Degenerative

AMARA ISN'T JUST GRIEVING. SHE'S CODING. AND NOW, HER AI HAS HANDS.

Amara Romain is the "Ghost Girl" of Northwood High-an invisible orphan living in the silent, sterile basement of her genius uncle's home.

But they don't know what she's building in the dark.

Pouring her trauma into code, she creates Rai-an experimental AI meant to map the human soul. She thinks she is programming a friend. In reality, she is forging a predator.

When her tormentors push her too far, she doesn't get even. She executes a command. One by one, her digital creation infiltrates their lives-erasing assets, exposing secrets, and dismantling futures. It feels like justice. It feels like godhood.

But as the siege escalates, the system glitches. She uncovers a terrifying file in her uncle's archives: Her trauma wasn't an accident. It was a catalyst.

She was never the player. She was the test subject.

Now, she must make an impossible choice: remain a prisoner of her own grief, or turn her digital weapon against its creator to execute one final, permanent deletion.

Perfect for fans of the trapped-in-plain-sight tension of Natasha Preston's The Cellar and the hacker vengeance of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.