When a vampire enlists the aid of cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse to use her telepathic talents to find a missing vampire in Dallas, she agrees to the deal if the vampires promise to behave and to let the humans go unharmed.

In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis' parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents - telekinesis and telepathy - who got to this place the same...