Know
Beka will someday have to decide between her friends and her job. You cannot even hope.
You will choose your job, your mind says. You will choose him, your heart says, you must choose him.
You wonder when that time will come, and what you will do with it. Will you arrest him, look away from his accusing eyes, ignore your friend's betrayed, hateful looks? Or will you avert your eyes and close your ears to everything your sense of justice is telling you? Will you hate him for making you choose? Will you hate yourself, for setting up what could only ever fail?
You want to make him face what you have. You wonder if he ever thinks about maybe going straight, leaving the Rats to be with you. You tell yourself, if he really loves you he will do this, even as you know that he can expect the same from you. He loves his ways, his freedom, as much as you love the proverbial leash, the security in being one of many. You knew his freedom, turned your back on it. He embraced it fully. You are so different, because though you both chose difficult paths, and both of you decided to reach higher than anyone else would, you are on opposite sides of the law, and you like where you are.
You want to hate him so badly, for making you choose. But in your heart you know it could never have been any other way.
If only you had chosen a different way. Ignored your mother when she told you and your siblings not to steal, told you that you would all live honestly, and die honestly, if that was what it took. You could have learned to let your fingers float, light as a feather, into someone's money bag. You could have swiped that loaf of bread that you stared hungrily at for hours. You could have fed the children your mother's pride could not. You would have been an excellent Rat.
But you loved your mother, you learned her pride, you did honest work for honest coin and eventually, it paid off.
If only that nobleman had not listened. If only he had turned his head from the dirty little girl with ghost eyes, like everyone else. You would have gone home, you would have nearly given up. Your despair, at not being able to do anything, would have nearly crushed you. But you are your mother's daughter, and you will do what the law is too blind to do. You would go to their hideout, you would see them all lying there, passed out drunk. You would bar all of the exits, you would tie up those men, one by one, and you would take a match to that building. You would stand outside and watch it burn. You would cry, but you would know that you are in the right, here. You would be proud, for you have saved your mother and other women from these evil men.
But that nobleman stopped for you, listened to your words, and he had faith. He was just desperate enough to follow a lead given to him by a filthy little girl with ghost eyes, and he was so grateful that he took you and your brothers and sisters in.
If only you had never known him. If only you had moved out when all those Rats moved in. But they were so kind, they were so likable. You had not thought Rats could be like this, like normal people. They do not fear the Dogs, they do not keep things from you. If you ask them about their work, and they can see that you truly want to know, they will tell you. They will trust in you, that you will either overcome this law you live by and let them go, or you will hobble them right there. They seem to know what it is that you will choose.
You can only hope that they are right, that they know you better than you know yourself.
Because you don't know what you will choose, and you cannot even hope.
Every morning, you lie in bed for just a moment and wonder if today will be the day. Then you get up, and you start to live.