No Return (The Internal Defense Series)

by Zoe Cannon

  “Go,” Kara urged, low and tense. But Becca didn’t need the reminder. She already had one hand on the keys, the other on the wheel. The car rumbled to life beneath them as Peter waited to turn. And when he left the parking lot, Becca followed.

  There wasn’t much chance of Peter noticing them, not in his current state. But Becca hung back anyway—close enough to keep him in sight, far enough that he shouldn’t be able to recognize her. Neither she nor Kara spoke as they trailed him through the darkened streets.

  Becca slowed down as they grew closer to the turn that would lead them to the safehouse. But Peter didn’t.

  Closer. Closer. Becca held her breath.

  He didn’t turn.

  Instead, he continued down the road that would lead him to the center of town. To his apartment.

  Becca let out her breath, her body going limp with relief. Not yet, she told herself. We don’t know anything yet.

  “What happened?” asked Kara.

  “He missed the turn for the safehouse,” Becca answered. “He’s heading for his apartment.”

  “He could just be—”

  “Getting his things together before he runs,” Becca finished. “I know.”

  Please, she thought. Prove Kara wrong. Show me I was wrong to doubt you.

  “Wait outside his building,” Kara advised. “Park someplace out of sight. If he leaves, start following him again.”

  Becca nodded, already slowing in preparation for the turn.

  But Peter kept going.

  He drove past the turn. Past his apartment. Into the heart of downtown.

  “Where is he—” Becca started.

  She didn’t finish the sentence.

  Peter’s car was slowing down.

  For a moment, Becca didn’t let herself understand what she was seeing. No, she chanted in her mind. No, no, no…

  But Peter turned. And Becca turned with him.

  Into the driveway of Investigation 212.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Peter would never betray the resistance.

  Peter pulled into a parking space near the edge of the lot, far from the cameras. Becca drove up beside him.

  He would never betray us.

  He stepped out of the car. Started walking toward the building.

  He would never—

  “Becca.” Kara’s sharp voice jolted her out of her stupor.

  With numb fingers, Becca opened the door. Her legs moved mechanically as she walked. She circled around to block Peter’s path before he could step onto the sidewalk. Kara came up behind him, leaving him nowhere to run.

  Peter froze. His eyes widened in horror, guilt spreading across his face.

  He would never betray us.

  “What… what…” Peter’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly. “What are you doing here?”

  Becca looked from him to Investigation 212, wanting to scream in his face, wanting to cry. Wanting to shake him until answers fell out, until she found an explanation that made sense. She kept her voice level—she didn’t know how—as she turned his question back on him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I… I was…” His eyes darted back and forth, as though he would find an excuse waiting for him if only he looked hard enough.

  “We can’t stay here.” The longer they stood in the parking lot, the more suspicious they would look. The cameras had probably picked them up already. Becca had angled her face away from the lenses out of habit, but that wouldn’t matter if someone at Surveillance decided to look up her license plate number. “Come with me. You can explain in the car.”

  “I don’t see what there is to explain,” said Kara. “We all know what he’s doing here.”

  “Shut up, Kara,” Becca snapped before she could stop herself. She took a breath. Another. Uncurled her fingers from her palms, leaving little half-moon marks behind.

  I’ll figure this out. I’ll fix this.

  She turned back to Peter, who was still standing white-faced and frozen in front of her. “You’re going to come with me,” she told him. “And you’re going to tell me what this is about.”

  “It doesn’t—” The words came out as barely more than a puff of air. He cleared his throat. Tried again. “It doesn’t matter.” Dead eyes. Small scared voice. “It doesn’t matter,” he said again, as if he needed to convince himself. “Just go.”

  Kara didn’t say anything, but Becca heard her anyway. You already know what this is about.

  “You’re going to tell me,” she repeated. She took his hand. It trembled in hers, slick with sweat. “You’re going to explain this.”

  He tried to pull away. She tightened her grip. He looked over his shoulder to see Kara, arms folded across her chest, waiting for him to run.

  He slumped as the fight went out of him. His hand went limp in hers. “It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled as he let her lead him to the car.

  With her free hand, she opened the passenger-side door. She gestured to Kara; with a nod, Kara positioned herself to Peter’s other side, blocking his way back to his car. Only once the door was open, and she and Kara stood between him and escape, did she let go of his hand.

  On shaky legs, he half-fell into the car. Kara slid into the seat behind him, placing a warning hand on his shoulder as Becca crossed around to the driver’s side. Once Becca started the car, Kara removed her hand, but the threat remained.

  Peter gave a short whimper as the car began to move. It’s okay, Becca wanted to tell him. It’s going to be okay.

  “What were you doing at Investigation 212?” she asked instead.

  Her mother’s voice. Her mother’s role. Another interrogation. Give me an answer. Make this make sense. Please.

  Peter hung his head. He said nothing.

  “What were you doing at Investigation 212?” Louder. Harsher.

  “It doesn’t matter.” His whisper had no life in it. “It doesn’t matter what I do. It doesn’t matter what any of us do. Internal beat us. It’s over.”

  No. Not good enough. Tell me this isn’t what it looks like. Make me believe it. “What were you doing at Investigation 212?” Cold and clipped this time, each word a bullet.

  “They’re going to take us to 117.” More dead words. Quivering hands hid his mouth, half-trapping the sound inside. “They’re going to torture us. They’re going to kill us.”

  “What were you doing at—”

  “Stop!” Kara burst out. Becca’s hands jerked on the steering wheel; she steadied them just in time to keep from swerving into traffic. Kara lowered her voice. “Becca, stop. You already know.”

  But Peter answered anyway.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated. “You all would have died either way.”

  It was as good as a confession.

  For the first time, she allowed herself to think the words. Her voice sounded as flat as Peter’s as she spoke them aloud. “You came here to turn us in.”

  His silence was all the answer she needed.

  Becca followed one darkened street after another, taking turns at random, only caring that the roads took her away from Investigation 212. Away from what Peter had almost done.

  “Why?” she finally asked. Somehow she kept control over her voice.

  “You all would have died either way,” he repeated with a tiny quaver. “What difference does it make if I give you up to Internal now or in an interrogation room later? One way or the other, it’s going to be me. You know it is. If I prove my loyalty to Internal before they can arrest me, at least one of us will survive.”

  Who was this stranger willing to sacrifice Becca’s life—all their lives—to save his own? She brought her gaze up from the road to study his face. His empty eyes didn’t give her any answers.

  “The resistance can survive,” she said. “I can save them.” That was all that mattered. Not his selfishness. Not his betrayal. Once she made him believe it, once she made him understand, he would change his mind, and she could forget about what had almost happened her
e tonight. “I can save them—if you help me.”

  Peter shook his head. “It’s over. Maybe the others believed all that stuff Kara said, but I know how this is going to end.”

  “It’s not over. Not if you help us.” She lowered her voice. “I know what I’m asking you to do. What I’m asking you to give up. But I also know what the resistance means to you.”

  Another shake of his head was Peter’s only response.

  All she needed was to break through this haze of despair he had wrapped around himself. She needed to reach the real Peter underneath—the kid she had recruited, the starry-eyed idealist. If she could do that, she could get him to believe.

  “Do you remember the day I asked you to join the resistance?” she asked.

  He looked away and didn’t answer.

  “I told you the risks. I told you we’d never be able to save the world—that the most we could do was save a few people here and there. And I offered you the chance to walk away. Do you remember what you said?”

  No answer.

  “You said you’d prove me wrong someday. You promised me that on the day we brought down the regime for good, you’d buy me a drink and remind me of the day I told you it would never happen. No matter how many times I warned you not to expect too much, you just smiled and said you hoped I was ready for that drink.” She hadn’t realized until now how far away it all felt. How long had it been since the last time Peter had reminded her of his promise?

  She fell silent and waited. Trees flew past on either side of the road as Peter’s silence echoed back to her.

  “What about the time two years ago when we thought Internal had found out the truth about the support group? The others all wanted to run, but you weren’t even worried. You kept telling us to give it one more day. You and Meri got into that huge argument about it, remember? She threatened to kick you out of the resistance. But you were right. We made it.”

  Peter didn’t say anything.

  “You believe, Peter. Even when you shouldn’t. Even when things are at their worst.” Becca risked looking away from the road again to meet his eyes. “And now you need to believe in the resistance one more time.”

  “I was wrong back then. I was a stupid kid.” Finally, Peter’s voice joined hers. But not the real Peter. Not the Peter she knew; not the one she needed. He sounded like a hollow shell of himself. “I know better now.”

  “I know it looks hopeless right now. But you have more faith in the resistance than any of us. You—”

  “Don’t talk to me about what I believe.” At last, a hint of emotion crept into his voice. But not hope. Anger. “I stopped believing in the resistance the day the rest of you decided to go ahead with the liberation. The day you all agreed to send someone into 117 to be tortured and killed.”

  This time Becca was the one with nothing to say.

  The day the rest of you decided to go ahead with the liberation. Becca hadn’t thought about that argument in months—the giddy joy of the liberation itself, and then the devastation of the aftermath, had driven it from her thoughts. But now the meeting started to replay in her mind. Meri’s grief at the thought of sacrificing one of her own people; her carefully reasoned arguments in favor of what they were about to do. Alia and Sean’s impatience to get on with it already. And through it all, Peter’s insistence that they couldn’t do this, that this wasn’t what the resistance stood for, that nothing could be worth asking someone to give up her life for them.

  They never had managed to convince him.

  But the plan had worked, and Peter had celebrated along with the rest of them. Hadn’t he? She tried, but couldn’t pull up the memory of his face.

  In the wake of Internal’s response to the liberation, he had all but stopped talking in resistance meetings. He never smiled anymore. But the aftermath had hit everyone hard. And despite the danger, despite the fear, Peter’s idealism hadn’t wavered. He had—

  He—

  There was that time when—

  She couldn’t find a memory to complete the thought.

  But they were there. Somewhere. She remembered. She knew him.

  Her inner protests rang as hollow as Peter’s voice.

  She stared at the road ahead, but no longer saw it. She turned without knowing where the next street led. Without caring. It doesn’t matter. She didn’t know whether the voice in her mind belonged to Peter or herself.

  How had she missed this? How had she not seen?

  Her evaluation training had failed her again. First with Ryann, now with Peter, she had seen only what she wanted to see. She had spent the past year doing to Peter what the rest of the country did to her mom. What her mom had done to her for the past five years. She had looked right through him to the imagined figure she had propped up in his place. A role, a memory. An illusion.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice quiet.

  Peter shrugged. “It’s not like it matters now.”

  “You’re one of my people,” said Becca. “It matters.”

  “I can’t do it.” Peter’s voice was weak, but steady. “I can’t die for something I don’t believe in.” He looked down at his lap. “I’m sorry.”

  Becca had nothing left to say. No arguments he would listen to, no assurances he would believe. The time for all that had been a year ago.

  When she had made him get in the car with her, she hadn’t let herself think this far ahead. She hadn’t allowed herself to look beyond their conversation to what would come after. But now they had talked, and they had gotten nowhere, and she was left with a traitor beside her and a choice to make.

  And then she realized where the roads had taken her.

  Becca shot a quick glance toward the backseat, waiting—hoping—for Kara to protest. But she received only a nod of confirmation in return.

  Becca pulled over.

  Peter frowned in confusion. “Why are we…” His voice trailed off as he looked out the window. As he took in the stretch of empty road, the trees to either side. The curve up ahead that, if Becca followed it, would lead to 117.

  “Wait,” said Peter. “This is…” His frown deepened. “What are we doing here?”

  She didn’t know whether she was talking to him or to herself as she spoke. “I have to save the resistance.” Her voice sounded like a stranger’s.

  “What are you—” Peter stopped midsentence, mouth still open, as understanding hit him. Becca watched it happen. Watched him flinch as if from a physical blow. Watched as terror animated his once-empty face.

  “I have to protect them. I promised them I would protect them.” Something salty touched her tongue. She wiped her eyes; her hands came away wet.

  She never cried in front of the resistance.

  But it didn’t matter now. It didn’t matter.

  “Please.” Panic brought life back into Peter’s voice. “I’ll do what you want, I’ll… I’ll do anything. Just let me go.”

  It wasn’t Becca who reached across Peter’s lap to the glove compartment. It wasn’t Becca who pulled out the gun. It was the resistance leader. It was her mother.

  Peter’s gaze followed the gun as if magnetized. He made a noise low in his throat.

  It wasn’t her.

  With a panicked whimper, Peter lunged for the door.

  The weight of the gun seemed to glue Becca’s hand to her lap. An inch at a time, a second at a time, she raised it.

  I will fix this.

  A cry of fear left Peter’s lips as he wrestled with his seatbelt. The clasp came loose, and Peter launched himself from the car, slamming the door behind him.

  I will protect the resistance.

  Becca stumbled from the car after him. The gun weighed her down like an anchor. Like a broken promise. I won’t kill you. An hour ago, she had meant it. An hour ago, she hadn’t known what Peter would do if she let him go. How thoroughly he would betray them.

  Ahead of her, Peter ran for the woods, his strides panicked and clumsy. His foot caught on a root, and he
tumbled to the ground. With a strangled cry, he righted himself, and began limping toward the place where the trees looked thickest.

  I promised them I would protect them.

  “Peter,” she called.

  She hadn’t expected him to stop. But he did. He spun to face her, darting his terrified eyes from her face to the gun and back again.

  She wanted to say something that would make him understand. Something that would make this all okay.

  She wanted to say goodbye.

  I promised you I would—

  She pulled the trigger.

  Even out in the open, the sound was impossibly loud. Her ears rang as Peter crumpled.

  The last of her hearing faded into a high-pitched buzz as her vision went gray.

  She didn’t know how long she hung in that empty haze before a sound sliced through her solitude. A voice. “Becca.”

  Slowly, a piece at a time, the world came back into focus. The forest ahead of her. The wind, freezing against her skin. The snow at her feet, stained with blood.

  And Peter.

  “Come on, Becca. We have to take care of this. Before someone sees us here.”

  She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.

  She had told him she would protect him.

  “Becca. You can’t help the resistance if you don’t do this.”

  I told him I would protect him.

  But she had made the rest of the resistance the same promise.

  She turned to Kara. Nodded. When she answered, it wasn’t her who spoke. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Becca jabbed the tip of the shovel into the dirt. Peter’s body lay beside her, silent and accusing. She turned her head away as she forced the shovel deeper. Just get it done.

  “Becca?”

  One small shovelful of earth, hard and clumpy from the cold. I did what I had to do. Another. I had to protect them. She leaned into the shovel, ignoring the tightness in her muscles. Don’t look down. Don’t look at him. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.