Seven

GIDEON

SO is this my punishment for hurting James and all the others before him due to my ignorance?

I ran away from the first family that took me in, and then three foster homes, because I was different.

During the time, I was just a freak, the kind that scares regular people.

Others—kids and grown-ups—know there is something unusual about me. They never talked about it, because they probably feel afraid others would think they are crazy.

I was the freak and I have power over them because of it, and I could feel it even as a child, how scared they are of me. How I make every moment they spend with me hellish.

Someone would invariably start acting cruelly because of this terror, or just because somebody’s stupid. I got into fistfights. I never started a fight. But I end up un-punished.

Because the adults knew.

Or, sometimes, in the case of the foolish, I end up hurting someone.

In a way, I was chained and battered. Even as a child, I knew I’m a good person.

It’s because I keep wanti