Six­teen-year-old Mia Kish’s small town of Fen­ton, Col­orado is known for three things: being home to the world’s tallest sycamore tree, the nation­al chick­en-thigh-eat­ing con­test and one of the ritzi­est board­ing schools in the coun­try, West­brook Acad­e­my. But when emer­gency sirens start blar­ing and West­brook is put on lock­down, quar­an­tined and sur­round­ed by sol­diers who shoot first and ask ques­tions lat­er, Mia real­izes she’s only just begin­ning to dis­cov­er what makes Fen­ton special.

The answer is behind the wall of the Cave, aka Fen­ton Elec­tron­ics, of which her father is the Direc­tor. Mia’s dad has always been secre­tive about his work, allow­ing only that he’s work­ing for the gov­ern­ment. But unless Mia’s will­ing to let the whole town suc­cumb to a strange ill­ness that ages peo­ple years in a mat­ter of hours, the end result death, she’s got to break quar­an­tine, escape the school grounds and out­smart armed sol­diers to uncov­er the truth.