by Zoe Cannon
She had put him in danger. Now she was going to save him.
She would get there in time. She would save him. There was no other option.
The road was nearly empty at this time of night. She almost felt like she was the only person left in the world, until the occasional pair of headlights jerked her out of the illusion. The further she ran, the longer the road got, until it stretched to infinity, until she wondered whether she was covering any distance at all. Sometimes she looked down at her watch, expecting a minute or two to have gone by, and saw that she had lost five minutes, ten, twenty.
She slowed down, forced herself to go faster, slowed down again. She stopped, in tears, legs burning. Less than halfway there. She started running again; her leg wobbled underneath her, and she fell to the pavement. A car swerved around her. She crawled to her feet, her arm scratched and bleeding from her fall.
Heather must have reported him by now.
How long would it take for Internal to arrest him? Would they see him as a low priority and wait a few days, maybe a week or two, more than enough time for Becca to warn him? Or would he be like Anna—reported one night and gone the next morning?
Was it already too late?
She was going to save him.
There was no other option.
She dragged herself forward, feeling the road disappear behind her too slowly, watching the sky lighten ahead of her too quickly.
Halfway there.
Her legs burned, but she ignored the pain. It didn’t matter. Only getting to Jake in time mattered.
Three-quarters of the way.
The sunrise streaked the sky with orange; Becca barely saw it. All she saw was one image, looping over and over in her mind: Enforcement at Jake’s door, dragging him and his dad out of the house.
Almost there.
A car drove up behind her; it slowed as it got closer. Becca glanced over her shoulder.
Even in the dark, she recognized it. That was her mom’s car.
So close. Another five minutes, maybe ten, and she would be there.
Her mom honked.
Becca pulled out her phone. She didn’t care how suspicious it looked. If she didn’t warn him now, she would never get the chance. She pretended she hadn’t heard her mom as she dialed Jake’s number.
His phone rang. And rang. Nobody there.
Too late.
No. There were plenty of reasons for him not to answer. He was probably asleep. Or with his dad. Or… or something. Something besides what she was afraid of.
“Hey.” Jake’s voice. Becca’s heart leapt. She started to answer, but Jake kept talking. “It’s Jake. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you when I can.”
Just his voicemail.
Her mom leaned on the horn.
Becca tried to keep her voice light. Tried to sound like she wasn’t afraid for Jake’s life. “Hey, I know you said you weren’t going to school today, so I thought you might want to hang out. You need to get out of the house. It’ll be… boring there. Really boring.” She could only hope that he would remember their date and the association of “boring” with “Internal,” that he would hear the message underneath the words. Go. Get out of there. Internal is coming.
Her mom rolled down the window. “Becca!”
Becca hung up the phone. It would have to be enough.
She stayed where she was. Her mom pulled up beside her and stopped the car. “Get in.”
Becca obeyed, still thinking about Jake, wondering whether he would understand her message. Or if it would even reach him in time.
She didn’t remember to be afraid for herself until the car door’s lock softly snapped into place.
* * *
They drove in silence.
Becca waited for her mom to say something. She didn’t.
“Where are we going?” Becca finally asked.
Her mom didn’t take her eyes off the road. “We’re going to 117.”
Becca felt her heart stop.
Her mom was giving her to Internal. Even as she had confided her worries about this very thing to Jake, she hadn’t actually believed it could happen.
Was that what Jake had meant when he had accused her of seeing herself as untouchable?
“You’re turning me in?” Her voice came out small and scared, a little girl’s voice.
“No!” The car swerved. Her mom lowered her voice. “No. There’s no need for that. You’re not a dissident. You’re just confused.”
Relief fought with wariness. Could she trust what her mom told her? “Then why are you taking me to 117?”
“So I can help you.” Her mom was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her fingers had turned white.
Her mom… Heather… everyone wanted to help her. Heather wanted to do it by reporting Jake. Her mom wanted to do it by taking her to 117. Becca wished people would stop trying to help.
The road that had seemed so long a few minutes ago whizzed by outside. “What do you mean? Help me how?”
Her mom didn’t say anything else.
The sunrise was starting to fade as they pulled into the parking lot of 117. Her mom got out of the car without a word. Becca followed only because she knew her mom would drag her if she didn’t get out on her own.
They walked toward the building—not to the front door, the one Becca had used when she had come here to find Heather, but to a smaller door along the right-hand wall. Becca’s legs shook from fear and exhaustion. Her heart sped up with every step she took that brought her closer to the building.
What had her mom meant about helping her?
Her mom took a card out of her wallet and slid it into the card reader by the side of the door. The door clicked open. Her mom stepped inside; again, Becca had no choice but to follow her.
They stepped into a small square room, with white walls to either side and an elevator in front. Her mom slid her card into the card reader beside the elevator. The elevator doors opened silently.
The elevator hummed as it descended. Becca’s limbs twitched. She had to get out of here, before it was too late, before…
The elevator came to a stop.
The doors opened onto a gray hallway lit with dim yellow lights. The hallway stretched much further than the building above. Its rows of doors were broken up only by intersecting hallways.
The underground levels.
They stepped out of the elevator. Their footsteps echoed on the concrete floor. The hallway smelled like stale air and disinfectant.
The elevator doors closed behind them. No way out.
“What are we—” Becca’s words echoed as loudly as her footsteps. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “What are we doing here?” She couldn’t ask the rest of her question: Why are we down here if you’re not giving me to Internal?
Had that been another lie?
“I need to show you something.” Her mom didn’t whisper like Becca, but somehow she kept her voice from traveling further than the two of them. “I need to show you what will happen to you if you keep going down the path you’re on.”
They walked through the maze of hallways, each one identical to the one before it, until Becca had no idea what direction the elevator was in, let alone how to get back there. Each hallway was deserted, silent except for their footsteps and the hum of the lights… and once, so faint Becca thought she must have imagined it, the sound of screaming from behind one of the doors.
They reached a dead end. At the end of the hallway, a man sat with his back against the wall, knees and elbows jutting out in all directions. His head hung down toward his chest; his eyes were closed. Becca thought he might be dead at first, until she heard a soft snore.
As they approached, he brought his head up with a start. “Raleigh! I didn’t know you were here.” He unfolded his limbs and clambered to his feet as quickly as his gangly legs would allow. Becca had to tilt her head up to see the blush spreading across his cheeks.
“I came in early,” said her mom. “
I was hoping you would still be here.”
The man looked maybe ten years older than Becca, at most. His eyes traveled to Becca, to her arms hanging loosely at her sides. “Um, Raleigh? Are you sure that’s safe?”
“She’s not a prisoner,” her mom answered sharply. “This is my daughter Becca.”
“Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” His blush deepened. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said to Becca. “I’m Eli. I work with your mom.” He turned his attention back to her mom. “Why were you looking for me? Did you need anything?” He asked the question as though her assigning him some task would be the highlight of his day.
Was this the moment of betrayal? Was her mom going to hand her over to this man and walk away?
“Are you still planning to execute prisoner K10-843 today?” her mom asked.
Jake. They’ve got Jake in here. That’s why she brought me.
Eli nodded. “Why? Do you need her?”
Her. Not Jake after all, then. She let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.
“No,” her mom answered. “But I want you to let us watch.”
Eli looked from her mom to Becca and back again, a question in his eyes.
“She’s here for a school project,” her mom lied smoothly. “With everything that’s been going on in the schools, her Citizenship teacher thought an in-depth presentation on Processing would be appropriate, and Becca was the natural choice.”
If Eli doubted her story, he didn’t show it. “I can do it right now, if you want. I already brought her to room five.”
Becca’s mom nodded. “Lead the way.”
So her mom had been telling the truth. She wasn’t turning Becca over to Internal after all. She had brought Becca here to see a dissident executed, to show her what could happen to her.
Becca could handle that. She had seen executions on TV before. She was safe, and—for now, at least—so was Jake. That was what mattered.
Her stomach clenched.
She could handle this.
They traveled further into the maze, until they stopped at a door that looked the same as all the others. Becca’s mom used her card to unlock the door. She walked in first, then Eli, who held the door open for Becca.
All she had to do was remind herself it was just like the executions on TV, and forget she was in the same room. Forget that her mom was right and she could easily end up dying just like this.
She could handle this. She could handle it.
She stepped inside.
The room wasn’t much bigger than a closet. The same dim yellow light that shone in the hallways illuminated the gray concrete walls and the bloodstains someone had tried in vain to bleach off. Becca wanted to run, might have done it if Eli hadn’t closed the door behind her.
The dissident lay crumpled in a corner, her hands cuffed behind her. Her tangled hair obscured her face. Burn marks traveled up her arm, disappearing under the sleeve of her grubby gray shirt. Her leg was twisted under her at an unnatural angle.
She raised her head; her hair fell away from her face. She looked up at them with unfocused eyes and
We haven’t all decided you’re a dissident. We just want to know what’s going on.
blinked a couple of times before she
It’s just one of those things she heard. You know how she is.
dropped her head back down to the floor.
Anna.
The air was too thick to pull into her lungs. Becca gasped for breath as Eli asked her mom, “Now?” As her mom nodded. As Eli took the gun from his belt and aimed it at Anna—
no no no, at the dissident in front of him, that’s all this was, another execution—
aimed it at Anna and Becca covered her mouth to stifle her scream as Anna’s head exploded against the wall.
Chapter Fourteen
Becca wasn’t sure what happened after that. Only a few short flashes—retching as her mom led her through the hallways, then collapsing into the car with her ears still ringing, then her mom saying something she couldn’t understand as they drove past the spot where she had tried to call Jake—interrupted the endless loop of Anna’s death.
Her mom’s phone rang as they reached their building. She argued with the person on the other end while Becca stayed perfectly still next to her and flinched at every angry word. After she hung up, she apologized for having to leave, promised they would talk about this later, asked Becca if she was sure she would be okay. Becca nodded and tried to give the right responses as Anna’s death played over and over again in her mind.
She didn’t remember getting out of the car. But suddenly she was standing in the parking lot, watching her mom drive away. Watching Anna get shot again and again.
There was something she needed to do. Something important.
Jake. Right. She had to look for Jake.
She started toward the playground. If Jake had gotten her message, if he had understood it… if it wasn’t too late… that was where he would be.
She dragged herself down the road. She tried to run, but her legs wobbled underneath her, aching from her interrupted run to Jake’s house, weak from the images still playing in her head. As she got closer to the playground, Jake’s face replaced Anna’s in her memory, until she could almost believe she had seen him die instead of Anna.
Anna. Becca had said one wrong thing, told one lie, and now Anna was dead. Because of her.
Was Jake in one of those rooms right now? Had Becca gotten him killed too?
When she reached the playground, she kept her head down at first, afraid of what she would see when she looked up—or rather, what she wouldn’t see. She made herself raise her head. The weeds swayed in the breeze; the slide and swings sat deserted.
He could still be in the playhouse. Or he could have gone someplace else. Maybe he had thought the playground wasn’t safe enough.
Or maybe Internal already had him.
She approached the playhouse, scrutinizing it for signs of life. Nothing. No noise, no movement. She stopped just outside the door, afraid to look inside, afraid to see it empty.
“Jake?” she called quietly.
She had expected silence; the answering voice made her jump. “Becca?”
He was here. Alive. Safe. Free.
Jake stepped out of the playhouse. He squinted as the light struck his face. “I heard footsteps. I thought you were Internal.”
She kept her eyes fixed on his face as she walked up to him. She tried to let the reality of Jake in front of her—alive, safe, free—drive away the images in her head.
She didn’t know if she kissed him first or if he was the one to reach for her. All she knew was that when his lips met hers, she could finally accept that he was real, that Internal hadn’t taken him. Her visions of death—of Jake, of Anna, lying on the floor of that room as Eli raised his gun—faded into nothing as she pulled him closer. There was no Anna. No Internal. There was only her and Jake and the electric warmth spreading out from her lips through the rest of her body.
He stepped back, looking as dazed as Becca felt. “I need to check on my dad.” He disappeared into the playhouse.
Becca followed him. Jake’s dad was sitting in the corner where Becca had spent all of last night. His eyes were aimed in their direction, but whatever he saw, it wasn’t them. His lips moved constantly, but no sound came out. Becca eyed him warily, remembering their last encounter. If he saw her, though, he didn’t recognize her.
Jake followed Becca’s gaze. “He’s been like that since we left,” he murmured. “I didn’t tell him why we had to come here, but he knows.”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t understand my message.”
“I got it.” He watched his dad for a moment in silence. Little by little, his muscles tightened. “Why are they after us? And how do you know about it?”
The last residual glow of the kiss disappeared as reality crashed back down over her. This was her fault. She had done this to them. Just like she had gotten Anna kille
d. “Heather overheard us talking last night.”
She waited for Jake’s condemnation. It didn’t come.
He didn’t say anything at all.
She tried to fill the silence. “I called her before I called you, and told her where I was. I know I shouldn’t have done it. It was just… instinct. She was my best friend for so long.” It hurt to say it in the past tense like that.
Still nothing from Jake. Becca couldn’t even hear him breathing.
“She thinks you’re turning me into a dissident. She thought she could save me by reporting you. I tried to talk her out of it, but it didn’t work.”
Still nothing.
“I’m sorry.”
Nothing.
He squatted down next to his backpack, which lay on the floor beside his dad. He rummaged around until he pulled something out. Becca couldn’t tell what he was doing. She wanted to offer more apologies, to say something, anything, that would get him to forgive her. She held herself back. She had already said all she could say.
A minute ago, their kiss had driven away her memories and her fears. Now they started crowding into her mind again, all pressing in on her at once. Too much.
She heard the sound of ripping paper and peered over Jake’s shoulder. He was scribbling something down on a jagged-edged piece of notebook paper. A second later, he stood up.
“I was wrong not to trust you,” he said. “You saved both our lives. If you hadn’t warned me, Internal would have us both by now.” A shudder ran through his body.
“It’s my fault she overheard you in the first place,” Becca protested.
“It doesn’t matter. You saved us, even though you knew what would happen to you if Internal found out. Most people wouldn’t have taken that risk.” He pressed the strip of paper into her hand. “I should have given you this when you asked.”
Becca looked down at the paper. All he had written on it was an unfamiliar phone number—but she knew what it was. The contact information she had asked him for.
She folded the paper and tucked it into her pocket. “Thank you.”
It should have made her happy. But all she could think about was Anna.
The images pressed in closer.
