This futuristic novel is set in a world where sons who are unwanted by their parents are sent to the Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys--where they are forced to do dangerous work that might very well kill them. One of these boys, 13-year-old Cosmo Hill, makes a daring escape from the Institute--and although he almost dies in the effort, he is rescued by the Supernaturalists, a renegade band of psychically gifted children. Cosmo soon learns that he, too, has psychic abilities, and so he joins the Supernaturalists in their work of destroying harmful supernatural parasites that feed off human life. However, although the Supernaturalists believe they are working for the side of the good, they soon discover that the forces of evil might be using them for their own nefarious purposes.