The Treatment

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JAMES STARES STRAIGHT AHEAD, WITH no immediate reaction to what I’ve just told him. I think he’s in shock. I follow his gaze out the windshield to the empty parking lot of the convenience store off the highway. The building is abandoned, plywood covering the windows, black graffiti tagged on the white siding. In a way, James and I have been abandoned too, our former selves boarded up and locked away while the world moves on around us. We were supposed to accept that change, follow the rules. Instead we broke all of them.

The streetlight above us flickers out as the sun, still below the mountains, begins to illuminate the cloudy horizon. It’s nearly five in the morning, and I know we’ll have to move soon if we want to stay ahead of the roadblocks. We’d barely beat the one at the Idaho border, and now there’s an Amber Alert issued for our safe return.

Right. Because The Program is just concerned with our safety.

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