All Our Yesterdays

by Cristin Terrill

  My Finn shouts curses while the older one lunges for me. Through my haze, I feel metal prongs pressed against my neck, and the older Finn freezes.

  “Stop it!” someone cries. “Stop! I’m coming out!”

  The room is silent, waiting, and only my muffled sobs disturb the air. I can’t think about who’s coming, can’t think about how familiar that voice sounded. My mind, overloaded with pain and fear, has begun to shut down, like a door closing between me and the world. I think it’s trying to protect me.

  “Marina,” someone says. “Close your eyes.”

  “She doesn’t have to; you can—”

  “I don’t want her to see this. Or me.”

  I close my eyes, and slow footsteps sound behind me.

  “Drop the gun! Kick it over here, or I’ll—” The metal prongs dig farther into the skin on the side of my neck.

  “Stop! You touch her again and I’ll kill you, you bastard.” Something heavy hits the floor and slides across the wood.

  “More empty threats, kid?”

  At the sound of my nickname, my eyes fly open. It can’t be. The older James has a gun in his hand, and he’s using it to shepherd a girl to the far side of the room to stand with the others. I blink. Her back is to me, but there’s something familiar about the tight gait of her walk. I feel slow and stupid as I put the pieces together. The girl turns around, and I understand why the other Finn made my Finn close his eyes. The sight of this girl, who’s thin and severe and wears a hunted look on her face, makes me so dizzy and sick that I want to shut out the world until she’s gone.

  Because she’s me.

  Thirty-Seven

  Em

  Marina stares at me, and I wonder if that’s horror in her eyes. I want to hide my face from her, reassure her that she will never be me. She walked away from James in that restaurant, which I could never have done. She’s stronger than me already.

  “Close your eyes, Marina,” I say. She hesitates. “Please! I don’t want you to see this.”

  Her eyes flutter shut. The doctor presses my gun to her head, and every muscle in my body tenses.

  “Tell me where the documents are,” he says.

  For a moment, I can only gape. “You orchestrated all of this to ask me such a stupid question?”

  “I wanted you to feel the betrayal I’ve felt, but I might as well take care of some business at the same time. Maybe now you’ll finally answer. You never had anything to lose, but”—he kicks the leg of Marina’s chair—“she’s got plenty.”

  “What good would it even do you? Time will erase us all before . . .” Oh, stupid Em. “Richter. You’re in communication with him even now. You tell him where the documents are here before time eats you up, and he’ll know in our future before we even left.”

  The doctor’s unchanging expression confirms it.

  “That’s how he knew about your work at Johns Hopkins in the first place, isn’t it? You found him, not the other way around,” I say. “We never understood how you were able to get Cassandra up and running so fast, but it’s because he’s already building it, isn’t he? And he must know about Nate, too. God, I’m such a fool!”

  James turns to me. “What about Nate?”

  I exchange glances with Finn over his head. It all makes sense now. We always wondered how the shooter was able to get to Nate, slipping past the vice president’s Secret Service detail so effortlessly. All those questions go away if there was someone on the inside pulling strings, standing agents down and arranging for certain doors to be unlocked and certain security cameras to be mysteriously broken. The government’s airtight case against Mischler, who we came to learn had nothing to do with the shooting, must have been all Richter’s work, too.

  The doctor has a hint of panic in his eyes now. His secret is so close to being exposed.

  “You make me sick,” I say.

  He presses the gun a little closer to Marina’s temple in response. “Where are the documents?”

  It’s so preposterous, I can’t help but smile. “I don’t have them.”

  “Then you hid them somewhere, or gave them to someone.”

  “Damn it, James!” I say. “I burned them years ago!”

  “No.” He shakes his head with quick little jerks. “No, you knew they were your only insurance policy. You wouldn’t risk—”

  “I got rid of them, and you know it.” I sigh. “I think you always have.”

  “I’ll hurt her,” the doctor says, clutching the Taser in his free hand. “I swear—”

  “I’m telling the truth! This was never about the documents. It was about you and me.” The rest of the room recedes, until it’s only the doctor and me. James and me. “As long as those papers were out there, you had an excuse to keep me nearby. If you could just convince me that what you were doing was right, maybe you could finally, truly believe it yourself, couldn’t you? That’s why you kept me in that cell for all of those months even though you knew the documents were gone. That’s why you’re here now!”

  “No. No!”

  “It’s always been you and me, James.” My voice cracks, and I realize I’ve started to cry. “That’s why I can’t kill you, and you can’t kill me. Because even if it means the end of the world, I love you too much.”

  “You know she’s telling the truth,” Finn says softly. “I watched her torch them at a truck stop in West Virginia.”

  At the sound of Finn’s voice, my heart breaks a little. I was so focused on James, I had almost forgotten he was there. Does he understand that my love for him, which burns white and pure and has led me through so much darkness, is so different from my lingering childhood love for James? I turn to look at him and see my heartbreak reflected in his face, but he smiles.

  “What about my brother?” the younger James demands, looking from me to the older version of himself. “Someone tell me what this has to do with Nate.”

  My throat tightens. Even now, I’d spare him this if I could.

  “It’s time to tell him,” Finn says.

  “You shut the hell up, Abbott!” the doctor says. He jabs the Taser into her throat with vicious force, eliciting a shriek of pain and surprise from her. She keeps her eyes shut, though. I wonder if her glimpse of me horrified her so much she won’t risk another.

  “Don’t!” I cry.

  “What about Nate?” James demands.

  “Em,” Finn says, “we have to—”

  “Stop!” the doctor says.

  Marina screams as electricity shoots through her. I want to run to her, throw my body between her and the doctor, but I’m afraid of what he might do if I move. “Stop, don’t hurt her!”

  “Marina!” the Finn strapped to the chair shouts, pulling at his ropes. His eyes are open now, and his gaze darts among all of us in increasing panic.

  “You son of a bitch!” James glares daggers at his older self. “How can you be so cruel?”

  The doctor removes the Taser from Marina’s side, and she sags into the chair, taking shallow breaths. His eyes as he looks on James are sad. “You’ll find out.”

  “No, I won’t.” James hurls the words like weapons. “I’ll never be like you. You hurt innocent people; you’re everything I hate.”

  “Em.” Finn’s gaze is heavy. “He has to know. We have to tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” James says.

  I shake my head. I can’t do it to him. “No.”

  “The world isn’t as black-and-white as you think,” the doctor tells his younger self. “You’ll be surprised at what you can do when you have to.”

  “Em, he has to know!” Finn says. “He needs to understand what he’s capable of.”

  “Shut up, Abbott!” the doctor says.

  “What do I have to know?” James says.

  I shake my head. There are too many voices, too many ties and allegiances, too many paths I could take. “I can’t!”

  “Tell me!”

  Across the room, Marina keens in pain as the doctor hits
her with the Taser again.

  “Stop!” I scream, my voice raw.

  “What do I have to know?”

  “Everyone shut up, or I’ll kill her!” The doctor replaces the Taser pressing into Marina’s skin with the gun.

  It’s the last straw for Finn. He lunges across the room and tackles young James to the floor, wrapping both of his hands around the boy’s neck.

  “I’m sorry,” he says between gritted teeth. “I’m so sorry.”

  James scrabbles at the backs of Finn’s hands, digging deep scratches into them, his face turning red. I sob but can’t move, not to help Finn or to stop him. I know this is his gift to me. He will kill his best friend so that I don’t have to, to save Marina’s life.

  “Get off of him!” the doctor cries hysterically. “Get off!”

  I see an opportunity in his distraction. I throw myself at him, hoping he’ll have let down his guard enough that I can get back the gun.

  “Stop it!” Marina wails.

  “James!” the younger Finn hollers, jerking so hard at his restraints that he almost overturns his chair.

  I try to wrestle the gun from the doctor’s grasp, but I’m no match for him. I get a decent punch in, but he shoves me away with such force that my legs go out from underneath me. I slam my head against an armoire and land in a heap on the floor, dazed. I look across the floor to where Finn has James pinned down. James is kicking and struggling, but Finn is stronger. All those months of push-ups in his cell; I can’t believe it’s really coming down to this. The room is all noise and movement, screaming and struggling and fire inside my head.

  And then it goes silent.

  It’s a silence I know. The kind that’s actually a sound so loud, your brain doesn’t know how to interpret it at first.

  The younger Finn, still strapped to his chair, slumps forward, his chest blooming red.

  Thirty-Eight

  Em

  “No!” I cry, my own agony like the gaping hole in Finn’s chest. I struggle to my feet, like if I could just get to him, I could stop this happening somehow. The young Finn stares unseeing. His breath comes in a pulling wheeze, a bubble of blood popping on his lips when he exhales. I’m going to be sick. I turn away from the sight to look at my Finn.

  He stares in horror and unimaginable pain at his younger self and the blossom of blood that is quickly soaking his shirt. He draws his eyes slowly away to meet mine. Those dark blue eyes I’ll never see again. His lips start to move, but before he can speak, the Finn in the chair lets out one long, last exhalation, and my Finn fades away like early morning mist in the heat of the sun.

  “Finn . . .” The word leaches from me the way blood oozes from the departed boy’s wound. I always knew this was a suicide mission for both of us, but I shouldn’t have had to watch him go first. The pain is unbearable. Did he know how much I loved him? Will any version of me ever see him again?

  “Finn?” Marina says. “Finn!”

  Hearing her cry his name shatters me. I’m not aware of my knees melting underneath me, but in the next moment I’m back on the floor with the young James’s arms around me. I realize he must have caught me and lowered me down. His arms are shaking.

  “How could you do that?” His voice is barely a whisper, but it gains force with each word. “You murdered him! You’re a monster!”

  “Oh God,” Marina sobs.

  The doctor is pale, the muscles of his jaw standing out against his skin, but he tries to put on a calm face. “It doesn’t matter. He’s just one person.”

  “I’m sorry,” James says to me. “I’m so sorry!”

  This has to stop. The sobs that rack my body die away, and the world goes very still and quiet around me. Finn is dead, and I have to stop this once and for all.

  I look up at James, my dear James. Everything else in the room—the madman with the gun, the crying girl, the dead and bleeding boy—fades at the edges of my vision. It’s only me and James.

  God forgive me, I think as I raise a hand to his beautiful cheek. I love him so much, but it’s not enough.

  “James,” I say, calm at last. “You killed your brother.”

  His expression doesn’t change, held in place by incomprehension. “What?”

  “Shut up, you bitch!” the doctor howls.

  “George Mischler wasn’t the killer,” I say. “Richter framed him. The real shooter was a man named Evan Taminez. He was a soldier assigned to Cassandra, and you sent him back in time to kill Nate.”

  “Why?” James says, wild. “Why would I do that?”

  “Nate was becoming a problem,” I say. “You told me one night, when the guilt was too much for you. Nate was trying to shut Cassandra down because he was worried it would be misused, and you couldn’t have that.”

  “But . . .” James shakes his head like it will stop my words from sinking in. “But all I want is to save him. . . .”

  “You do save him,” I say. “It’s one of the first things you use Cassandra for, but when he becomes a problem, you kill him again. You save him and kill him over and over.”

  The disbelief in James’s expression gives way to horror. He knew something was amiss with the photograph that Richter showed him. He just saw his future self kill his best friend in cold blood. And he knows how brightly the fire burns inside of him to use time to better the world. Deep down, he knows I’m telling him the truth.

  The doctor sees this, too, and he takes out his rage on Marina. He wrenches two more of Marina’s fingers back, neatly snapping the bones, her screams the best possible revenge on me.

  “Stop!” James cries. He looks up at his older self. For the first time I see him recognize how far he will go, how much of a monster he will become.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor says, “but you’ll understand someday.”

  Then I see the look in James’s eyes change. I see the moment he decides to change the future, right here, right now.

  “You’re wrong,” he says.

  James flies at the doctor, and the two of them fall to the floor, identical twisting bodies. I scramble across the floor to Marina and start untying her with shaking hands.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I say to the girl, even though I know it’s a lie. “Everything’s going to be okay. Just close your eyes, okay? Please.”

  She squeezes her eyes shut, tears rolling freely down her face. “What’s going on?”

  “Everything’s going to be fine.” I glance at the dead boy in the chair beside her, his body nothing but an empty husk now. “Keep your eyes closed.”

  One of the Jameses—I can’t tell which one—bellows with rage. Another screams in pain, the thump of flesh on flesh booming in my ears as I struggle with Marina’s bonds. One way or another, it will be over soon.

  There’s a loud crack, and one of them stands. The younger James rises, the doctor lying dazed at his feet, bleeding from where his head was rammed against the hardwood floor. James leaves him there and looks at me, his eyes red and resolved.

  He raises the gun he wrestled away from his older self.

  “No!” the doctor and I yell together.

  “I’m sorry, Em,” James says, a tremulous little smile on his lips. “I only ever wanted to make things better.”

  “James?” Marina cries.

  “I love you, Marina,” he says. “You’re the best friend I ever had.”

  He turns the gun and points it at his own face, lifting it toward his mouth. The doctor and I both realize what he’s planning to do at the same moment. I scream, and the doctor lunges up at him, one last-ditch effort to save his life. It’s too late. The doctor hits James just as he pulls the trigger.

  James collapses in a heap, and I drag myself to his side. He’s still alive; the presence of the doctor, who’s fallen to the floor in silent horror, is proof of that. The doctor didn’t stop James, but he did manage to move the gun enough that the shot missed the vital part of his brain. The bullet shattered his cheekbone, but his eyes are still open. All t
he doctor did was ensure that James’s death would be lingering and painful, and the fact that he’ll die for it, too, gives me no comfort.

  I grab James’s hand and press it to my cheek, my tears falling onto his face. “I love you, too. You’re a good person.”

  His eyes stay fixed on mine, and maybe I’m only seeing what I want to see, but I think I see peace in them. Slowly, his eyes close. Terror seizes me as I wait to drift away the same way Finn did. I never wanted to die, and I fear there will be nothing but blackness and aloneness wherever I go. I cling to the idea that Finn might be there, waiting for me.

  But nothing happens. He’s unconscious but still breathing shallowly. Either James’s tenuous hold on life has weakened the doctor or he’s just given up, because he’s sitting very still and staring blankly ahead. It won’t be long now, but I have a few last moments. I lay James’s head on the floor gently and kiss his forehead.

  Then I crawl back to Marina, who is still tied in her chair, sobbing and shaking, her eyes shut. A feeling of profound tranquility comes over me as I look at her.

  “James?” she says. “E-Em? Anybody?”

  I smooth the hair back from her face and work calmly on the knots that hold her.

  “Shh,” I say. “Everything’s all right now. Listen carefully.”

  I tell her she’s beautiful and perfect and she’s going to be okay. I tell her she doesn’t need to change herself to fit in with shallow girls or to matter to someone. I tell her everything I wish I had ever known. I tell her I love her, and I realize as I say it that I love me, too.

  On the floor, James exhales his last breath.

  And then so do I.

  Thirty-Nine

  Marina

  I jerk awake. I don’t remember falling asleep, but my dreams were full of running and screaming and fear. I sink back against my pillows in relief, stretching against the smooth sheets.

  The doorbell rings downstairs, and I glance at the clock. It’s not even nine in the morning yet. James wanted to go for breakfast and he’s always early, but this is ridiculous.

  “I’ll get it!” I yell to Luz.