No Return (The Internal Defense Series) (24 page)

Kara flinched. The last of the color leached from her skin. “You know what I’d do.” A whisper this time.

“You’d let them die.”

Kara gave a single sharp nod. “I’d do what I had to do. It still doesn’t mean—”

“What if it were Micah? Would you sacrifice his life for the resistance?”

Another flinch. Another nod.

“What if it were me?”

About to nod again, Kara froze.

“You know what you have to do,” said Becca. “You know what the resistance needs.”

“They need you.” Her voice wavered, uncertain.

“They need both of us.” She reached out to Kara again. Placed a hand on her icy arm. “You can do this, Kara. And this is how you prove it.”

She waited for Kara to jerk away. Kara held perfectly still, her arm brittle under Becca’s hand, as if the slightest movement could break her.

“Are you going to risk all their lives again for one person?” Becca asked. “Or are you going to do what’s necessary?”

Silent. Frozen.

“I’ll do what I promised.” Becca pulled her hand back. “I’ll tell Heather to say whatever you want her to say.”

A question. A challenge.

Kara tensed. Rigid. Ready to run.

She swung her legs back into the car. The door slammed shut.

When Kara turned, Becca saw herself mirrored in her eyes. Her face on the day Jameson and the others had died. Her face in the moment she had decided to rebuild the resistance. Her face on that sleepless night in the aftermath of the liberation when she had made her choice.

Her grief. Her pride. Her determination.

It all belonged to Kara now.

Kara gave Becca a final nod. Becca knew what she would say before she said it.

“Tell her to turn you in.”

Becca and Heather stepped out of the car together.

Neither of them said anything as they stared out at the building in front of them. At the red streaks of sunset that had begun to bleed into the row of landscaped trees. Heather’s lips trembled as she turned back to Becca. The fading light glimmered off the wetness in her eyes.

“So… this is it?” she asked in a small voice. Like she already knew the answer. Like she was hoping to hear something different anyway.

Becca nodded. “This is it.” Three words to mark the last time she would ever see Heather. Three words to mark the beginning of the end of her life.

Three words. Not enough.

So much left to say.

And no time to say it.

“I have to go.” Becca turned her head away before the cameras could spot her. Before the pain in Heather’s eyes made her own overflow. “If anyone sees me here with you, it’s over.”

She risked one last look back at Heather. At the friend she had taken care of all these years. At the stranger Heather had become, her face lined with grief, her jaw set with determination.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat.

And she started walking.

Heather caught her arm. “Wait.”

“I can’t.”

“Please.” Heather turned and began to walk beside her, toward the road, away from the glare of the setting sun. “I never got to say goodbye to my parents. Every day I still think about the things I wish I could have said to them. Don’t make me lie awake at night years from now thinking about the things I never said to you.”

I can’t risk it.
Not with the cameras, and the cars all around them, and the doors of Investigation 212 that would open any minute now as everyone left work for the night to enjoy the remainder of their weekend.

I can’t. I’m sorry.

But she didn’t say it.

She veered behind a parked car, one that was tall enough to shield her from the building. A camera winked down at her from a lamppost; she leaned pseudo-casually against the car, using the posture to angle her body away like Jameson had taught her.

“We don’t have long,” she warned.

Heather took a breath. “You’re a dissident,” she began, stiff and formal, as if she had been rehearsing these words for hours. For years. “I don’t understand that. I never will. I don’t understand what you’re fighting for, or why you have to throw your life away to…”

Her voice caught. She wiped her eyes.

“But that’s not who you are to me,” she continued. “Maybe you’re really the person they say you are on the news. Maybe you’re the person Kara was talking about in the car. I don’t care. To me you’re just my pa—” Her words cut off as her shoulders heaved. She ran a hand across her eyes again. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Becca said softly. Like she was comforting Heather all over again, back in that little room in 117 on the night that had changed everything. “It’s okay.”

Heather’s reddened eyes met Becca’s. “You’re just Becca.” Her voice shook along with her shoulders. “That’s all you’ll ever be to me. I thought I cared about the rest, at first. I thought I hated you, just like I thought I hated my parents. It felt like you had betrayed me—you and them both. Choosing treason over me. Choosing death over me.”

“That’s not—” Becca began.

“Let me finish, okay? I… I need to say this.” Another breath. “I don’t understand why you made the choice you did,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. Just like I don’t care what anyone else says about you, or who they think you are. You’re Becca. That’s all.”

Becca’s eyes stung.
Just the wind.
She brought up a hand to shield her face against the bite of the air. It didn’t help.

“You’re the girl I saw crying on the steps when you moved into my building fifteen years ago,” said Heather. “You’re the one who kept me from running away from home, and getting myself killed bungee jumping off the roof, and a thousand other stupid things. You’re the one who stuck with me when no one else would after my parents were arrested. You went to 117 for me, even though you didn’t know what would happen to you. And when I couldn’t stay in denial about my parents anymore, you were there to keep me from falling apart.”

Heather’s tears fell faster now, too fast to wipe away. “You were there,” she repeated. “You were always there. And now you won’t be.” She ducked her head, as if in a futile attempt to hide her wet cheeks. “And I don’t know how I’m going to get through this without you.”

Becca placed her hands on Heather’s shoulders. Her mom’s gesture. The one her mom used when she was about to say something important, something Becca needed to hear.

She waited until Heather looked up again. Then she spoke.

“You’ll keep going.” Softly, Becca squeezed her shoulders. “You’ll keep going, because that’s what people like us do. You’ll keep fighting for what you believe in. You’ll go on working to help other children of dissidents—and after this, after your plan succeeds, Investigation won’t be able to stand in your way anymore. You’ll fight for them, and you’ll win, and you’ll keep going.”

And Becca wouldn’t be around to protect her.

But Heather didn’t need her protection anymore.

A few rows down, a car roared to life. Then, beside it, another. Around the parking lot, headlights flicked on like fireflies as the quiet sounds of footsteps and voices began to fill the air.

Becca dropped her arms back down to her sides. She stepped out from behind the car to glance over her shoulder at the Investigation building. People had begun to pour from the doors, chatting in groups or hurrying down the path alone. As Becca watched, the glow in the windows dimmed to its nighttime half-light.

The workday was over. And their time was up.

She turned back to Heather. Before Becca could say anything, Heather nodded. She already knew.

Heather wiped her eyes with her sleeve. She ran her fingers through her hair, smoothed her coat, straightened her back. She closed her eyes and took a breath, collecting her strength—all the strength Becca had never suspected she possessed.

“I can’t imagine the last fifteen years without you,” said Becca quietly. “When my mom and I moved in, the week after my dad left, I thought nothing could ever make me happy again—and then there you were, dragging me around the building with you, making me laugh before I knew what was happening. In high school, you kept my secret even though you hated what I was doing. And you’re willing to do this for me now, even when it means losing me. I…”
So much left to say.
But the sun sank lower with every second, and they weren’t alone out here anymore. “Thank you.”

Heather started to speak. Becca shook her head. “There’s no more time. Go.”

She turned away.

This time, Heather didn’t stop her.

When she looked over her shoulder, Heather had already disappeared into the crowd. She caught one last glimpse of curls, reddened by the setting sun—and then nothing.

* * *

Becca tested excuses in her head as she dialed her mom for the third time.
I’m calling to apologize. To find out how the interrogations are going. I’m just calling to talk—we haven’t talked in weeks.

Anything that would keep this from sounding like a goodbye.

I’m calling to—

The phone clicked over to voicemail.

She hadn’t really expected her mom to answer. After the morning’s arrests—she caught her breath as the memory of a handcuffed Alia hit her again—her mom was probably still on the underground levels, demanding answers from one of Becca’s people. There would be no final conversation, no chance to tell her mom she loved her one last time.

Still, she had to try.

The lamps that lined the parking lot in front of her building flicked on as she pulled into her usual parking space. She sat for a moment, letting the car idle, staring down at her phone. If she called too many times, it could look suspicious. Days from now, when interrogation analysis combed through all the data to decide whether her confession could be trusted, it could look like she had known something was about to happen.

Better not to try. Better to accept that she would never hear her mother’s voice again.

She dialed the number.

The phone rang as Becca strode across the parking lot. It rang again as she returned a neighbor’s casual wave. Again as she opened the door and started up the stairs.

Voicemail.

“Mom? It’s Becca. I—”
I love you. I’m sorry.
She cleared her throat. “I was just calling to—”

Her words dried up as she reached the top of the stairs. As she saw the figure in front of her door, finger poised over the doorbell.

Not Enforcement. Them, she would have expected.

She hadn’t expected her mother.

She ended the call. Her hand dropped back to her side. “Mom?”

Her mom spun to face her. “Becca.” She breathed the name like a prayer. Another strand of hair escaped from her already-untidy braid as she steadied herself against the wall.

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at work?” Becca took a step forward, bringing her mom’s face into focus. The worry lines etched deep into her forehead; the telltale dampness at the corners of her eyes.

Her mom never cried.

“Mom?” Another step. “Did something happen?”

“I’m sorry, Becca.” Her mom sounded as if she had aged a hundred years. “Everything I said to you… I’m sorry. You were right about me. You were right all along.”

An eerie note ran through her mom’s voice—exhaustion and helplessness and something else, something deeper and more desperate. She sounded like… like a prisoner, Becca realized. Like a prisoner who had finally broken.

Unease crawled up Becca’s spine. She didn’t walk any closer.

“Mom. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong. Not anymore.” The sudden ferocity in her mom’s voice made Becca flinch back. “I took care of it. I’ll always take care of it. Always, do you understand?”

Becca stepped past her to open the door. She placed a gentle hand on her mom’s back, urging her forward. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”

Her mom moved like a sleepwalker. She didn’t resist as Becca led her into the living room.

Even three years ago, even after weeks of torture, her mom hadn’t acted like this. Unease sharpened into fear, icicles stabbing through Becca’s stomach.

She guided her mom to the couch. She couldn’t see herself, but when she turned to face her mom, she imagined she was wearing the same expression she used to see on her mom’s face every time they sat together like this—that mix of concern and sympathy and patience as she prepared to listen.

“Start at the beginning,” said Becca. “What happened?” Just like in so many resistance meetings, she spoke with her mother’s voice—but not the same voice this time. Not the voice of the interrogator. The was the voice she had grown up with. The one that had talked her through every childhood tragedy and soothed her into sleep after every bad dream.

Her mom took a breath. A few of the lines disappeared from her face. “I’m sure you heard about what happened this morning.”

Rows of bodies lining the parking lot. Alia on her knees, handcuffs snapping into place around her wrists.
Becca nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“I was assigned to interrogate one of the prisoners. A young woman suspected of belonging to this dissident organization’s highest tier—the ‘core,’ they call it.”

Alia.
She couldn’t mean anyone else.

Alia, in an interrogation room with her mother.

Don’t react.
She forced herself to breathe. Sculpted her face into its familiar blankness.

“After several hours of interrogation, she confirmed our suspicions. She gave me information about some of the group’s prior attacks—information only someone at that level would know.”

Hours.
Becca could imagine the scene too well. Alia, bloodied and broken. Angry Alia, defiant Alia, huddled in a heap on the interrogation room floor as she told her mom whatever she wanted to know.

And her mom standing over her. Her mom the interrogator. Her mom the torturer.

She glanced down at her mom’s white-knuckled hands, half-expecting to see Alia’s blood there.
Don’t react. Don’t react.

“She said she was ready to give me names,” her mom continued. “After what she had already told me, I believed her.”

Alia, begging her mom not to hurt her anymore, babbling out a list of—

Names.

The scene in Becca’s mind stilled. Her breath stilled. Her heart stilled.

“She named you, Becca.” A tiny shudder ran through her mom’s body. “She named you as the leader of their organization.”

Becca’s heart lurched back to life, beating out a dull rhythm of defeat.

It’s over.

Heather’s plan was worthless now. If the information didn’t come from Investigation, if Becca’s arrest wouldn’t make them look good, they had no reason to go through with the rest of it. There would be no sympathetic interrogator, no false confession, no way to stop the rest of the interrogations.

So close. We were so close.

“These people know all about me,” her mom was saying. “It stands to reason that they would know you exist—and what you mean to me. The prisoner was trying to get one last bit of revenge, that’s all. I underestimated her, and she took advantage of that.” She grasped Becca’s hands. “But you have nothing to worry about. I had her executed immediately. All copies of the interrogation recording have been destroyed.” She tightened her grip to emphasize her words as she spoke. “I will always protect you, Becca. Always. Never doubt that.”

It took Becca a moment to process what her mom had said.

Alia. Executed.

And the plan…

The plan was safe.

“Then you didn’t…” She sent the words out cautiously. Hesitant. Testing. “You didn’t believe her?”

“Believe that you’re a dissident? That you engineered the breakout? Don’t be ridiculous, Becca. I know a dissident lie when I hear one.” She gave Becca a tight smile; it quickly faded. “But when I heard her say your name… when I realized what could have happened to you if that prisoner had been assigned to anyone else…” She stopped talking. Her breaths came shallowly; the heat drained from her hands, leaving them as cold as corpses.

“It’s okay.” Becca folded her mom’s hands in hers, trying to transfer her warmth. “I’m okay. Nothing happened.”

“For years you’ve been insisting I haven’t gotten over what happened to me in 117—the interrogations they put me through. You’re wrong about that. They did what they had to do; I understand that, and I put it behind me a long time ago.” She paused. “But that’s not all they did.” Another pause. A gulp of air. “They almost executed you, Becca. They almost took you from me.”

“But they didn’t. I’m here.” No matter how tightly she held her mom’s hands, they wouldn’t warm up. She kept trying anyway. “It wasn’t so bad, you know. They didn’t interrogate me, not after the first time. Even then, they never…” She couldn’t say the word
torture
.
Even that one word could reveal too much about how she saw 117. “They just talked to me. Nothing else. And it only took them a few days to figure out I had nothing to do with the conspiracy to frame you.”

“Five days. For five days after they released me, I didn’t know whether you would live or die. And there was nothing—
nothing
—I could do. All my connections, all my influence, and it wasn’t enough. No matter who I talked to, the answer was the same. ‘We’re still evaluating the situation.’ And every morning I woke up wondering if you were still alive.” The last word bubbled from her lips in a half-sob, a weak and broken sound that couldn’t possibly have come from her mother.

“I didn’t know.” All her mom’s strange behavior over the past three years. The dent in the wall, the carpet worn thin from pacing. The haunted look in her eyes.

Her constant demands for Becca to tell her what was wrong. Her threat to go to the directors. Her desperate words—
I’m going to help you. I only want to help you.

Becca hadn’t known. But she should have.

“Neither did I,” said her mom. “Not until that prisoner named you. Not until I almost lost you again.”

“It’s all right.” Using her mother’s voice again. Playing her mother’s role. “You didn’t lose me. You’re not going to lose me.”

It was far from the first lie she had told her mom. But it would be the last.

Her mom would lose her. In a matter of hours, she would lose her.

And this time there would be no ‘evaluating the situation.’ There would be no prisoners to execute, no recordings to erase. No way for her mom to save her life.

She studied the lines on her mom’s face. Thought back to the way she had looked when Becca had first seen her outside the apartment. The cold of her mom’s hands seeped into her own.

It’s going to break her.

She lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry.”

“No, Becca. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m the one who needs to apologize. I crossed a line, threatening to go over your head at work. When I saw you slipping away, and I couldn’t do anything about it…” Her hands spasmed with another shudder. “I thought I was helping you. I thought I was doing what any good mother would do. I didn’t realize part of me was still living through those five days, waiting to hear whether I would lose you.” A sigh. “But I should have. I should have seen it, and I should have trusted you.”

“And I shouldn’t have pushed you away.” They had lost so much time. “I wish…” She paused, struggling to put her thoughts into words. “I wish we could have this again. You and me, just… talking. The way it used to be.”

“So do I,” said her mom. “I wish you were five years old again, sitting on my lap and looking up at me like I was the center of your universe, and I could fix everything with a hug and a kiss. I wish I could know everything you’re thinking, and solve all your problems for you, and protect you from the world. But that’s not what you need from me anymore. The only thing we can do now is…” She hesitated, as if unwilling to finish her sentence.

“Let go,” Becca supplied.

Her mom nodded as fresh tears welled in her eyes. “The only thing we can do now is let go.”

Remember that,
Becca said silently.
Remember that, when they come for me.

Remember that, when you lose me.

That was all Becca could give her.

No. There was one more thing.

“I know you probably have to get back to 117,” she said. “But… do you want to stay here for a while? We can talk. Catch up.” She offered a hesitant smile. “Like we used to.”

Through her tears, her mom smiled back. “I’d like that.”