Eleven year old Ethan Harris lives a terror filled life of abuse and extreme cruelty at the hands of his sadistic stepfather. Ethan sometimes thinks of running away, sometimes of suicide but he stays thinking he is watching out for his mother. After an act of hideous brutality, Ethan makes his choice and in a desperate move leaps from his second floor bedroom window, not to die but to escape. He stows away in a mobile home being shipped by truck out of state, and feels he might finally find safety. However in a momentary lapse of judgment, Ethan steps out of the mobile home and is left in a Northern California rest area without a jacket or food. Terrified about contacting the police for fear of being sent home to the cruel hands of his politically powerful stepfather, Ethan fears he may not survive the increasingly cold nights. Joey Meyers, once a teacher now an ex-convict and sexual offender is heading home to Oregon from his mother's funeral. After serving fifteen hard years for his crimes, he is released to a halfway house resigned to a life of regret for his crimes and public shame. In a stroke of luck he wins the wherewithal to secure himself away on a property away from the disgusted judgmental eyes of society, content to die alone in his shame, heavily medicated to control his disturbing urges. Yet fate had something in store for him that would complicate his life. Stopping for a short meal break at a rest area, Joey is approached by Ethan who convinces Joey to take him along but not to call the police. Against his better judgment but believing Ethan is in real danger, Joey sees this as an opportunity to redeem himself if not in the eyes of the public then his own. On the run and pursued by law enforcement, Joey and Ethan stay one step ahead of the FBI in Joey's attempt to find a neutral party that can keep Ethan safe from his stepfather and let the truth come to light; a pursuit so intense that it ends in the only way such a chase can end, with one in great emotional distress and the other nearly dead.