No Return (The Internal Defense Series) (13 page)

The first thing Becca noticed when she stumbled into her apartment was the faint glimmer of sunrise already visible from her window.

The second was the person sitting on her couch.

Someone is here. The door was locked, and someone is here.
The gears of her exhausted mind struggled to engage as a jolt of panic cut off her breath. One hand reached for the doorknob, the other for the gun in her coat pocket.

“Becca, wait! It’s me. It’s me!”

The familiar voice stopped her. Slowly, too slowly, the figure came into focus. Curly blonde hair. A form-fitting outfit that exploded with color. An expression of naked relief.

“Becca.” Heather exhaled the word as if she had been holding her breath for hours. “You’re okay.”

Heather’s face blurred. Becca tried to rub the fatigue from her eyes. “How did you get in?”

“You gave me a key. Back when I was helping you decorate. Remember?”

Right. Becca could almost remember it now—handing over the key so Heather could get inside to… paint a room, maybe. Or move a piece of furniture. Whatever the reason had been, it wasn’t important now. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to apologize. I couldn’t sleep—I kept staring up at the ceiling thinking about the way I left last time. The things I said. So finally I decided to just come over. I figured if you were mad about being woken up, at least you’d still know I was sorry.” Heather gave her a weak smile.

Becca tried to focus. “It’s been weeks. Why now?” She hadn’t heard from Heather since that night, hadn’t seen her except for a couple of dinners at Lucky’s, where they had taken turns eliciting rants from Vivian and funny work stories from Ramon to cover for the fact that they were barely speaking to one another.

“I heard some things at work today.” Heather looked down at her lap. “Something’s gone wrong with Vivian’s program. You probably already know. Anyway, they’re trying to figure out what to do about it. If they… if something happens…” She paused long enough for Becca to see the details she had missed before—her blotchy face, the tear-bright shine in her eyes. “I didn’t want to leave things like that between us.”

Becca went cold.
Ryann.
It had to be. She hadn’t expected Investigation to discover Ryann’s disappearance this quickly—but with their resources, why wouldn’t they have found out? And if they acted against the resistance because of it—if they sent the remaining spies into action…

She didn’t have weeks anymore. At most, she had days.

“What’s their plan?” She fought to keep the urgency from her voice. There was no reason to scare Heather with this. Better for her to believe it was nothing.

“I don’t know. I tried to find out, but no one outside Vivian’s team is supposed to know the program exists.” Heather bit her lip. “What about you? Do you know what’s going on?”

“I know enough.”

“How close are they to finding you? How much danger are you in?”

“I’ll be fine.” She hoped she sounded convincing.

“Is there anything…” Heather’s voice wobbled. She took a second to breathe. “If they decide to do something, is there anything you can do to stop them? Or run, or… anything?”

Becca had made her decision during the drive home. But sharing it with Heather wouldn’t make Heather feel any better. “Maybe,” she said, and left it at that.

But Heather didn’t drop it. “Is that why you were gone tonight?” she pressed. “Where were you?”

I was standing over a dead body, threatening someone’s life and deciding whether to torture somebody else.
“Resistance business.”

On any other day, that would have been enough to send Heather scrambling to change the subject. Today she just leaned closer, a hurt look on her face. “Look,” she said. “I know you said you don’t want my help. But could you at least give me a little respect? You’re my best friend, and you could
die,
and I…” She made a frustrated gesture. “I just want to know what’s going on, okay? That’s all.”

A flash of inspiration hit Becca. A way to throw Heather off the trail, a way to keep from telling her what she didn’t want to hear. “I was with Micah.” A strategic pause. “He kissed me.”

Heather’s eyes widened. “Wait. Micah is really back?”

She had taken the bait. Becca gave an inward sigh of relief as she nodded. “He’s back.”

“And you kissed him.”

“He kissed me,” Becca corrected. A second later, she wondered why she had bothered. What did it matter?

“Well, these things are usually mutual, aren’t they? Unless you stopped him, and why would you? I know how you feel about him.” Heather patted the couch next to her.

Becca sat, trying to look natural. She crossed her legs. Uncrossed them. Heat crept up her face. She knew how to handle life-and-death situations, but conversations like this always made her feel like she was still back in high school, still the clueless freshman listening without understanding as Heather tried to fill her head with romantic advice. She had missed something along the way, had been busy working for the resistance and then leading a resistance of her own while other people learned how to talk about this kind of thing.

But at least they weren’t talking about anything else that had happened tonight. At least they weren’t talking about the decision she had made on her way home, and what it would mean.

Heather stared. “You did stop him, didn’t you?” She shook her head in disapproval, or maybe just disbelief. “Why? You’ve been hung up on him for three years.”

“I’ve been leading the resistance for three years.” Becca crossed and uncrossed her legs again. “We’ve talked about this.” For a while they had gone through the same argument every time Heather tried to set her up on another date, until finally Becca had given up and let Heather believe what she wanted to believe.

Heather waved a hand in dismissal. “That’s never been the whole story, and we both know it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have kissed him.”

“He kissed
me
,” she said sharply. She stopped. Took a breath. There was no point in getting worked up about this. Not when she had more important things to worry about. As long as the distraction worked, it didn’t matter what Heather thought.

“So you’re telling me you didn’t kiss him back at all?” Heather raised an eyebrow.

Yes. No. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway.
Becca didn’t answer.

Heather tilted her head. “So what exactly happened?”

Becca shrugged. The motion felt stiff and unnatural. “We talked. He kissed me. I told him to leave. He did.” She left out the part where Jared had told them about Kara, and the awkward few minutes they had spent driving in silence to the clearing.

“That,” Heather pronounced, “is the most unsatisfying story I’ve ever heard.”

“You asked what happened. That’s what happened.”

Heather heaved a sigh. She stretched out sideways on the couch, making a “gimme” gesture as she turned to Becca. “Come on. Give. What was it like?”

“Does it matter? It lasted maybe two seconds. It’s not going to happen again.” Maybe she had made a mistake trying to distract Heather. Maybe she should have simply ordered her to leave.

Of course, she had tried that with Micah, and look where that had led.

“You’re the one who brought it up,” said Heather. “So now you’re going to talk about it.”

The memory of the kiss filled her body, sharp and unexpected.
It felt dangerous. It felt like I was losing everything.
“It felt…”
It felt right.

Heather motioned for Becca to go on.

“It felt like nothing,” said Becca. “Whatever we had three years ago, it’s gone now.”

Heather flopped back against the arm of the couch. “This isn’t working.”

“I answered your question.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Heather righted herself and leaned in to face Becca. Her expression turned serious. “You thought I wouldn’t see what you were doing, didn’t you? Trying to distract me. Getting me to talk about something besides the resistance. I let you do it because I thought you could use a few minutes to relax and have a normal conversation. But you’re sitting there getting more and more defensive—”

“I’m not getting—”

“You are. So time’s up.” She crossed her arms, trying for a stern expression. She looked more like she was about to cry. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Becca rubbed her temples. “For the past three years you’ve rushed out the door with some sudden emergency whenever I’ve mentioned the resistance. Why do you want to hear about it now?”

“Because Internal has almost
won
!” said Heather, nearly shouting. “You’re not the one working in the same building as Vivian. You don’t hear the way she sounds when she talks about this program. And now, with her team getting ready to do whatever they’re going to do…” She drew her arms in, like the room had suddenly gotten colder. “They could come for you tomorrow, and I would never know what had happened.”

“It’s always been that way. You just haven’t wanted to see it.”

Heather shook her head. “This is different. You can’t tell me it’s not.”

A tenth of her people working for Internal. A tenth of her people about to do… something… if Becca didn’t find them before someone gave the order. Becca didn’t say anything.

“This is different,” Heather repeated. “And it’s like you want me to wait in my apartment until I hear about your arrest on the news. You want me to close my eyes and do nothing while…” She shuddered. “You were there for me when my parents died. You were there for me when I couldn’t get over what happened to them. You don’t want my help—I get that—but at least let me be there for you like you were for me. Just let me—” Her hands clenched around her thighs. “Please just tell me what’s going on. After everything we’ve been through together, don’t you think I deserve that much?”

Three years ago, Becca wouldn’t have needed any more encouragement than that. Three years ago, she had bit back mentions of the resistance dozens of times, missing the old days when no topic had been off-limits between them.

But not now.

She shook her head. “You don’t want to hear about this.”

“Have you been listening at all? I just told you I—”

“I’m going to torture someone.”

Heather stopped mid-word.

Becca spoke mechanically. “Internal has been sending spies into the resistance. We caught one. She’s sixteen. She reminds me of myself when I first joined the resistance. And she has information that could keep Internal from killing all of us. I’m going to get that information.”
Whatever it takes,
Ryann’s voice echoed in her mind.

Heather was staring at her as if she had never seen her before.

Becca looked away. “You said you wanted to know.”

“Are you…” Heather cleared her throat. “Are you going to… will you be the one doing the…” She waved her hands in a vague gesture.

Becca shook her head. “There’s someone in the resistance I can call. He has experience.” She wasn’t sure whether that was better or worse than doing it with her own hands. Not that it made a difference. It would get her the information faster—that was what mattered.

“Are you sure you have to…” Heather’s hands kept moving. “Are you sure it’s necessary?” Following Becca’s gaze to her frantic gestures, Heather dropped her hands to her lap. They lay limply across her legs, as still and pale as the guard in the clearing.

“It’s necessary,” said Becca. “If I want to save the resistance, I have to do this.” The same thing she had whispered to herself over and over on the drive home.

Heather kept staring at her hands. She didn’t say anything.

“You don’t have a problem when Internal does it.” Becca couldn’t keep the defensiveness from her voice. “It’s no different.”
It’s no different.
She felt sick.

Heather still didn’t answer.

You’re the one who wanted to know. You’re the one who wanted to be there for me.
Becca stood. “I should try to get some sleep.” She nodded in the direction of the window, where the sky had already begun to glow pink. “I need to leave for work in a couple of hours.” She started toward the hallway. Heather could let herself out.

“Will it keep you alive?”

Confusion made Becca turn. “What?”

“The… what you’re doing.” Heather twisted her hands in her lap. “Is it going to keep you alive?”

Funny—she hadn’t thought about it that way before. She had been so focused on protecting the resistance; it had barely even occurred to her that her own life was on the line too. “I hope so,” she said. “It’s not a guarantee. But it’s a chance. A good one.”

“Then do it.” Heather crossed the room in a few short steps. Before Becca realized what was happening, Heather flung her arms around her, squeezing tightly enough to push the breath from her lungs. “Do whatever you have to do,” she murmured into Becca’s hair. “Just don’t let them kill you.”

Becca stiffened at the touch. But something inside her chest eased.

It doesn’t matter whether she approves. It doesn’t matter.

She wasn’t sure why she had to fight back tears as she answered. “I’ll do what’s necessary. I always do.”

* * *

Becca’s flashlight illuminated only a small circle in front of her—a ring of skeletal branches reaching out to her as small white snowflakes fell from the sky like ash. She raised the beam to reveal Ryann, a small dark speck against the trees ahead, shivering under her blanket. The guards talked quietly amongst themselves as they stood over her; the murmur of their voices, too low to make out, blended with the sound of the wind as it reached Becca. Becca wished, for one irrational second, that they hadn’t agreed to stay. That way there would be no witnesses to what was about to happen. That way Ryann might have escaped, and Becca would have been left empty-handed with no choice to make.

Something crunched behind her. A twig snapped. She spun, heart pounding—
Int
ernal, they know, they found me
—but instead of the pack of Enforcers she half-expected, she saw only a single man. He stood a head taller than Becca, with a coat that hung down in loose folds around him. He looked to be around Becca’s age, maybe a little younger… but at the same time, immeasurably older. His colorless eyes, a sharp contrast with his dark hair, seemed to glow in the moonlight.

She had only seen him once before in person, when she had done his evaluation a few weeks before the liberation, but she hadn’t forgotten his face.

Lucas.

The newest and second-most-talented interrogator in 117. Her mother’s chosen successor.

And the most effective double agent the resistance had.

Lucas’s eyes widened in alarm. “Raleigh? What—” He stopped midsentence as he studied her more carefully. His face settled into a mask—a creature of stone, appraising her through unreadable eyes. “Becca Dalcourt.” His voice was as inscrutable as his face.

Becca tensed at Lucas’s mistake. But considering why she had come here, she had no room to protest. How could she object to his confusing her with her mother when she was here to do exactly what her mother would do? At the thought, her stomach threatened to expel what little dinner she had managed to force down.

“Lucas,” she answered. “Thank you for coming.”

“You evaluated me when I joined Internal.” He spoke slowly, in measured tones, as if he took the time to weigh each word individually before it left his mouth.

“I recommended you to the resistance.”

“I had suspected.” A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “I always enjoyed the thought. Raleigh Dalcourt’s daughter, working for the resistance.”

Raleigh Dalcourt’s daughter, leading the resistance.
But Lucas didn’t need to know that part. The more people knew, the less safe the resistance became.

Lucas looked around. His gaze rested on Ryann for a second before coming back to Becca. “I expected to be meeting Meri.”

Lucas had belonged to Meri’s network. This morning, after Heather had left, Becca had searched through Meri’s notebook for instructions on how to set up a meeting with him, flipping through the book faster and more frantically until finally finding what she needed on the last page. “Meri is dead.”

A tiny flinch, a tightening of his jaw. Gone so quickly Becca might have imagined it. “The new program?” he asked.

“In a way.” She left it at that. He didn’t need to know the whole story. “You’ve heard about the program, then?”

“Only rumors. Processing doesn’t want it to succeed. They still hold a grudge against Investigation for what happened to Raleigh three years ago. Besides that, if anyone brings down the resistance, they want it to be them.” He paused. “Did you bring me here to tell me about Meri?”

Becca hesitated.
Last chance.
She could tell Lucas yes. Give him her condolences. Send him home never knowing the real reason she had called him here.

But she had already made her decision.

“No.” She exhaled slowly, watching the pale mist of her breath drift up toward the trees. Stalling. Delaying the moment when she would have to make her decision real.

“No,” she repeated. “I brought you here because I need your help.”

I am not my mother,
she told herself, and wished she could believe it.

“Internal has been sending spies into the resistance,” she said. “We found one of them.”

I am not my mother.
But tonight she had to be. Tonight she had to do what she had been putting off all her life and follow in her mother’s footsteps.

“She knows who the other spies are.”

Tonight she had to protect the resistance.

“I need the names.”

Whatever it takes.

Lucas had interrogated resistance members before, Becca knew. No matter how many precautions the resistance took, there were always arrests. And depending on how many dissidents a prisoner named, and how many names those dissidents gave once they were captured as well, one arrest could lead to dozens. Freeing a prisoner from 117 wasn’t possible, not without a large-scale operation like the liberation; countless hours of research into 117’s security, and three failed attempts that none of the would-be rescuers had walked away from, had forced Becca to accept that.

So instead of the possibility of escape, resistance members in 117 had Lucas.

Lucas had one responsibility—put on a good show for 117 while protecting the resistance’s secrets. He conducted his interrogations flawlessly, breaking his prisoners as thoroughly as any other interrogator, while carefully avoiding any questions that might reveal something dangerous. And when that wasn’t enough, when a dissident knew too much to be allowed to break, Lucas made sure they never could. He made it look like an interrogation that had gotten too rough, or a botched escape, or a suicide in the prisoner’s cell.

Like Becca, he did what he had to do.

He had interrogated resistance members before—but never like this. Never to get information for the resistance. Never to harm instead of help.

Never when he had another choice.

It occurred to her, for the first time, that he might refuse. That he might simply walk away.

But he only nodded in acknowledgement. His face remained as unreadable as ever.

“In 117 I would have a prisoner file,” he said. “Something to give me an idea of the prisoner’s background and potential weaknesses.”

Some part of her, Becca realized, had hoped he would walk away.

In a few short sentences, she outlined the little that Meri had told her about Ryann, and everything she had learned on her own. It wasn’t hard. Ryann was more scared, more confused—more devious—but otherwise, Becca could have been describing her own former self.

Don’t think about it.

Still no reaction from Lucas. “Are there any restrictions?”

“Restrictions?”

“Anything you’re not willing to have me do.”

Images of all the interrogations she had seen rose up in her mind. She forced them down as she shook her head. “Just get the information.” She hoped he couldn’t hear the tightness in her voice.

“I’ll have the names for you by morning,” he promised. Still no emotion. Still no clues as to what he was thinking.

He started to walk away, then turned back. His gaze swept over her again—examining, contemplating—before meeting hers. “I thought it was just the way you look—but it’s not. You really do remind me of her.”

My mother.
Her jaw tightened. “I’m doing what I have to do,” she said, too harshly. She caught herself a second too late.
It doesn’t matter,
she told herself.
It doesn’t matter.

Lucas shook his head. “I didn’t mean it as a criticism.” He paused, his gaze turning thoughtful. “I have a lot of reasons to hate Raleigh Dalcourt. But there’s a part of me that… It sounds strange, I know. But there’s a part of me that admires her.”

He stopped, waiting, like he expected her to jump in with a protest. Any other dissident would have. But Becca, of all people, knew that her mother was more than the villain the rest of the resistance saw. She inclined her head slightly, inviting Lucas to continue.

“When I had to interrogate a prisoner for the first time, I almost walked away,” he said. “From 117, from the resistance, from all of it. When I chose to stay, I knew that if I was going to get through this I had to become someone else. Someone who could do what needed to be done without flinching. So I turned to the best example I could find.” One corner of his mouth turned up—a half-smile, gone in an instant. “This may make you take back your recommendation—but the resistance needed someone like Raleigh Dalcourt.”

Becca found herself nodding.

“For most of the other interrogators, it’s a job like any other,” said Lucas. “Go to work, beat confessions out of a few dissidents, collect a paycheck. Raleigh is different. She does what she does because she believes it’s right. She doesn’t put anything ahead of her principles, not even life. I know firsthand how difficult that is—how much strength it requires. And I can see that same strength in you.”

He might have said more, but Becca didn’t hear it. His voice faded into the wind as a chill swept over her—a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.

She doesn’t put anything ahead of her principles, not even life.

Not even life.

When she had come here tonight, she had accepted that she would have to cross a line. That she would finally have to become her mother.

But maybe she hadn’t understood what that really meant.

An echo of her mother’s words, spoken five long years ago, came back to her on the winter air.
Living by your principles will always be the harder path,
her mom had told her.
But you have to do it anyway. You have to do what’s right no matter how hard it gets, or one day you’ll find out you’ve become somebody you can’t live with.

Could she live with herself if she went through with this?

Which was the harder path here—having Ryann tortured, or watching as Internal destroyed the resistance because she had refused?

She had come here to protect the resistance. But what would the resistance be if she did this, if she stepped over the line that separated them from 117? Maybe Kara had understood something that Becca had, until now, refused to see.

Maybe protecting the resistance didn’t mean keeping her people alive. Maybe protecting the resistance meant refusing to cross that line—whatever the consequences.

Whatever it takes.

She had known, coming here, that tonight she would make the most difficult choice—the hardest sacrifice—she had ever made as resistance leader.

Now she understood what that sacrifice had to be.

“You’re right.” She spoke through a dry mouth. “The resistance needs someone like Raleigh Dalcourt.”

Her heart hammered in her ears as she prepared to say the words she needed to say. The words that could end up condemning dozens of her people.

The words that would save the resistance.

“You can go home,” she told him. “We’re not doing this.”

As before, Lucas’s expression revealed nothing. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I know the resistance wouldn’t have asked if the situation weren’t critical.”

“We aren’t Internal. We won’t become Internal. If that means they destroy us, then…” A strange calm settled over Becca. “Then let them destroy us.”

She couldn’t tell what he was thinking as he nodded. Couldn’t tell whether he approved of her decision or resented her for putting his own life at risk by endangering the resistance. “What do you plan to do with the spy?”

“I’m going to kill her.” Quickly. Cleanly. And then she would wait for whatever happened next.

She looked out to the clearing, where Ryann waited, still shivering and oblivious. When she turned back to Lucas, she found him studying her in silence. She didn’t know what he saw in her face, but a trace of sympathy shone in his eyes. “Let me help you.”

He would do it, if she asked. He would hold the gun; he would pull the trigger. She wouldn’t even have to watch.

But she wouldn’t let someone else do her dirty work for her. That was another thing she had learned from her mother.

“No,” she said. “I have to do this myself.”

“I understand,” said Lucas. “But you shouldn’t have to do it alone.”

She started to tell him to go home, but stopped herself.

She didn’t want to face this on her own.

Instead, she nodded to him. “Thank you.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

Another glance at Ryann, quickly averted. The longer she waited, the harder this would be. “I’m ready.”

They walked to the clearing together, feet crunching lightly in the show. The gun in Becca’s pocket seemed to weigh her down more with every step.

They stopped in front of the guard Becca had spoken with earlier. “Thank you for watching her,” said Becca. She started to pull the gun from her pocket, just enough to let the guard see the glint of the metal. “I’ll take it from here.”

At the sound of Becca’s voice, Ryann’s head jerked up. Her shivering stopped as she went still, her face frozen into a mask of fear.

The first guard spoke to the others in a low voice. They filed away—the second guard spitting at Ryann’s feet as he passed—leaving Becca and Lucas alone with Ryann.

Snowflakes mingled with tears on Ryann’s cheeks. “Please,” she whispered. Begging Becca to kill her, or to spare her life? Becca couldn’t tell.

It didn’t matter.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.” The snow swallowed Becca’s words.

She aimed the gun at Ryann’s head, ordering her hands to stop shaking.

Her former self sat in front of her, trembling, waiting for the bullet to strike.

That’s not who I am. Not anymore.

She tried to tighten her finger on the trigger.

Be who they need you to be.

Her hands shook harder.

Kill her.

The gun steadied as Lucas’s hands closed over hers.

“Let me help you,” he said again.

She didn’t resist as Lucas eased her hands out of the way. As his finger curled around the trigger, replacing hers.

As he fired.

Ryann fell back, her mouth still open in a silent plea. The snow around her bloomed with red.