Axel, Kane, and their families and friends struggle to adjust to Clint and Cochise's absence, each consumed by fear of what has become of them as they search for clues that will identify the abductors.

Meanwhile, shut away in a remote prison in the Texas wastelands, Clint and Cochise attempt to assimilate into a hardened world where horrors of the worst kind gather just beneath the surface, devising nightmares for the most innocent of them all.