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Haley finished writing her ninth poem of the day and flopped down on her bed.  She stared through the barred windows and sighed.  Then she hid her pencil under her pillow.  On the Adolescent floor of Crane Hospital, patients weren’t allowed to have pens or pencils in their rooms.  The ever-creative patients might use them to hurt themselves.  Haley knew this rule.  She had broken this same rule at all the hospitals she’d been in.  She was a pro at breaking rules and getting away with it. 

This hospital was hospital number twenty-two for fifteen-year-old Haley.  She knew she was at the end of the line.   Now she was in DCF custody.  No foster home would take her.  She would be forced to live in a residential treatment center for mentally and emotionally disturbed kids. 

Residential treatment was like a horror story spoken about in hushed voices with chills running down your back to kids in psych units.  It was the end of the line and the last place she wanted to go.  Every time Haley got out of the hospital, she would promise herself that this was the last one.  But then the hallucinations would start winding her up and reality would start to crumble.