Follows the emotions of a young boy as he waits at an airport for a family member to return home from serving in the military.

Just as Gio is getting his life together, he must deal with the return of his mother, who abandoned the family years ago, while dealing with his crush on a basketball player who is giving him mixed signals.

Nate and his mother are escaping from his emotionally abusive step-father, Gary, but the run-down and abandoned cottage in the woods that his mother takes them to does not seem like much of a refuge; but when his mother goes off to buy provisions and does not come back Nate is left alone (except for his imaginary friend Sam) and afraid--until a mysterious girl trying to solve the clues of a long-ago treasure hunt turns up.

When twelve-year-old Ash McCarthy wakes up after his father's funeral, he finds that he has been kidnapped to an island off the coast of Costa Rica, caught in the middle of a secret and deadly project named Kronos in which his mother is somehow involved, and he must find a way to save them both--and the only person he is sure he can trust is a Spanish girl his own age named Isabel.