Seventeen-year-old Juliette Ferrars wakes up abruptly, startled to find her enemy-turned-possible-ally Aaron Warner Anderson standing over her. She recalls how he saved her life after his father (Supreme Commander Anderson of the totalitarian regime The Reestablishment) shot her in the chest. (In the final scenes of Unravel Me, Warner uses his ability to channel the supernatural powers of others to direct the healing powers of twins Sonya and Sara to Juliette. The twins cannot touch Juliette themselves, as her power causes others extreme pain and death if they touch her skin for too long. Only Warner can touch her without suffering, though Warner’s half-brother and Juliette’s former love interest Adam Kent can touch Juliette using his own powers, but it takes him great effort to do so.)

Juliette realizes she is in the military quarters where Warner kept her prisoner in Shatter Me, and panics as Warner seeks to reassure her. She asks about her friends (the members of underground group Omega Point who, at the end of Unravel Me, were embroiled in battle with The Reestablishment); Warner reports, to her horror, that the battle has ended, nobody else knows she is alive, and that all her friends are dead (though they will learn in Chapter 15 that this is untrue).