The Program (The Program 1)

I lean back in the chair in Dr. Warren’s office, my body warm from the drugs. I think about how James and I rearranged the bed and table, making it all our own. We wanted to stay there forever. There was a deck of cards, and somehow James talked me into a game of strip poker, only he lost.

• • •

“Are you purposely losing?” I asked him, laughing.

“Sloane, when winning means getting you naked, you better believe I’m going to try my damnedest to win.” He ran his eyes over my T-shirt and jeans. “You could at least take off a sock to humor me.”

So I did, taking it off slowly and then tossing it across the room. James’s face changed then, the playfulness fading. “Sloane,” he whispered, laying down his cards. “I love you. You make me feel right.”

James crawled over the cards on the floor and stopped in front of me, his face close to mine, studying me. “I love the way you laugh. Cry. I love to make you smile.” He touched my cheek, and I grinned instinctively. “Make you moan.”

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach, and I reached to put my arms around his neck.

“Baby,” he continued, “I’m going to live the rest of my life with you, or die trying.”

“Don’t talk about dying,” I murmured, kissing softly at his lips.

“You’re the only person I can ever trust. You’re the only one who’ll ever know the real me.”

• • •

“I know James loved me,” I tell Dr. Warren as tears run down my cheeks. “Because I knew him better than anyone ever could. He always acted like nothing was wrong, that he was tough, but inside, Brady’s death tortured him. James hated his father for trying to keep us apart. He resented his mother for leaving when he was a kid. When we were alone, James could be vulnerable, and I loved him then most of all.” I wipe at my face and glare at Dr. Warren. “We were together because we loved each other. And that’s all there ever was.”

Dr. Warren nods slowly, not jotting anything down, just looking on as if she understands. Or maybe it’s fake like everything else. The room is liquidy around me, dreamlike.

“Take this,” she says, sliding me a black pill. It’s different from the usual yellow one I take, and all at once I’m seized with hope. She’s going to help me after all. A smile twitches my lips, and I lean lazily forward and take the pill, swallowing it gratefully. When I do, she exhales, setting her pen down.

“I’m sorry for all you’ve been through, Sloane,” she says like she means it. “You should take a moment to say good-bye.”

I furrow my brow. “Good-bye to who?”

“James.”

The floor seems to drop out from under me, and despite the drugs slowing my movements, I jump out of the chair. No. No. No. I quickly jam my finger down my throat, gagging as Dr. Warren tells me to stop and calls to the nurse. I have to throw up the pill before they can erase him. James.

But the minute I get the pill back up, the relief is short lived. Marilyn walks in with a needle, poised to strip it all away.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I’M SOBBING AS I STUMBLE FROM DR. WARREN’S office. She doesn’t bother to help me. Instead she tells me that it’s okay for me to cry. I swear at her and run my hand along the wall as I head toward the leisure room.

James. James. James. I know these are my last minutes to remember him, and I stop, letting myself slide down the wall to sit on the floor. I rest my head on my bent knees and hold on to what I can.

I see James, smiling broadly as he rakes his fingers through his wet hair. “Come on, Sloane,” he calls from the water. He’s shirtless, the sun glistening off his skin as he stands in the river. I sit on the grass and shake my head.

James walks out of the water, dripping, as he approaches me. He collapses on the blanket, the cool skin of his thigh pressed against my shorts. “One day,” he says, his eyes squinted against the sun, “I’m going to teach you how to swim. And then we’re going to the ocean.”

“Never.”

“Never?” James repeats, sounding amused. He pulls me down next to him and traps me in his arms. His skin is cold, but hot underneath. “Never?”

I giggle and shake my head.

“And what if I want to get married on the beach?” he asks. “You still say no?” He bites on his lip, leaning closer to me. “You’ll refuse to marry me?”

Tingles race over me, and not just because he’s close but because I’m overwhelmed with how much I love him. How he’s the other half of my heart. “I’ll never refuse you,” I whisper.

James smiles and then kisses me softly, trailing his mouth to my neck before returning to my lips again. “It’s me and you,” he says. “Madly in love until the end.”

And the words echo in my head as I collapse on my side in the hallway, drowning in my pain.

• • •

I feel something next to me, but my body is heavy and I can’t move. I try to turn, but my hands are locked at my side. My eyes fly open. A face looms over me, and I start to scream when his hand covers my mouth.

“Shh . . . Miss Barstow,” Roger whispers. “We wouldn’t want to draw attention to ourselves, would we?”

I twist my hands again and realize he has me in the restraints. I know I’m not completely helpless. I can bite down on his hand, scream out. But then what? They’ll restart me in The Program—making sure I don’t remember anything that I’m not supposed to.

I shake his hand off my mouth. “What do you want?”

He smiles, his eyes gliding over my body under the sheets. “I think you’d be a little too feisty to trust with any of my naked parts now,” he says. “So I’m not offering a trade anymore.”

I furrow my brow. “Then what?”

“I want Michael Realm out of here. But first, I want to watch him squirm.”

The vulnerability of my situation crashes down on me. “What are you going to do?”

Roger shrugs. “Michael is inappropriately fond of you, so I think this scene alone will be enough to push him over the edge, don’t you?” With a sickening smile, Roger leans over me, placing a kiss on my collarbone, smart enough to avoid getting close to my teeth. He runs his tongue along my skin. “It’s too bad,” he murmurs, kissing again. “We could have had a lot of fun.”

“Yeah,” I growl. “I would have enjoyed kneeing you again.”