The Home

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This was going to be another of those loser places.

Freeman could tell that right from the get go. The home looked just like all the others he'd waltzed through over the \ast six years. Sure, this one was built of stone and most of the others were brick. This one was in the mountains, surrounded by big oak trees and enough peace and quiet to drive you squirrel-shit nutty. At least the fence here wasn't topped with barbed wire like the one in Durham, where the homeless and the crack brains were always climbing over. As if a group home was a happy Neverland or something.

All group homes were bad news. But even from the road, he could tell this place was different. It had a face that ate children and grinned. This building had an attitude of "Go ahead, punk."

Or was he the one with the attitude problem? Hadn't a parade of counselors and shrinks and do-gooders thrown aside all their mumbo-jumbo disassociative-this-and-that and pretty much nailed "hopeless case" across his forehead like some kind of welcome mat to his brain? All of them except good old Dad, who had gone deeper inside his head than anybody.

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