The Complication (The Program #6)(72)

I lean my head against the cool metal of my locker. In the quiet hallway, I try to retreat into a happy memory of the two of us. Wes’s arms around me. His lips at my ear, whispering that he would do anything for me. How pure it felt.

But are any of those memories even real, or have they all been strategically placed by an Adjustment? I squeeze my eyes shut, the idea too disturbing. I just want to go back, go back to before the doctors took it all. The good, the bad. I want to remember. I just want something real.

There’s an itch, a pinhole of pain in my temple that suddenly and violently expands. I straighten, startled by it, but the hallway begins to tunnel, my vision blurs. I groan and push the heel of my palm against the side of my head.

The world is smashed like a ceramic plate, and I fall backward . . . and into a memory.

? ? ?

And I was standing in the leisure room of The Program, wearing stiff lemon-yellow scrubs.





CHAPTER TWO


“ARE YOU GOING TO PLAY or not?” Michael Realm asked, a pretzel rod bit between his teeth. “It’s your turn.”

The leisure room swam around me, and I didn’t see how it could be my turn when I wasn’t even playing their game. But the drugs Nurse Kell had given me made everything seem heightened, surreal. Like I was walking through a dream.

I sat down at the table, and Realm tossed me some cards, which I fanned out. I hadn’t played bullshit since middle school, but I remembered the basic concept.

“I’ll go,” the guy next to me said.

“No, Derek,” Realm said, pulling out the pretzel rod to point it at him. “We always let the pretty girls go first.” Realm smiled at me, but I didn’t return it. I kept watching him, sensing something off.

Derek groaned, and when I turned to him, he peeked at me as if from behind a curtain. I got the sense that he was faking—faking sick or faking well, I couldn’t decide. But his dark eyes scanned me, and I didn’t like their predatory nature. The way they paused where they shouldn’t.

“Fuck off,” I said under my breath. He had a spark of anger, glancing once at Realm before going back to his cards. Realm’s glare was deadly.

“Oh, shit,” the kid next to Derek said, motioning across the room.

“What’s up, Shep?” Realm asked reluctantly, putting the pretzel back in his mouth.

“Here she comes.”

We all followed his line of vision to a girl scratching her red hair, walking toward our table. She didn’t look healthy, not even remotely, and I watched as Realm’s expression showed concern. His eyes, however, flashed nothing.

“Hi, Realm,” the girl said brightly. “Can I play this round?” She darted a quick look at me, and then smiled at him pleadingly.

“No, Tabby,” he said. “Not today.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “She gets to play!” She pointed in my direction, and I stared back at her blankly. My emotions were off—like Nurse Kell had literally turned down the volume to zero.

“I said not today,” Realm replied, sounding halfhearted. He turned back to the game, and Tabby stood there, confused, before exchanging a glance with Shep and Derek.

I looked down at my cards, finding one I’d like to use. I snapped it down on the pile, and when I looked up, Tabby was gone.

“Bullshit,” Realm said quietly, not even looking at me. I furrowed my brow and watched as he lifted his head, tears in his eyes. Next to me, Derek cursed. “It’s all bullshit, Tatum,” Realm repeated before handlers appeared next to him, pulled him from his chair, and led him from the room.

? ? ?

I gasp and find myself on the hallway floor of the school, fluorescent lights burning above me.

“Ow,” I murmur, rubbing the back of my head where I smacked it. I blink quickly as the knowledge folds over me.

I knew Michael Realm in The Program. But not just him—there were others. And . . . they were faking it. Why?

Still disoriented from the memory, I sit up, and there’s a trickle on my upper lip. I quickly swipe my hand through the blood that’s coming from my nose. I reach into my pocket to see if I have a tissue anywhere, when suddenly there’s one in front of me.

Startled, I look up and find Derek Thompson standing above me with a white tissue held out in my direction. My stomach seizes, and I slide back from him, bumping into the lockers.

“I know you,” I say, staring up at him. “I remember.”

I’m in a precarious position as he moves to stand above me, trying to dominate me. He lowers the tissue and puts his hand on my shoulder, fingers squeezing into the muscle, making me recoil.

“It’s about time,” he says, his mouth hitching up in a sinister smile. “Tatum Masterson, you’ve been flagged. Come with me.”

I quickly slap his hand away and try to scramble to my feet, but the minute I get a foot under me, he pushes me down again. He can’t do that! We’re at school.

I open my mouth to scream, and then he’s on top of me, his palm smothering my lips, pressing so hard I can’t open them. A flash of bright panic floods me, and I flail my arms, trying to hit him wherever I can.

It’s the same feeling I had in my foyer when handlers were dragging me out in front of my grandparents. My body shrieks, fights.

I try to tell Derek to stop, I even flop on my back to get his hand off my mouth, but he puts me in a headlock; his fingers knot painfully in my hair as he yanks me to my knees.