“Sloane?” he asks. “If The Treatment was still around—if Evelyn made more . . . would you take it?” I digest his words, rocking back on my feet. The pain of my time in The Program is still so raw, and yet, I think it’s just the tip of the pain I’ve endured in the last few months. What could getting it all back bring me?
“I don’t think so,” I tell him sincerely. “Sometimes, Kellan . . .
I think the only real thing is now.”
He smiles at my answer, although his brows pull together like he’s a little confused. I wave to him and he drives away, leaving the rebels behind. Leaving us to each other.
The house is quiet when I go inside. James is curled up on the living room floor, talking quietly with Dallas while she lies on the couch above him. I like the picture—him being sweet to her, protecting her. James is different since he took The Treatment. More thoughtful in a way that proves we belonged together all along.
There’s a clink of a cup and I follow the sound into the kitchen, uneasy when I find Realm at the table all alone. Evelyn’s bedroom door is closed, and Realm glances over his shoulder when I walk in the room. Despite my urge to walk right back out, I take a seat across from him, daring to look him in the eyes.
“I told you once that I wish you hated me,” he says. “Is it too late to take it back?”
I don’t want him to be funny; it only makes it hurt more.
I bring my hands into my lap, squeezing them into fists in an attempt to control the emotions threatening to burst through.
“Why?” I ask. “If you were a handler in The Program—if you were the one who erased my memories—why pretend to be my friend? Why continue even after I returned?” Realm swallows, his eyes watering and downcast as my words hit him. “I was doing my job. I fell in love.” He looks up. “I did what I could to keep you. But the simple answer: I’m selfish. I thought I could make you love me back—that without James you would. I thought I could wear you down.”
“I did love you.”
Realm smiles sadly. “Not like that. Never like him.” Realm’s gaze drifts past me to the living room. “He’s not bad, you know.
I kinda like him. And I was wrong: I could never love you the way he does. That kid is absolutely nuts about you.” I laugh, bringing my hands to the table as the anger fades.
There’s more between Realm and me, instances I’m sure I can’t remember. I don’t want to. I want to leave us here—make a truce. I say good night, even though his eyes plead for more time.
James grins when he sees me, patting the carpet and telling me he saved me a spot. We plan to leave first thing in the morning. Evelyn is lending us a car so we can hide out somewhere in town, and Realm is taking Dallas to Corvallis where she says she has a cousin who’d be willing to help her out for a while.
We don’t know if Evelyn and Kellan have done enough to free us, but for the first time, we’re close to an ending. And there’s solace in that.
“We have to leave.”
The voice cuts through the room, and I’m on my feet, still blurry with sleep. I find Realm in the doorway, reddish-brown smears on the sleeves of his shirt. I let out a horrified cry, and both Dallas and James jump up, disoriented and confused.
“Oh my God! Are you okay?” My first thought is that Realm is hurt, and I search for a source of his injury. But when I find none, I look past him toward the bedroom. The blood belongs to someone.
Realm is detached, licking the corner of his mouth as if he’s not exactly clear what he’s going to say. “Evelyn killed herself last night. She . . . uh, she didn’t want to go back to The Program. She left a note.” He takes a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. He doesn’t even look at it though; he stares through it. “She didn’t want them to ever get their hands on The Treatment. And she didn’t want them to get us. She . . . she said she was protecting her brain from the scientists.”
I stumble backward, and James catches me around the waist and eases me back onto the couch. I want to run in and check on her, but I know Realm would never leave her side if there was hope of reviving her. I see the devastation and guilt in his eyes. Next to me Dallas begins to weep, and James quickly takes her arm.
He sniffles back his own tears. “Realm’s right. We have to go.”
“We should call an ambulance,” I say. “Something!”
“No,” Realm says with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry, but it’s too late. I’ve called Kellan and told him already; he’ll send someone when we’re clear. Now, James, grab the keys hanging by the door; car’s through the garage. I’ll meet you out front.”
“Realm . . . ,” I start to say, but he’s already disappeared back into the kitchen. I hear cupboards opening and closing, the sliding of drawers as Realm gathers supplies. Evelyn Valentine is dead. She didn’t have to kill herself; she could have come with us. But ultimately her fear was too great. She was right—
The Program has become the epidemic.
The next moments take on a dreamlike quality; Dallas cries, and James pulls her along while he shouts for me to hurry. We load the car and wait for Realm. He walks out the front door, pausing to lock it. He stands there, his back to us, staring at the house. I choke up, thinking Evelyn was probably the closest thing he had to a mother other than his sister. He doesn’t talk to us when he gets inside the car, only sits at the window, staring out, carrying a brown leather case.
I never asked what he took from Evelyn’s house that day.
But I imagine Evelyn Valentine was a piece of his past he wasn’t willing to forget.
THE FALL OF THE PROGRAM
Once cloaked in secrecy, The Program project has been suspended indefinitely by the US
government. Reacting to an interview confirming a system-wide cover-up, Congress moved swiftly to shut down all facilities until further notice.
As more details emerge about the procedures used in The Program, public outrage grows. One handler, Roger Coleman, was arrested on several counts of statutory rape and is awaiting trial.
Coleman is accused of soliciting sex from underage patients in exchange for memories, and is facing up to sixty years in prison if convicted.
The scandal originally broke after a taped interview with the late Dr. Evelyn Valentine (a former employee) was leaked. She confirmed The Program’s knowledge of a study indicating their role in the epidemic, substantiating claims of a cover-up.