❝ if this were a movie, i would ride off in some blood red sunset down a stretch of desert road into the wasteland that keeps us captive here. but this isn't a movie. these are the badlands. ❞ Kellin Quinn lives in an urban wasteland. At the tender age of twenty-one, they deal drugs to get by and spend their nights running through dirty streets with a gender that's undefined, a heart that pumps fear instead of blood, and a sense of desperation that could kill a man. Just as they're finally starting to accept their fate and deal with the fact that they're stuck in this filthy place, their already upside-down life is further spun around by the enigmatic Vic Fuentes. It's a relationship built on survival and fueled by doubt, but when Vic mentions a desire to escape, it brings out the rebellious anger that Kellin was sure had been lost at age nineteen. They both know that it's too much to ask for, but now, more than anything, all they want is to be free.