Institute History
Description
Sixteen year old Gena has a motto: When you can't find a way out, you find a way through.
When her mother falls into a coma, Gena kills time hanging with her street pals, working as a trainee at a beauty salon, gravitating to noise, crowds and chaos as a way to stave off the feelings of panic surrounding her mother's hospitalization.
As chance may have it, Jane, an old acquaintance of Gena's, arrives on the scene having recently escaped from a halfway house. Jane is daring, clever and willful. Gena is immediately attracted to Jane's exciting, if not anti-social, and dangerous qualities. And it doesn't take much to draw Gena into Jane's tougher world filled with gang rituals, underground deals and heightened sexuality.
Jane, having returned to reclaim a place in her brother Sonny's life, is shattered by Sonny's seeming indifference. Gena assists Jane in a plot to gain Sonny's love and attention. As they put their plan into action they begin to learn that Sonny is a member of a gang in crisis. Wishing to be free of middlemen and deals gone bad, Sonny's gang seeks to assert themselves as an independent force in the shady workings of the underworld.
Shortly after Gena and Jane set the plan in motion, life takes another turn: Jane is suddenly nowhere to be found. Gena is left to piece together the puzzle behind Jane's disappearance. The more she searches for her missing friend, the more she becomes entwined in the gang's plot to commit armed robbery and the mystery behind their secret agenda. Every new clue sends Gena on a darker and more confusing path. Every new path forces Gena to explore the complexities of group dynamics, belonging and self-identification.
In this suspense-thriller/coming of age story, Gena will discover her own potential in the face of danger, uncertainty and deception. She will discover the power behind her own moral codes, and the impression of Jane will remain forever etched in her heart.