Out of Mind — Matthew S. Cox

Sima Nuvari never expected to see her seventeenth birthday.Outcasts seldom live long once they're too old to look like innocent children. Survival requires hard choices: crime, gangs, prostitution, drugs, or worse. Sima got lucky-they kicked her off the planet.Gangs won't kill her anymore, but a giant, venomous cat might eat her.She couldn't believe anyone truly wanted to help her, but her harrowing arrival in a damaged escape pod chipped away at her armored psyche. Eight months after finding the colony, she's made the worst mistake an Outcast can: becoming emotionally attached to another person. A new family offers her a good chance at life. Too good, in fact.It's probably all just a simulation. Fate would never allow her to be happy.As if she needed more to keep her up at night than the planet Mirage possibly being an illusion, it seems not every colonist is happy. Someone out there is angry enough to kill... and somehow, Sima has gotten in the way of their plans.