Zoe Nielsen was just like any other ten year old walking to school, not knowing that a chance encounter with Thurman Hayes would lead to her abduction and imprisonment in a converted nuclear bunker beneath a remote Arizona ranch house, 4,000 miles away from her home on an island off the coast of Newfoundland. Back home, the press coverage surrounding Zoe's mother, Ingrid, is rapidly turning sour. Even the arrest of a man suspected of the abduction and Ingrid's newly established relationship with Zoe's father isn't enough to stop the nightmare from which there is no waking. Enslaved in her underground tomb, deprived of food and light and water, the girl Zoe once was steadily begins to disappear. She is only allowed to see and hear what Thurman allows. She lives in a world that is all about his needs and wants being met.