A remote corner of the Nevada desert hides a big secret. The campus is impenetrable. Protected by armed security and rugged terrain. Unmarked on any maps. So why are so many parents willing to give up everything to send their child to the Pioneer Academy? A guarantee. The fast-track to a successful future.

Tana Lyre, daughter of two esteemed diplomats, isn't interested in the future. In fact, she uses every ounce of her internationally educated brain to avoid going to high school. It's the present that concerns her. The how and the why someone who blew up a plane and killed a man,...

Tana and Trigger escaped from the prestigious Pioneer School, but they left someone behind--the one person who helped them slip away from a twisted security chief and a promise that, once made, would have to be kept for a lifetime. The two young pilots thought they could fly away and duck their commitments. They were wrong. An unresolved past is guaranteed to become the present.

Back home at National High School, the double-or-nothing best friends are faced with other challenges: A meteorology class, a pending midterm project and an eccentric professor with an itch...