I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well, there aren’t many opportunities to sing when you’re running for your life.”

He sat back down, playing with the crease down each leg of his grey trousers. “French, I’m real sorry about how things went for you. Honestly. If I could take it all back and make sure you went with me, I would.”

I sat up quick, too quick, and the blood rushed into my head, pushing black spots into my vision. “What the hell, man? That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen, the bravest thing I’ve ever even heard of! You saved me! I was actually saved, not pretend-gospel saved.”

He leaned forward, placing a hand on the bed near my arm, which I jerked out of reach. “Easy, easy, now. You’ll pop your stitches.” He looked around the room, smiling at the frowning white coats watching us suspiciously with their clipboards and magnified eyes. “Don’t go getting all charged up, or you’ll get strapped to the bed. I’ve seen it happen for less.”

“You’ve watched a lot of kids being tortured? And you just keep watching, eh?”

I didn’t want to look at him, but I couldn’t help it. In between each word I was searching the planes and curves of his face for the Mitch of my memory, the one I’d held on to all these years. He should have taken me with him? And behind it all was the deep humiliation of being robbed, robbed of the reunion I had played out in my head so many nights before sleep. Robbed of Mitch. Could I not even have this one moment of relief, of happiness?

“French…”

“I think you should call me Francis.”

“Francis…” He said it as a sigh. He paused. I might not know him anymore, but I knew that taking away my name hurt him. “I understand your frustration. I really do.” He sat forward on the chair, his hands clasped between his knees. “You’re at the beginning of a long journey, but I’ll be right here by your side.”

“I’d rather you weren’t.”

“And it won’t take as long as it did for me. We’ve changed the Program, revised the timelines. You could be out of containment in weeks instead of months. You could even be in the field before the year is over.”

Wait…out of containment? In the field? Now I was truly interested. “Like, the actual field?”

He laughed. “Yeah, little brother, into an actual field.” His face turned serious. “But there’s no gaming the system. Your dedication has to be real. They’ll know if it’s not.” His eyes got dark. “I’ll know if it’s not.”

I tried to swallow everything I wanted to say. I longed to both tell him to stop calling me “brother” and beg him to help me escape, even though it was becoming obvious he would never do that. I couldn’t help it, though: even now, I had a small, bright piece of hope. If he’d been changed once, maybe he could be changed again.