Nate was eight the first time he stabbed someone; he was eleven when he earned his red laces-a prize for spilling blood for "the cause." And he was fourteen when he murdered his father (and the leader of The Fort, a notorious white supremacist compound) in self-defense, landing in a treatment center while the state searched for his next of kin. Now, in the custody of an uncle he never knew existed, who wants nothing to do with him, enrolled in school under a false name so The Fort can't find him, Nate struggles to navigate a world where people of different races interact without enmity.