After the death of his two sisters in a house fire and the arrest of his father for arson, nineteen-year-old TY Schmelling suddenly finds himself homeless and broke, unable to go to college as hed planned. To make ends meet, he takes a job at Egret Ranch, a residential treatment facility for emotionally disturbed children in rural Mendocino County, California. Ty hopes that the facilitys atmosphere will reflect its peaceful surroundings.

The truth is much darker. The Ranchs director is a manipulative psychiatrist with personality disorders of his own. Patients and staff live in a high...