The Treatment (32 page)

Resting on the wooden slats in front of the mailbox is a small leather case. Dallas takes a quick glance around her quiet street, her heart thumping, before she picks it up. The mailbox lid is lifted by a few oversize flyers, and she crumples them in her hand and heads back inside.

Her paranoia will never really fade. She knows that much. Dallas drops the junk mail into the trash and then sets the case on the kitchen table. Her fingers shake as she reaches inside, and when she pulls out a picture, she stumbles sideways into the chair. It’s her, a picture of her before The Program. Soft blond hair, a hoodie—a normal girl. And next to her is Realm. Smiling.

There are other pictures, and tears fall over Dallas’s cheeks as her entire past unfolds in front of her. She frantically sorts through all the photos, the notes. She has no idea how any of this stuff was saved, but she figures they’re probably not hers at all. They’re Realm’s.

The last thing Dallas finds in the case is a postcard much like the ones she sends to Sloane. It’s from Florida, from her very town, and has a bright-orange sunset streaked across the
sky. Dallas’s breath catches in her throat when she looks down at the message scrawled across the white background. It’s not signed, it’s not addressed. It holds only two words, two words that cut through Dallas and make her dissolve into sobs; heavy, aching sobs that both break her down and build her up. The doubt that’s haunted her, the self-hatred, eases slightly, and she knows now she can heal.

Dallas wipes her cheeks and stands. She’s going to get ready for work and pick out her outfit for her date tonight. She’s going to do everything she wants to do. She’s going to accept that good things can happen to her.

Dallas closes the leather case, set to store it away in her closet. She looks at the message one last time, memorizes it, and then leaves the postcard on the table before she walks away.

You matter.

ALSO BY SUZANNE YOUNG

The Program

Just Like Fate

with Cat Patrick

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SIMON PULSE

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

First Simon Pulse hardcover edition April 2014

Text copyright © 2014 by Suzanne Young

Jacket photograph and case photograph of couple copyright © 2014 by Michael Frost

Case photograph of tray and photo-illustration copyright © 2014 by Steve Gardner/PixelWorks Studios

Jacket and case design by Russell Gordon

Author photograph by Dawn Martin

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at
www.simonspeakers.com
.

Interior design by Mike Rosamilia

The text of this book was set in Adobe Garamond Pro.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Young, Suzanne.

The Treatment / Suzanne Young. — First Simon Pulse hardcover edition.

p. cm.

Sequel to: The Program.

Summary: Working with rebels to bring down The Program, a suicide prevention treatment in which painful memories are erased, Sloane and James consider taking The Treatment to unlock their memories.

[1. Suicide—Fiction. 2. Government, Resistance to—Fiction. 3. Memory—Fiction. 4. Love—Fiction. 5. Science fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.Y887Tr 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013042326

ISBN 978-1-4424-4583-3

ISBN 978-1-4424-4585-7 (eBook)