When you're kidnapped, maybe you think you'll find your true destiny in another world (not me), or maybe you'll be kidnapped by One Direction, or something like that (still not me) or maybe you'll be kidnapped by a super-hot guy (yes, but he hates me). Do you expect to get beaten? To be treated like a slave? To be sold like a slave? Maybe, maybe not. But there's always one thought we kidnapped have in common: ESCAPE.

What would you do if you had a month to live? With overbearing parents and inattentive friends, Raegan decides to pack up and leave town for her last few weeks. When things don't go as planned, and she's forced to enrol into a new high school, her last month looks even bleaker than she could have imagined. Along with the new school, comes new friends, and a persistent boy, who she desperately tries to hide her condition from as her time runs out.

'They wore uniform grey, their expression hard and distant, their muscles taut with expectation, as if at any moment they were ready to lead an assault, to carry out orders, to kill, to die. And yet they were. Kingston had trained these children to kill at a word, to obey their masters without question. They were machines, the ultimate weapons in modern warfare. Children, as young as seven and as old as eighteen, stood impeccable and fearless, but it was what was hidden in their minds that was to be feared most of all.' Nineteen-year-old Charlotte Owens has entered her final year at Kingston Academy and, together with her best friends, she plans on making it through the year in one piece, away from the scrutinising eye of the headmaster and the founder's son. However, when she discovers that she has been thrust into the role of Head Girl, working alongside a boy she can hardly stand, not only are her plans for anonymity destroyed, but her plans for making it through the year at all seem to be in danger of becoming a wistful dream. Charlotte finds herself faced with the monstrous task of learning to play a game for survival in a world that seems determined to destroy her. Not only fighting for her life, Charlotte must also fight to gain control over the genetic alterations that plague her mind, in an effort to become the soldier she must be. A dark and tense tale of the battle between good and evil, Altered brings to life a strange and deadly world full of power and intrigue, as well as casting light on many secrets that so many hoped would remain undiscovered. This is Book One of Altered