No Return (The Internal Defense Series)

by Zoe Cannon

  Three years ago, Becca had chosen to sacrifice her mother for the resistance. As the last surviving member of the old resistance, she had known that once she was dead there would be no one left to save Kara and all the other prisoners in the reeducation center. So she had accepted Milo Miyamoto’s protection, and in exchange, she had helped him frame her mother. Her mother had been tortured—had come within hours of execution—because of what Becca had done. Because she had put the resistance before her mother’s life.

  But she had saved her mother in the end. And her mother had gone on torturing and executing dissidents. Some of whom belonged to Becca’s resistance. Some of whom were innocent. Some of whom were strangers fighting the same fight as Becca.

  And Becca had done nothing to stop it.

  But this was different.

  It was different.

  “It wasn’t your choice to make,” said Becca. “Their lives weren’t yours to risk. Don’t try to justify what you did by turning it around on me.”

  Kara didn’t release her gaze. “Is this your choice to make? How many of the people your mother tortured and murdered knew how easily you could have stopped it? What would they tell you to do?”

  It’s different, she repeated to herself. It is.

  But she couldn’t come up with a reason why.

  “While you’re thinking about that,” said Kara, “think about this. What would have happened if I hadn’t been at that meeting?”

  “I appreciate what you did.” It wasn’t an answer, and they both knew it. “But I can handle it from here.”

  “Just answer one thing before deciding you don’t need what I can offer.” Kara gave weight to her pause, drawing it out. “You never thought about the possibility that I might be one of the spies, did you?”

  About to repeat her demand, Becca stopped.

  Kara had showed up out of nowhere.

  She had engineered a prison break that, despite how difficult it should have been, had succeeded—and she had gotten a resistance member killed in the process.

  She had maneuvered her way into a room with every single core member of the resistance.

  She had won them all over and gotten them to accept her as one of them.

  And Becca had never even considered the possibility that she might be working for the other side.

  Whatever expression of horror Becca must have been wearing was enough for Kara. She gave a satisfied nod. “I’m not, by the way. If I were, you’d all be in 117 already. But you didn’t think of it, and you should have.”

  Becca tried to answer. But she had nothing to say.

  She could have been a spy.

  I could have lost the resistance.

  “I can’t do what you do,” said Kara. “But I can see plans. Possibilities. And I can make other people see them. The resistance needs that if it’s going to survive.” She crossed her arms. “You can hate me if you want, but you need me.”

  Protecting the resistance came first. And that meant making sure Kara could never use her people again.

  But it also meant making sure Alia and Sean didn’t act recklessly and put the resistance at risk. It meant making sure no spies made it into a resistance meeting because Becca hadn’t thought things through carefully enough.

  It meant seeing plans. Possibilities.

  With a sigh and a sinking heart, Becca did the only thing she could do.

  She nodded. “You can stay.”

  * * *

  Becca pulled her jacket tighter as she hurried away from Kara’s apartment. White puffs rose in front of her with every breath. She sucked in the freezing air, trying to clear her head. Trying to figure out whether she had done the right thing.

  She blackmailed me into risking my people’s lives.

  But without her, they would never have found out about the spies.

  She’s the reason Terrence is dead.

  She was the reason Ryann was alive.

  I have to protect them.

  But she didn’t know—

  She squashed the thought. It was done. She had made her choice.

  “Becca!”

  At the sound of her name, Becca spun around.

  Micah stood on the sidewalk behind her, hands full of grocery bags. “Good. I made it back before you left. I was hoping I would.” He gave her half a smile. “I thought maybe we could talk.”

  “About what?”

  Micah’s eyes widened slightly. Maybe he hadn’t expected to hear her mother’s voice from her lips. But he recovered quickly, shifting the bags in his arms as he closed the distance between them. “We left a lot of things unresolved three years ago. We never—”

  Becca cut him off before he could head into one of his nervous babbles. “And we’ve both moved on. I’m okay with that. If you’re not, that’s between you and Kara.”

  “From what Kara said, we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other. And you saw—”

  Becca held up a hand to cut off the flow of words—but realized, a second later, that he hadn’t started babbling after all. His voice had remained calm, grounded with an unfamiliar steadiness.

  She nodded at him to continue.

  “You saw what things were like between us today,” he continued. “You spent all day helping with the apartment, and we barely said two words to each other. I don’t want that to be the way it is between us from now on.”

  Becca eyed her car. A few more steps, and she could be on her way home. Just get in. Drive away. It doesn’t matter.

  But Micah was right. If Kara was going to be working with the resistance, Becca and Micah would be seeing each other again. The sooner they resolved this, the less mental energy they would need to waste on it.

  She gave him a short nod. “If we’re going to have this conversation, we should at least do it someplace warm.”

  Micah glanced at the door to the apartment. “And someplace private.”

  Becca followed his gaze. Kara was waiting inside, she knew—probably still in the living room where Becca had left her. Whatever this conversation was going to involve, having it in front of Kara would make it that much worse.

  She gestured to her car. “Get in. I’ll run the heater.”

  “Just let me put this stuff inside.” He raised one of the bags, as if he thought there was a chance Becca hadn’t seen it. “I’ll be right out.”

  Becca climbed into the car to wait. As promised, she turned the heater up full blast to drive away the winter air that had crept inside. She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. Her gaze drifted down to the keys in the ignition.

  She didn’t have to do this. There was nothing stopping her from leaving.

  In all the times she had imagined her reunion with Micah, she had never imagined it like this. She had never thought she would be tempted to flee before they could have a real conversation, had never thought they wouldn’t be able to look each other in the eye.

  Enough.

  They would talk. She would make him understand that there was no reason for this awkwardness between them. And the next time they saw each other, they would treat each other as allies in the fight against Internal, with no lingering memories to confuse things.

  She gave the keys in the ignition one last longing look, then leaned back and let her eyes drift shut as she waited for Micah.

  She had just begun to sink into what passed for sleep these days when the sound of the car door opening jolted her upright.

  Micah slid into the seat beside her. He rubbed his hands together in front of the air vent for a moment. Then he lowered them as he stared down at his lap.

  “So,” he said.

  “So,” she agreed.

  Micah let out a long sigh, lingering over the breath as if he found comfort in it. “I’m sorry about all this. I didn’t want you to find out about Kara that way.”

  Becca almost reached out to reassure him. She stopped herself just in time. Old habits. She gripped the steering wheel instead, even though they weren’t going an
ywhere. “You don’t need to apologize. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “For the longest time, I thought I would come back to you someday. I knew it was impossible, but I told myself I would find a way. I finally came to accept that it would never happen, but reaching that acceptance was… difficult.” He shook his head ruefully. “And of course, look what happened once I did.” He gave a soft laugh, as if there were a joke hidden in there somewhere.

  That laugh didn’t belong to the Micah she knew. His laughter had always bubbled up from his throat, filling the space around him like a burst of sunshine or the fizz of champagne. It had never held that tone of wistfulness, that weary resignation that could only come from having seen too much.

  But the sound still softened something inside her. Something that made her—

  Stop.

  Something she couldn’t afford anymore.

  She fixed her eyes on the apartment building so she wouldn’t have to look at Micah. A dark silhouette stood in one of the second-floor windows. Kara. Probably wondering what they were talking about right now. Worrying about what might happen between them.

  Becca could have told her she didn’t have any reason to worry.

  “Kara and I worked against the reeducation centers together for three years. When you fight alongside someone for that long, something happens. It creates a bond. And we could never risk getting close to anyone else.” He closed his eyes for a moment in contemplation, letting his breath out softly. “It’s different from how it was with you and me. It’s… it can’t even be compared. I’m not saying what I feel for her isn’t real. But it doesn’t diminish anything I feel—” He stopped himself. “Anything I felt for you.”

  She stiffened at his slip of the tongue. They needed to wrap this up. He needed to go back inside to Kara.

  She didn’t look at him.

  “Becca? Say something.”

  Finally, she turned to him again. His brow creased at whatever he saw in her face—although she didn’t know what he could be seeing. There was no emotion there. Only the same disinterested assurance she showed the resistance at every meeting.

  “I already told you,” she said. “It’s okay. It’s better this way. Even if you and Kara hadn’t… even if things had been different, nothing could have happened between us. Too many people depend on me now. I can’t afford…”

  I can’t afford to make the same choice Kara made.

  I can’t afford to be with someone knowing I would never make the same choice she made.

  “…distractions,” she finished.

  “Distractions,” he repeated, his brow creasing further.

  She nodded. “So there’s nothing to talk about. No reason for us to be awkward around each other.”

  “Becca…”

  She hit the button to unlock the car doors. “You should get back inside. Kara is waiting for you.”

  But Micah didn’t move.

  “Becca.” Gently, he curled his hand over hers. “Stop doing this.”

  “Doing what? Telling you it’s okay for you to be with Kara?” The warmth of his hand seared into her like a burning coal. She jerked her hand away. “When you said you wanted to talk, did you really want to work this out? Or were you just trying to pick up where we left off?” Her heart thudded in her chest. Get away. I have to get away. She reached for her door handle.

  “No, Becca. That’s not what this was about.” Micah’s voice, low and soothing, stopped her halfway to opening the door. “Yes, I still feel something for you. I won’t deny that. But it wouldn’t be fair to Kara for me to act on those feelings. And if that were what I had wanted to talk about, I would have said so from the start.”

  She kept her fingers wrapped around the door handle, but didn’t open it. “Then what’s the problem?”

  “This. What you’re doing. You’re closing me out. That’s why I wanted to talk—because I don’t want it to be that way between us. I’ve missed you, Becca. And I want to be there for you as your friend, even if we can never be anything else.”

  What did he want from her? Her heart beat a frantic rhythm against her ribcage. Get out get out get out. “I’m not closing you out. I’m here. We’re talking.”

  “You’re saying words, but we’re not talking. And everything you say—everything you’ve said since you helped me escape—sounds like…” He hesitated. “You sound like Raleigh Dalcourt. Not like the Becca I know.”

  Get out get out get out get out… She forced herself to breathe. “And the Micah I know would have huddled in the corner of that cell, shaking at the thought of being sent to reeducation. We’ve changed. We’ve grown up.”

  Micah shook his head. “I know you better than that, remember? You haven’t just grown up—you’ve shut down. Are you like this all the time now? Do you ever allow yourself to let go?”

  Her mom had said almost the same thing. But Micah knew what it meant to fight Internal. Micah, of all people—Micah, who had left everything behind to help Kara and the others—should understand. “And whose life should I let go of when I let go?” She fought to keep her voice calm. “I made a choice. I can’t be the person you knew anymore. I’m sorry if you expected something different.”

  “I know about the choices you’ve made.” Was that pity she heard in his voice? “I know about the breakout. About what you had to do to make it happen.”

  She needed to stop wasting time with this conversation. She needed him to get out of her car. “She volunteered.”

  “After you asked her to.”

  Becca didn’t answer.

  “Of course you’ve changed. No one could live the life you’ve lived and come out the same on the other side. But you don’t have to close yourself off. Not with me.” He reached out a hand, palm up. An offer. “Let me be there for you.”

  She gripped the steering wheel like a life raft, resisting the urge to shove his hand away.

  “You don’t have to do this anymore,” he continued, mistaking her reaction for hesitance. He dropped the volume of his voice until it blended with the soft hiss of air from the heater. “You can let go.”

  As if this were some kind of game. As if she could walk away from her responsibilities whenever she felt like it. Let go for a little while, come back, see how many people had died.

  She bit back her angry words. “I made my choice,” she said instead, keeping her voice neutral. “I don’t regret it.” She paused. “I think we’re done here.”

  He dropped his hand back into his lap. “If you ever change your mind, the offer is still open. You can come to me anytime. Day or night. I’ll be here.”

  I won’t change my mind. I won’t abandon the resistance for you. But snapping at him wouldn’t help anything. “Thank you.”

  He looked like he wanted to say something else, but thought better of it. With an expression she couldn’t read—an expression that swam with too much emotion—he opened his door.

  Becca didn’t look at him as he left the car.

  Chapter Seven

  Becca hated paper evidence.

  Words in the air were nothing, vanishing as soon as they had been spoken. Paper was tangible proof. A single incriminating note that landed in the wrong hands could bring down the resistance.

  And now she was sitting in Processing 117, arguably the most dangerous building in the country, staring at a pile of them three feet thick.

  She fixed the surveillance reports with a glare worthy of her mother, as if she could make them disappear through sheer force of will. The pile only seemed to grow taller.

  There must have been enough reports in that stack to wallpaper the cell they would land her in a dozen times over—and she had to read every last one of them.

  To be fair, she had gotten a head start. She and the others had looked over as many of the reports as they could during the meeting that had just ended. But there hadn’t been enough time for more than an overview, not with the arguments that kept breaking out. Even Kara hadn’t been able to give t
hem any real advice, any definitive answer on whether Ryann could be trusted.

  The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can go out to the clearing and burn it all. With a sigh, she slid down off her chair to sit next to the papers.

  Piece by piece, she began to dismantle the pile, laying each set of documents side by side. Little by little, pushing chairs aside as she worked, she covered the floor. Before long she had used every inch of available space… and she still had papers left.

  When Meri had plunked the pile down in the center of the circle at the meeting’s start, Becca hadn’t understood why Meri insisted her informants in Surveillance hadn’t found very much information. Soon, though, she had figured it out, as they had sifted through page after page of transcribed conversations between Ryann and the dissident posing as her mother. Page after page of logs that listed the exact moment Ryann had walked from her living room to her bedroom. Page after page of nothing.

  But there had to be something in here. Something Meri had missed. Something that would reveal the truth about Ryann, one way or the other.

  Becca wedged herself into a corner, set the extra papers down on her lap, and began to read.

  The first page listed a description of items Ryann had browsed on a trip to a clothing store. Not useful.

  Second page: Photos of Ryann’s walk to school. Not useful.

  Third page: Not useful.

  Fourth page: Not useful.

  When she finished with the papers in her lap, she set them aside and started moving down the rows she had laid out on the floor. Picking up stacks. Flipping through them. Setting them down and moving on to the next. Not useful. Not useful. Not useful.

  Halfway down the second row, she paused at a picture of Ryann staring hungrily through the window of a suburban house. Her parents’ house, the notes explained before giving a quick sketch of Ryann’s relationship with her parents. Apparently she had been close to both of them, especially her dad. She and her dad had gone hiking together almost every weekend. She had described him as her best friend once, in a conversation she had thought was private.

  The look of longing in Ryann’s eyes made something tighten in Becca’s throat. It had been like that between Becca and her mom once, too. Before Becca had learned the truth about Internal. Before all these secrets had come between them.