“That’s the idea,” he responds. The horn beeps, making us jump. James looks me over one more time before smoothing the curls of my hair away from my face. In this moment of calm, the disappearance of Lacey is crushing. But it’s no longer panic, it’s loss. Heavy, terrible loss covers me in a shadow. Rather than cry, I take James’s hand and go back to the waiting car. There’s no time to mourn. There’s only time to run.
* * *
I’ve never been to Colorado before, and when we cross the state line, the sun is shining. It does nothing to comfort me though, and I lean my head on James’s shoulder in the backseat as Dallas drives. I’ve been checking the CNN feed on Dallas’s phone—hoping for word on Lacey, but at the same time, terrified of what an article would say about her. But there are no updates, save for an older one about James and I running away.
James asks me to check the New York Times, and when I do, my stomach drops. “Oh my God,” I murmur, scrolling through an interview. This can’t be real.
“What is it?” James asks. From the front, Dallas flicks her gaze to the rearview mirror. The date on the interview is from a few days ago, and when I meet Dallas’s eyes, I see she already knows.
“What’s going on?” James demands. I hold the phone out to him and watch as his expression falters. It’s an in-depth interview about us. And James’s dad is doing the talking.
“He’s claiming it’s your fault,” Dallas says quietly, looking at me in the mirror, “like you’re some sort of vixen. You’d think he’d be more concerned about getting his only son home.”
James is still reading, and every second that ticks by makes his posture tighter, his hands curl into fists. I’d only skimmed the interview, but James’s dad claimed I was the mastermind behind our disappearance. There’s even a picture of him posing with a framed photo of James from middle school. It’s absolutely absurd.
“Propaganda,” Dallas calls back, even though James and I have fallen silent. “They baited him into that interview to gain public support. I wouldn’t let it bother you too much.”
I scoff. “Right, Dallas. I’ll just put it out of my mind.” I look at James, trying to gauge his reaction. Eventually he turns the phone screen off and hands the cell forward to Dallas. I start to chew on my nail, waiting. But James just crosses his arms over his chest like he might never talk again.
“James?” I ask when his nonresponse nearly sends me over the edge.
“My dad’s an asshole,” he says quietly. “Let’s just leave it at that for now.”
But I can’t drop it. I don’t know how James’s father feels about me—or at least I can’t remember. He could have a reason to hate me, or like James said, he could just be an asshole. Either way, the fact that this is news shows the reach of The Program. Using his father is another layer of betrayal. They knew it would hurt James. They wanted it to. It’s proof they won’t stop. They won’t let us go. “What are we going to do?” I whisper.
James turns toward me. “We hold on,” he replies. It’s not the give-them-hell response I need to hear, but James is only human. We’re all vulnerable. Like Lacey.
The reality of our situation is crushing, and we ride in silence—James lost somewhere next to me. I watch out the window as we pass a park. There are children playing in bright-colored shirts, running around while their doting mothers look on. For an instant, I miss my parents in a desperate way I haven’t felt in a long while. For an instant I wish I could go home.
But then I think of James’s dad sitting down for that interview and know it just as easily could have been my parents. I close my eyes until I’m back to now, on the run with James and Dallas.
“I think you’re going to love Denver,” Dallas calls from the front, startling me from my thoughts. “There won’t be any Suicide Clubs for a while, though. The last one got raided after we left. In a way, Lacey saved my ass by taking off.”
“How did they find out about the club?” I ask.
Dallas begins twisting her blond dreads absently. “A handler probably,” she says, watching the road outside the windshield. “Those bastards are embedded everywhere.”
Embedded handlers—the thought hadn’t occurred to me. My memories from last night at the Suicide Club are hazy, but I remember Adam. Was he a handler putting on an act, pretending to be depressed? That’s so wrong, so unethical. If he was a handler, then . . .
Fear crawls up my back and arms, a devastating reality I can’t even tell James. Not yet, not when he’s still feeling guilty about Lacey. But Adam knew my name—he knew who I was. If he was a handler, why didn’t he take me right then? What if I was the reason the Suicide Club was raided?
“Hold up,” Dallas tells us when her phone vibrates. James’s eyes narrow as he watches in the rearview mirror as she answers it. “Seriously?” Dallas says into the phone. “Goddamn it, Cas. Fine,” she growls, and hangs up, dropping her phone into the cup holder. The Escalade zooms past us, but we turn right.
“Cas says we need to split up,” Dallas tells us. “The place in Denver won’t work for you, and it’s too risky to continue driving right now. Apparently they’re doing a Dateline special about the two of you. The media has totally latched on to your runaway-lovers story—and the scanner is going crazy with possible sightings. This is a total clusterfuck.”
“So where are we going, then?” James asks, his mood still dark from reading about his father. “Don’t you have any friends here?”
The dig makes Dallas flinch, but she smiles, brushing her hair behind her shoulder. “Oh, I have friends, James. But they won’t exactly welcome me in with the rebel poster children in tow. Too bad your handsome face couldn’t be a little less memorable.” She says it like she hates him for it.
“Yes, too bad,” I respond sarcastically. James chuckles, side-eyeing me. His angry expression softens, and then he shoves my shoulder playfully.
“Hey!” I push him back, to which he retaliates until I’m finally smiling. I love how we can do that—break through the misery to always find each other.
Dallas interrupts. “We’re heading to Colorado Springs. There’s a small house where Cas used to crash. He told us to head over while he drops off the others. He’s going to stay with us, though. The four of us,” she mumbles. “Won’t that be cozy?”
“Lovely,” I respond. Because spending more time with Dallas is what I need. I rest against James; he braids strands of my hair between his fingers as I watch the passing street out the window. The blue sky and the white-capped mountains.
And when the moment of normalcy fades, I’m haunted once again by thoughts of Lacey—and how I could have saved her. I go to twist the ring on my finger and become alarmed when there’s only naked flesh. I hold up my hand and hitch in a breath. I spin to James, tears ready to spill over.
“I left it behind,” I say. At first his expression is a mixture of concern and confusion, but then he looks at my hand and realizes I’m talking about the ring. His shoulders slump, hurt crossing his features.
A few weeks ago I’d found a ring hidden in my bedroom. I’d placed it there for when I got out of The Program, and it eventually helped lead me back to James. Just last week he’d gotten me a second ring—a new promise. But I was careless enough to lose it. It’s starting to feel like a pattern: losing things I care about. People I care about. I curl against James, my face buried in his shirt while he murmurs he’ll get me another. It was just an object; it’s replaceable. But as he talks, I rub absently at the empty space on my ring finger, thinking about replacements. And wondering if I’m just a replacement of the girl I used to be.
* * *
The house is a skinny two-story with peeling yellow paint and a broken wooden fence. I take a quick peek around as we pull into the garage behind the house. Dallas leads us toward a sagging back porch and picks up a key from underneath a coffee can filled with old cigarette butts that’s just outside the door. James and I survey the yard, and he points to a dilapidated doghouse in the corner.
>
“Can we get a puppy?” he asks, grinning at me. I want to say yes and then really get a dog. We’ll give it a stupid name and take it everywhere with us. But our situation isn’t permanent. We may never find permanence again. We may never find Lacey again. When I don’t respond, James’s smile fades and he puts his arm around me as we wait for Dallas to get the door open.
I was in the school cafeteria the first time I met Lacey. She was wearing the same sort of clothes as the other returners, but on her they didn’t seem so bland. She told me not to eat the food because they put sedatives in it. She told me this even though it could have gotten her in trouble. She sat with me—a hollowed-out, confused girl—until I started to feel less lost. She made me laugh. She tried to protect me from The Program. But I let her down. I should have taken the nosebleed more seriously. I’m not sure what I could have done for her, but I should have figured something out. If Realm had been here, he would have known what to do.
“Sloane?” James asks, startling me from my thoughts. The door is open and Dallas is gone, but I’m still on the back porch while James looks at me from inside. “You coming?” he asks.
I think about the doghouse again, a symbol of the normal life we’ll never have, and then follow James into the house before bolting the door behind us. The entryway leads into the kitchen, which although old-fashioned, seems to be perfectly intact. There are appliances, and dishes in the open cupboards. It’s like a real home, but that doesn’t offer me much comfort. Instead I’m reminded of my home back in Oregon, of my parents who I haven’t spoken to since the day I left. Are they sick with worry? Are they okay?
“I think I want to lie down,” I say to James, my chest constricting when I think of my father waiting for me to come home. My mother looking out the front window, wondering if I’m alive. James asks Dallas where the bedrooms are and she motions toward the stairs. I don’t wait for James and start up them, noticing small nails punched into the walls without pictures hanging from them.
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 that 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 download 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 shudder 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. r />
“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.