Seventeen-year-old April Parker wakes up in an underground facility, a shock bracelet on her wrist and a five-day countdown on the clock. Dozens of other teens share her inexplicable fate, but their unseen captors never intervene no matter how brutal conditions become. When the ruthless - and unnervingly magnetic - Marcus seizes control, April's trauma-forged instinct is to lay low. But protecting her friends drives her to bargain with the boy she should fear most - a boy whose reality fractures with every tick. Then the countdown ends, and the real terror begins. Powers ignite. Alliances shatter. And predators are born. And with a saboteur among them determined to keep the doors closed forever, escaping what comes next may be the only way to survive it.

"Okay, where do you want me to start?" "Anywhere you wish." "There were five of us. Dani, Elizabeth, Audrey, Taylor and me. We spent about 9 months in the basement. The walls where cement. The floor was cement. We each had our own chairs. Dani had her baby blue chair with white roses in the upper right corner. Elizabeth had her pale pink chair with white daiseys in the lower right corner. Audrey had her yellow chair with white roses in the upper left corner. Taylor had her black chair with red roses in the lower left corner. I had a white chair with sunflowers that sat in the center, the very center of the room. Each of us had a light above our heads. There were no covers in the lights just the wires losely hanging with the light attached at the end. The front legs of all our chairs had buckles that when we sat down they were right where our ankles were like he knew just were to put them. There were buckles on our arm rests that when we laid are arms on them the buckels our wrist were in the perfect spot. I think its funny how we all never made the conecction." "What conecction would that be?" "That we all have brown hair, blue eyes, were 5'5, all weighed 130. That when you put the first letter of each of our names together it spells Death. I love how at one point we all thought something, right before we were taken. Dani thought she was going to get mail. Elizabeth thought she was picking up dinner. Audrey thought she was going to class. Taylor thought she was taking her dog for a walk and I thought I was going to marry him and that I loved him with all my heart."