PAINTAKERS

Briskelle Proper is a chronically ill teen who lives in Huxley—an isolated town deprived of medicine. She’s ridden with relentless headaches, and she wears plastic leg braces to stabilize her weakened limbs. Her experience with pain is the reason why she’s eager to help others escape their misery.

Along with a select group of revered teens, Briskelle is training to become a Paintaker—someone with powerful, glowing hands that can temporarily take away the physical and emotional pain of others. However, her first opportunity to paintake goes awry. When a mysterious fire rages through Huxley, Briskelle comes to a dying woman’s aid. As Briskelle touches her, they both scream in agony. Witnesses spread the news: Briskelle can’t take someone’s pain; she can only feel it with them.

Her “pain-feeling” ability is deemed useless. Now, she’s an exiled empath with a desperate plan for redemption. Against her own physical limitations, she’s determined to do the impossible. Briskelle sets out to find the Creator, an elusive being who’s rumored to have the permanent cure for all suffering. But scattered along the way, there are signs everywhere, begging her to reconsider life without pain.