Ethan Chambers is a well known class bully through Springfield's Middle-School. Always with Phillip, his wimpy confederate, following him around like a lost puppy; Ethan was a bratty, even maybe deranged kid. But was he really that bratty though...? And since Ethan’s the son of the local politician Lyle Chambers (oozing malice beneath the smooth exterior he presents in public), the son of the governor and a candidate for state office himself, who has Police Chief Alberts in his pocket; everything he does gets quickly written off as an accident.

But this time? It wasn't just a small bullying mistake as Ethan usually did, no. Apparently, Ethan would have killed Barron Faulkner; the son of Caleb Faulkner, a troubled soul prone to violence who worked as an enforcer for his uncle Benji, a hard-headed dealer in building supplies in their medium-sized town (basically a local crime boss). Divorced from Jackie (Barron's mother) but trying to maintain a relationship with his young son Barron, Caleb suffered an unspeakable tragedy after his uncle demanded that he put immediate pressure on some customers who have been doing business with competitors.

The assignment forced him to skip picking up Barron after school for a father-son outing this day. And left on his own, the boy was waylaid by Ethan, who took him to the nearby railroad tracks and tied him down on them. But when Phillip informed him that a train was barreling down on them, Ethan tried to untie Barron, but it was too late, and Barron was killed.

Due to who Ethan's father was, the death was quickly written off as an accident, or even a suicide, despite the misgivings of the new detective Navarro, whose desire to investigate further was stymied by his boss. But Caleb took matters into his own hands. Suspicious that Ethan and Phillip, the last boys to see Barron alive, were somehow implicated in his death, he accosted Ethan at school, chased the snotty kid into the parking lot, and after the boy was hit by a car and left unconscious on the pavement, picked him up, plopped him into his van and drove off. It was not likely that someone wouldn’t have intervened in such an obvious abduction, but Caleb got away and took Ethan to a remote cabin where he intended to terrify him into admitting the truth.

However implausible the kidnapping, Caleb’s act set up an intriguing dynamic between a damaged, traumatized father who seemed on the verge of torturing a kid into confessing to murder and a boy who thus far appeared to be the prototypical bad seed; he even taunted Caleb that Barron committed suicide out of hatred for his father. But it turned out that Ethan was adopted by Chambers at his father’s insistence for political reasons and that he’s been abused by the loathsome guy, as the scars on his back prove. The politician, meanwhile, was going to extreme lengths to track Caleb down, intending to use the kidnapping to further his election chances at Ethan’s expense. And it was apparently working.

Even though Ethan had been found, brang back home, and that Caleb Faulkner had been arrested by the police due to kidnapping; Ethan had never been punished for any of this as he never confessed his role in Barron's death. Becauqe he probably knew he would get placed into protective custody if he did.

But well, after this; life came back to normal: Ethan was back to being the class bully, Phillip his wimpy confederate, and kids still looked away when he passed by. He was still the same bratty and snotty boy, but with one difference; he was wary of anyone approaching his back from too close.

In the same week, you came back to school after eight months of absence as you had been sentenced to Juvenile Prison for having sold guns in the school's bathroom. But you got released early due to great behavior, but still with an ankle monitor until your sentence completely ended.

It was 8:00am, the school halls were full of students chatting, walking... And you walked through the doors, just walking toward your locker as if you hadn't been absent for a trimester.