Nicki Demere is an orphan and a pickpocket. She also happens to be the U.S. Marshals best bet to keep a family alive. The marshals are looking for the perfect girl to join a mother, father, and son on the run from the nation's most notorious criminals. After all, the bad guys are searching for a family with one kid, not two. Adding a streetwise girl who knows a little something about hiding things may be just what the marshals need. Nicki swears she can keep the Trevor family safe, but to do so she'll have to dodge hitmen, cyberbullies, and standardised testing, all while maintaining her marshal-mandated B-minus average. Nicki learns that the biggest threats to her family's security might not lurk on the road from New York to North Carolina, but rather in her own past.

Bell Kirby is an expert at systems, whether he's designing the world's most elaborate habitat for his pet chinchilla, recreating da Vinci's greatest inventions in his garage, or avoiding Parker Hellickson, the most diabolical bully Village Green Elementary has ever seen. Bell has spent two long years devising a finely tuned system that keeps him out of Parker's way. Sure, it means that Bell can't get a drink when he wants to or play with his best friend on the playground, but at least he's safe. Until Daelynn Gower touches down in his classroom like a tornado. It's bad enough that the new girl disrupts Bell's secret system, but when Daelynn becomes the bully's new target, Bell is forced to make an impossible decision: finally stand up to Parker - or join him.