He stops abruptly, his breath still hot against my neck. “Okay.” He trails his lips over my skin for another moment and then moves to rest his head next to mine on the pillow. His eyes read serious, even though he’s trying for calm. “What’s up?”
It confirms my suspicions. “Would you want your past back, all of it—including the bad stuff—if it could make you sick again?”
“Sloane,” he says, “It doesn’t matter. We’ve—”
“If I wasn’t here,” I interrupt. “If I wasn’t a consideration at all, would you take it?”
“Where the fuck are you going?”
“Just answer me.”
James pauses and then nods. “Yes.” He breathes out. “I guess I would.”
“No hesitation?”
He scoffs, getting on his elbow to look down at me. “Sure I’d hesitate. This is dangerous stuff. But The Program took my life—our life together. It couldn’t have been all bad. I want to know who I was, and I want to know what happened to land me in The Program.”
I close my eyes, ready to cry. “Then you should take it,” I whisper. James wants his life back, even if it means he could get sick again. He’s willing to run the risk, so who am I to hold him back? I’m giving him the same choice Realm gave me, right or wrong.
“Sloane,” James says, putting his hand on my cheek until I look at him. “I can’t take the pill. Not without you. And if you weren’t here, well . . . I don’t think I’d give a shit about anything at all. So let’s stop dreaming up stupid scenarios in which one of us evaporates and the other has to soldier on. If you want to take the pill, then let’s talk about the risks. Otherwise, we’re just going to hold on to it and see how this whole rebellion thing works out. Deal?”
James’s skin is flushed, his eyes wide with vulnerability. He’s lying; he wouldn’t hesitate before taking the pill. He’d swallow it down dry, to hell with the consequences. But he’s also stubborn—he would never take my choice from me. And for that, I love him madly. So I press my lips into a smile and draw him next to me once again, snuggling close until we both drift off.
CHAPTER THREE
THOUGH THERE ARE NO WINDOWS, the harsh overhead light from the bulb slowly draws me awake. James is turned away, calm and quiet with sleep. I’m not sure what time it is, but my body is restless. I get up and take the pill from my back pocket, staring at it through the plastic Baggie.
If there were two, would we take them? How could we when a possible side effect is death? Besides, aren’t James and I happy now? Would memories really be worth the risk of our lives? If only I could talk to Realm, I think I’d understand more. But Realm ran away; he left me.
I close my eyes and compose myself, shaking off the bad vibes. I stride over to the dresser and stuff the pill in the top drawer, tossing in a few pairs of underwear on top of it. Then I grab a knit sweater and leave to wander alone down the hallway.
The place smells like cardboard and packing tape, but it’s better than the medicinal smell of The Program. I pass the kitchen and see Dallas standing at the counter, pouring a cup of coffee. I stop, and then make a point of shuffling my feet so I don’t startle her.
“Hello, Sloane,” she says without looking up. “If you need to take a shower”—her dark eyes drift to mine—“and it looks like you do—there’s a bathroom off the main room.”
I nod a thank-you and take a seat at the table. Dallas sips slowly from her coffee before smiling, the gap between her front teeth charming, her lips a natural bright red. She takes out another cup and fills it, then sets it front of me. I’m surprised, and touched, that she’d make even this small offering. I know I’m not imagining the tension between us. She takes the chair across from me and scrolls through her phone, resting her elbows on the table.
“So how long have you and Prince Charming been together?” she asks without looking up.
“We just—” I pause. “I don’t know, actually. I can’t remember.”
Dallas lifts her head, an apology crossing her lips. “I know how that is. When I first came back, I didn’t feel right. My hair”—she picks up a dread—“was dark and thick—sort of like yours now. My clothes were stiff and scratchy. My mother died right after I was born, I still knew that, but my dad’s an asshole. You’d think The Program would have changed him if they wanted my return to be successful.” She stops to take another drink. “And when he punched me in the face after he came home drunk one night, my tooth wasn’t the only thing to fall out. So did a few memories.”
I nearly drop my cup. “Wait, your dad . . . You have memories?” I’m not sure which question to ask first, but Dallas holds up her hand for me to wait.
“My father went to jail,” she says. “I got extra therapy. I didn’t tell the doctors about the memories because it dawned on me where they were from. How I kept them.” She waits a long moment, reading my expression. “I take it you’ve met Roger too.”
“Roger was the handler who took me,” I say, lowering my voice as shame—shame I know I don’t deserve—sickens me. “And in The Program he was making trades. I gave him a kiss in order to keep a memory, one that led me back to James.”
“A kiss?” Dallas laughs bitterly. “Roger is the epitome of everything evil in this world. Everything I despise. He was in my facility too. But he didn’t ask for just a kiss.” Red blotches dot Dallas’s chest and neck as she starts to wring her hands in front of her. “Bare skin or nothing,” she says, mimicking his voice so perfectly it chills me.
“Oh my God,” I murmur. “Dallas, I’m so sorry—”
“By the time it was over,” she continues, ignoring my condolences, “I had six memories. But that’s not enough. I want more; I want all of them. Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m a real person—I don’t like what’s left.” She smiles sadly. “And I’m so damn angry. I want them to pay.”
“I’ll help you take down The Program,” I say seriously. “I won’t go back there, and I’ll destroy them to make sure of it.” Dallas’s story has resonated, awakening the desperation I left Oregon with. We’re fighting for our lives here. The Program will never stop.
Dallas seems surprised by my response. “There just might be more to you than I realized, Sloane,” she says. Weirdly, her approval validates me somehow. Then, after sharing her secrets, Dallas gets up and walks out, leaving her half-drank coffee on the table.
My stomach is still twisted from thoughts of Roger, and I dump Dallas’s coffee down the sink and rinse out the cup before setting it in the strainer. When I was in The Program, Roger propositioned me. He asked me for a kiss in exchange for a pill that would save one memory. His touch, his taste—I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I cried the entire time his hands were on me, his mouth on mine. Just thinking of it now, I feel a shiver of helplessness and I wrap my arms around myself. The things he would have done given the chance. But I had Realm. He kept me safe from Roger, breaking his arm and getting him fired. No one saved Dallas.
The bleakness of our situation—on the run with nowhere else to go—is not lost on me. But at least we’re free. There are no handlers tying us down. There are no doctors interfering with our memories. In a way, we’re lucky. As I look around at the small room, our dire straits, I try to remind myself of that. We’re lucky to be alive.
* * *
“Why do I smell soap?” James murmurs from the bed when I enter the room. He turns and looks over at me, blinking heavily with the drowsiness of sleep. “And coffee?” he asks. “Dear God, Sloane. Do you have coffee?”
I grin. “Are you going to be sweet to me?”
“Are you kidding? I’ll kiss you right now if you have coffee. And, baby, if you have a cheeseburger, I’ll get down on one knee.”
I laugh and hold out a cup to him. James climbs out of bed, yawning loudly. He reaches to take a strand of my still-damp hair. “It’s curly,” he says, raveling it around his finger. “And clean. How’d you manage that?”
“I showered,” I say like it’s a hug
e achievement.
“Fancy.”
“Next time I might try to get my hands on some styling products.” Without a blowdryer and straightener, my hair has been getting curlier by the day. Makes sense considering there are old photos hanging on my parents’ living room wall of me with ringlets.
“Okay, cover girl.” James sips and then makes a face before setting his cup on the dresser. “Horrible coffee.”
“Yeah, and I couldn’t find any creamer.”
James stretches as he takes in the room. “So we’re really here. Find out anything interesting while you were out getting pretty and ruining coffee?”
“I had a long talk with Dallas,” I say, feeling like I’m betraying her for even mentioning it. James crosses the room and starts sorting through the bag of clothes.
“Any hair-pulling?”
“Not yet,” I say. “I think I’m starting to understand her. I also think she may have a tiny crush on you.” James shrugs apologetically, and I go to wrap my arms around him from behind, resting my chin on his shoulder. “No idea what she sees in you,” I whisper.
“Me either.” James spins me, and then I’m pinned against the concrete wall. “I thought you were the only one delusional enough to be with me.”
“Oh, I am,” I say, licking my lips. “So I wouldn’t bother with those other girls. Out of your league.”
“Mm . . . hmm.” James kisses me, and my pulse climbs as his hand glides up my back toward my bra clasp.
There’s a soft knock at the door, and I groan. “Don’t answer it,” James says, kissing my jaw, then over to a spot near my ear. I smile, letting him get in a few more kisses before I finally push him back.
“It’s not like they don’t know we’re in here.”
“We’re busy,” he calls out, and then tries to kiss me again.
“I need to talk to you guys,” Lacey calls from the other side of the door.
James stops, concern crossing his features when he glances at the entrance. Then to cover it, he looks me up and down, false confidence filling in his worry. “We’re not done with this, Barstow,” he says, then heads for the door. I pick up his coffee and take a sip, scrunching my nose at the bitter taste. James lets Lacey in, and the minute I see her, my stomach drops.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. She doesn’t answer right away. She goes to sit on the bed, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Her red hair is slicked back and wet, and as I watch her, I can see from here how she trembles. James must notice too, because he closes the door and then comes to stand next to me, crossing his arms over his chest.
Lacey looks up suddenly. “Something’s wrong with me,” she whispers. “Can you see it?”
Her question catches me off guard, and I immediately try to normalize it. “Is it a migraine?” I ask. “Maybe we can—”
“My mother would get migraines,” she interrupts, her voice taking on a distant quality. “One time—during a really bad episode—she sat me down and told me she was going to ask my dad for a divorce. She cried until she choked on her own tears, and I kept telling her to stop before she made my father mad. Her headaches were always worse when he was angry.”
James shifts, and drops his arms. “That’s horrible. Why didn’t The Program take that memory?”
He’s right. The Program should have erased that tragic thought. Could they make mistakes like that?
Lacey continues like she didn’t hear him. “My dad came home with roses,” she says. “He took one look at my mother’s puffy face, and promptly grabbed her arm and walked out of the room. My mother never mentioned divorce again. She never smiled again either. But she had a migraine almost every day.”
A small trickle of blood begins to leak from Lacey’s nose, trailing red down over her lips before dripping onto her lap. I call her name and she reaches to touch the blood with her fingers. Her eyes begin to stream tears when she sees the crimson streaked across her hand. “Fuck,” she says, blood sputtering from between her lips.
James moves quickly, sitting next to her on the bed. “Here,” he says. “Press here.” He puts his fingers on the bridge of her nose and then guides her shaky hand to the right spot. When she’s pinching, he has her rest back against the headboard. Lacey meets his eyes with a helpless look, but James only smiles at her, smoothing her hair. “It’s just a nosebleed,” he says. “You’re going to be just fine.”
“You’re such a liar,” she whispers.
His expression doesn’t falter, doesn’t even show one crack. “Shut up. You’re fine. Say it.”
“Shut up?”
“You’re fine, Lacey.”
She closes her eyes, resigned to trusting James. “I’m fine,” she repeats.
And when James relaxes next to her, putting his arm over her shoulders so she can rest her head against him, I realize he’s the biggest liar I’ve ever known. But he does it with the best of intentions.
* * *
When Lacey’s nosebleed stops, she goes to wash up, not mentioning the memory that surfaced even though it shouldn’t have. She didn’t know Roger. This is an actual memory; it’s recall. In The Program they told us too much stimulus could lead to a brain-function meltdown. Dallas mentioned it as a side effect too. I don’t want to believe anything of the sort, but at the same time, I’m terrified it might be true—our memories might kill us.
“Hey,” Cas says from the doorway, pulling me from my daze. His long hair is tucked behind his ears, and he’s wearing different clothes from earlier. “It’s four. We’re meeting up in the living room. You coming?”
“Oh . . .” I look to where James still sits on the bed, and he gives me a quick nod. “Yeah,” I say. “We’ll be right there.”
Cas glances from James to me, and his sharp jaw hardens. “Something wrong?” he asks. His voice drops a tone, and the hint of seriousness in it sounds more authentic than the let’s-all-be-best-friends guy I met this morning.
“No,” I answer quickly. “Still a little tired, I guess.”
There’s a slight pause as Cas studies our appearances, but then he smiles broadly and I can’t help thinking it’s false. “Well, you’d better hurry,” he says, casting a glance around the room. “One of the guys brought back pizza, and that kind of luxury never lasts around here.”
James crosses his arms over his chest. “Like she said,” he begins, “we’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Cas’s smile fades. “I’ll see you in a bit, then.” He starts for the door, but I see the way he takes in every aspect of our room, every object placement, as if trying to determine what’s off about us. I don’t like how observant he is. I don’t like that he doesn’t trust us, even though we certainly don’t trust him.
What’s changed is Lacey. Something’s wrong with her, but we can’t tell the rebels until we figure out what it is. They might want to kick her out if they think she’s become infected again, or if she’s a liability. We have to protect Lacey, because in this world, you can’t know who to trust. All we have is each other.
When James and I finally get up the nerve, we go to find the others. Everyone is gathered in the main room, even a few I hadn’t seen before. But it’s how they’re dressed that really alarms me. The rebels are no longer in T-shirts or tank tops. They’re wearing black—a color rarely worn in public anymore—and their makeup is dark and dramatic, even the guys. The entire scene is so stereotypically emo that I’m utterly confused.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Dallas smiles broadly from the other end of the table. Her dreads are pulled back behind a black headband, and she’s wearing a leather corset with red ribbons laced through the shoulders. “It’s a special night,” she says, lifting her plastic cup in cheers. “The Suicide Club just reopened.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“THE SUICIDE CLUB?” I ASK, glancing around the room. The others look downright gleeful, smiling and laughing, but I have a horrible feeling I’ve crossed into some hideous version of reality
. “I don’t understand.”
Dallas grins, taking a long sip from her cup before answering. “We’re not going to kill ourselves, silly.”
Silly? I wonder what’s in her plastic cup.
“It means we’re going out. You should be happy to leave this dreary place for a while.” She glances to the side. “Are you happy, James?”
There’s a pinch of jealousy. She’s not just asking if he’s happy about going out, she’s asking if he’s happy with me. James looks her over, trying to gauge the situation.
“Yes,” he answers dismissively. “Now, what exactly is the Suicide Club?”
Dallas’s smile falters slightly under the authority in James’s tone. She turns to me instead, her posture taking on an irritated quality as she sets her drink down. “You remember the Wellness Center?” she asks. “This is the opposite. It’s like a place for those of us who don’t want to wear polo shirts and khakis. For those who want to celebrate choice—the choice to kill ourselves if we damn well please.” She shrugs. “We don’t want to die, but it’s fun to explore our dark sides when the rest of the world is intent on burying it.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” James says. “And it sounds dangerous.”
Dallas shakes her head. “Not even. It’s actually the safest you’ll be from The Program’s influence. You can be yourself, James. When’s the last time you were that?”
“Fuck off,” he mutters, examining a hangnail on his thumb. I can see her words hurt him and it infuriates me. James is always himself. He may not remember his life, but he wasn’t changed. He’s still him. That’s what I believe, anyway.
“I think we’ll pass,” I say, reaching to slip my hand in the crook of James’s elbow. “Thanks, though.”
“You’ll go,” Dallas says, then softens her voice. “You should go. It’s a great place to recruit new members. That’s where I met Cas.” She looks over at him. “You were so handsome,” she teases. “Those big brown eyes and long hair, I think I would have brought you home even if you were depressed.”
The Treatment Page 3
