by Zoe Cannon
“I’m sorry for doubting you.” Her mom’s death grip on the steering wheel loosened a tiny bit. “But I had to hear it from you.”
Her mom hadn’t seen through her lie. She was safe.
Alive. Safe. Free.
She still couldn’t stop shivering.
“I did everything I could to get you out of there,” said her mom as they got closer to the apartment. “I’m sorry it took as long as it did.”
Looking more closely at her mom’s face, Becca saw the dark circles under her eyes, and the new wrinkles that made her look as if she had aged ten years overnight. “Are you r-really going to… to b-be investigated?”
“Maybe,” said her mom. “But they won’t find anything. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I got you out of there.”
Why was she worried about her mom’s safety, anyway? Had she forgotten what her mom had done? What she did every day?
But she had saved Becca’s life. And even if she hadn’t, she was still her mom. Becca imagined the Enforcers handcuffing her mom instead of her, pushing her mom ahead of them out the door while Becca stood by helplessly. No matter what she thought of her mom, Becca would have been the one screaming without words, the one searching for any possible way to save her.
“Th-thank you,” said Becca. “For… for saving me. And p-putting yourself in danger to do it.”
Her mom pulled into the parking lot of their building. “There was no other option. I couldn’t leave you there.”
Even if I really did help Jake?
She didn’t ask. She thought she knew the answer, anyway. Somewhere deep down, her mom had to at least suspect what Becca was. What she had done.
And she had saved her anyway.
“Is there any chance they’ll… they’ll arrest me again?” Becca asked.
The car slid into their parking space. “No. They had no meaningful evidence against you. I’ve made that clear to them.” Her mom yanked the key out of the ignition and swung her car door open.
Not that it matters whether they have evidence or not. Becca kept her mouth shut as she fumbled with her seatbelt. She wasn’t quite as dizzy anymore. Whatever her mom had given her had helped.
Her mom kept talking as she climbed out of the car. “All they had was that phone call and what that dissident friend of yours said.”
Becca froze halfway through taking off her seatbelt. “Heather? Heather turned me in?”
“This is how far she’s willing to go to keep suspicion off herself. I did warn you about her. She isn’t someone you want to associate with.”
Heather had turned her in.
It’s a lie. Just another lie.
But Becca didn’t know who was lying—her mother, or Heather.
* * *
For once, Becca’s mom was home when Becca woke up. Becca got ready for school as her mom hovered; she choked down the toast her mom made for her; she assured her that she was okay, of course she was okay. They left the apartment together, Becca’s forced smile growing more and more strained under her mom’s watchful eyes.
Becca stood at the front of the parking lot, where the bus would pick her up. She and Heather used to wait for the bus here together; now, with Heather gone, Becca was the only high-school student in the building who took the bus to school. Her mom passed her in her car, on her way to 117 to do to other dissidents what she had saved Becca from. Becca watched the car until it was out of sight. She waited an extra couple of minutes just to be safe. Then she started out of the parking lot, toward the playground.
She hadn’t been able to sneak away to see Jake yesterday after she got home; her mom had kept too close an eye on her. He and his dad had been waiting for three days now. Did they think she wasn’t coming back? Did they think it was only a matter of time now before Internal came for them?
The food she had left them had probably run out by now. She hadn’t been able to grab anything this morning, but she could come back with food later. Right now the most important thing was to let them know that she was alive, and that she hadn’t forgotten them.
The apartment building receded into the distance behind her. Somebody might have watched her leave, and wondered why she was going to the playground so often all of a sudden and why she was skipping school to do it. She glanced back at the building, squinting to see if she could spot any faces in the windows. She was too far away to tell, but she thought she might have seen one of the curtains move.
When she had warned Jake, she hadn’t thought about anything but keeping him safe from the immediate threat. She should have thought further, should have understood that the threat didn’t end there. Internal was looking for him, and eventually they would find him. She didn’t just need to bring food; she needed to warn him that he had to run. Leave town with his dad as soon as possible. They would still be in danger, but it would give them the best chance of survival.
She would never see him again. But he would be safe from Internal. Safer, at least.
She tried not to think about how alone she would be once he was gone.
She heard something. Footsteps? She spun around, but saw only the parking lot where she was supposed to be waiting for the bus.
It was probably for the best that she wasn’t going to school; everybody had to know about her arrest by now. And this time Jake wouldn’t be around to protect her.
And then there was Heather. How was she supposed to face Heather?
When Becca didn’t show up at school, would the Monitors report it? Would Internal assume she was guilty after all, and that she had run before they could discover their mistake?
She slowed down as she got closer to the playground. She looked behind her again. Still nobody there. Why did she feel like someone was watching her?
If anyone saw her, if anyone found out what she was doing, she would end up right back in 117 again, and this time her mom wouldn’t be able to save her.
She stopped.
Jake needs me.
What would have happened to her in 117 if her mom hadn’t come through that door?
I almost died in there.
She tried to force her legs forward. She had promised herself that no one else would die because of her. What if Jake and his dad died because she had abandoned them?
Her feet were glued to the pavement.
I almost died.
Anyone passing by would be able to see her standing by the side of the road like this. Anyone would be able to guess what she was doing. Helping a dissident. Dissident activity.
A car roared up behind her; her legs nearly buckled. The car sped past and disappeared into the distance. Not Enforcement after all. She gulped in a lungful of air. Her hands shook.
Jake was waiting for her. How long before Internal found him?
With one last look toward the playground, Becca turned and bolted back to the parking lot.
Coward.
Chapter Seventeen
Becca sleepwalked through her classes. She didn’t hear a single word her teachers said; she only heard the word that followed her through the halls the way it used to circle through her mind. Dissident.
Most people kept their distance. A few approached her, hanging back as if she might bite. They asked if it was true that Internal had arrested her, that she had helped a dissident escape from 117, that she had been seconds from execution before her mom had forced Internal to let her go. The threats hadn’t started yet, but it was only a matter of time.
As she entered the cafeteria, the roar of conversation quieted. All through the room, heads pointed in her direction. The word echoed off the walls like her footsteps had echoed through the underground levels. Dissident, dissident, dissident…
Becca backed up. She would spend lunch somewhere else. Anywhere else. She hadn’t brought anything to eat, but right now just the smell of the cafeteria’s stale pizza was more than her stomach could handle.
At the left-hand table near the door, where the political kids sat, somebody stood up. Be
cca took another step back; maybe if she left the cafeteria fast enough her would-be tormentor wouldn’t follow.
Wait. That was Heather.
One more reason to get out of there. Becca turned around and grabbed blindly for the door.
Heather reached her just as her fingers closed around the door handle. She threw her arms around Becca like a snake trying to strangle its prey. No… like the way her mom had held her in 117. This wasn’t an attack; it was a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Heather whispered.
Becca pulled away. She held Heather at arm’s length, studied her face for signs that her mom had been telling the truth. Heather’s relief seemed real… but how could she tell? How could she tell about anyone anymore?
“Is it true? Did you turn me in?” She didn’t care who heard her ask. If people thought Heather had reported her, it would just make Heather look better, and Becca should want that, right? She had tried so hard to help Heather; why stop now?
“No! Why would you even think that?” Heather’s denial came a second too late; she looked away as she said it.
“You did. You turned me in.” She said it so softly she almost couldn’t hear herself. She didn’t want to hear herself say it. Didn’t want to face the truth.
“I didn’t do it,” said Heather, pleading now.
“Stop lying to me!” Now her voice was too loud, almost yelling. Nearby conversations quieted again as people listened. She tried to lower her voice. “Why can’t you just tell me the truth?”
“Just let me explain, okay? Please.” Heather grabbed Becca’s hand and tugged her toward the door. Becca let Heather lead her out into the hall. Even listening to Heather explain her betrayal sounded like a better prospect than staying in the cafeteria with all those hostile eyes on her.
Once the door had closed behind them, Heather let go of Becca’s hand. Becca thought about running as fast as she could down the empty hallway, maybe even out the front entrance and all the way home, and leaving Heather here alone with her explanation unspoken. But a part of her wanted to hear it, to know how Heather could have turned on her so thoroughly. She matched Heather’s pace as they wandered.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” said Heather quietly.
Becca didn’t look at Heather; she looked everywhere else so she wouldn’t have to. The lights seemed too bright, the halls too wide, after the dim narrow maze of the underground levels. “What did you do, call them by accident?”
“They came to my house. Two of them. It was a couple of days after I… you know. After I reported Jake.” She cringed away from Becca a little as she said it.
Becca didn’t respond.
“They thought I had warned Jake and his dad. They said I was doing what my parents had done—trying to get Internal to trust me while I secretly worked against them. They said that’s why I joined the Monitors, and why I turned Jake in.”
“So you told them I must have warned him.” Heather had offered Becca up as a sacrifice, as though their years of friendship meant nothing. Coward. Becca wanted to throw the word in her face.
Was Becca any better? She had abandoned Jake and his dad.
“I didn’t understand what I had done until it was too late.” Heather’s steps slowed. “I tried to tell you, after. You have to believe me.”
All those unanswered phone calls. Maybe Heather really had tried to warn her.
And what if Becca had died in there? Would Heather’s last-minute change of heart have mattered then?
Heather stopped; so did Becca. Heather didn’t say anything else. She looked at Becca, waiting.
Becca knew what Heather wanted. She wanted Becca to forgive her, to say she understood. To say it was okay that she had almost died because her best friend had only cared about saving herself.
She couldn’t give Heather what she wanted. But she couldn’t walk away, either. Hadn’t she almost made the same decision as Heather? Hadn’t she at least considered it, sitting in that room in 117?
And what about now? What about Jake, hiding in the playhouse, waiting for her?
Coward.
She didn’t know anymore whether she meant Heather or herself.
Heather is the reason Jake is there in the first place, Becca reminded herself. If she hadn’t turned him in, he’d be here at school right now.
That reminder made the situation simpler. Maybe Becca had been tempted to sacrifice Jake after her arrest, but she would never have coldly handed him over to Internal the way Heather had. Heather wasn’t just a coward; she had become something worse.
She turned the thought around in her head, let it drive out all the others, until it tipped the balance and allowed her to walk down the hall alone, leaving Heather behind.
* * *
Becca tossed her backpack onto the living room floor. She was about to head to her bedroom when she heard a soft thump from the kitchen. She stopped moving, held her suddenly-quivering body in place with one foot raised mid-step. As she listened, it happened again. The sound of a drawer closing, then footsteps. Someone was here. Internal.
They hadn’t see her yet, but they must have heard the door open and close. Could she make it out of the apartment before they caught up with her? But even if she did, they would come after her, and she couldn’t outrun—
Her mom stepped out of the kitchen.
Becca let her foot drop to the floor, let the air hiss out of her lungs. “It’s you.”
“I came home early. I wanted to make sure you were all right.” Her mom frowned as she scrutinized Becca. “What happened?”
“Nothing. I thought you were Internal.” Becca’s legs threatened to give out as her adrenaline abruptly receded. She rested her back against the door, trying to look casual, like it was no big deal. “How did you manage to leave work so early? It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“Someone else can handle my dissidents today. Or they can sit in their cells a little longer. Being here for you is more important.”
Becca wished her mom had stayed at work until after midnight again instead. Having her around wasn’t going to help anything. Not when every time Becca looked at her she thought about Jake’s mom and Heather’s parents and Anna and everything her job meant. Not when every second that went by was another opportunity for her mom to discover that Becca wasn’t innocent after all.
Except that seeing her mom in front of her, knowing she was here, did make it a little easier for Becca to breathe. Why did her mom’s presence still comfort her, even now that Becca knew what she was?
Every time she talked to her mom lately, she ended up seeing double. The torturer. Her mother. One and the same, and yet how could they be?
“You never got a chance to answer my question,” said Becca.
“What question?” Her mom stepped closer. Becca didn’t know whether she wanted to back up against the door as far as she could or rush into her mom’s arms and tell her all about her miserable day.
“How you… do what you do.”
Her mom was silent for a moment. Was she remembering the same thing as Becca? Becca asking the question, then the sound of footsteps, and then…
Her mom spoke, chasing the memory from Becca’s mind. “I do what I do because I have to.”
Becca shook her head. “That’s not true. You didn’t have to get a job in Processing. You didn’t have to get a job with Internal at all. You chose this—and every morning you choose to stay there for another day. So how do you do it? How do you keep going back?” She couldn’t find the right words to ask what she really wanted to know—how her mom could go back there every day and still be the mother Becca had grown up with.
“A lot of people don’t stay,” said her mom. “They last a few months, or a year, and then they transfer someplace else. Surveillance, maybe, or Investigation… sometimes they leave Internal altogether.” She paused. “I admit I’ve had moments when the idea seemed very tempting. Processing is… not an easy place to work. But what would happen if everyb
ody walked away? Without Processing, there would be no point to Surveillance or Investigation or any of the rest. So I stand by what I said—I do it because I have to.”
“That’s why you stay,” said Becca. “But how do you do it? You’re not…” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence, didn’t know how to put her thoughts into words.
“I choose to,” her mom answered. “It’s that simple.”
“You could say that about anything. You could say that if you quit tomorrow to become a clown.” Her mom’s answer was too easy, and explained too little. It didn’t give Becca what she was looking for.
Her mom’s face darkened. “Do you think I take this choice that lightly? Do you think it matters that little to me? If that were the case, I would have left Processing a long time ago.” She wrapped her arms around her chest. “I lost your father because I wouldn’t leave Processing. And I’ve given up more than my marriage. People know how important Processing is, and they’re always quick to tell me how much they admire what I’ve done for 117 and for Internal… but they never want to get too close. Have you ever wondered why you’re the closest friend I have?” She drew in a shaky breath. “And every day when I look at the dissidents in those cells, I have to remind myself all over again what they are, so that I can do what needs to be done.”
In all their conversations, over all these years, her mom had never hinted at any of this.
“But I stay. I stay because I will not be someone who abandons my principles as soon as they become inconvenient. I will not be someone who says that certain things have to be done… as long as somebody else does them.” Her mom crossed the remaining distance to Becca and took Becca’s face in her hands. “This is the most important thing I can teach you. Living by your principles will always be the harder path. But you have to do it anyway. You have to do what’s right no matter how hard it gets, or one day you’ll find out you’ve become somebody you can’t live with.”
A chill spread through Becca’s body. A horrible recognition that drove all her thoughts about her mom’s job out of her mind.