The Torturer's Daughter

by Zoe Cannon

  Heather cut her off. “I don’t have to listen to this.” She turned around and started for the door.

  Becca followed her. “This isn’t some kind of trick,” she said, remembering Heather’s earlier fear that she was testing her. “I’m just telling you what I saw. I didn’t want it to be true, but it is.”

  Heather didn’t stop. She was almost to the front door. Another couple of steps, and Becca would lose her.

  “There’s more.” Becca started talking faster. “A couple of days ago, I asked my mom about what the note said. I told her I heard it from Anna—she knows what Anna is like, so I figured it was safe. The next day, Anna was gone.”

  Heather paused with her hand on the doorknob.

  “There’s something wrong here,” said Becca. “And you’re the only one I can talk to. If I told anyone else about this, they’d report me.”

  Heather turned around.

  “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing,” she snapped, “but I don’t want any part of it. First the thing with my parents. Now this dissident stuff.” She blinked away what might have been tears. “You were my best friend. The only person I could really talk to. Now I don’t even know you.”

  She opened the door.

  Becca had to get her to listen. “I’m not playing a game with you! I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your parents. But this is real.”

  “I can’t talk to you right now. I just… I can’t.” Heather disappeared inside the house.

  Becca rang the doorbell. Nobody answered.

  She couldn’t go to anybody else with this.

  She rang the doorbell again. Somewhere deep within the house, a door slammed.

  Becca fought back her growing panic as she began the long walk home.

  * * *

  Becca and her mom used to be able to talk for hours. Now Becca couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  She glanced up from her plate of chicken. Her mom looked the same. She sounded the same. Like the mother Becca had known all her life. But she wasn’t. The person in front of her spent her days forcing dissidents to say whatever she needed them to say, spoon-feeding them the stories Public Relations wanted. Letting them die for things they hadn’t done. The mom she knew would never do something like that.

  So who was this woman in front of her?

  Becca dropped her gaze again.

  “Things at work are finally easing up,” said her mom. “At least for now. I might even be able to make it home for dinner a couple of times next week, too.”

  Great. Becca forced a smile.

  No matter what those people had done, they were dissidents. Otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten arrested in the first place. Maybe it didn’t matter what they confessed to, as long as they got what they deserved.

  Becca’s stomach twisted.

  Her mom served herself some salad. “How was school today?”

  Hardly anyone called me a dissident today, but now my best friend isn’t speaking to me.

  Becca poked at her chicken. As much as she wanted to get done with dinner as quickly as possible, she didn’t think she could force down a single bite. Her stomach hurt more with every word her mom spoke.

  “You don’t seem like yourself today.” Her mom peered at her more closely. “You’re not still thinking about what that friend of yours said, are you?”

  Becca flinched at the mention of Anna.

  Maybe she should just ask her mom about what she had found on the computer. It might not be as bad as it looked.

  Then common sense caught up with her. Asking her mom would mean admitting she had gone snooping through her mom’s files. Besides, even if her mom told her the truth, what could she say that would get it to make sense?

  The only table small enough to fit in this kitchen wasn’t quite big enough to hold their plates plus the serving dishes. Becca’s plate clanked against the bowl of salad as she cut herself a bite of chicken. She shoved the bite into her mouth to stall for time. It tasted like sand.

  Her mom frowned in concern. “You’re not, are you? I thought you knew better than to take something like that seriously.”

  If Becca denied it, would her mom believe her? Her mom could tell when she was lying.

  But what was the alternative? Admitting what she had found?

  Becca shook her head. “I know better than that,” she agreed. “I’m not a dissident.” Her hand was starting to ache. She looked down and saw that she was gripping her fork so tightly the edges were digging into her palm. She let go. The fork hit her plate with a clang that made both of them jump.

  “Rumors like that are dangerous,” her mom lectured as she cut her chicken. “They may seem harmless, but they can easily allow dissident ideology to gain a foothold in society.”

  “I told you, I don’t even believe it. It’s just something—” She couldn’t say Anna’s name. “Something a friend said.”

  “I don’t want you spreading rumors like that.” Her mom put her fork down. “Even if you know better than to believe it, somebody you talk to might not, and you will have helped the dissidents undermine faith in our government.”

  Of course you don’t want me saying anything about it. It’s all true. “I wouldn’t do something like that.” She forced down another bite of chicken.

  Her mom studied her. “If that’s not what’s bothering you, then what is?” She held up a hand before Becca could speak. “Don’t tell me everything is fine.”

  Becca had blamed her mood on the situation with Heather before, and it hadn’t worked. What could she say that her mom might believe?

  Her mom pushed her plate aside, nearly knocking the platter of chicken to the floor in the process. “We need to do something about this. We barely feel like a family anymore. I never get a chance to talk to you, and when I do, you’re keeping secrets.”

  Her mom had lied to her face, and she had the nerve to complain when Becca didn’t tell her everything?

  Becca pushed away her own plate. She didn’t want dinner anyway. “I’m not keeping secrets.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

  “Maybe because the last time I told you something, one of my friends disappeared.” Too late, Becca clamped her mouth shut.

  The silence stretched between them until Becca could hear her own heartbeat.

  New lines appeared on her mom’s face. “You need to think about what you’re saying, Becca. Anna was a dissident. Her parents were dissidents. The information you gave me helped Internal figure that out. If you regret what you told me, it means you regret helping Internal find three dissidents.”

  She had to tell her mom the truth.

  She could hear Jake’s voice in her mind, talking about false accusations. Did this qualify? But Anna’s arrest was her fault. She had to make it right.

  If it wasn’t already too late.

  “I have to tell you something.” Her mouth was dry. “The thing I asked you about the other day… I didn’t actually hear it from Anna. Heather and I were looking through her parents’ things, and—”

  Her mom shook her head. “I know this is hard for you. First Heather’s parents, now Anna. But you did the right thing when you told me what she said. Lying about it now won’t help anything.”

  “But—”

  “You need to stop this right now.” Her mom’s voice was sharp. “Internal found enough evidence to suggest that Anna and her parents were dissidents. Lying to protect a dissident qualifies as dissident activity.” She held up a hand as Becca opened her mouth to speak. “I don’t want to hear another word about this. Do you understand?”

  The doorbell rang.

  Becca jumped up from her chair. “I’ll get it.” She raced to the door and yanked it open.

  Jake stood in front of her.

  He smiled. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

  Right. Their date. She smiled weakly. “Of course not.”

  She looked down at the jeans and wrinkled shirt she ha
d worn to school. Heather would never approve of her wearing something like this on a date, but Heather’s opinion didn’t matter much to Becca right now. Besides, it wasn’t like she cared about impressing Jake.

  “Who is it?” her mom called.

  At least going out with Jake would get her away from her mom. Becca had never thought she’d see an upside to going out with a possible Internal spy who might be trying to get her best friend arrested. “I have to go, Mom,” she called back. “I have a date.”

  Her mom strode into the living room behind her. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

  Jake backed out into the hallway, giving Becca room to get out the door. “Are you ready to go?”

  It wasn’t too late to make an excuse and stay home.

  And go right back to the kitchen to finish her conversation with her mom.

  She gave Jake what she hoped was a convincing smile. “Ready when you are.”

  * * *

  “So,” said Jake over the low hum of conversation that filled Lucky’s Pizza, “what will it take to get you to believe that I’m not spying for Internal?”

  Becca tensed before realizing that he had meant it as a teasing question, not a challenge. She forced herself to relax. She didn’t exactly have much practice with this kind of thing.

  “You could start by telling me about yourself.” She kept her voice light.

  The smell of pizza made her mouth water. Her stomach had stopped hurting the second she had left the apartment. Jake might be trying to get her to trust him so she would say something incriminating about Heather, but that was nothing compared to what her mom had done.

  And being here with Jake, trying to figure out his true intentions, would keep her too distracted to think about Anna.

  Almost every table at Lucky’s was full, but Becca only saw a couple of people she knew, and none of them were looking her way. Good. She didn’t need anybody to see her out with Jake. She didn’t know how they would twist this date into further proof that she was a dissident, but she knew they could find a way.

  Wait. The woman at the next table over—was she watching them? Becca tensed and angled her body slightly to get a better view. The woman’s eyes flicked from their table to the one next to theirs, to one across the room, scanning each one for a few seconds before moving on to the next. She paused for a few seconds to take a halfhearted nibble of her pizza, then began again. Just a Monitor, then. Becca could see the glint of the pin now. Monitors were everywhere; unlike their counterparts in high school, adult Monitors got paid a small amount to watch their fellow citizens, so there was never a shortage of volunteers.

  The woman’s eyes met Becca’s. Becca quickly looked away.

  She had never been afraid of Monitors before.

  “There’s not much to tell,” Jake was saying. “Grew up here, moved away, came back with my dad after my parents split up. Suffering through school until I graduate.” He shrugged. “I’ve lived a boring life.”

  “That’s just what a spy would say.” She matched his teasing tone before she realized she was doing it.

  “I could always make something up,” he offered. “Would it sound more believable if I told you I was raised by wolves for the first ten years of my life?”

  “Maybe. It would depend on how convincingly you could howl.” An unexpected smile creased the corners of her mouth. Even with her suspicions, something about him put her at ease. The rhythm of his voice made her mind stop racing.

  Of course, if he really was a spy, he was probably doing that on purpose. Her smile dropped away.

  The waitress approached, pen poised above her pad. Becca and Jake looked at each other. “Pepperoni?” asked Jake.

  Becca nodded. “And… anchovies.” Why make this easy for him?

  Jake raised his eyebrows. “All right. Pepperoni and anchovies.” He passed their order along to the waitress. When she was gone, he tilted his head at Becca. “You don’t strike me as the anchovy type.”

  “I’m full of surprises.” She smiled again without meaning to.

  She wished he would quit talking to her like that, and quit looking at her like he was actually interested in her. This would be a lot easier if he’d start asking her questions about Heather instead. That way she’d know for sure.

  But then he’d lose his chance to catch her off-guard, and she wouldn’t tell him anything. If he wanted to find out whether Heather was a dissident, it made a lot more sense for him to do what he was doing. Make her let her guard down. Get her to like him.

  Jake rested his arms on the table and leaned closer. “So what about you? If having a boring life means I’m a spy, what makes your life so interesting?”

  She bit her lip and frowned in an exaggerated look of concern. “Okay. You caught me. My life is as boring as yours. Does that make me a spy too?”

  He laughed, and she smiled back. She tried to remind herself that she was only pretending to have a good time.

  As they talked, Becca kept waiting for him to segue into a question about Heather. He didn’t. In fact, Heather’s name didn’t come up once in the conversation. They talked about school, and about the town where Jake had lived for the past couple of years, and about which of them had seen the most bad movies in their lifetime. Their pizza arrived, and they paused to scarf down two slices each—the anchovies actually weren’t so bad, and if they bothered Jake, he didn’t show it—and then they talked some more while munching on what was left.

  Sometimes Becca almost forgot the real reason Jake had brought her here.

  And when Jake still didn’t ask about Heather, she started to wonder if maybe he had been telling the truth after all.

  Did she have any concrete reason to think he was a spy? She thought about it, but couldn’t come up with anything.

  And then there was what he had done when Laine had gone after Heather. Maybe he hadn’t done it to make Becca less suspicious. Maybe he really had just wanted to help.

  As Becca finished the final piece of pizza, Jake glanced down at his watch.

  “I guess I really am that boring,” said Becca lightly. “I must be working for Internal.”

  “What?” Jake frowned. “Oh! No, it’s just my dad. He doesn’t like me to be gone for too long.”

  “The overprotective type?” Becca’s mom used to get like that, before she started spending too much time at work to be able to keep track of Becca’s whereabouts. Now, out of necessity, she pretty much trusted Becca to keep herself out of trouble.

  At least, she had until she had decided Heather was a dissident.

  “It’s not like that.” Jake’s whole demeanor had changed. He seemed to shrink, like he was collapsing in on himself. “When my mom died, he took it really hard. He’s still having a tough time. I stay home as much as I can, to make things easier for him.”

  Becca opened her mouth to say something sympathetic—and stopped.

  Something was wrong with what he had said.

  It took her a few seconds to place it. “You said your parents split up.”

  Seconds stretched by. Jake didn’t answer.

  “You know what? Don’t bother coming up with an explanation. I don’t care.” Becca stood up. She pushed her chair in so hard it squealed against the floor.

  So he had lied to her. No big surprise there. It wasn’t as if she had ever really thought he was interested in her as anything other than a source of information. Why did it make her so angry to find confirmation of what she had already known?

  Jake started to say something. Becca interrupted. “I don’t want to hear it. Just take me home.”

  * * *

  When Becca came in, her mom was waiting for her. She set aside the papers in her lap as Becca closed the door behind her. “You’re back early.”

  At the sound of her mom’s voice, Becca’s nausea returned. She wished she hadn’t eaten all that pizza. “I’m going to bed.”

  Her mom’s eyebrows rose. “It’s not even nine o’clock.” She patted the spot
next to her. “How about sitting with me for a while and telling me about this guy?”

  “Not now, all right? I’m really tired.”

  “If we’re going to fix whatever went wrong between us, we have to start somewhere.”

  Becca’s stomach churned. “I don’t want to talk, okay? I just want to go to bed.”

  “Your best friend is a dissident. You go on dates without telling me. Something is bothering you, but you won’t talk about it.” Becca’s mom stood up. “Something is wrong here. You know it as well as I do.”

  Like any of that meant anything compared to what Becca’s mom had done. Something was wrong here, but it wasn’t Becca’s fault. “Maybe you can tell me something.” Her voice came out harsher than she had intended. “What exactly did Heather do besides having the wrong parents?”

  Her mom sighed. “I thought we were done discussing this. Dissident parents often pass their ideology on to their children. I could show you a hundred different examples—and in most of those cases, the children look completely innocent.” She paused. “Is that what this is about? Heather?”

  No, it’s about how you lied to me. How you’ve been lying to everyone by giving dissidents manufactured crimes to confess to on TV before their executions. “So if you work for Internal, that must mean I work for Internal too, right?”

  “It’s not as simple as that, and you know it.”

  “If she’s so obviously a dissident, why not arrest her? Why let her go and then send spies to talk to her friends?” Becca’s voice rose. “Have any of you people actually talked to her? She’s the furthest thing there is from a dissident. The idea of her parents being dissidents is tearing her apart.” Despite the problems they were having, Becca was more certain than ever that Heather wasn’t a dissident. Heather would never have reacted the way she had to Becca’s revelation otherwise.

  Heather had rejected the information. Becca had tried to get her to believe it. Which of them had acted like a dissident?

  Only a dissident would think any of that could be true.