A sealed cemetery vault. A living vine that learns your name. And a debt that can only be paid in something human. When botanist Elena Marín arrives in a remote Yucatán town to investigate a devil's claw plant behaving impossibly-braiding itself into a lock around an old cemetery vault-she expects folklore, hysteria, and a simple biological explanation. Instead, she finds a trap that doesn't just entangle flesh...it bargains.
Inside the vault, Elena discovers a centuries-old Mayan codex that reads less like history and more like a warning: the vines are guardians bound by rules of truth, willingness, and sacrifice. Break the pact and the hunger spreads. Honor it and you might escape-if you can afford the cost.
As Elena's connection to the vault deepens, she's caught between two men: Teo, her fierce local guide with secrets of his own, and Soren Ashford, her charming benefactor whose interest in "preservation" hides an appetite for control. When betrayal turns the town into a feeding ground and the vines begin to creep beyond the cemetery walls, Elena must make an impossible choice-one that could stop the nightmare...or unleash what the vault was built to keep buried.
Because some doors don't open. They collect.