Necessary Sacrifices (The Internal Defense Series Book 2)

by Zoe Cannon

  There was so much she wanted to say. But they had lost too much time already.

  “Let’s go,” she said, and started out of the room. Micah followed.

  * * *

  With Micah behind her, she hurried back into the outer hallway. The seconds ticked down inexorably inside her head. They couldn’t free all the kids before their time ran out—she had known that from the start. But with Micah on her side, they would be able to save more of them than she could have on her own.

  If they moved fast.

  “What do you know about this place?” she asked Micah as the door closed behind them. “Anything that would help us rescue the prisoners?”

  “I… I don’t know.” Micah’s speech matched his clumsy movements. “They sent us to the training wing right after orientation. We haven’t left.”

  Then they would try each door and hope. It was the only thing they could do. She gestured down the hallway, back in the direction of the entrance. “There’s a guard down there by the door. He’s dead. Grab his keycard and start opening doors.” She thought as she spoke. “As soon as you have a few prisoners, meet me back here. We’ll get one batch out, and then come back for more if there’s time. We won’t have time to get anyone out if we try to get them all at once.” She pressed the knife handle into his hand and wrapped his fingers around it. “Use this if you have to.”

  She didn’t wait around to see Micah’s reaction to the guard’s body, to watch him realize she had killed someone. She slid the keycard into the reader by the door marked 2 and waited.

  Another green light. She all but flung the door open. The light from the hallway revealed a featureless metal table with six chairs arranged around it. The stark white walls sent the light straight back into Becca’s eyes. Everything had been scrubbed until it shone, even the concrete floor.

  She tried the next room. Empty. Nothing except what might have been a bloodstain against one wall.

  Come on, she thought as she opened the next door. Please.

  And found herself face to face with a teenage girl.

  The girl stood in front of the door, blocking off the rest of the room. Becca caught a glimpse of at least two more kids huddled against the far wall; then the girl shifted to cut off her view. The girl crossed her arms in front of her chest, her face frozen in an expression of terrified determination. “Not again,” she said. Her voice shook. “No more. The others are under my protection, and if you want to kill anyone else, you kill me, do you understand?”

  Even if she hadn’t recognized the girl’s face from the file, she would have known it from the lines of her jaw, from the set of her mouth. From all the tiny ways she reflected her father.

  She had found Kara.

  Kara’s gaze dropped to the gun at Becca’s waist. Her face went a couple of shades whiter. “What’s it going to be this time? Planning on making an example of somebody else? I meant what I said. It’s me or no one.”

  Becca raised her hands in a gesture of peace. “I’m not here to kill anyone. I’m here to help you.”

  Kara made a derisive noise. “We’re all plenty familiar with your ‘help.’ So cut the condescension and do what you came here for, okay?”

  “I’m not one of them.” She tried not to betray her impatience. Tried not to think about the seconds ticking by. “I’m here to get you out.”

  Kara’s eyes narrowed. “Prove it.”

  There was only one thing Becca could offer her. “Your father was my contact in the resistance.”

  Kara drew in her breath sharply. “Talking about him doesn’t mean anything,” she said with shaky bravado. “I know what you people did to him. If he didn’t tell you anything useful, I bet you made him confess to something he didn’t even do.”

  “I’m not—” Becca began.

  “I know how it works. You take people who haven’t done anything wrong and torture them until they tell you whatever you want to hear.” She said it as if the knowledge were an accomplishment. “If I ever get out of here, I won’t rest until Internal is gone and every last processing center has been burned to the ground. I’ll stop you, whatever it takes.”

  No. She wouldn’t. And someday she would know that. She would learn just like Becca had learned.

  Becca wasn’t here to teach her that lesson, though. Becca was here to make sure she got the opportunity to learn it.

  But she couldn’t save Kara if Kara wouldn’t let her.

  “They didn’t get a false confession from him,” she said. “They didn’t use him like that. I promise you. But right now we have to go.”

  Kara didn’t move. “How do I know you’re not just telling me what I want to hear?”

  “Because I killed him.” Her mask wavered; her voice broke. “I tried to rescue him. I couldn’t. He asked me to kill him and I did. Hate me for it if you want, but think about this—if I were trying to trick you into trusting me, telling you I killed your father is the last way I would do it. Now if you want those kids you’re protecting to have a chance at freedom, come with me now.” The last word came out in an authoritative bark. She hadn’t known her voice could do that.

  Kara let out a quivering breath. For a second, tears glistened at the corners of her eyes. Then she wiped them away.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. Her hostility was gone, replaced by restrained tears and what sounded strangely like respect. “For… for doing that for him. He was dead anyway. I knew it as soon as I saw the Enforcers in our house. At least this way his death didn’t belong to them.”

  There was nothing Becca could say.

  “What about my mom?” asked Kara. “The baby?” The look in her eyes told Becca she already knew the answer.

  Becca closed her eyes for a moment, remembering. “Internal didn’t get to them either.”

  Kara made a small noise in the back of her throat. Then she wiped her eyes again. “Now let’s go.” She turned to the others, who hadn’t moved. “Everyone get up. We’re leaving.”

  She gathered the others. A skinny boy whose hands wouldn’t stop twitching, a girl who kept making little incoherent noises as Kara urged her out of the room. Another girl, silent, with haunted eyes staring at nothing.

  That was it. That was all of them.

  Kara followed her gaze. “There were two more of us. He killed them. One yesterday, one the day before. He made all of us watch. He said it was a demonstration for all of us, but I know it was meant for me. I’m the only one who won’t do what they want.” She blinked a little too fast. “I would have gone along with all of it if I’d known.”

  Becca placed a hand on Kara’s shoulder and squeezed. “They probably would have done it anyway, just to show you they could.” She didn’t know whether it was true. It didn’t matter. “Now let’s get the rest of them out of here.” She reached into her pocket. “There’s just one more thing I have to do.”

  She drew a thick black marker from her pocket and began to scrawl a message across the wall. When she was done, she stepped back to read it. The large and angry letters took up most of the space between one door and the next.

  THE REEDUCATION PROGRAM CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE. THE RESISTANCE WILL FREE EVERY PRISONER YOU TRY TO TURN AGAINST US.

  Simple. Effective. This would tell them that the resistance was responsible for the escape—that it had nothing to do with the kids themselves, and therefore wasn’t a reason to shut the center down. Not only that, it would tell them that the dissidents who knew about the program felt threatened by it—which would all but ensure that the center stayed open.

  It was better than the alternative. At least this way, the kids would have a chance.

  Still, when she looked at the kids in front of her, when she thought about the ones who were missing, her stomach twisted at the thought of what she had just helped to set in motion.

  Thousands of future prisoners. Brainwashed. Tortured. Because of the choice she had made here today.

  But that didn’t change the fact that her choice
was the right one.

  She shoved the marker back in her pocket. “Done.” She nodded toward the outer door. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Kara herded the others toward the door, with Becca in the lead. They moved slowly. Too slowly. Every step was a minor victory. But rushing the kids would only spook them.

  Then a click sounded behind them, and a creak. The unmistakable sound of a door opening.

  “Going somewhere?” The voice stopped her as if she had been turned to stone.

  It was the voice of a ghost. The one she had come here to bury. The one she hadn’t saved.

  Slowly, she turned around.

  Up until then, she had half-believed she was imagining things. But there he was, standing at the end of the short hallway. His face was more angular than it had been; his hair was buzzed down to his scalp. There was something slithery and unfamiliar in his eyes. But it was still him. Unmistakably. Impossibly.

  “Jake,” she breathed.

  * * *

  Jake’s eyes widened as he caught sight of Becca. His breath caught. A flash of pain crossed his face.

  Kara’s gazed darted from Becca to Jake and back to Becca. When she met Becca’s eyes, a wall of distrust stood between them again. “You know him,” she said flatly.

  “I killed him.” She studied Jake in disbelief. Everything about him was different. Everything was the same.

  The pain vanished from Jake’s face as if it had never been. He smiled. It was the same smile she remembered, the grin that spread slowly across his face. And he didn’t look like he was faking. He didn’t even look crazy. He looked… happy.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

  “No, Becca,” he said. “You saved me.”

  The Enforcers had taken him away. He had been dead the moment he had walked out that door; she had always known it. She had spent the past year and a half trying to get over not just what he had done to her, but what she had done to him. And now he was standing in front of her, wearing their clothes and that contented smile.

  “What… what did they…” Her voice came out in a whisper.

  “They showed me where I had gone wrong. They helped me let go of all that.” His eyes shone with memory. “They offered me the chance to become a counselor and help others the way they had helped me. I accepted.”

  She had nothing. No way to make sense of this. No way to reconcile this person with the angry boy she had known, with his single-minded focus on getting revenge for what Internal had done to his family. No way to reconcile him with the boy whose kisses had made her forget the world.

  “At first I hated you for what you did,” said Jake. “But that was before they showed me what a gift you really gave me.” He took a step closer. A shudder ran through the kids all at once, as if they shared a single body. “And now I can do for you what you did for me.”

  Becca stepped around the kids, placing herself between them and Jake. She and Jake stood only a couple of strides apart now. Too close. Nothing separated her from this wrongness, from this smiling stranger in front of her.

  “You killed the other two. The ones Kara told me about.” She knew Jake was capable of murder. He had come to her apartment that morning with a gun in his hand, and he would have killed her mom if the Enforcers hadn’t gotten there in time. But that had been different. Then, he had been paranoid, intent on revenge, convinced that this was what he had to do to protect what remained of his family. Now…

  Now he was killing for Internal. Doing the very thing he had condemned her mother for.

  Jake nodded as casually as if she had asked him about the weather. The smile didn’t leave his face. “I had to make them understand.”

  “You were a prisoner like them. And after what happened to your family… how can you…” She begged him with her eyes to understand, to hear her, to give her the missing piece that would make sense of his transformation. There had to be something.

  “They’re lost like I was lost. How could I live with myself if I didn’t help them?” He gestured past her toward the kids, who quivered, feet rooted to the floor. Even Kara seemed paralyzed. “Look at them. They’ve already come so far. I’m proud of them.”

  “You’re proud of them? You’re killing them!” And not just the two he had used as a lesson for Kara. He was killing all of them, killing them by inches.

  “Of course.” Jake nodded his agreement. “I have to make room for the good citizens they’ll become.”

  Looking into his eyes, she finally understood.

  She had been right all along. Jake was dead.

  Kara whimpered. The sound, small and scared, jolted her out of her sick shock. If they didn’t get out of here now, Kara and the others would never escape. They would be trapped here with this stranger—this torturer—who wore Jake’s face. Trapped here until, one way or another, he killed them.

  “Come with us,” she said softly. “If there’s anything left of you in there, come with us. You don’t have to be one of them.”

  Jake’s smile turned indulgent. “You don’t understand. I’m still me, Becca. I’m just not broken anymore. You knew there was something wrong with me—that’s why you called Enforcement to stop me from killing your mother. All of that is gone now. I’m who I always should have been.” He reached for something at his belt. “But you’ll understand soon enough. I’ll make sure they do everything they can for you.”

  At first she thought he was going for his gun. Her hand jerked to her own in response. But what he pulled up wasn’t a weapon. It was a radio.

  She raised the gun. Aimed it at Jake. “Put it down.”

  “I’m going to help you, Becca.” There was no fear in Jake’s voice. “After everything you did for me, you deserve that much.”

  Once, Becca had risked her life to protect him. Before she had known his true intentions. Even after she had learned the truth, she had wanted to keep him safe. To change his mind.

  To help him.

  Maybe, somewhere in the back of Jake’s mind, some shred remained of whatever genuine emotions he had felt for her. Maybe that was why, in the confusion of his mind, he wanted so badly to give her to this place and let it destroy her.

  Maybe he wanted to save her as much as she wanted to save him.

  But neither of them would get what they wanted.

  The Jake who could have heard her was long gone. She said it anyway. “I’m sorry.”

  She pulled the trigger.

  The shot echoed through the room like thunder, like the sound of her heart as it split open. The gun tried to jerk from her hands as if it were a living thing. She held on. Trapped it in her grip.

  And Jake still stood upright, red blooming across his chest, eyes wide with the shock of her betrayal.

  “I’m going to help you,” he whispered.

  She shot him again.

  She shot him until he fell.

  A year and a half ago, she had killed him. But now his body lay in front of her, blood spreading from his wounds, and she held the gun that had fired the shots.

  Now it was real.

  Ears still ringing, heart still in pieces, she crumpled to the ground.

  * * *

  “Is he dead?”

  Becca didn’t want to hear Kara’s voice. Didn’t want to open her eyes. Didn’t want to face what she had done.

  “We have to get out of here.”

  But she had done it. And if she had to choose, she would do it again. Now the only thing she could do was face it—or stay here and abandon what she had set out to do. Abandon Micah. Abandon Kara.

  “They can’t find us here with him. They’ll kill all of us.” Kara knelt down beside her. Urgency sped up her words. “I promised the others I wouldn’t let them die. I promised them.”

  She had no time for guilt. No time for grief. She had wasted too much on both already. There would be time for that later. After the kids were safe.

  She stood up.

  She took a long look at Jake’s body.
She had done this. She wouldn’t let herself hide from that.

  Then she turned away.

  She dug the keycard out of her pocket and, with trembling fingers, slid it into the reader. It still worked. No one had found the guard’s body yet.

  But if anyone had heard the gunshots…

  If anyone had heard, they had minutes to get out of here. Maybe not even that.

  “Follow me.” With a glance over her shoulder to make sure Kara was coming, she ducked out into the hallway.

  As Kara urged the others out the door, Becca scanned the hallway for signs of Micah. Nothing.

  The shadows at the far end of the hallway grew and shrank as the light flickered. The kids’ footsteps behind her echoed in the eerie quiet. The door shut behind the last of the kids, and Kara watched Becca, silently asking what to do next.

  And still no Micah.

  He was probably busy gathering prisoners, trying to convince them to follow him. Probably. But too many other possibilities crowded into her thoughts, none of them good. She shouldn’t have sent him alone, not after the training had left him so—

  Footsteps sounded from beyond the shadows, footsteps and the low hum of voices. She tensed to run—but Micah rounded the corner, speaking in carefully gentle tones. “Just keep going. It’s only a little further.”

  The prisoners came into view behind him—at least ten of them, ranging in age from sixteen to maybe nine. Some glowed so brightly with hope that it hurt Becca to look at them. Some were crying. Some just looked determined. They helped each other along, murmuring in hushed voices.

  Becca motioned him forward, trying to convey her message with her hands. Hurry. Hurry. The guards might have heard me. We have to get them out now.

  With a nod of acknowledgement, Micah sped up to a jog. But behind him, one of the younger girls stopped, shuddering with sudden tears. “We have to go back,” she wailed. “If they see us out here, they’ll kill us.”

  A boy a couple of years older yanked her forward by the arm. “Quiet!” he hissed. “You’re going to get us caught!”