The Treatment (The Program #2)(46)

The curtain slides open, followed by the squeak of the faucet turning off. I’m still crying when the warmth of a towel wraps around my shoulders, and Realm helps me from the tub.

My legs are wobbly, but the minute I realize he’s here, that he’s touching me, I push him back.

I hate Realm for lying to me in The Program—acting as if he was just like me when he wasn’t. He had his memories. He knew Roger. But most of all, I hate him for being here when James isn’t.

I wrap the towel tighter around myself and brush the tears off my cheeks, glaring at Realm. His expression falters, concern replaced with defeat, vulnerability. “I don’t want to hear it right now,” I say, sounding like a petulant child. But I won’t let Realm manipulate me. I feel like he already has.

“Do you know how I ended up in The Program in the first place?” he asks, taking a step closer to me.

I sniffle, surprised by the question, but also by his proximity. I move back, bumping against the sink. “You never told me,” I say. “You said you didn’t remember.” Realm moves, and I flinch as if he’s going to touch me, but he goes to sit on the edge of the tub. “I was sixteen years old,” he says in a quiet voice. “My parents were both dead and my sister was working day and night. I never saw her. I worked on and off, but mostly I smoked and drank— numbing what I could. The despair was so deep and dark that it was eating me from the inside. I started to imagine I was rotting—that if you split my skin I would bleed black, cancerous blood.”

He met my eyes. “And so one day I decided to find out.” My breathing quickens and slow horror starts to work through me. The confession is already too personal, too painful to hear. My eyes begin to well up.

“My sister was at her job, my girlfriend was gone—gone into The Program weeks before. I had nothing. I had no one.

But I wasn’t searching for peace, Sloane. I was searching for pain. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to feel every inch of my death and I wanted to suffer. So I grabbed a serrated knife from the wood block on the kitchen counter, and I went into the bathroom and shut the door. I must have stood at the sink for close to an hour, staring at myself. The circles under my eyes, the disgust I felt at my own reflection.

“And then . . . I put the blade to my neck and began to saw.

I watched as long as I could, watching the blood pour down over my shirt, the skin split, only to lose my place because of my shaky hand. Then I’d start again.”

I cover my mouth, tears spilling onto my cheeks as the images flash through my head. “Stop,” I say. But Realm looks crazed, lost in his head.

“The last thing I remember,” he says, “was the thought that it wasn’t black blood at all. It was red. Everything was so red. I woke up in The Program. Seventy-three stitches. Reconstructive surgery. Extensive therapy. The doctors told me I was a miracle. Do you agree?” he asks, his brown eyes wild. “Aren’t I just a role model now? A f**king inspiration.” No one should suffer like that. It’s too terrible to even comprehend. I step forward and hug him, wishing I could take the pain away.

Realm’s arms wrap around my waist as he holds me close, taking jagged breaths before going on. “Sometimes I wish it’d worked. I wanted to die that day, but instead I had doctors picking me apart. But that’s not the worst thing I’ve done, Sloane. I wish it were.”

I pull back, and look down into his face. What does that mean? I move out of his arms, tightening my towel once again.

I realize suddenly we’re alone, and I’m naked other than this short white cloth wrapped around me. Realm notices my reaction and lowers his eyes.

Although my face feels swollen from crying, I put myself back together. I have to keep going, keep fighting. I may be a runaway, but at least I’m alive. I grip the glass knob of the bathroom door to leave.

“Sloane,” Realm calls in a low voice. I turn to look at him.

“If he doesn’t come back, you still have me.” My eyes weaken. “Realm . . .”

“I love you more than James ever could,” he says so seriously that I know he believes it. I can’t bring myself to hurt him, say the things I should. I can only turn and leave, praying James really will come back. And wondering what it will mean for Realm when he does.

Chapter Six

IT’S LATE. I’M LYING IN BED, CLOSE TO THE WINDOW

because I understand what Realm meant at the other house—

there is a claustrophobic aftereffect of The Program. A light flips on in the backyard, and I immediately sit up, my stomach lurching with fear.

Slowly, I slide the curtain aside and peer out. It takes a second to find them, but then I see Dallas and Cas on the lawn.

Dallas’s laughing—a genuine emotion of happiness—as Cas has his switchblade, flipping it open and waving around like he’s from West Side Story. I smile too.

I slip my arms into my sweater and push my feet into my sneakers, and head downstairs. When I push open the back screen door, they both spin to face me—Cas’s knife is gripped in his hand and pointed at me.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he says. Dallas rolls her eyes, and I consider going back upstairs, but ultimately I’m too awake to sleep. And I definitely don’t want to lie in bed and think all night.

“Do you mind if I stay out here for a while?” I ask.