No Return (The Internal Defense Series) (22 page)

Becca waited.

Jared closed his eyes. His throat tightened. If Becca hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was holding back tears.

He opened his eyes. Nodded once. When he spoke, his words weren’t meant for Becca, but for Micah. “You’ve had more than enough opportunity to betray us to Internal. You haven’t. If you want to join us and work alongside us, I won’t ask you to compromise your principles, provided those principles don’t endanger the resistance.”

“Thank you for that,” said Micah. “But it doesn’t change anything. This isn’t my fight—you said it yourself, Becca, earlier this morning.”

“I said it,” Becca agreed. “But I was wrong. If this isn’t your fight, then what is? You want to protect people like the reeducated kids. You want to create a better world. The resistance can give you more of a chance to do that than you ever had when it was just you and Kara. There’s a lot more you can do—a lot more people you can help. But if you die now, you’ll never get the chance.”

“When I decided to help those kids, I told myself I would accept the cost. Whatever it was.” Becca couldn’t read the look in his eyes anymore.

She didn’t respond. She had said everything she could. The choice was Micah’s now.

“I thought that meant giving up my life.” A long pause. “But maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it means this.”

Becca saw the moment he made the decision. She saw the moment the light came back into his eyes.

He smiled. Not a happy smile, exactly, but a peaceful one.

“I’ll—” he started to say to Becca. Then he turned to Jared instead. “I’ll help you rebuild the resistance. I’ll fight until it’s time to let go.”

For an instant, Jared hesitated. He looked to Becca, as if waiting for her to respond.

She gave her head the tiniest shake. It wasn’t her place to answer. The resistance belonged to Jared now.

Jared nodded in response, too small a movement for anyone but Becca to see. “Welcome to the resistance,” he said to Micah.

He held out his hand. Micah shook it.

Something wrenched in Becca’s gut.

But she had already known she couldn’t lead them anymore.

Let go.

Heather hadn’t said anything for a long time. Becca turned to find her curled in the corner of the couch with her legs pressed up against her chest, making herself as small as possible, misery written in every line of her body.

“Heather,” Becca began.

“I know what you need from me,” Heather interrupted. She hugged her knees. “And I’ll do it. I hate it, but I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.” There was nothing else she could say. Nothing that would make this any easier for her best friend.

Heather shook her head violently. “Don’t thank me for killing you.”

“I’m not,” said Becca. “I’m thanking you for helping me.”

“I promised I would, didn’t I?” She tried to smile, but only ended up looking sick. “But I…” Her gaze darted from Becca to Jared to the door. “I can’t stay here anymore, okay? I can’t keep listening to you talk about… I can’t.”

“I think we’re done here anyway.” Becca stood. “Thank you. All of you. I know how hard this is going to be. But we—”

Thunder shook the room.

No. Not thunder. It was too close for that, too rhythmic. And it wasn’t coming from outside. It was coming from—

The door.

The door shook as the pounding continued. Harsh and frantic, unabating, as though the person on the other side intended to break down the door with their own two hands.

Becca crossed the room in two strides—
i
t’s not Enforcement, it can’
t be, Enforcement doesn’t knock
—and yanked the door open before her fear could take over.

A body tumbled across the threshold.

She lay like a forgotten puppet, limp, unmoving. Caked blood coated her back, left jagged lines down her legs. Becca reached down to feel for the girl’s pulse. As she did, she peered past the body, past the door. The hallway was empty.

The girl’s chest heaved. She twitched. Whimpered.

Alive.
Becca let out her breath.

“B-Becca?”

A weak sound. Barely a whisper.

But—

“Becca, I…”

But Becca knew that voice.

Just like she knew the girl’s slender frame. Her short blonde hair, with dark roots beginning to show through. And her clothes—caked with dirt, stained with blood, but still recognizable from last night’s resistance meeting.

Becca knelt down, leaning closer, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl’s face. “Kara?”

Behind her, Micah gave a strangled gasp.

Slowly, Kara raised her head. She looked through Becca with unseeing eyes. “I killed them.”

Micah ran his hand gently down Kara’s back as she sat shivering on the couch, the glass of water Becca had given her clutched in her trembling hands. “It’s all right,” he repeated. “You’re safe now.”

Jared and Heather had gone home. It was just Becca and Micah now—Becca and Micah and the ghost huddled between them.

“I led them there.” Already dwarfed by the clothes Becca had given her to replace her ruined ones, Kara seemed to shrink with every word. “They’re dead because of me.”

“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” Becca ran her gaze over Kara’s body again. The blood, none of it Kara’s, had rinsed away in the shower, but Kara still looked dead. Empty. All the color had left her skin, as if the blood that had poured off her under the hot water had come from her own veins after all. Aside from the violent shakes that threatened to send the water up over the edges of her glass, she sat as still as a corpse.

Kara turned to face Becca, but her eyes showed no sign that she had heard. “It’s my fault. I killed them.”

“Did anyone else…”
Don’t let it in. Don’t.
But Becca couldn’t keep the hope out of her voice, out of her thoughts, as she asked the question. “Did anyone else make it?”

Kara twitched her head back and forth. “I’m the only one left.”

A flare of fury. A sharp stab of grief.
She did this. She—
But she stopped the thought. Her anger flickered, sputtered, died.

She made a choice. It’s what people like us do.

Becca’s people were gone because of what Kara had chosen. But how many of their lives had Becca lost through her own choices?

Thinking about it wouldn’t bring them back. Attacking Kara wouldn’t bring them back.

They’re gone. You already knew that. And Kara needs you.

“It doesn’t matter now.” She placed a hand on Kara’s arm, trying to steady the shaking. Despite the hot shower, Kara’s skin felt like ice. “It’s over.”

If Kara felt her touch, she didn’t show it. “I killed them,” she repeated in a dull voice. Frozen. Trembling. Staring at nothing.

“You made a choice,” said Becca. “And so did the others. You didn’t force them to follow you.”

“I ran.” The glass shook. Water sloshed over the side, pooling along the edge of Kara’s finger. “I l-left them. I left them to die.”

Micah caught Kara’s hands before more water could spill. “There was nothing you could have done for them.”

“I tried to stop it.” Her voice was as empty as her eyes. “But the Enforcers… they… I couldn’t…” The words trailed off into nothing.

“Come back, Kara.” Micah’s hands tightened around hers. “Come back to me.”

A spark of awareness flickered in Kara’s eyes. But she didn’t answer Micah. Instead, she turned back to Becca. “You told me not to do it.”

“That’s not important now.”

“You told me they would die.”

“It’s over now. All you can do is move on.” She leaned in closer, urging that spark in Kara’s eyes to grow, willing it not to wink out again. “They’re dead. You can’t bring them back. So you live with it. You keep fighting. That’s what we do.”

Another twitch of Kara’s head. “It’s too late. The resistance is gone.” Pain flashed across her face before her expression went blank again. “It’s gone because of me.”

Becca shook her head. “No,” she said as a faint smile crossed her lips. “The resistance isn’t gone. It’s going to survive—and you’re going to help.”

And she told Kara her plan.

As she spoke, the color returned to Kara’s face. Her shaking stopped; the water in the glass stilled. Life returned to her, little by little, until when Becca looked into her eyes she could see someone she recognized there.

“You can work with Jared and Micah,” Becca finished. “You can do for them what you wanted to do for me. Find plans. Possibilities. See the things they can’t.”

Something lit in Kara’s eyes.

Carefully, she set the glass down on the floor beside her. She stood.

She faced Becca.

And she spoke.

“No.”

Her voice, rough and weak, rang through the silent room.

“No,” Kara repeated, stronger this time. “I did this. I killed them. And I’ll pay the price for it.” She crossed her arms, eyes flashing, daring Becca to contradict her. “You won’t be arrested. You won’t give them that confession. I will.”

“It’s all right, Kara.” Micah rose to his feet. He placed a hand on Kara’s shoulder. “Becca is ready for this.”

Kara shook his hand away as she spoke over him. “Call your friend,” she demanded. “Tell her you’ve changed the plan.”

“I know what you’re going through right now,” said Becca. “I know what it’s like to watch people die—people who trusted you, people you promised to protect—and to know you’re responsible. I know what it’s like to see their faces every time you close your eyes. I know what it’s like to feel like you should have died along with them. But it doesn’t work like that.”

“Call her.”

“This isn’t—”

“Call her!” Kara’s voice cracked on her shout.

Becca shook her head. “Even if I wanted you to take my place, you couldn’t. I told you about the interrogation. Think about what will happen if you can’t hold out long enough—if you break and give them real information.”

“And what about you?” Kara challenged. “How can you be sure you won’t break?”

“I can’t,” Becca admitted. “But I know how interrogations work. I know how interrogators think. I have experience with 117 that you’ll never have, and I’ll need every bit of it to make this work.”

“I got through reeducation. I’ll get through this.”

“You don’t know that. And what about when they realize who you are? You’ve been working against the reeducation centers for three years. What if they run your picture through their system and find out they have security footage placing you inside one of the centers when you were supposed to be doing something with the resistance?” Becca shook her head again. “There are too many ways it could go wrong.”

“No. It has to be me.” Kara exploded into movement, shoving Micah away from her, launching herself toward the wall. A second before she reached it, she swiveled on her heel and strode in the opposite direction. Back and forth. “I won’t let you die for me. Not you.”

“People like us make choices, Kara,” said Becca. “We make sacrifices. This is mine.”

Kara reached the door—and didn’t turn around.

She took hold of the doorknob.

“Kara.” Cold fear snaked through Becca. “Where are you going?”

Kara didn’t even turn her way. “To fix this.”

The fear coiled into a ball of ice deep in her gut. “How? You don’t have a plan. You don’t have anyone to help you. Whatever you’re thinking of doing, it won’t work.”

“I’ll find a way.” The doorknob began to turn.

Becca crossed the room to shove herself between Kara and the door. “I know what you’re feeling, Kara. I know. But the resistance is more important than your guilt. If you want it to survive, you have to let me do this.” She lowered her voice. “Please.”

With a strength she shouldn’t have possessed, Kara shoved Becca aside. Becca grabbed at empty air as she hit the floor. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs.

The door opened.

“Kara—” She sucked in air. “Kara, wait.”

Micah rushed forward. “Don’t do this.”

But Kara had already slipped away.

* * *

Becca held her breath as the front door to Micah’s building opened.
She’s here. He found her.
She leaned forward, squinting at the figure in the doorway.
Please.

But in the next second, Micah emerged onto the street, head lowered in defeat. Alone.

He shook his head as he opened the car door. The look on his face told her what she already knew. “She’s still not here.”

They had checked the apartment first thing. Then the park. The clearing. Kara’s old house. The parking lot of 117, of Investigation 212, of Enforcement 260. Then the apartment again.

Nothing.

“She might have already turned herself in,” said Becca as Micah settled himself back into the seat beside her. She didn’t say the rest.
She could be in an interrogation room by now. She could have given them everything.

“Have you tried Heather again?”

“There’s no guarantee she’ll be able to help, even if we warn her. If Kara decides to turn herself in, there’s only so much Investigation can do.” She pulled out her phone anyway, and dialed the same number she had already called three times since she and Micah had started their search.

No answer.

She lowered the phone. “Do you have any other ideas? Did she ever mention anything to you about where she liked to go when she wanted to be alone?”

Micah stared at the front door as if he thought Kara would appear out of thin air if he concentrated hard enough. He let out a long sigh, his brow creased with worry. “Not that I can remember.”

“We should…” She hesitated as fear crawled up her throat.
I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.
“We should wait here. If she’s not already at 117, she’ll probably come back here eventually.”
I hope.

Micah nodded. “Then we’ll wait.” He kept his eyes on hers, like he wanted to say something else. Like he was waiting for something. But he didn’t speak.

Something in his gaze made her turn away. Suddenly desperate for something else—anything else—to focus on, she stared out the window at the door of the building, at the road, at the clouds overhead threatening snow.

Micah cleared his throat. “Becca…”

Becca kept her eyes fixed on the clouds. “If I think of anywhere else to look, I’ll let you know.”

“That wasn’t what I…” Micah hesitated. From the corner of her eye she saw him fiddle with the temperature controls, turning the heat up, then down, then up again. “We haven’t had a chance to talk. Not since…” His voice trailed off.

Since she had said she loved him? Or since she had told him she planned to give herself up? Not that it mattered—none of it would change what had to happen. How this had to end. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You know that’s not true.”

She still didn’t look at him. She didn’t want to face what she had seen in his eyes. “You know—” The tremor in her voice caught her by surprise. “You know how I feel. And you know what’s going to happen tomorrow.” Eyes on the clouds. On the pavement. On the tuft of grass growing out of the sidewalk. On anything but Micah. “You’ve accepted it, I’ve accepted it, we’ve both accepted it. What is there to say?”

“I’ve accepted it,” Micah agreed. “That doesn’t mean…” He paused. “Will you look at me?”

She dragged her gaze back to the car. Back to the cramped space, much too small for the two of them—how had she never noticed the impossibility of sitting in this car next to someone else without feeling their body heat, without breathing their breath, without coming hazardously close to brushing against them with every move she made?

If the look in Micah’s eyes had been hard to face before, now it nearly leveled her. Pain and peace and fear and hope—it all pierced through her, through every wall she had tried to build between them. And love. Love most of all.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t wish it could be different,” Micah finished, his words barely more than breath.

Becca wished she still knew how to keep herself from feeling anything.

She wrenched her gaze from his. “I can’t think like that,” she said, staring at her lap. “Not if I’m going to do this.”

“Why?” Micah asked, his voice soft. “What are you afraid of? What will happen if you let me in?”

Becca paused, considering how to answer. “A month ago, I would have known I could get through the interrogation,” she finally said. “Even a week ago. But now… I don’t know. I’m not that person anymore—maybe I never was. I’m not strong anymore.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.” She spoke as calmly as she could. Stating facts, nothing more. “Whether you want to see it or not, it’s the truth. I’m not what they need. I’m not superhuman. I’m weak, and I’m scared, and I don’t know what I’m doing.” She started to look up at him again, but stopped herself at the last minute. “You know how hard this is going to be. I can’t afford anything that makes me…” She hesitated as she searched for the right words.

“More human?” Micah supplied.

She nodded. “Exactly.”

“So let it make you strong instead,” said Micah. “When you’re in there, when they…” His voice tightened. “Remind yourself that you’re not alone. That I’m right there with you.” He placed his hand over hers, barely touching, like a question. “I’ll always be right there with you.”

Becca froze at the touch. The world dimmed as every sensation in her body narrowed to that tiny point. To his hand. To his words.

How could she walk into 117 thinking about Micah, about what she felt for him, about everything this fight had cost them? How could she keep herself from breaking if her heart was already broken?

Let it make you strong instead.

The warmth of his hand sank into her skin. Like the comfort of arms wrapped around her. Like the strength of a fire that wouldn’t die.

If she could carry that with her…

If she didn’t have to be alone…

I’ll always be right there with you.

“You know this is all we’ll ever have,” she warned. “In a few hours, you’re going to lose me. Nothing we say here will change that.”

“I know.”

“And you’re all right with that? You want this anyway?”

“All right with it? No. I want so much more than that with you. I want… I want everything.” His hand tensed over hers—and relaxed again. “But if this is all we can have—a few hours, a chance for me to be there for you when you need me most—then yes. That’s what I want.”

Becca turned her hand over to press it against Micah’s, palm to palm. She let her fingers curl around his.

She met his eyes again—and this time she didn’t flinch away.

I’ll always be right there with you.

“I used to wish you would come back.” She had never said it aloud before. The confession, simple as it was, made her feel skinless. Exposed. Instinctively, she started to pull her hand away—but stopped. Instead, she held on tighter as she spoke. “I imagined getting in touch with you somehow. Telling you that we didn’t need to worry about Internal anymore. That we could have the life—the future—we should have had from the start.”

“I imagined the same thing.” His admission met hers, their voices mingling in the space between them. “I used to think there would be a day when we could be done. When I could come home.” He let out his breath in a wistful sigh. “But maybe we had it wrong all along. Maybe that wasn’t ever what we wanted. Think about it. This fight will never end—at least not in our lifetime. And neither of us could have walked away while there was still work to be done.” He shook his head. “For us—for who we are—I think this was the only way it could have ended.”

Becca turned his words over in her mind. Slowly, reluctantly, she nodded.

Some part of her cried out in protest. The part of her that could still see the life they should have had—something bright and simple, with the future stretching out endlessly before them. A life without secrets, without doubts, without duty or the threat of death.

But he was right. That future had never belonged to them. This messy complicated thing in its place—this tangle of love and loss and sacrifice—wasn’t a failure. It wasn’t second best. It was simply the life they had chosen.

She didn’t regret that choice. And looking at him, she knew he didn’t either.

She was ready now. She could accept what she felt for him, and what he was offering her. And she could let it go.

And that meant she still had one more thing to say.

No. Two things.

“I want you to promise me something,” she said. “Not for now. For after.”

“Anything.”

Getting the words out was harder than she had thought it would be.
Let go,
she reminded herself.
Let go.
“Kara.” She ignored the confusion in Micah’s eyes as she continued. “I saw you with her when she came back. I saw how much she means to you.”

“It’s not—”

“It’s not the same. I know. But that doesn’t make it less than what we have. Just different.”

“What does that have to do with…” But he knew. She heard it in the silence as his words faded to nothing. She felt his wordless protest as his hand clenched around hers.

“In less than a day, I’ll be gone,” she said. “I won’t be coming back. And both of you are going to need someone to help you through this.”

He started to shake his head.

“I’m not asking you to replace me,” she said. “But you love her. Not the same way you love me, but you do love her. I’m asking you to give that a chance.” She ran her thumb gently over the fleshy part of his palm. “I’m asking you to let me go.”

He flinched at the sound of his own words used against him.

And he nodded.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m sure.”

“A lot has changed since we came back here,” he said. “She might not feel the same as she used to. I might not feel the same. But I’ll give it a chance. I promise.”

She returned his nod. “That’s all I can ask.”

And now the second thing. The last thing.

“I love you.”

Not a desperate confession this time. Not a frantic attempt to save his life.

Just the truth.

Somehow, without moving, he drew her in toward him. Closer to his comfort. Closer to his strength.

Closer. Closer.

When their lips met, she didn’t think about their past. She didn’t think about the future they could have had. There was nothing but this moment. Nothing but Micah. Nothing but the collapse of the last wall that had stood between them.

She felt herself falling as the wall dissolved, as the ground under her feet crumbled into nothing. She didn’t fight it. They would fall together.

I’ll always be right there with you.

Minutes or hours or lifetimes later, a sharp buzz jolted her back to earth. Her phone.

It doesn’t matter.
She pulled Micah closer. Let her lips swallow his questioning murmur.

But… there was something. There was—

Kara.

Memory slammed into her all at once. Guilt followed a heartbeat later. Kara. Her disappearance. The reason they were out here in the first place. They had forgotten to watch, had forgotten to think. And if that was Kara calling—

Becca fumbled for the phone as she drew back. She lifted it to her ear. “Kara?”

“I went to her apartment.” Tears and jagged hysterical breaths rendered the voice almost unrecognizable. Almost—but not quite.

Not Kara.

Vivian.

“Vivian?” Becca struggled to orient herself. “What’s wrong?”

“I keep thinking about what you and Ramon said the other day.” A gulping breath. “I keep imagining turning on the news and finding out she’s dead, and knowing I could have d-done something.”

“We can talk about it later.” Becca felt a tiny twinge of guilt at the lie. She would be arrested before they ever got the chance to have that conversation. “But not over the phone, okay?”

“So I went to her apartment. I wanted to w-warn her. To tell her that if I’d overheard that conversation, someone else might have heard it too.”

Icy tendrils of dread began to creep up Becca’s arms.

“The door was open. And inside, it looked… everything was…” A shuddery pause. “I should have gone yesterday. I should have gone the night we talked.”

The cold worked its way to Becca’s chest. “What are you trying to say?”

“Internal. They found out about Heather.” Another gulp, almost a sob. “She’s gone.”