Content Warning: This section discusses children in juvenile detention, adults in a maximum-security prison, physical violence, child abuse, and manslaughter.

Fifteen-year-old Aiden Falconer, an inmate at a juvenile correction center in Nebraska called Sunnydale Farm, struggles to milk a cow as part of his daily chores. He grumbles about being confined to the farm and having to perform “busy work” with virtually no time to himself. The cow he’s milking kicks him just in time for Miguel Reyes, a bully incarcerated for manslaughter, to see and mock him. After Miguel moves on, Aiden has a brief conversation with his 11-year-old sister, Margaret, or “Meg,” who wishes that her brother would fight back. However, when they are discovered chatting by one of the “supes” in charge of the inmates, Meg quickly retreats. The “supe” refers to them as the “Eaglesons,” the name the two of them were given after their parents went to prison on charges of treason. The court ordered the name change when none of the Falconers’ relatives would take in the children. Meg confronts him again during mealtime, insisting that they need to escape from Sunnydale. Aiden isn’t sure that escape is possible and privately worries that his parents might be guilty after all.