No. No. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
Becca moved forward, toward Jake; she didn’t know what she could do, but she had to do something. Jake held up a hand to stop her. “You stay where you are.”
“This won’t help protect your father.” Becca’s mom sounded like they were chatting at the kitchen table or something. Like she didn’t have a gun to her head. “If you kill me, Internal will assume he was involved. They’ll arrest you both.”
Becca crept closer. One tiny step after the other. Jake didn’t look at her; his eyes were fixed on her mom.
“You’ll kill us anyway. Just like you killed Mom and Sarra.” He dug the barrel of the gun deeper into her skin. “I won’t let you hurt anyone again.”
Becca inched forward. She and Jake were almost close enough to touch.
Jake’s hand shook. “You won’t hurt anyone again,” he repeated.
Her mom’s breaths were slow and even. “You don’t want to do this.” If it had been anyone but her mom, Becca wouldn’t have been able to read her well enough to hear the quiver of fear that broke through the mask of calm.
“I have to.” Jake drew a shuddering breath. “I have to do this. I have to do this.” He repeated it to himself like a mantra.
Another step forward. Close enough to kiss.
Jake still didn’t see her.
She jerked her arm out, quick as a striking snake, and wrenched the gun from his hand.
It took her a second to understand that it had worked, that she was holding the gun, that her mom was still breathing.
The gun felt cold and foreign in her hands. She wanted to drop it to the floor. She forced herself not to let go.
Her mom lunged for Jake. Jake shoved her away before she could touch him. Her head hit the wall with a sickening crack, and she crumpled to the floor.
Had he killed her? No. No, he couldn’t have killed her so easily.
Jake’s hand was still shaking as he held it out to her. “Give me the gun, Becca. Let me finish this.”
“I’m not going to let you kill her.” She was surprised by how steady her voice sounded.
There. Her mom’s chest moved as she took a breath. The movement was slight, but enough for Becca to see. She was alive.
In that moment of distraction, Jake twisted the gun out of her hands. Before she could even think about trying to stop him, it was gone.
He leveled the gun at her mom.
“I have to do this,” he whispered.
There was only one thing Becca could do. Only one choice she could make.
She took a step forward, placing herself between Jake and her mother. She turned to face him.
She tried to ignore the gun pointed straight at her. Tried to ignore the pounding in her chest.
“I won’t let you kill her,” she repeated.
Jake’s hand wavered, but he didn’t lower the gun.
She met his eyes. She didn’t look away.
She hoped he couldn’t hear how fast her heart was beating.
“Leave her. Take your dad and disappear. It’s the only way you’ll really be able to protect him.”
Jake took a shuddering breath. His hand steadied.
The bang made the walls shudder. For one confused second Becca wondered why she hadn’t felt the shot. Jake startled; the gun slipped from his fingers, and Becca realized it hadn’t gone off after all. The door had swung open so hard it had slammed into the wall.
They were here. Not too late after all. They were finally here.
Two Enforcers rushed into the room. One tackled Jake to the floor while the other hurried to Becca’s mom’s side.
They could have been the same Enforcers who had come for Becca a few days ago. Becca couldn’t tell. The uniform erased everything else about them.
Becca’s mom was sitting upright, one hand holding the back of her head. “I’m all right,” she assured the Enforcer who was looking her over for signs of injury. “He didn’t have a chance to hurt me. My daughter saved me.”
The agent turned to Becca. “You’re the one who made the call?” His helmet muffled his words.
She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
He held out his hand for the gun. She gave it to him.
“I hope you understand what you did today,” he told her. “Not only have you helped us catch this dissident, you’ve saved your mother’s life.”
The other Enforcer hauled Jake to his feet. Jake didn’t try to fight. He stared into Becca’s eyes, the same searching look he had given her when she had first seen him across the cafeteria. She forced herself not to look away. She had to face what she had done.
If he hadn’t come here this morning… if he had just stayed at the playground, or left town… they never would have found him. She hadn’t told them where he was hiding.
But she had known he would come.
The agent shoved Jake toward the door. “Move, dissident.”
Jake didn’t deserve what they would do to him.
But if she hadn’t called Internal, Jake would have killed her mom. Killed her for what she was, just like Becca would have died in 117 for what she was. Would have, if her mom hadn’t saved her.
Jake had been right. Becca knew what her mom was.
But she also knew who she was.
If Becca could have taken care of this any other way, she would have. But she couldn’t stand back and let Jake kill her mom. She had to become somebody she could live with. And she couldn’t live with herself if she let people die for what they were—dissident, torturer, as though nothing else about them mattered. She couldn’t live with herself if she became her mother.
Becca wanted to tell Jake all of this. She wanted to beg him to forgive her, or at least to understand.
But she couldn’t say anything without revealing herself as a dissident.
Jake kept his eyes locked on hers as the Enforcers led him out of the apartment, until the doors closed behind them and he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
It hadn’t been easy for Becca to get her mom to let her leave the apartment. Now, as she stood with one hand on the rusted slide, she wished her mom hadn’t given in.
She took a slow breath. Then another.
She was stalling.
She forced her legs to move. They carried her mechanically through the weeds and into the playhouse.
Jake’s dad still hadn’t moved. But as Becca walked in, all his muscles tightened; he squeezed himself further into the corner, eyes frantic.
Becca remembered the bruises on Jake’s neck that night. What if Jake’s dad thought she was from Internal? All her instincts told her to run, but she stayed where she was. “It’s okay. I’m here to help you.” She kept her voice as soft as possible.
He relaxed a little, but he still had that trapped look in his eyes. “You. It’s you.” She couldn’t tell whether his tone was relief or fear.
She had no way of knowing who he was seeing when he looked at her. But it didn’t matter. “It’s me.” She sank down to the floor, slowly, carefully, until she was sitting next to him.
The smell of this place made her forget, for a second, that any time had passed since her fight with Jake last night. She could almost see him standing in front of her, arguing with her about why her mom needed to die. A tear escaped her eye, burning the raw skin underneath; she wiped it away. More tears threatened behind her eyes. She hadn’t thought she had any left in her.
“Do you know where Jake is?” he asked, like his life depended on the answer.
Becca’s breath caught. It took her a moment to respond. “You don’t need to worry about him right now. There’s just one thing you have to do. But it’s really important that you do this, okay?”