Bearing a moral and emotional responsibility far beyond his 13 years, Hatzín arrives alone in the Chihuahuan Desert to collect his father’s remains, which have been recently exhumed from a mass grave. But when the teen catches sight of labor recruiter Mario from a bus window, he realizes that he is his real father, sending the youth on a dogged pursuit of the older man who reluctantly takes him under his wing. With an ad hoc family and a job as Mario’s right-hand man, Hatzín soon becomes part of an exploitative economy that preys on the working class. As Hatzín comes to understand the dark, violent truth about Mario and his taste for corruption, he must weigh the cost of his humanity against turning out like his mentor.