The Genome Project by Aaron Hodges

In 2051, the United States is no more.
Risen from the ashes of civil war, the Western Allied States ruthlessly eradicate any threat to the new union. Traitors are executed without trial, their families seized.

But a terrifying plague is sweeping through the nation. Its victims do not die—they change. People call them the Chead, and where they walk, destruction follows.
Desperate to stop its spread, the government turns to the children of traitors for a solution.

Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Flores is one of the unlucky ‘volunteers’ for their experiments. Made a fugitive by the death of her parents, she seeks refuge in the city of Sacramento…but the hunters are waiting, and she is imprisoned along with hundreds of others deep in the Californian mountains.
Stripped of her rights, Elizabeth soon learns there is little separating humanity from the monsters they seek to destroy…

Category: Science Fiction – Dystopian