For twelve-year-old Freeman Mills, Wendover Home is just another temporary sanctuary that fosters the troubled and unwanted. Biding his time until an opportunity to escape arises, Freeman will tolerate the daily speeches and routines designed to change him into a productive member of society. He will not befriend any of Wendover's other lost causes, nor will he reveal the unique gift bestowed upon him by a father more interested in a scientific guinea pig than a son.

Freeman soon learns that there are no secrets at Wendover. Every resident is subjected to group therapy, as well as individual sessions in room Thirteen. It is in this room that Freeman will endure experiments devised to test the abilities of the human mind. And it is these experiments that unleash something meant to stay buried far in Wendover's past—something long forgotten, but not forgiving. . .