Zoe Cannon: The Torturer's Daughter

Becca tried to speak. But she still didn’t know what she wanted to say.

Jake looked at her like he didn’t know her. “It’s time for you to leave.”

She had to stay. She had to convince him not to kill her mom… or help him do what had to be done. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she had to stay.

But like a coward, she left.

Becca sat scrunched against the head of her bed, knees pulled to her chest. Her pillow dangled precariously off the edge, where it had landed when she had shoved it aside. She wrapped her blankets around herself like a cocoon. It didn’t help block out the cold. The cold came from inside her; no amount of blankets would help.

Her eyes ached from crying. Her head ached from thinking.

She still didn’t have an answer.

She threw the blankets off and left the room, not caring how much noise she made this time. When she reached her mom’s door, she hesitated, but only for a second. She pushed the door open and walked in.

The room felt so still that Becca started tiptoeing without realizing it. Was her mom at work already? It had to be almost morning by now. But the bed looked too lumpy to be empty. Becca squinted. No, her mom was still here—lying in bed, curled on her side, the worry lines erased from her face in sleep. As Becca got closer, she stirred. Becca took another step forward. Her mom’s eyes snapped open like Becca had tripped some invisible alarm.

Her mom’s worry lines etched themselves back into place. With a groan, she pulled herself upright. “What’s wrong?”

Becca shouldn’t have come in here looking for comfort like a five-year-old after a bad dream. Any comfort her mom could offer would be tainted by what Becca knew about her.

You know what she is.

Becca searched for some excuse she could give for coming in here in the middle of the night, some way to reassure her mom that nothing was actually wrong.

She opened her mouth—and started sobbing.

She couldn’t stop the flow. Her legs buckled under her. She collapsed to the floor as her tears fell faster and faster.

Her mom eased herself to the floor beside her. She didn’t say anything. She just wrapped Becca in her arms, the way she had held her when she really had been a five-year-old with a bad dream, the way Jake had comforted her at the playhouse earlier. Becca knew she should pull away, get away from the blood on her mom’s hands. Instead she sank into the comfort her mom offered.

She felt a little warmer.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. She hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

“I know,” said her mom, just as quietly. “I know how hard it is.” She tightened her arms around Becca. “But no matter what Heather and Jake and anyone else have told you, you still know what’s right.”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Knowing isn’t the hard part.” Her mom stroked her hair, like she always used to when Becca was in bed with a fever. She hadn’t done that in years. “I know you, Becca. You’re smart enough to see through the lies they’ve been telling you. The hard part comes when you don’t want to do the thing you know is necessary.”

Turn Jake in so Internal could kill him. Do nothing, and let her mom die.

Whose life was she supposed to trade away?

Her mom spoke softly. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

She had to make the choice that would let her live with herself later. But what if she couldn’t live with either choice?

You know what she is. Jake’s voice echoed in her mind. Fast behind it came the memory of what her mom had said. 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.

The two blended together until Becca couldn’t tell who was saying what.

Until all she could hear was a third voice. Her own.

She didn’t want to leave her mom’s comfort behind and step back into the cold. But she forced herself to pull away, to push herself up on her shaky legs until she was standing upright again. “I think I need to be alone for a while.”

Her mom watched her as she walked to the door. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here.”

Without her mom’s arms around her, the cold enveloped her again. But this time it didn’t sink as deeply into her bones.

She knew what she had to do.

Becca sat beside her bedroom door, her back against the wall, listening. The only sounds she heard were the ever-present electric hum and the faint thumps of her mom getting ready for work. She had been sitting here since she had left her mom’s bedroom. She couldn’t wait in the living room. If she did, her mom would wonder why she was up so early.

Maybe it wasn’t going to happen. Maybe she had put herself through all this for nothing.

She closed her burning eyes. She would just let herself rest for a minute. Just for a minute…

She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until the doorbell woke her.

Her eyes sprang open.

If everything was going the way she had planned, she had nothing to worry about. But if something had gone wrong…

And it would be so easy for something to go wrong.

She raced out of the room and toward the door—just in time to see her mom reach for the knob.

She couldn’t get there in time, couldn’t stop her mom from opening the door.

Couldn’t stop Jake from walking inside.

He was here.

The smile he had used to lure her in was long gone. His mouth was a straight line, his eyes two stones. She didn’t want to look down, but her gaze traveled to his hands, to the gun he clutched like he was afraid it would betray him.

Her mom drew in her breath. She stood like a statue as Jake swung the door shut behind him. “Becca,” she said without taking her eyes off Jake, “get out of here.”

Becca stepped forward. “You don’t have to do this. You can still leave.”

“You know why I have to do this.” Jake turned to Becca’s mom and took a deliberate step toward her. “You know too, don’t you? You recognized me when I came over for dinner that night.”

“I’m sorry for what happened to you.” How could her mom sound so calm? “But if you do this, you’ll give up any chance of getting out alive.”

“My life doesn’t matter anymore. Protecting my dad is all that matters.” Slowly, Jake raised the gun. He kept walking, driving Becca’s mom back and back until she hit the wall beside the couch. He pressed the barrel of the gun to her forehead. “And he won’t be safe as long as you’re alive.”

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.