War is coming. Protests against chem-treatments are turning into bloody riots, and soldiers patrol the streets in every major city. It's only a matter of time before the resistants, those unaffected by the treatments, band together and turn on everyone else. Senator Griffith has been preparing for it. He has created an army so powerful and dedicated that rumors of it are used to scare little children into behaving. They call themselves the Shadows. As a Hawk, their most capable hunter, John Wayland has a new assignment to complete: Capture a telepath. Emma Calen is easy prey. A young girl on the run from the law, cut off from her own people, she falls right into his clutches. It isn't long, however, before he discovers that catching her was the easy part. Watching her fall to pieces before his eyes is what will test him the most. But surely this can't last much longer... can it? When a soldier sweeps down on Emma and chases her out of hiding, she's sure it's to make her pay for her crime. But this is no ordinary soldier, and the people he's working for are not after her record, they want her mind. Locked in a hell specially designed for telepaths, Emma has a front row seat to the disintegration of her own sanity. They want to break her. They will fail. Emma will die before she lets the Shadows use her against her family and friends. But maybe there is still hope for her. A delicate, fragile sliver of hope in the most unlikely place of all. The Shadow Hawk guarding the door.