Murphy's Boy by Torey Hayden

When Torey Hayden first met fifteen-year-old Kevin, he was barricaded under a table. Desperately afraid of the world around him, he hadn’t spoken a word in eight years. He was considered hopeless, incurable, but Hayden refused to believe it. With unwavering devotion and gentle, patient love, she set out to free him—and slowly uncovered a shocking, violent history and a terrible secret that an unfeeling bureaucracy had simply filed away and forgotten. But she never gave up on this tragic “lost case.” For a trapped and frightened boy desperately needed her help—and she knew in her heart she could not rest easy until she had rescued him from the darkness.