No Return (The Internal Defense Series) (14 page)

Becca had killed resistance members before. She had killed them with her choices, with her misjudgments, with her actions or inactions.

She had killed resistance members before. But never like this.

She retched. She barely managed to stumble away from Lucas before the meager contents of her stomach spilled onto the ground.

Enough,
she told herself.

She straightened.

She had a body to bury, and consequences to face.

No one spoke as Becca filed out of 117 alongside the other resistance members. Alia’s feet fell heavily on the pavement, while Peter walked with shoulders hunched and tears glistening on his cheeks. Sean glared at the cars ahead with clenched fists. Even Jared looked shaken—as Becca watched, a stumble broke his usual confident Enforcer gait. Only Kara, who had heard the news about Ryann days ago, appeared unaffected.

But Becca hadn’t lost them. Three days after Ryann’s death, and she hadn’t lost them. Not to Internal, not to the arguments that had threatened to drive the resistance apart even before all this.

She hadn’t lost them. Not yet.

One by one, the others disappeared into their cars. Becca fumbled for her keys—and then clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a shriek as someone tapped her shoulder.

She whirled around, adrenaline sending her thoughts flying from her head.

Micah stood in front of her.

Becca’s gaze flew to the camera mounted on the side of the building. Micah had thought to angle his body away, at least. Not that it would save him if someone decided to review the footage closely. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I wanted to talk to you.” He motioned to her car. “And I could use a ride home.”

“How long have you been waiting out here? Since the beginning of the meeting?” Kara had brought him here—she must have. She had brought him here, and then she had sat through the meeting without telling anyone that Micah was out here tempting fate. Becca scanned the lot for her, mouth already open in the beginning of a lecture, but her car was already pulling away.

Leaving Micah stranded here, with Becca as his only way home. Of course.

“I stayed in the car until the meeting ended,” Micah assured her. “And I made sure the cameras couldn’t see my face.”

She looked away to keep from glaring at him. “That’s not enough. You’re a wanted fugitive. Why didn’t you wait another hour and come to my apartment instead?”

“You know as well as I do that if Surveillance were looking that hard for me, they would have already found me—and learned about my connection to you. Have you forgotten about the cameras outside your apartment?” He smiled. The inappropriateness of his reaction made Becca look away again—that, and the sadness in his smile that she didn’t want to analyze. “I thought about coming to your apartment again. But I didn’t know if you would let me in, after last time.”

Her face heated at the memory of their kiss. “So you and Kara decided to manipulate me into driving you home. Putting your life at risk in the process.”

“You can tell me to walk home, if you want,” said Micah. “I won’t argue. Or you can give me the few minutes I’m asking for, and then choose whether you want me to walk away for good.”

“And if I ask you to walk away after this, you will?” No more kisses. No more memories of her old self intruding on her responsibilities.

Something inside her felt suddenly empty.

“You’ll never see me again,” he promised.

She yanked open the car door. “Get in.”

Once they had climbed into her car, Becca pulled out of the parking lot. “How did the resistance meeting go?” asked Micah, too casually, as they turned onto the road—nearly deserted at this time of night—that would take them to Micah’s apartment.

At least driving while she talked meant she had an excuse not to look at him. “Better than I expected.” She tried to match his tone. “I didn’t tell them everything—only that we caught the spy responsible for Meri’s death, and that we killed her, and that the rest of us were in danger because of it. They argued at first, but Kara helped keep them under control.” As soon as she said Kara’s name, she regretted it. Whatever conversation Micah had planned, it would be hard enough without the reminder of… of whatever was going on between him and Kara.

“You don’t have to avoid talking about her, you know,” said Micah, as if he had read her mind. His casual tone dropped away.

Becca kept her gaze fixed on the dark road ahead of her. “I never wanted to get between the two of you.”

“I never thought you did.” His voice was so calm. Despite herself, despite everything, that voice made her want to wrap herself in it and never leave. Why couldn’t he snap at her, scream at her, do
something
to remind her to push him away?

She could feel his eyes on her as she drove. She didn’t look at him. Wouldn’t look at him. “You can find a way to get back together with her. You can make her understand.”

Micah shook his head. “That’s not what Kara wants.” He paused. “And it’s not what I want.”

Up until now, she had held out a faint hope that Micah wanted to talk to her about the resistance, or his fugitive status, or some problem with his new identity. Maybe even to ask her advice on how to get Kara to take him back. Anything but this. “Don’t—” she began.

“You said you’d hear me out,” Micah reminded her. “That was the deal, remember? A few minutes, and then I’m gone—if you want me to be.”

He was right. Becca closed her mouth on what she had been about to say. “You feel something for Kara,” she said instead. Almost pleading. “You do. You told me.”

“I do,” Micah confirmed. His voice was still so calm. Like hot water on aching muscles. It made her want to yell just so he would yell back. Just to stop that voice from reminding her of things she couldn’t afford to remember.

“There’s nothing between us. There hasn’t been anything between us for three years.” But she could still feel his lips on hers, as though the kiss had happened seconds ago instead of days. Proving her wrong.

“With Kara, it’s…” Micah’s forehead wrinkled as he thought. “It’s hard to explain. Fighting the reeducation centers together for so long… it created a bond between us. We always had each other’s backs, and we couldn’t even risk talking to anyone else, let alone trusting them. I’d call it friendship, but that isn’t a good way to describe it. There may not be words for it. It’s not romance. It’s not passion. But it’s something just as strong.” He stared out the window for a moment, like he thought he could find the right words hidden along the moonlit row of houses. “It’s more like… being two halves of the same team. Two parts of the same weapon. We worked together perfectly, and we knew each other’s minds. And when it turned into something more, that bond didn’t change. It became stronger, but not different.”

“You could be happy with her.”

“I could,” he acknowledged. “And if we had never come back here, I would have. She was never a substitute for you—she wasn’t second best. She was something else entirely, and what I feel for her… whatever that is… it’s something I’ll always feel. I won’t deny that. But I’m here now—with you—and that changes everything.” Out of the corner of her eye, Becca saw him turn to face her. “I—”

She could already hear what he was going to say, as impossible to stop as a meteor strike. She tried anyway. “Don’t,” she interrupted again, despite her earlier promise.

But he spoke over her. “I love you, Becca.”

Only the hiss of the heater broke the silence. Becca tightened her hands around the steering wheel until they ached.

“I love you,” he repeated, soft and sure. “I could dress it up if I wanted. I could give you a long speech about all the strength I see in you, and the way you seem to glow from the inside when you talk about what you believe in, and how you’re the reason I became who I am today. But the truth is as simple as those three words. I love you.”

Becca had no response to give him.

“Maybe you don’t feel the same way,” he said. “If so, tell me, and I’ll keep my promise—I’ll walk away forever if you ask me to, because love means wanting for you what you want for yourself, even if that means staying out of your life. But if that’s not what you want—if there really is still something here—you need to tell me now.”

The memory hit again—his lips brushing hers, that sudden and terrifying flare of rightness.

And on its heels, the memory of what had made her pull away.

That’s not who I am anymore.

She forced her gaze back to the road as she spoke. “You already know my answer.”

Micah let out a long breath. Becca tightened her jaw, bracing herself for his reaction. Bracing herself for the moment when he left her life for good.

It’s better this way.

“Kara told me what you did,” he said.

She looked at him sharply. The car jerked to the right. “What?”

“The decision you made,” he said. “And what it means.”

It took Becca a few seconds to realize they weren’t talking about their relationship anymore. “We don’t know what it means yet.” Reminding herself as much as him.
Three days, and I haven’t lost them. There’s still a chance.

A soft smile crossed Micah’s face—the same smile as before, with the same sadness in it.

And she realized they were still talking about the two of them after all.

“Don’t say it,” she warned.

“I understand why you pushed me away before—why you pushed yourself away—even if I never agreed with it. I know you couldn’t let anything get in the way of your work for the resistance.”

“Don’t say it.”

“But that’s out of your hands now.”

“
Don’t—
”

“We may as well make the most of whatever time we have left.”

“You want me to give up.”
Anger won’t help the resistance,
she told herself.
Enough. Enough.
But her voice kept rising as she spat the words at him. “You want me to write my people off so we can go be a happy couple until Enforcement comes for us.
Let go,
isn’t that what you keep saying?” No wonder he hadn’t cared whether anyone saw him at 117. In his mind, he was already dead. Him, her, the entire resistance.

Aren’t we?

She clenched her teeth until her jaw began to protest. She hadn’t lost them yet. She hadn’t lost them.

We can’t stop the spies without Ryann’s information. Not in time.

“I’m not telling you to let them go. I’m telling you they’re already gone.” Micah didn’t raise his voice in response to her anger. If anything, his words became softer, gentler. As if he pitied her. “The only thing left for you to do is accept it.”

We can’t stop the spies without—

She squashed the thought. Smothered her anger. When she spoke, she kept her words cool and precise. “I will never accept it. I will never let them go.”

“You accepted it when you made your choice in the clearing.” Too calm. As if he weren’t talking about the deaths of everyone Becca had promised to protect.

Her own calm, the strange stillness she had felt in the clearing that night, had long since faded. The last shreds of it disappeared as she spoke. “I decided sacrificing their lives was better than doing something that would make everything we’ve been fighting for meaningless. That’s not the same as rolling over and letting them die.” Her voice rose again, along with the anger she thought she had wiped out.
Stop,
she ordered herself. But it wasn’t enough. Not with Micah’s words and her own thoughts rattling through her mind until she couldn’t tell which was which anymore.

We can’t stop the spies without Ryann’s information.

I’m telling you they’re already gone.

I don’t know how to save them. I don’t know—

Almost too late, she spotted the turn for Micah’s street. She jerked the wheel hard to the left; the tires squealed. “We’re still looking for the other spies.” Too loud. Too defensive.
Stop.
“Kara has some new ideas for how to find them. I got in touch with some of Meri’s informants from Surveillance—it’s harder for them to pass information to us now that she’s gone, but they’ll bring me as much as they can. And if Vivian doesn’t do anything in response to Ryann’s disappearance, we’re going to try to get a resistance member onto her team. Kara suggested that too. It would take time”—
too much time
—“but it could work.”

“Do you really think you can save them?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question, she could tell. He was genuinely asking.

And she didn’t know how to answer.

I don’t know how to—

Her words to Kara came back to her.
Sometimes we make the wrong choice, and people die because of us.

No. She hadn’t chosen wrong. She didn’t regret what she had done. If she had tortured Ryann, it wouldn’t matter how many of her people lived because of it—there would be no resistance left to save.

Sometimes we fail no matter what we choose.

For an instant, she saw through her old self’s eyes. Through the eyes of someone young and helpless and scared. She saw a war she couldn’t win, a resistance full of people she couldn’t save. And on the other side, Micah, waiting for her.

No.

That Becca didn’t exist anymore.

And she
would
protect her people.

“I won’t fail them,” she said as she pulled up in front of Micah’s building. Her voice belonged to her mother. It belonged to the leader the resistance needed. The sound cleared her mind, drove away that tiny glimmer of her old self.

And from the look in Micah’s eyes, he could hear it too.

He gave her another smile tinged with sadness—but the sadness was different this time. “Maybe I had it wrong,” he said. “Maybe I’m the one who needs to let go.” He reached for her hand, which had fallen from the steering wheel, and squeezed it softly. “Goodbye, Becca.”

After a second of hesitation, she squeezed back.

Then she turned away.

She didn’t watch him go.

* * *

Five days, and she hadn’t lost them.

Becca squinted down at the papers spread across her coffee table. Blurry lines of print swam in front of her. She rubbed her eyes, swallowed a yawn.
I’ll sleep when I find something,
she told herself for the hundredth time. She would sleep when this mountain of trivia from Meri’s Surveillance informants—no, not Meri’s, not anymore—showed her a way to find the next spy. Not before.

Something buzzed at her hip. She jumped, scattering pages to the floor. She blinked down at them as she tried to think through the sludge in her mind. The buzzing meant something—it meant… her phone. Right. She fumbled for it as it buzzed again.

“Hello?” Somehow she managed to sound awake.

“Hey, Becca.” Vivian’s voice. “Can I come over?”

“It’s…”
It’s the middle of the night,
she started to say, before the light pouring through the window caught her eye. When had it gotten to be morning?

Six days, and I haven’t lost them.

“It’s almost time for work,” she amended, realizing it was true. She had to get dressed. She had to shower. She had to find something in these papers before another wasted day went by.

“I know,” said Vivian. “I won’t stay long. I just need…” She paused, and now Becca could hear the strain in her voice, the telltale signs of someone trying too hard to sound okay. “Look, you know I think the whole support group thing is kind of stupid. But I think I need your help. I… I don’t know. I need to talk to someone.”

Becca pushed down a flare of resentment.
Right now she’s not the investigator trying to get your people killed,
she told herself.
Right now she’s your friend, and she needs you.

But the resistance needed her more.

“You don’t have to come over,” she said. “We can talk over the phone.” Becca picked up another stack of papers. She could listen to Vivian with half an ear while she scanned the surveillance reports. That was the best she could offer. She would worry about being a good friend after her people were safe. “What’s wrong?”

“Actually…” Vivian hesitated. “I was kind of hoping we could talk in person. It’s not something I should…” Another hesitation. “Just let me come by and I’ll explain.”

Becca set the papers down.

She recognized that too-cautious tone in Vivian’s voice. She had used it herself countless times, had heard it in hundreds of evaluation subjects who hoped she wouldn’t see what they were trying to hide.

She could hear what Vivian wasn’t saying.

Vivian wanted to talk in person because she didn’t want Surveillance to hear what she had to say.

“Sure,” she said carefully, suddenly aware of who else might be listening. “Come on over.”

“Thank you.” The rush of relief in Vivian’s voice, as if Becca had just pulled her out of a burning building, sent Becca’s tension climbing higher. She wouldn’t have sounded like that if this weren’t important. “I’ll be there soon,” Vivian promised, and hung up.

Vivian, like Becca, had taken advantage of the free apartments Internal offered its employees. She lived on the next street over, in a building identical to Becca’s. Even on a slow day, it took her less than five minutes to reach Becca’s apartment.

Becca gave herself three to hide the evidence.

Maybe something went wrong with the program. Something the rest of Internal can’t know about.
She gathered the papers into her arms, not bothering to sort them. She would worry about it later.

Maybe she found out about me. Maybe one of the spies learned something, and she’s here to warn me.
With full arms, she hurried to the bedroom. She pulled the box labeled
Old Clothes
out of her closet, and reached past a ratty sweater to shove the papers in next to her gun and a three-year-old picture of Micah.

Maybe she’s coming to accuse me. To arrest me.
She shoved the box back into the closet. Rushed back to the living room. Spotting an errant sheet of paper under the coffee table, she balled it up and stuck it in her pocket.

Maybe she wants to join us.

The doorbell rang.

Becca opened the door to an almost-unrecognizable Vivian. Her clothes hung off her as if she hadn’t eaten in days; the dark circles under her eyes said she hadn’t slept in the same amount of time. Her lips were red and scabbed like she had been biting them, and her fingernails had been gnawed to the quick.

Vivian looked her up and down. “God, Becca, you look awful.”

Becca had forgotten about the bags under her own eyes, the hair that hadn’t seen a brush since yesterday morning. “I could say the same for you.”

Vivian gave a broken laugh. “Yeah, well, what’s your excuse?”

“What’s yours?” Becca asked. “What’s going on, Vivian?”

Vivian tested the doorknob, as if making sure the door had actually latched behind her. Only when she was satisfied did she turn back to Becca. “We have spies in the dissident group that caused the breakout,” she said, all in a rush. “That’s what my program does. Internal put dissidents from the group through reeducation and sent them back to bring it down from the inside.”

Becca scrambled for a response, something neutral, something that wouldn’t give her away. “Why are you telling me this?”

“One of them is missing.” Vivian chewed at her lip. “She left school and never made it home. It could be nothing. Or it could be the dissidents. The girl who went missing—she’s sixteen years old. A kid. Do you have any idea what they could be doing to her right now? If she’s not already…” She bit her lip harder, hard enough to break the skin. “And if they’ve found her, they’ll find the others soon. She knows all their names, Becca. She could give the dissidents everything.”

“I still don’t understand why—”

“Because I need advice. I don’t know what to do, and I—” She shook her head. “That’s not true. I know what I have to do. I just need someone else to say it.” Vivian breathed in shakily as she met Becca’s eyes. “I need you to tell me to shut down the program.”

Shut down the program.

A word from Becca, and Vivian would do it. No more spies in the resistance. No more countdown. No more frantically hunting through surveillance reports knowing she couldn’t find what she needed in time.

It was too good to be true. It had to be.

Too good to be true.

“Shut it down,” Becca repeated slowly. “What does that mean exactly?”

“We get all the spies out of the dissident group. We arrest every dissident they’ve found so far.” She started to chew on her lip again. A drop of blood welled to the surface before she stopped herself. “And we pray the interrogations get us as many names as possible before the rest of them disappear.”

We arrest every dissident they’ve found so far.

There it was. There was the catch.

The spies would leave the resistance—but they would take her people with them.

“How many?” Becca asked.

“We have ten spies in there.” Her shoulders jerked up in a movement too sharp to be a shrug. “Nine now, I guess.”

But that wasn’t what Becca had meant. “How many arrests?”

“About forty.” Vivian made a sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh. “It’s funny, isn’t it? Any other time, that would be… amazing. Beyond amazing. You bring down that many dissidents at once, you’re set for life. But you’ve seen the news reports. You know what this group is like. That’s probably only a fraction of the people they have.”

Forty dissidents.

Almost half the resistance in one blow. And that was only the beginning. Once the interrogations started…

“You can’t.”

Vivian’s brow furrowed. “You don’t think I should do it?”

“You can’t,” Becca repeated, as if she had forgotten how to say anything else. She needed a reason. Something, anything, besides,
You can’t kill forty of my people at once.
Something besides,
I have to protect them.
“You said it yourself—the dissidents might not suspect anything. If you leave the spies where they are, you still have a chance. If you shut the program down now, it’s over.”

“Maybe not.” Vivian bit down savagely on one of her last remaining fingernails. “The interrogations—”

Will destroy us.
“Won’t be enough. Too many dissidents will slip through the cracks, and you won’t have another way to find them. Internal could lose track of this group forever.”

“You think I don’t keep telling myself that?” Vivian wiped away what might have been a tear. Had Becca ever seen Vivian cry before? “They shouldn’t have put me in charge,” she mumbled. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what to
do
.
”

Becca might have felt sympathy for her if not for the panic pounding through her veins. She forced herself to breathe.
Fear won’t help them. Just stop her.

“I’ve asked everyone else on the team what we should do,” said Vivian. “I mean, they’re supposed to be the ones in charge, right? I’m just the figurehead. The scapegoat. But they keep telling me to do whatever I think is best. They know what will happen to them if they make the wrong recommendation.”

Becca saw an opening. “And you know what will happen to you if the program fails. You can’t risk it.”

“I know.” Vivian wiped her eyes again. She stumbled to the couch. “I keep seeing it in my head. The arrest, the… the execution.” She ducked her head, sending her hair tumbling down around her face. “They’d put it on TV, I bet.”

“That’s why you can’t let it fail.” Becca sat down beside Vivian. She wrapped her arm around her friend’s shoulders, hoping Vivian couldn’t feel the tension in her body or hear the drumbeat of her pulse. “You can’t shut it down.”

“But I keep seeing
her
, too,” said Vivian without raising her head. “The girl. And all the others. They’re kids, Becca. How can I leave them there?”

“Internal will arrest you. They’ll execute you.”

“And what will the dissidents do to those kids if they find them?”

The conversation was slipping away from Becca. Going somewhere she couldn’t allow it to go. “It’s okay,” said Becca. “You’re doing fine. Give the program a chance to work. If you shut it down now, you’ll be throwing your life away.” She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. Tried to sound like nothing more than a concerned friend. “You don’t know what the dissidents will do to the spies. You don’t even know if they’re the reason the girl disappeared. But you do know what will happen to you if the program doesn’t work.”

The curtain of hair around Vivian’s face twitched. “They shouldn’t have put me in charge.”

“You can do this,” Becca assured her. “But only if you don’t give up now.”

“They shouldn’t have put me in charge.” When Vivian raised her head, it was as if she had aged ten years in those few seconds. “But they did.”

And with those words, Becca knew she had lost her.

No. Not her.

Everyone.

“Don’t do this.” Futile. Useless.

“Maybe it’s true that they only wanted me as their scapegoat,” said Vivian. “Maybe they never expected me to do the job they gave me. And maybe they were right. I can’t bring down these dissidents. But I have the power to keep those kids alive, and that’s what I’m going to do.” She drew a shuddery breath. “No matter what happens to me.”

“Give it a couple of weeks. A couple of days, even.” But she knew the look in Vivian’s eyes. She knew what it meant to be willing to sacrifice everything. Nothing would change Vivian’s mind now.

“No. I have to do it now. Right now. Before I change my mind.” She pulled out her phone.

Becca’s vision narrowed until all she could see was the phone in Vivian’s hands. The phone; Vivian’s fingers poised to dial; the determined light in Vivian’s eyes.

“Thanks for talking with me,” said Vivian. “You helped me see what’s really important here.” She smiled with trembling lips. “Maybe those support groups of yours are on to something after all.”

You can’t do this.
The words wouldn’t leave her lips.

You can’t do this. I can’t let you.

I have to protect them.

Jameson would have told her to do whatever she had to do to stop Vivian from making that call.

Her mind went back to the box in the closet. To the gun nestled under the papers.

Whatever it takes.

Logic rescued her. If anything happened to Vivian, especially so soon after Ryann’s disappearance, Internal would know something was wrong. Nothing would stop them from shutting down the program then.

Despite what it meant for the resistance, Becca couldn’t stop a wave of relief from flooding through her at the thought. She would never have to know what she would have chosen.

Vivian hesitated, her trembling finger hovering over the phone. “Will you sit with me?” she asked. “While I make the call?”

Becca tried one last time. “Don’t do it.”

Vivian’s face closed off. “It’s okay. You don’t have to listen.” She stood. “I’ll go outside.”

Becca shook her head. “Stay.” She would stop this. Somehow. Before Vivian could call that number. Before she could give the order. “You don’t need to do this alone.”

With a grateful smile, Vivian sank back down to the couch. “Thanks, Becca. I knew you were the right person to come to.”

Becca returned the smile, feeling sick inside. “I’m here for you.”

She would stop this. She would.

Vivian dialed the number.

I’m going to stop this.

She brought the phone to her ear.

I’m going to save them.

“This is Vivian Wyland,” said Vivian. “I need to speak with the directors.”

And Becca listened as the resistance came undone.