Chapter 17 Summary and Analysis

James wakes up after a particularly vivid User Dream, which Lincoln predicts will occur any time James is exposed to any of the substances to which he was once addicted. Lincoln expresses his admiration and astonishment at James's feat the night before, in which he held a bag of crack in one hand, a woman he had just met in the other, and still emerged from the building with his sobriety intact. Lincoln challenges James to prove that he can stay sober on his own terms, and James accepts the challenge from a man he now considers a friend.

Randall informs James that his sentence in Ohio has been reduced from three years to three months. Such a miraculous offer could only be the result of Miles and Leonard's influence, but neither man admits anything when James thanks them for their...