The Treatment (The Program #2)(7)
Author: Suzanne Young

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 I 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, 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 ass**le. 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 con-dolences, “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 might just 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 huge 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 of me with ringlets hanging on my parents’ living room wall.

“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?”