In a city ruled by hunger, the black market is Liza's lifeline, where she sells or steals whatever she can get her hands on just for enough food to survive. Morality, after all, has become a fluid thing during the brutal year her city has been under siege. But when Liza's best friend proposes that they go to the secret police, rumored to give young women food in exchange for "entertainment," Liza thinks there surely must be some other way. Then her friend disappears, and Liza devises a plan to find her, entangling herself with two dangerous young men-one a member of the secret police, the other forced to live underground-and discovering there are some lines that should never be crossed.