The book opens with “a piercing scream” (5) that tells Jaime his cousin Miguel is dead. In a flashback, Jaime remembers the encounter he and Miguel had with Pulguita, a boy they knew who had joined the local gang, the Alphas. Pulguita tried to convince the boys to join him, flaunting his expensive clothes and phone and taunting the boys about their poverty. But Jaime and Miguel refused him. The next day Jaime was too sick to walk to school with his cousin; the Alphas caught Miguel and beat him to death.

In their rural Guatemalan village the Alphas control nearly everything. They watch as Miguel is buried, and soon enough the message comes: The Alphas want Jaime and Miguel’s sister Ángela to join them. They are given six days to mourn Miguel, then they are expected to meet the gang and help “deliver a gift to a friend” (22). The cousins and their families know this means the children will be forced to “push drugs outside of school […] take part in beatings, and killings” (22). Ángela could be forced to be a gang member’s girlfriend, “whether she wanted to or not” (22).