Interspersed flashbacks reveal Albert's past at Stonemoor, a secret institution run by Dr. Calloway, a pale-haired woman who works for the Faith Houses' High Council. There, children with psychic abilities are kept prisoner, subjected to experiments with electrodes and shocks, and forced to wear iron mind restraints, metal bands that block their powers. A fellow prisoner told Albert about the Free Isles, a community in the London Lagoon where people with abilities live freely. That boy later died in an uncontrolled outburst, and his death loosened a window frame Albert eventually used to escape, killing several guards when his power broke free.

Scarlett and Albert wash ashore downstream. The bank money is lost, and Scarlett's hand is badly wounded. They reach Lechlade, a Surviving Town on the Thames, where Scarlett talks them past the guards using a fake identity. While Scarlett seeks medical treatment, Albert wanders into town and is attacked by slavers. His panic triggers what he calls "the Fear," an uncontrollable telekinetic outburst that tears the slavers apart, though he barely remembers doing it.

That evening, Scarlett breaks open the briefcase and finds chains, sleeping pills, an iron mind restraint, and a wanted poster for Albert offering £20,000 alive or £10,000 dead, issued by the High Council. Albert confesses that the men on the bus were Faith House operatives and that the crash occurred when his powers broke free. He also reveals he can read minds, seeing images and emotions, and demonstrates by describing Scarlett's unspoken plan to rob the Lechlade bank.

They strike a deal: Albert will use his telepathy to help rob the bank, and Scarlett will pay for his passage to the Free Isles. Albert has already read the mind of an old woman who knows the bank's security, learning the vault keys' location and the bank's secret defense: a chained horn-beak, a giant flesh-eating flightless bird in the basement. He also identifies Joe, an elderly raft pilot, and Joe's mute granddaughter Ettie as their transport downriver.

The heist succeeds. Scarlett drugs the horn-beak, blows the safe, and fills her bag with banknotes, gold bars, and jewelry. Afterward, two enforcers from the Brothers of the Hand, a criminal organization to which Scarlett owes a blood debt, ambush her with orders to kill. Before they can shoot, Mr. Shilling, a Faith House operative, steps from the bushes, claiming he needs Scarlett alive because she is harboring a dangerous individual. A three-way gunfight erupts: Shilling kills both enforcers, and Scarlett shoots him twice before fleeing.

At the river gate, Dr. Calloway herself appears with the wounded Shilling. When Shilling throws gelignite, Albert's terror triggers a massive explosion that detonates the wharf's petrol drums and collapses a watchtower onto Calloway and Shilling. The group escapes aboard Joe's vessel, a ramshackle wooden raft called Clara.

The journey down the Thames spans several days. They hide in reedbeds to evade Calloway's motorboat and detour through the Oxford floodlands. At Bladon Point, a riverside trading post, they discover the garrison massacred by the Tainted and rescue Ettie from the overrun fort. As they near the lagoon, Joe reveals that Ettie's muteness will eventually get her exiled by any Surviving Town.

In the darkness before they reach the Free Isles, Shilling's operatives board the raft and force a barbed mind restraint onto Albert. Shilling announces they will kill Scarlett and return Albert to Stonemoor. When Ettie's screaming distracts the men, Scarlett punches her guard, shoots another, grabs a knife, and slices through the rod connecting Albert's restraint to his bound hands. Albert rips off the circlet, and his power erupts, splintering the raft and hurling the operatives skyward. Joe pulls Albert and Ettie into a salvaged rowboat, but Scarlett is swept away.

Scarlett washes ashore on a slab of the Great Ruins of London and is hauled to Bayswater Isle, a tower community led by Johnny Fingers. Albert has already arrived with Joe and Ettie, believing Scarlett dead. Dr. Calloway storms the isle, kills a defender, and demands Albert surrender. The islanders refuse to protect him, but Scarlett appears on a window ledge with a harpoon gun. She and Albert flee through the tower while Scarlett shoots two pursuers.

Calloway blocks their escape at the boathouse. Her telekinetic barrier deflects Scarlett's bullets, and she flings Scarlett across the room, cracking her ribs. Albert flees to a fishing tower above a sea channel. Calloway follows, lifts him telekinetically, and offers a final choice: the restraint or death. Albert refuses, telling her Scarlett changed him, then drops onto a hidden ledge below. Calloway turns on Scarlett, who breaks Calloway's fingers with a piece of railing but falls into netting below the tower. Albert climbs back up unseen and strikes Calloway with an iron bar. She topples into the sea.

At sunset, Scarlett tells Albert to stop calling his power "the Fear," a name Calloway gave it, and to accept it as part of himself. She mentions her next target: a wealthy Faith House in Warwick, a job requiring someone who could read the minds of the Mentors, the Faith House authorities. Albert gazes toward the mainland rather than the Free Isles. Neither states the obvious. They descend the steps together toward Joe and Ettie, who wait with a candle at the end of the bridge.