Amy Bellafonte

Project Noah wants to test the virus on a child, and the name that comes up is Amy Bellafonte. She has no idea. The man sent to get her is federal agent Brad Wolgast, whose orders are to deliver her and ask no questions.

Amy is sharp, wary and says what she thinks. She tests Brad constantly and soon sees he isn't like the other adults who have crossed her path. Once he understands where she's headed, Brad drops the mission and runs with her. On the road, between jokes and fights, they become a team.

The escape doesn't last. Amy ends up at the lab, and the doctors give her a new version of the virus. She doesn't turn into a monster like the older subjects, but her body changes: she gets stronger, heals fast and starts to sense the other infected.

In her dreams, Tim Fanning, the first of them, starts talking to her. Amy learns she has a viral side, and it scares her as much as the adults who locked her up.

With the subjects loose, Amy triggers the protocol that destroys the level where they were held. Fanning grabs her but lets her go: they share the same vision, of a future where she helps him. Amy escapes with Brad and Lila in Sister Lacey's truck.

A month later, Amy and Brad are hiding in a cabin in Joseph, Oregon. Fanning keeps taunting her, saying her viral side will win. A newly infected neighbor bites Brad, and the other neighbors want to kill him. Amy kills them all, gives Brad the last dose of the serum and leaves him a note as nuclear missiles cross the sky.

The last scene jumps to 2116. An older Amy kills a viral with a bow and arrow near one of humanity's last outposts. She says she hasn't felt Brad in years, but she'd know if he were dead.

In Justin Cronin's books, Amy is six when Wolgast comes for her, and her story runs through the whole trilogy.