The Complication (The Program #6)(52)

“Oh, honey,” Dr. McKee says, and reaches for me. I slap his hand away, a sharp sting on my palm. He slides his hands into his pockets.

“Why did you use my memories in Wes’s Adjustment?” I ask. “You knew they weren’t real.”

“We thought they were accurate,” he corrects. “In fact, we thought they might be better, clearer than real memories. It was a risk that didn’t pan out.”

“Didn’t pan out,” I repeat in disgust. “And what about Jana—Melody? Or whoever she is. What is she doing in all of this?”

“Melody Blackstone is a handler, and she has worked closely with Marie since the beginning. She left The Program and wanted to make things right. She wanted to cure people. So she was assigned to watch Vanessa and, from a distance, you. Unfortunately, Vanessa found out who Melody was, and it caused her breakdown. We’d hoped to avoid that.”

“So she’s using Nathan?” I ask, my anger rising. “She’s using him to watch me?”

“She’s trying to protect you.”

“I don’t want your protection!” I shout. “I want you to leave me alone. Leave all of us alone. I won’t be your cure, your case study. Leave me out of it. I won’t be your excuse to kill anyone else.”

“Tatum,” Dr. McKee says like I’m being unreasonable. He stands up and tries to take my arm, but I rip from his grasp.

“Don’t touch me,” I hiss. “Don’t you get it? You stole my life.”

“We were trying to give it back to you. We did.”

“No.” I shake my head. “This was a deal with a doctor who erased only part of me, a part that you tried to fill in, patching up holes with false memories. Changing my life. Who knows if anything I said in The Program was real. If I could hide one truth, I could hide them all.”

I stare at him, and the familiar sense that I know him is back. An awful idea itching at the corners of my mind. I take a step toward him.

“You knew my grandmother for years,” I start, my voice hoarse. “Am I supposed to believe that using me as your pet project only occurred after I was taken into The Program?”

“Yes.”

“Because you say so?” I ask. “How long have you been treating me, Dr. McKee?”

And it’s the slight pause, the one second of raw guilt that makes my heart sink. Before he goes on to deny it, I lunge forward and grab him by the collar of his lab coat, fierce and violent. “How long?” I demand.

Dr. McKee meets my gaze head on, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows hard. “I treated you when I was with the grief department,” he says quietly.

Oh my God. He has treated me before. “For what?” I ask with barely a breath.

“Your mother,” he says. “She neglected you.”

“I know—”

“No,” Dr. McKee says with a wince. “You don’t know, Tatum. Your mother took off with you when you were about five. She left the state.”

“Five?” I say, letting go of his jacket. “No, my mother left when I was a baby.”

Dr. McKee watches me carefully, and then continues his story despite the discrepancy. “Your grandparents didn’t think your mother was well, and they wanted her to get help. But she refused, and she ran off with you. I’d sit with your grandmother at work as she called around to hospitals, searching for unidentified bodies of a mother and her child. There was a stretch—nearly three months—when she was convinced you were both dead.”

He looks at the floor, his expression weighted with compassion. His mouth sagging. I don’t want to believe this. I have to trust some of my memories, and my childhood is beyond reproach. The manipulation can’t go that far back.

“Your grandmother asked me to help her . . . help her cope,” Dr. McKee says. “I was going to send in a closer to end the loop of grief—someone to pretend to be you so your grandmother could say how much she loved you. How she’d always protect you. And just before the closer was due to arrive,” Dr. McKee continues, “we got a call. Police had found your mother, safe—but malnourished and filthy.”

“And me?” I interrupt, growing invested in the story despite my doubts.

Dr. McKee’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look at me when he talks. “You were there,” he says. “Same condition. Your mother was set to face charges of neglect, but she agreed to sign over custody of you to your grandparents and be on her way. However,” he says, looking at me finally. “You were having trouble with the new arrangement. You wanted to stay with your mother. Your grandmother asked what I could do to help you cope. And I . . .”

Dr. McKee flinches and clears his throat, looking perturbed.

“I brought you to Dr. Arthur Pritchard,” he says. “He was renowned for his work with children. He met with you, and through a combination of therapies, you forgot about before. Those memories were rewritten—happy ones with your grandparents placed instead. We gave you the gift of contentment.” He loosens his tie. “If you saw what you were like when you arrived, you would agree that it was a gift.”

“I was five. You stole my memories,” I say, offended. Horrified. “You and that prick thought that you knew what was best. You decided. At least my grandparents loved me; their complicity in this is somewhat understandable. But you . . . ,” I sneer, unable to even find the right word to describe a man who manipulates grief, abuses broken hearts.