Protagonist Jayde Hendryk is a seemingly normal teenager with all the angst most teens feel as they negotiate life with parents they don’t understand and are certain don’t understand them. She feels her mother is unloving, and her father is, at best, a bully. However, Jayde is protective of her younger brother, seven-year-old Aric, which possibly stems from their father’s propensity to be a hard taskmaster. When her mother uncharacteristically displays an unusual show of affection toward Jayde one fateful evening, she puts it out of her mind with no idea that soon tragedy will befall her family, changing her life in an instant.

Awakened by a thunderstorm later that night, she is surprised that her brother hasn’t joined her in her room, as is his habit during a storm. Because of the storm’s intensity, Jayde decides to check on him. What she finds is terrifying. She discovers her brother dead in his bed and her mother lying lifeless in the hallway with her father leaning over her. As Jayde tries to understand what she sees, a terrible suspicion grips her as she unravels this tragedy. Overcome with fear and doubt concerning the deaths of her mother and brother, Jayde screams at her father…