by Zoe Cannon
“My name will be at the top,” said Jared.
“No,” said Becca. “Your experience is too valuable to lose. The resistance needs you alive.”
“Then name me,” said Micah. “Internal already thinks we’re working together—and you know I’m ready to die.”
“I know.” Becca turned from Jared to Micah. “But I need you to do something harder than that.” She shook her head as he opened his mouth to protest. “I’m not saying you’re trying to take the easy way out. I know you’re not. You keep calling me brave, but you’re every bit as brave as I am. Maybe more. I know you’re willing to do whatever you need to do, and face whatever you need to face.”
“Then what are you trying to say?” She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. What he was feeling.
“I’m saying that doesn’t always mean the same thing. There’s a time to let go and accept what’s coming—but there’s also a time to hang on and fight with everything in you. And that’s what I need from you right now.”
She paused, watching him, taking him in. The look on his face, so different from the raw idealism she had seen in him three years ago—and yet exactly the same. The light in his eyes—that light Kara had talked about—as he prepared to accept his own death. As he prepared to accept hers.
Would she accept what she was about to ask him to do?
She met his eyes, met that light head-on, as she spoke. “I need you to join the resistance.”
A second of silence as he processed her words. Another. Another.
The light wavered. Dimmed. “Join the resistance,” he echoed. “You mean fight Internal. Fight the regime.”
“I meant what I told Heather,” said Becca. “I won’t ask you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. If you say no, I’ll understand. I’ll put your name first on my list if that’s what you really want. But Jared will need someone to help him rebuild. You may not have his experience, but you have everything you’ve learned from working against the reeducation centers.
“Heather can arrange for the interrogator to ask about you specifically. I’ll claim you were never one of us. You’ll still be a fugitive, but your new identity should be enough to protect you, as long as you keep a low profile.”
Pain filled Micah’s eyes, snuffing the light completely, as he shook his head. “You know I want to help you any way I can. But I can’t do this. Your fight isn’t my fight, and I won’t pretend it is. Not even…” He waved a hand, as if one gesture could encompass everything that had happened over the past few hours. “Not even now. Not even here. I won’t abandon my principles, Becca—you of all people should understand that.”
“No one is asking you to.”
“I’m not the same person I was three years ago. But what I believe hasn’t changed. The regime has done a lot of harm—but they do a lot of good, too. Not everything we learn about the way things used to be is propaganda—it can’t be. For everyone but dissidents, this country is a better place—they’re healthy, and comfortable, and safe from everything but Internal. I believe in preserving the good that the regime can do as much as I believe in ending their crimes, and I won’t do anything to compromise that.”
“No one is asking you to,” Becca repeated. “And no one will.” She looked past Micah to Jared, holding her breath for his reaction, praying she had told Micah the truth.
Jared bowed his head. “If you’re willing to bring him into the resistance, that’s all I need.”
Becca wanted to accept his answer—but she couldn’t. “It’s not my resistance anymore, Jared. It’s yours. Starting tomorrow, you won’t have my judgment to rely on. Answer for yourself—don’t answer for me.”
Jared started to speak. Stopped. He seemed to age before her eyes as the full weight of the responsibility she had asked him to take on fell over him.
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—it’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.”
Chapter Nineteen
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.
