The world didn't end in 2012 because the Mayans forgot to 'carry the one' while adding. In Miscalculated, Columbian teenager Dara leads a group of survivors at a Texas compound in the year 2022. For over a year, 260 million people have been dying every three weeks. The planet's population has dwindled to the thousands, but people continue to die during Purification cycles. Rival groups, led by the powerful Warlocks, compete for the scarce resources that remain. As the book beings, Dara is living in Atlanta and her family is dead. She flees a Lightstorm, a powerful electrical current that kills all humans, with her friend Moshe. Every three weeks new survivors are marked with a Pentagram. During one of these Purifications, a woman hands Dara her baby and a gold necklace. She tells them, "Only time can save him now." Seconds later, the woman dies, leaving the ill-equipped teenagers to care for the baby. It appears every person over the age of twenty is dead. They leave with a group and spend the night in an abandoned house. Moshe returns to Atlanta to see if his family has followed. That night Dara is marked with a Pentagram and sealed for death. An older boy attempts to rape Dara and threatens to kill Bama, but Moshe returns in time and knocks him out with a baseball bat, leaving the attacker for dead. Dara's Pentagram has vanished. It's a secret she must keep. Moshe, Dara, and the baby, Bama, so named after a T-shirt he was wearing, wind up at a compound in Texas several months later. The last one billion survivors in the world are spread out in an area within thirty miles of the city. Their compound has 260 people, mostly teenagers. Most groups struggle for food and water, seeking peace as the Purification cycles continue. The Warlocks kill and pillage from the others. The Warlock leader is Tybalt, the same boy who tried to rape Dara in Georgia. He knows Dara's secret and he begins a desperate quest to discover why she survived, and how he can duplicate her mystical feat. Dara's group of teenagers includes Moshe, her trusted confidante from Palestine, Gayle, the world's only remaining Texan, and Arturo, a Brazilian with smoldering eyes. Dara falls in love with him as they battle for survival. Bama, the toddler, begins making predictions that Dara will save their group. Moshe develops a relationship with a drug addict, Palmolive. The maniacal Warlock leader Tybalt begins a series of increasingly deadly attacks on Dara's compound. Dara deflects Tybalt's assaults by promising to help him survive, though her own survival remains a mystery to her. Before she can join the Warlocks to seek out answers, Plague strikes the city of survivors. Dara and another girl, Doc, set off to find antibiotics to combat the Plague. They fight to live three weeks at a time, as the Purification cycles continue to claim new victims. At the same time, Gayle leaves the compound. She's been sealed for death by a Pentagram. She never reveals to anyone her secret-she is pregnant. Dara and Doc realize the Lightstorms have ended and they can relocate their group to a small town. A glimmer of hope surfaces in the compound. But after they return with the drugs, the Warlocks kill Doc. They take Bama hostage leaving Dara with no choice but to join the vile opposition. Moshe has double-crossed Dara to get drugs for his girlfriend. Dara works in the Warlock compound with a scientist from France to translate the Mayan prophecies of doom. They discover the secret powers of the necklace Dara received from Bama's mother. They also realize the significance of Bama, and his ability to predict the future, as a possible way to survive the Purifications. During Dara's absence, Gayle returns. She's another riddle as the second person to ever survive Purification.
