The Torturer's Daughter

they would have arrested her along with her parents. They didn’t. And Internal doesn’t appreciate people questioning their decisions. Unless you want to be reported for making false accusations, don’t come near her again.” His gaze traveled from person to person. “Any of you.”

A few of the watchers looked like they might challenge him. But the threat of Internal was greater than any physical threat he could have made. Slowly, the crowd dispersed. Laine shot Heather a glare of contempt before scurrying away.

If Jake was spying for Internal, why would he have saved Heather from Laine?

Jake met Becca’s eyes. His smile snapped on like he had flipped a switch.

Right. To make Becca less suspicious. She wished it didn’t make sense, but it did.

Unless she was just being paranoid because she didn’t know how to deal with the idea that a guy might actually like her.

Anyway, whatever his motives, he had saved Heather.

She smiled back. “Thank you.” What else could she say? She didn’t want to think about what could have happened to Heather—to both of them—if he hadn’t intervened.

But when she remembered that growl in his voice, her skin prickled.

* * *

Heather came home with Becca; she said she didn’t want to be alone. On the bus, she stared out the window while Becca stayed alert for anyone who might follow Laine’s lead. She heard their names whispered a few times, but nobody came near them.

Still, Becca breathed a little easier as soon as they got off the bus and away from all those eyes.

“Thanks for what you did back there,” Heather said in an anemic voice as they entered the building.

“I didn’t do as much as I should have. You should be thanking Jake, not me.” They walked up the stairs side by side. They used to walk inside together like this every day after school, and do homework at Heather’s apartment or Becca’s. Only two weeks had gone by since Heather’s parents’ arrest, but the old routines already felt unfamiliar.

“Who was that, anyway?” asked Heather.

If Heather didn’t know who Jake was, that meant he hadn’t approached her. Good. “He’s that guy I told you about before. The one who might be spying for Internal.” She unlocked the apartment door and pushed it open.

The old Heather would have been worried, or confused, or curious, or something. The new one just nodded. “Thank him for me.”

They walked inside.

Not ten feet from where they were standing, Becca’s mom had told her she had killed Heather’s parents. Becca squirmed as though Heather could see the conversation playing out in front of her.

She had to get out of here, away from the ghost of her conversation with her mom. She hurried toward her bedroom. Heather followed.

In Becca’s room, they sat down on the bed together, like they had so many times before. Like they had when they had found the note. Becca glanced across the room at her desk. She had buried the note in the bottom drawer, under a stack of old homework. Even hidden there, to Becca’s eye it blazed like a neon sign.

They sat like that for a moment, not quite looking at each other, as the silence grew around them.

Enough. There was too much that she was avoiding, that they were both avoiding. It had to stop.

“We need to talk about…” Becca lowered her voice, even though her mom wasn’t home. “About what we found.”

Heather went rigid. “You mean, that my parents were—” Her voice broke. “I know, okay? I get it. They were dissidents all along. I don’t need to sit around and talk about it.” She flicked a piece of dust off Becca’s bedspread like it had offended her.

In all her thinking about the note, Becca had barely considered what it meant for Heather. For Heather, it wasn’t a source of doubt, but something all too black-and-white. Again Becca wondered: what kind of a best friend was she?

“We don’t have to.” Becca tried to shift into a more comfortable position. Nothing felt right. “Whatever you want. But just so you know, it doesn’t make a difference to me. No matter what your parents were, I know you’re not a dissident.”

Some of the tightness went out of Heather’s body. She lay back and stared up at the ceiling. “It doesn’t matter in the end. You might know I’m not a dissident, but everybody else thinks I am. Laine is right—eventually Internal will decide they made a mistake and come back for me. Didn’t you say they already have someone spying on me?”

“They can’t arrest you just because some idiots at school are saying things about you. You haven’t done anything wrong.” But neither had Anna. And now, because of Becca’s lie, Anna was gone.

Which led her right back to the note, and what it had said. What if Internal didn’t care as much about truth as she had always believed?

“The stuff in the note… do you think—” She couldn’t force out the rest of the sentence. I’m just talking to Heather, she reminded herself. She read it too. She’s not going to turn me in. She started over. “Do you think it could be true?”

“Of course it’s not true!” Heather frowned in confusion. “Why would you—” She jerked up from the bed, her movement so sudden it made Becca jump. “You… you’re trying to…” She took a step toward the door, then back toward Becca. “You believed me when nobody else did. You defended me when nobody else would. And now you’re turning on me too?”

What had just happened? “I’m not turning on you. Why would you even think that?”

“There’s only one reason you would say something like that. You’re testing me. To see if I’m a dissident after all.” She balled her hands into fists. “I thought I at least had one person on my side.”

For a moment, Becca couldn’t speak. “You really think I would do something like that?” she said when she had recovered her voice. “We’ve known each other for ten years! I went to 117 to find you!”

“Only a dissident would think any of that could be true,” Heather said, like she didn’t understand why she had to state the obvious. “But you’re not a dissident. So why would you ask me whether I thought it was true unless you were trying to set me up?”

Becca swallowed her angry words. Heather did have a point. Only a dissident would even consider believing what the note had said.

She felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, the ground eroding around her.

She shook her head, and the image disappeared. “I wasn’t trying to set you up. I promise. I was… confused, that’s all. Forget I said anything.”

Heather didn’t answer.

Becca stayed where she was, quiet, hoping. Like coaxing a wild animal to her hand.

Heather sagged. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I thought something like that. You’ve stuck by me since this started, and I…”

“It’s okay.” With everything Heather was going through, it was understandable for her to get a little crazy sometimes. Besides, Becca would rather let it go than think through the implications of what Heather had said.

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

“I was so sure they were innocent.” Heather spoke so quietly that Becca could hardly hear her. “If they could be dissidents, anybody could.” She took a shaky breath, and another. “I keep thinking about that note we found, and wondering if there’s some way we got it wrong. Maybe it didn’t say what we thought it said, or maybe somebody else put it there… but I can’t come up with anything that makes sense.” She fixed her eyes on the carpet. “Not that it matters anymore. They must be dead by now.”

Becca would never find a better time to tell her.

The silence stretched on too long. Heather pounced. “You know something.”

Becca’s heartbeat pounded in her ears. “There’s something you need to know.”

Heather stumbled back to the bed. She sat at the edge, not looking at Becca. “They’re dead.” It wasn’t a question.

Becca wished she could tell Heather that her parents weren’t dead, that someone had planted that note in