The Twelve

THE TWELVE -

Twelve teenagers. Twelve birthdays. Twelve completely different ways of seeing the world.

And one summer camp that was never what it seemed.

When sixteen-year-old Ari Garnett arrives at Camp Meridian, she expects the usual summer-camp experience-cabins, hiking trails, lake activities, and several weeks surrounded by people she doesn't know. What she finds instead are eleven other teenagers who couldn't be more different from one another.

There's practical, redheaded Tessa, who comes from a huge farm family and hates being alone. Gemma is warm and funny but never quite sure whether people are laughing with her or at her. Cruz is polished, perceptive, and far more comfortable with technology than the wilderness. Leo notices everything-and counts almost everything. Vera is small, athletic, analytical, and certain she can figure out nearly any problem. Libby remembers what everyone else misses. Sloane challenges nearly everything. Sawyer would climb first and worry about the danger later. Cade approaches problems like a mission. Ash looks for possibilities no one else sees. And Piper hears patterns where everyone else hears noise.

Then there's Ari-independent, stubborn, and determined never to need anyone's help.

At first, they're simply twelve campers learning how to work together.

Until a hike on the North Trail changes everything.

An unexpected storm scatters the group through the wilderness. Their counselor disappears. The campers struggle to find one another, eventually taking shelter in an isolated cabin hidden deep in the woods.

That's when they begin noticing the twelves.

Twelve steps.

Twelve stars.

Twelve marks.

Twelve campers.

Coincidence becomes harder to believe when the clues start pointing directly at them.

Their birthdays form a perfect numerical sequence. Their zodiac signs span all twelve signs in exact order. A hidden box contains information that should not be there. A map suggests their arrival at the cabin may have been anticipated.

And someone has been waiting for them.

Their search for answers leads them beyond Camp Meridian and into the world of the Meridian Project, where the Twelve discover that the summer they thought they chose may actually have been chosen for them.

Meridian wants to know what happens when twelve distinctly different thinkers are brought together. Can their differences become an advantage? Can they solve problems that individuals-or people who think alike-cannot?

To find out, Meridian has been watching.

Testing.

Recording.

And it knows far more about the Twelve than any of them imagined.

The deeper they go, the more personal the tests become. Meridian knows their strengths. It knows their habits. It knows what frightens them.

Now the Twelve face a different kind of challenge. They must determine which answers they can trust, how much of their lives Meridian has touched, and whether the people studying them understand the most important thing happening between them.

Because Meridian may know how each of them thinks.

It may know their histories.

It may even have predicted how their differences would work together.

But there is one thing Meridian never planned for:

The Twelve are no longer twelve individual subjects.

They are friends.

They are a team.

And when Meridian forces them to choose between following the rules and protecting one another, the Twelve decide that the experiment no longer gets to decide what happens next.

they were brought together for a reason.

They were studied for a purpose.

But who they become from here?

That choice belongs to them.