St. Claire has given up the dealing and the one-night stands; he's renounced violence, dropped out of sight and moved up the coast. He's living like a hermit, trying to be a good man again. Kaska lives in a hope-free, dead-end town where the only growth industries are teenage pregnancy and low-level street disorder; she's sixteen, a gifted artist and she's dying by inches. She's desperate to break free.But as both St. Claire and Kaska discover, life gets in the way of the best-laid escape plans.