“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.
Said I was a danger to myself.”
James reaches for the chair to steady himself, but I’m watching Dallas with both sympathy and understanding. She can’t be part of The Program—after what Roger did to her, she could never work for them.
“They kept me sedated for close to three weeks,” Dallas continues. “And for those three weeks all I remember is his hands on me. His body on mine. He said he only liked the willing, but when the choice is him or eradication, I’m not sure there is much willingness in that. I gave in to him. I had no choice. But he stopped giving me the pills, said I couldn’t remember too much or The Program would realize what he was doing. He lied to me. He took everything from me.
“The minute they removed my restraints, I grabbed a Taser and nearly killed him. I wanted to.” Her hard expression cracks long enough for a few tears to streak from her heavily lined eyes. “I’m going to kill them all,” she says quietly. “I’m going to burn that place to the ground.”
“I didn’t know,” James says to her. “I’m sorry.” Then to my surprise, he reaches for Dallas and draws her into a hug, brushing his hand over her arm in a moment so tender, I can’t help but feel jealous. “We’ll find him,” James whispers. “And we’ll kill him.”
Dallas doesn’t look at me. Instead she closes her eyes, squeezing them tight as her arms come around James, turning her face to rest on his shoulder. She’s completely stripped down and broken, and James is the only thing holding her up as she starts to cry.
“Shh . . .” He strokes her blond dreads. After a few minutes I leave to go back to our room, giving them some privacy.
Because even though I don’t trust Dallas, I trust James completely.
In my bedroom I go to the closet, where I set the pill on the top shelf behind an old book of children’s bible stories. I pull the string connected to the light and then sit on the floor of the closet, examining the pill through the Baggie. How hard both Dallas and I must have fought to keep our memories. Roger preyed on us. And now here I am with a key I would have given anything for.
Now I can take it. But it’s been only a few days since I felt the darkness, and only seven weeks since I left The Program.
Am I truly cured? Wasn’t Lacey? Lacey.
I close my eyes, crumpling the Baggie in my fist. Lacey’s memories drove her crazy; I can’t risk that. I can’t get sick again; I can’t let James get sick again. The girl I used to be is dead—
The Program killed her. And for better or worse, I’m what’s left.
I’ll never take the pill. I never want to know. Resigned to this, I stand and put the pill back in its place. Then I turn off the light and close the door behind me.