A week before he is set to stand trial, Mike Potter arrives in Detroit, a city struggling with a steady population decline and blighted by the abandoned properties he means to explore. Inside a derelict school, he meets Emily Atwood, who is squatting in her grandmother’s abandoned mansion in flight from her own past. Emily invites Mike to stay with her while he is “on vacation” and together they embrace the prospect of carefree exploring.

Soon, they meet a deeply disturbed preteen girl named Pol, a pyromaniac who has escaped an abusive home and has been living in and burning a series of abandoned houses. The complexity of Pol’s troubles unbeknownst to them, Mike and Emily decide to adopt her. Personal struggles, distressing memories, decisions looming on the horizon, a city’s perils, and one child’s turbulent behavior all threaten the security of the unconventional triumvirate.