The Treatment (The Program #2)(20)

There are three rooms, and James lets me decide which one I want. I pick the one with the biggest bed, and James drops our bag onto the dresser. The room has a dormer with a chair set in the space, along with a little table. The walls are a grayish-white and the furniture is old but still useable. The blankets look decent and I lie on top of a faded green comforter. When I curl up in the fetal position, James comes to lie next to me, rubbing his hand over my back.

“We’ll get through this,” he says. “You’re stronger than anyone I know, Sloane. We’ll keep each other safe.” The words ring hollow, words I’m sure I’ve heard before. If I dwell on the negative thoughts any longer, I’m afraid I’ll get sick. It’s like the depression is always there, threatening to pull me under. I turn and wrap my arm around James, my cheek on his shoulder. He strokes my hair, comfortable and innocent, but it’s not enough for me. I get up on my elbow and look down at his handsome face, his trusting eyes.

I kiss him. “Make me forget,” I murmur between his lips, sliding my hand under his shirt. James is quick to respond, moving me on top of him, and the negative thoughts are leaving. The faces—real or imagined—are fading away.

I try to strip away his clothes, but my hands are too shaky and tears sting my eyes. It’s all so overwhelming and I’m not sure I can bear even one more loss. I just want all my feelings to go away. Why can’t they just go away?

James grabs my wrists and stops me, pulling me against him for an embrace.

“Make it go away,” I whimper. James swallows hard, his grip on me loosening. My hands once again search his body, but the passion is gone. When I finally meet his eyes, they pin me in place.

“I don’t want you like this,” he says. “I don’t want us like this.” Emptiness tears through me, curling around my toes. I am a black hole of doubt and misery. I glide my fingers over James’s jaw, his full lips. He gently takes my hand and kisses it.

“We’ll get through this,” he says, a cry threatening to break the sternness of his statement. He waits until I agree, and when he pulls me closer, I just lie against him—and let the darkness swallow me up.

Chapter Eight

WE’RE LIVING OFF GAS STATION CUISINE UNTIL CAS

shows up a few days later with a bag of nonperishable goods he snagged from the food bank. Dallas eyes him but doesn’t ask where he’s been. But soon after he returns, they’re leaving for long stretches—hours at a time—with no explanation of where they’re going. Because of my and James’s high-profile statuses, we’re left behind to wonder about them.

The days begin to blur together, and cut off from the outside world, James and I are falling into a routine. I start to think that maybe we could actually get a dog—but then my rational side reminds me this is all pretend. At least for now.

“You should wear an apron,” James calls out playfully from the kitchen table as I wash the last of our dishes. I’ve never thought of myself as very domestic, and if my cooking proves anything, I’m not. So James cooks, and I clean, and Dallas and Cas wander about like rebel leaders and make jokes about how James and I are playing house.

I shut off the water and then, instead of drying my hands on the dishtowel, I walk over and wipe them on James’s face as he tries to fight me off. We’re both laughing, wrestling in a way that will surely end in kissing, when Dallas walks in, taking in the scene.

“Cute,” she says as if she doesn’t find it even the least bit endearing. “Did you get the hot water heater working?” she asks James. He bends his head back to look at her as I sit on his lap.

“Not yet. I’m not very handy.” He smiles. “My talents lie elsewhere.” I swat his chest and he laughs, turning back to Dallas. “The Internet on your phone is spotty here, so I can’t down-load a how-to video or anything. Is Cas good at fixing stuff?”

“No,” she says immediately. “Cas is good at gathering information, not evaluating it.”

James straightens and helps me off of him as he stands.

“What sort of information? What exactly are you and Cas doing all day, and why won’t you tell us?”

“We’re collecting intel, monitoring the safe houses, looking for new recruits. And we don’t tell you because we don’t trust you. While you and Sloane are living in some delusion, there are people killing themselves. It’s an epidemic out there, James, and The Program is using that to further their agenda. First step is getting rid of all of us.”

“And how do I know you’re not the one leading them here?” James asks, calling her on the suspicions that have been festering.

Dallas’s normally pretty face hardens, her jaw tightens.

“You want to know why I don’t work for The Program?” she asks him. She pushes up her sleeves and holds out her arms, a wide scar, light pink and healed, wraps around her wrists. “This is from the restraints,” she says. “I kept pulling out my hair, so they tied me down. But that made fighting off the handler pretty difficult.”

“Fuck,” James murmurs as he looks over her scars. A shud-der races through me, knowing the story, and hating Roger even more for it.

“‘The first one’s free,’ he told me,” Dallas says, her eyes dark and cold. “He stuffed a pill inside my mouth and said to focus on a memory. I focused on my mother. I nearly choked to death on my own vomit, but he wouldn’t take off the restraints.